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Title: The Catholic World, Vol. 26, October, 1877, to March, 1878 - A Monthly Eclectic Magazine
Author: Rameur, E.
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Catholic World, Vol. 26, October, 1877, to March, 1878 - A Monthly Eclectic Magazine" ***
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
A
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
OF
GENERAL LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.
--------------
VOL. XXVI.
OCTOBER, 1877, TO MARCH, 1878.
--------------
NEW YORK:
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION SOCIETY
COMPANY,
9 Barclay Street.
---
1878.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------
Copyrighted by
I. T. HECKER,
1878.
----------------------------
THE NATION PRESS, 27 ROSE STREET, NEW YORK.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS.
A Final Philosophy, 610
A Glance at the Indian Question, 195
A Great Bishop, 625
A Legend of Dieppe, 264
A Ramble after the Waits, 485
A Silent Courtship, 39
A Sweet Revenge, 179, 384
Among the Translators, 309, 732
Africa, Religion on the East Coast of, 411
Catholic Circles for Working-men in France, 529
Charles Lever at Home, 203
Christianity as an Historical Religion, 434, 653
Church of England, Confession in the, 590
Compostella, St. James of, 163
Confession in the Church of England, 590
Criminals and their Treatment, 56
Descent of Man, The, 496
Dieppe, A Legend of, 264
Dr. Draper and Evolution, 774
Evolution, Dr. Draper and, 774
Fortifications of Rome, _Civiltà Cattolica_ on 403
the,
Free-Religionists, The, 145
French Home Life, 759
Froude on the “Revival of Romanism,” 289
Froude on the Decline of Protestantism, 470
German Element in the United States, 372
Hedge-Poets, The Irish, 406
Holy Cave of Manresa, The, 821
How Steenwykerwold was Saved, 547
Indian Policy, our New, and Religious Liberty, 90
Indian Question, A Glance at the, 195
Industrial Crisis, Character of the Present, 122
Ireland in 1878, 721
Irish Hedge-Poets, The, 406
Isles of Lérins, The, 685
Italy, The Outlook in, 1
Jamaica, Religion in, 69
Lérins, The Isles of, 685
Lever at Home, 203
Man, The Descent of, 496
Manresa, The Holy Cave of, 821
Marguerite, 73
Marquette, Father James, Death of, and Discovery 267
of his Remains,
Michael the Sombre, 599, 791
Mickey Casey’s Christmas Dinner-Party, 512
Mont St. Michel, The Last Pilgrimage to, 128
Mormonism, The Two Prophets of, 227
Mystery of the Old Organ, 356
Organ, The Mystery of the Old, 356
Our New Indian Policy and Religious Liberty, 90
Papal Elections, 537, 811
Philosophy, A Final, 610
Pilgrimage, The Last, to Mont St. Michel, 128
Pius the Ninth, 846
Polemics and Irenics in Scholastic Philosophy, 337
Preachers on the Rampage, 700
Protestantism, Froude on the Decline of, 470
Protestant Episcopal Convention and Congress, 395
Religion in Jamaica, 69
Religion on the East Coast of Africa, 411
Roc Amadour, 23
Romanism, Froude on the Revival of, 289
Rome, The _Civiltà Cattolica_ on the 403
Fortifications of,
Science, The God of “Advanced,” 251
Scholastic Philosophy, Recent Polemics and Irenics 337
in,
St. Hedwige, 108
St. James of Compostella, 163
The Character of the Present Industrial Crisis, 122
The God of “Advanced” Science, 251
The Home-Rule Candidate, 669, 742
The Late Dr. T. W. Marshall, 806
The Little Chapel at Monamullin, 213, 322
The Old Stone Jug, 638
The Two Prophets of Mormonism, 227
United States, The German Element in the, 372
Waits, A Ramble after the, 485
Wolf-Tower, The, 449
Working-men in France, Catholic Circles for, 529
Year of Our Lord 1877, The, 560
Footnotes 860
------------------------------------------------------------------------
POETRY.
A Child-Beggar, 683
After Castel-Fidardo, 789
A Little Sermon, 713
A Mountain Friend, 21
At the Church-Door, 382
Between the Years, 433
Blessed Virgin, The, 731
Brother and Sister, 652
Ceadmon the Cow-Herd, 577
Faber, To F. W., 305
In Retreat, 699
Order, 212
Outside St. Peter’s, 756
Smoke-Bound, 161
Sonnet, 405
The Bells, 88
The River’s Voice, 535
“There was no Room for Them in the Inn,” 668
To the Wood-Thrush, 250
Tota Pulchra, 355
Witch-Hazel, To the, 447
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
A Life of Pius IX. down to the Episcopal Jubilee, 135
Almanac, Catholic Family, 572
Almanac and Treasury of Facts for the year 1878, 860
Ancient History, 432
Annals of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, 144
Antar and Zara, 431
Bible of Humanity, The, 143
Bibliotheca Symbolica Ecclesiæ Universalis, 284
Blanche Carey, 140
Catacombs, A Visit to the Roman, 859
Catechism of Christian Doctrine, 137
Catholic Parents’ Friend, The, 144
Charles Sprague, Poetical and Prose Writings of, 143
Christianity, The Beginnings of, 425
De Deo Creante, 426
Eternal Years, The, 575
Evidences of Religion, 572
God the Teacher of Mankind, 137
Grammar-School Speller and Definer, The, 139
Human Eye, Is the, Changing its form under the 860
Influences of Modern Education?
Iza, 575
Jack, 143
Knowledge of Mary, 715
Letters of Rev. James Maher, D.D., 141
Life of Marie Lataste, 134
Life of Pope Pius IX., A Popular, 135
Lotos-Flowers, 573
Marie Lataste, The Life of, 134
Mary, The Knowledge of, 715
Materialism, 859
McGee’s Illustrated Weekly, 143
Mirror of True Womanhood, 719
Miscellanies, 281
Missa de Beata Maria, 139
Modern Philosophy, 428
Mongrelism, 142
Monotheism, 571
Morning Offices of Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, and 858
Good Friday,
Nicholas Minturn, 575
Records of a Quiet Life, 859
Recueil de Lectures, 288
Repertorium Oratoris Sacri, 574
Roman Catacombs, A Visit to the, 858
Sadlier’s Elementary History of the U.S., 432
School Hygiene, Report upon, 136
Shakspeare’s Home, 719
Specialists and Specialties in Medicine, 142
Standard Arithmetic. No. I., 287
Standard Arithmetic. No. II., 288
Sunday-School Teacher’s Manual, 575
Suppression of the Society of Jesus in the 429
Portuguese Dominions, History of the,
Surly Tim, 574
The Beginnings of Christianity, 425
The Fall of Rora, 431
The Life of Pope Pius IX., 135
Vesper Hymn-Book, The New, 573
What Catholics Do Not Believe, 719
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXVI., No. 151.—OCTOBER, 1877.
THE OUTLOOK IN ITALY.
I.—WHAT IS THE MEANING OF RECENT EVENTS IN ITALY?
The revolutionary movement in Italy headed by Victor Emanuel has, step
by step, trampled under foot every principle of religion, morality, and
justice that stood between it and its goal. No pretext of the welfare of
a people, even when based on truth, can ever make perfidy and treachery
lawful, or furnish a covering of texture thick enough to hide from
intelligent and upright minds so long and black a list of misdeeds as
the Piedmontese subjugation of Southern Italy contains. “All iniquity of
nations is execrable.” What is more, the catalogue of the crimes of this
revolution is by no means filled, and, what is worse, the future
forebodes others which, in their enormity, will cast those of its
beginning into the shade. That the natural desire for unity among the
Italian people might have been realized by proper and just means, had
the religious, intelligent, and influential classes exerted themselves
as they were in duty bound to do, there is little room for reasonable
doubt. For it would be an unpleasant thing to admit that civilized
society, after the action of nineteen centuries of Christianity, could
find no way to satisfy a legitimate aspiration, except by a process
involving the violation and subversion of those principles of justice,
right, and religion for the maintenance and security of which human
society is organized and established. It is indeed strange to see the
Latin races, which accepted so thoroughly and for so long a period the
true Christian faith, now everywhere subject to violent and
revolutionary changes in their political condition. How is this to be
reconciled with the fact that Christianity, in response to the primitive
instincts of human nature, and in consonance with the laws which govern
the whole universe, aims at, and actually brings about when followed,
the greatest happiness of man upon earth while securing his perfect
bliss hereafter? For so runs the promise of the divine Founder of
Christianity: “A hundred-fold more in this life, and in the world to
come life everlasting.”
What has beguiled so large a number of the people of Italy, once so
profoundly Catholic, that now they should take up the false principles
of revolution, should accept a pseudo-science, and unite with secret
atheistical societies? How has it come to pass that a people who poured
out their blood as freely as water in testimony and defence of the
Catholic religion, whose history has given innumerable examples of the
highest form of Christian heroism in ages past, now follows willingly,
or at least submits tamely, to the dictation of leaders who are animated
with hatred to the Catholic Church, and are bent on the extermination of
the Christian faith, and with it of all religion?
Only those who can read in the seeds of time can tell whether such signs
as these are to be interpreted as signifying the beginning of the
apostasy of the Latin races from Christianity and the disintegration and
ruin of Latin nations, or whether these events are to be looked upon as
evidence of a latent capacity and a youthful but ill-regulated strength
pointing out a transition to a new and better order of things in the
future.
Judging from the antecedents of the men placed in political power by
recent elections in Italy, and their destructive course of legislation,
the former supposition, confining our thoughts to the immediate present,
appears to be the more likely. It is not, therefore, a matter of
surprise that Catholics of an active faith and a deep sense of personal
responsibility feel uneasy at seeing things go from bad to worse in
nations which they have been accustomed to look upon as pre-eminently
Catholic. Nor is it in human nature for men of energetic wills and
sincere feelings of patriotism to content themselves when they see the
demagogues of liberty and the conspirators of atheistical secret
societies coming to the front and aiming at the destruction of all that
makes a country dear to honest men. Nowhere does the Catholic Church
teach that the love of one’s country is antagonistic to the love of God;
nor does the light of her faith allure to an ignoble repose, or her
spirit render her members slaves or cowards.
Serious-minded men, before going into action, are wont to examine anew
their first principles, in order to find out whether these be well
grounded, clearly defined, and firm, and also whether there may not be
some flaw in the deductions which they have been accustomed to draw from
them. An examination of this kind is a healthy and invigorating
exercise, and not to be feared when one has in his favor truth and
honesty.
Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1877.
II.—THE UNITY OF ITALY.
The idea of unity responds to one of the noblest aspirations of the
soul, and wherever it exists free from all compulsion it gives birth to
just hopes of true greatness. Would that the cry for unity were heard
from the hearts of the inhabitants of the whole earth, and that the
inward struggle which reigns in men’s bosoms, and the outward discord
which prevails between man and man, between nations and nations, and
between races and races, had for ever passed away!
“When will the hundred summers die,
And thought and time be born again,
And newer knowledge, drawing nigh,
Bring truth that sways the hearts of men?”
Unity is the essence of the Godhead and the animating principle of God’s
church; and wherever her spirit penetrates, there the natural desire for
unity implanted in the human heart is intensified and universalized, and
man seeks to give to it an adequate embodiment in every sphere of his
activity. It was this natural instinct for unity guided by the genius of
Catholicity that formed the scattered tribes of Europe of former days
into nations, uniting them in a grand universal republic which was
properly called Christendom. Who knows but, as there reigned, by the
action of an overruling Providence, a political unity in the ancient
world which paved the way for the introduction of Christianity, that so
there may be in preparation a more perfect political unity of peoples
and nations in the modern world to open the way for the universal
triumph of Christianity?
But there is a wide difference between recognizing that political unity
is favorable to the strength and greatness of nations and the spread and
victory of Christianity, and the acceptance of the errors of a class of
its promoters, the approval of their injustice, or a compromise with
their crimes.
“When devils will their blackest sins put on,
They do suggest at first with heavenly shows.”
The actual question, therefore, is not concerning the union of the
Italian people in one nation, or whether their present unity will be
lasting, or revoked, or by internal weakness be dissolved, or shaped in
some way for the better. But the actual and pressing question is, How
can Italy be withdrawn from the designing men who have managed to get
control over her political government under the cloak of Italian unity,
and who are plainly leading her on towards a precipice like that of the
French Revolution of 1789, to be followed by another of even more
atrocious notoriety—that of 1871? He must be blind to the sure but
stealthy march of events who does not see that, under the control of the
present party at the head of the legislative power, Italy is rapidly
approaching such a catastrophe. A few thousand frenzied men held and
tyrannized over France in 1789; a greater number in Italy—which, like
all Europe, is worm-eaten by secret societies—are only waiting for the
spark to produce a more destructive explosion, when the character of
their leaders and the more inflammable materials they have to work upon
are considered.
There is running through all things, both good and evil, an
unconquerable law of logic. What is liberalism on Sunday becomes license
on Monday, revolutionism on Tuesday, internationalism on Wednesday,
socialism on Thursday, communism on Friday, and anarchy on Saturday. He
who only sees the battered stones made by the cannon fired against its
walls when the Piedmontese soldiers entered into Rome by Porta Pia, sees
naught. There are more notable signs than these to read for him who
knows how to decipher them. In the invasion and seizure of the temporal
principality of the head of Christ’s church, which had stood for
centuries as the keystone of the Christian commonwealth, the
independence of nations was overthrown, international law trampled under
foot, and the sacred rights of religion sacrilegiously violated. It was
then—let those who have ears to hear listen—that rights consecrated
through long ages, and recognized by 200,000,000 of Catholics to-day,
were broken in upon by the Piedmontese army; and yet men are found to
wonder that the violation of these rights by the Italian revolutionary
party should fire with indignation the souls of the faithful in all
lands. But revolution will take its course; and so sure as the
Piedmontese entered by Porta Pia into Rome and took possession, and held
it until the present hour, so sure is it that the conspirators of the
secret international societies will in turn get possession of Rome and
do their fell work in the Eternal City. “They that sow wind, shall reap
the whirlwind.”
Who foresaw, or anticipated, or even dreamed of the atrocities of the
Commune in Paris of 1871? What happened at Paris in the reign of the
Commune will pale in wickedness before the reign of the
internationalists in Rome. As Paris represents the theatre of
worldliness, so Rome is the visible sanctuary of religion. _Corruptio
optimi pessima._
Is there a man so simple or so ignorant of the temper and designs of the
conspirators against civilized society in Europe, as well as in our own
free country, who fancies that these desperate men will shrink from
shaping their acts in accordance with their ulterior aims?
No one who witnessed the reception of Garibaldi in Rome in the winter of
1875 can doubt as to who holds the place of leader among the most
numerous class of the population of Italy. The views of this man and the
party to which he belongs are no secret. “The fall of the Commune,” he
wrote in June, 1873, “is a misfortune for the whole universe and a
defeat for ever to be regretted.... I belong to the internationals, and
I declare that if I should see arise a society of demons having for its
object to combat sovereigns and priests, I would enroll myself in their
ranks.” It is only the well-officered, strictly disciplined, and large
army of Victor Emanuel that hinders Garibaldi from hoisting the red flag
of the Commune in Rome and declaring an agrarian republic in Italy. But
how long will the Italian army, with the present radicals at the head of
affairs, remain intact and free from demoralization?
“The heights infected, vales below
Will soon with plague be rife.”
The army is drawn from a population which the internationalists have
penetrated and inoculated with their errors and designs, and their
emissaries have been discovered tampering and fraternizing with the
troops.
Who can tell how near is the hour when St. Peter’s will be officially
declared the pantheon of red-republican Italy, and the statue of
Garibaldi will be placed on the high altar where now stands the image of
the Crucified God-Man? This will not be the end but the prelude to the
final act of the present impending tragedy, when the black flag will be
unfurled and the palaces of Rome, with St. Peter’s and the Vatican, and
all their records of the past and centuries of heaped-up treasures of
art, will be reduced by petroleum and dynamite to a shapeless heap of
ruins. To those who can tell a hawk from a handsaw this is the hidden
animus and the logical sequence of the entrance of the Piedmontese army
into Rome. This is the real reading of the hand-writing on the walls of
Porta Pia:
“Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return To plague the
inventor. This even-handed justice Commends the ingredients of
our poisoned chalice To our own lips.”
But is there not a sufficient number of conservatives in the present
national party of Italy to stop the men now at the head of affairs
before they reach their ultimate designs? Perhaps so; it would be
pleasant to believe this. But the present aspect of affairs gives but
little hope of this being true. These conservatives, who did not, or
could not, or would not stop the spoliation of the property of the
church and the trampling upon her sacred rights; these conservatives,
who did not take measures to hinder the Italian radicals from possessing
themselves of the legislative power of the present government and
pursuing their criminal course—these are not the men to build one’s
hopes upon in stemming the tide that is now sweeping Italy to her
destruction. The dictates of common sense teach us to look to some other
quarter for hopes of success.
III.—THE MISSION OF THE LATIN RACE.
How much of the present condition of the Latin peoples, politically,
commercially, or socially considered, can be satisfactorily explained or
accounted for on the score of climate, or on that of their
characteristics as a race, or of the stage of their historical
development, or of the change made in the channels of commerce in
consequence of new discoveries, it is not our purpose to stop here to
examine or attempt to estimate and decide. One declaration we have no
hesitation in making at the outset, and that is: If the Latin nations
are not in all respects at the present moment equal to others, it is due
to one or more of the above-enumerated causes, and not owing, as some
partisans and infidels would have the world believe, to the doctrines of
their religious faith.
The Catholic Church affirms the natural order, upholds the value of
human reason, and asserts the natural rights of man. Her doctrines teach
that reason is at the basis of revelation, that human nature is the
groundwork of divine grace, and that the aim of Christianity is not the
repression or obliteration of the capacities and instincts of man, but
their elevation, expansion, and deification.
The Catholic Church not only affirms the natural order, but affirms the
natural order as divine. For she has ever held the Creator of the
universe, of man, and the Author of revelation as one, and therefore
welcomed cheerfully whatever was found to be true, good, and beautiful
among all the different races, peoples, nations, and tribes of mankind.
It is for this reason that she has merited from those who only see
antagonism between God and man, between nature and grace, between
revelation and science—who believe that “the heathen were devil-begotten
and God-forsaken,” and “this world a howling wilderness”—the charge of
being superstitious, idolatrous, and pagan.
The special mission of the people of Israel by no manner of means sets
aside the idea of the directing care of divine Providence and the
mission of other branches of the family of mankind. The heathens,
so-called, were under, and are still under, the divine dispensation
given to the patriarch Noe; and so that they live up to the light thus
received, they are, if in good faith, in the way of salvation. The
written law given by divine inspiration to Moses was the same as the
unwritten law given to Noe and the patriarchs, and the patriarchal
dispensation was the same as was received from God by Adam. There is no
one rational being ever born of the human race who is not in some sort
in the covenanted graces of God. It is the glory of the Catholic Church
that she exists from the beginning, and embraces in her fold all the
members of the human race; and of her alone it can be said with truth
that she is Catholic—that is, universal both in time and space:
_replevit orbem terrarum_.
Affirming the natural order and upholding it as divine, the Catholic
Church did not hesitate to recognize the Roman Empire and the
established governments of the world under paganism, and to inculcate
the duty, “Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s.” Hence she
willingly accepted alliance with the Roman state when Constantine became
a Christian, and approved, but with important ameliorations, the Roman
code of laws; and of every form of government, whether monarchic or
democratic, established among the Gentile nations of the past or by
non-Christian peoples of the present, she acknowledges and maintains the
divine right.
The great theologians of the church, after having eliminated the errors
and supplied the deficiencies of the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle,
accepted and employed their systems, and the labors of these “immortal
heathens” have contributed no little to the glory of Christianity. It is
to the labor of Christian monks that the world is indebted for what it
possesses of the writings of the genius of the “heathen” poets,
moralists, and other authors. It was the church’s custom to purify the
heathen temples by her blessing, and transform their noble buildings,
without altering their structure, into Christian temples. It was in the
bosom of the Catholic populations of Italy that the revival of classical
literature and art took its rise in modern Europe. Notwithstanding the
extravagance of some of its votaries, which called forth the righteous
indignation and condemnation of Savonarola, its refining influence,
combined with the wealth due to industry and commerce, elevated the
Italian cities to a height of civilization that has not been surpassed,
if equalled, by the foremost nations of our day. When the ships of Spain
covered every sea with commerce, and its activity broke through the
confines of the known world and discovered, by the guiding genius of
Columbus, a new continent; when it was said of Spain that the sun never
set upon its realms; when Spain was most productive of great warriors,
great statesmen, great artists, and great saints, it was then, and
precisely because of it, that Spain was most profoundly and devoutly
Catholic.
All the joys that spring from the highest intellectual and artistic
culture, the happiness derived from man’s domestic and social
affections, the gratification of the senses in the contemplation of the
beauty of all creation, and the pleasure drawn from the fruits of
industry and commerce—all these, when pure, are not only consistent
with, but form a part of, the life and worship of the Catholic faith.
The very last accusation for an intelligent man to make against the
Catholic Church is that she teaches a “non-human” religion.
No political government, at least in modern times, has ventured to rely
so far upon the natural ability of man to govern himself as that of the
republic of the United States. It may be said that the government of
this republic is founded upon man’s natural capacity to govern himself
as a primary truth or maxim. It assumes the dignity of human nature,
presupposes the value of man’s reason, and affirms his natural and
inalienable rights.
These were declarations of no new truths, for they spring from right
reason and the primitive instincts of human nature, and belong,
therefore, to that natural order which had ever been asserted and
defended by the great theologians and general councils of the Catholic
Church. These truths underlie every form of political government founded
in Catholic ages, correspond to the instincts of the people, and were
only opposed by despots, Protestant theologians, and the erroneous
doctrines concerning the natural order brought into vogue by the
so-called Reformation.
Our American institutions, in the first place, we owe to God, who made
us what we are, and in the next place to the Catholic Church, which
maintained the natural order, man’s ability in that order, and his free
will. Under God the founders of our institutions owed nothing to
Englishmen or Dutchmen as Protestants, but owed all to the self-evident
truths of reason, to man’s native instincts of liberty, to the noble
traditions of the human race upheld by God’s church and strengthened by
the conviction of these truths; their heroic bravery and their stout
arms did the rest.
This is why Catholics from the beginning took an integral part in the
foundation and permanent success of our republic. Among the most
distinguished names attached to the document which first declared our
national independence and affirmed the principles which underlie our
institutions will be found one of the most intelligent, consistent, and
fervent members of the Catholic Church. The priest who was first
elevated to the episcopate of the Catholic hierarchy in the United
States took an active part in its early struggles, and was the intimate
friend of Benjamin Franklin and an associate of his on a mission to
engage the Canadians to join in our efforts for independence.
The patriotism of Catholics will not suffer in comparison with their
fellow-countrymen, as is witnessed by the public address of General
Washington at Philadelphia immediately after the close of the war with
England. And when they now come to our shores from other countries, it
matters not what may have been the form of their native governments,
they are at once at home and breathe freely the air of liberty.
Sincere Catholics are among our foremost patriotic citizens, and,
whatever may befall our country, they will not be found among those who
would divide her into factions, or who would contract her liberties, or
seek to change the popular institutions inherited from our heroic
forefathers. Catholic Americans have so learned their religion as to
find in it a faithful ally and a firm support of both political and
civil liberty.
Nowhere, on the other hand, does the Catholic Church reckon among her
members more faithful, more fervent, and more devoted children than in
the citizens of our republic. Everywhere the Catholic Church appears at
the present moment under a cloud; there is only one spot in her horizon
where there breaks through a bright ray of hope of a better future, and
that is in the direction of our free and youthful country. What better
test and proof of the Catholic Church’s sanction of the entire natural
order can be asked than her unexampled prosperity in the American
republic of the United States?
If the Latin peoples are backward in things relating to their political
or material or social prosperity, or in any other respect, in the
natural order, this is not to be laid to the charge of the Catholic
faith. If the races are not wanting to her, the church will never be
wanting to the races.
The force which is at work in the actual turmoil in Italy we are firmly
convinced will renew the Catholic faith, and open up to its people—let
us hope without their passing through a catastrophe feared by many, and
not without grounds—a new and better future.
IV.—THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.
They are blind to the lesson which every page of the history of the
Catholic Church teaches who indulge in the fancy that the Christ laden
and guided bark of Peter will not ride safely through the present
world-wide, threatening storm. As the fierce beating of the storm
against the majestic oak fixes its roots more firmly in the soil and
strengthens and expands its limbs, so by the attacks of calumny the
militant church of Christ is made better known, by persecution she is
strengthened, and the attempts at her overthrow prepare the way for new
and more glorious triumphs.
The pages of history point out in other centuries dangers to the
existence of the church equal to those of the present crisis, through
which she passed with safety and renewed strength. A master-pen in
word-painting has given a picture of one of those critical periods, all
the more striking as the events which it portrays are within the memory
of men still living, and also because the writer is famed for anything
rather than Catholic leanings. “It is not strange,” he says, “that in
the year 1799 even sagacious observers should have thought that at
length the hour of the Church of Rome was come, an infidel power
ascendant, the pope dying in captivity, the most illustrious prelates of
France living in a foreign country on Protestant alms, the noblest
edifices which the munificence of former ages have consecrated to the
worship of God turned into temples of victory, or into banqueting houses
for political societies, or into theophilanthropic chapels. Such signs
might well be supposed to indicate the approaching end of that long
domination. But the end was not yet. Again doomed to death, the
milk-white hind was still fated not to die. Even before the funeral
rites had been performed over the ashes of Pius VI. a great reaction had
commenced, which, after the lapse of more than forty years, appears to
be still in progress. Anarchy had had its day. A new order of things
rose out of the confusion, new dynasties, new laws, new titles, and
amidst them emerged the ancient religion. The Arabs have a fable that
the Great Pyramid was built by antediluvian kings, and alone, of all the
works of men, bore the weight of the Flood. Such as this was the fate of
the Papacy: it had been buried under the great inundation, but its deep
foundations had remained unshaken; and when the waters had abated it
appeared alone amid the ruins of a world which had passed away. The
republic of Holland was gone, the empire of Germany, and the great
Council of Venice, and the old Helvetian League, and the house of
Bourbon, and the parliaments and aristocracy of France. Europe was full
of young creations—a French Empire, a kingdom of Italy, a Confederation
of the Rhine. Nor had the late events affected only territorial limits
and political institutions. The distribution of property, the
composition and spirit of society, had, through great part of Catholic
Europe, undergone a complete change. _But the unchangeable church was
still there._”[1]
Three centuries of protests against the idea of the church and of her
divine authority have served to bring the question of the necessity of
the church and the claims of her authority squarely before the minds of
all men who think on religious subjects. So general was the belief in
them before the rise of Protestantism that theological works, even the
_Sum_ of St. Thomas, did not contain what is now never omitted by
theological writers: the “Tractatus de Ecclesia.” The violent protests
of heresy, joined with the persecutions of the despotic power of the
state, have ended in showing more clearly the divine institution of the
church, and proving more conclusively her divine authority.
“In poison there is physic.”
The idea of the church is a divine conception, and the existence of the
church is a divine creation. The church as a divine idea lies hid in
God, and was an essential part of his preconceived plan in the creation
of the universe. Hence the error of those who consider the church as the
creation of “an assembly of individual Christian believers”; or as the
product of the state, as in Prussia, Russia, England, and other
countries; or as the effort of a race, as Dean Milman maintains in his
_History of Latin Christianity_; or as “the conscious organization of
the moral and intellectual forces and resources of humanity for a higher
life than that which the state requires.” Hence also the failure of all
church-builders and inventors of new religions from the earliest ages
down to the Luthers, Calvins, Henry VIIIs., Wesleys, Charles Foxes,
Mother Ann Lees, Joe Smiths, Döllingers, and Loysons, _et hoc genus
omne_. Poor weak-minded men! had they the slightest idea of what the
church of God is, or had they not become blind to it, they would sooner
pretend to create a new universe than invent a new religion or start a
new church. The human is impotent to create the divine.
Christ alone could replace the Jewish Church by his own, and that
because he was God. And this substitution was accomplished, not by the
way of a revolutionary protest, but in the fulfilment of the types and
figures of the Jewish Church and the realization of its divine
prophecies and promises. The ideal church and the historical church
which have existed upon earth from Adam until Noe, and from Noe until
Moses, and from Moses until Christ, and from Christ until now, which is
the actual Catholic Church, are divine in their idea, are divine in
their institution, are divine in their action, and their continuity is
one and unbroken. The church can suffer no breaks without annihilation.
God created man in his own image and likeness, and supplied from the
instant of his creation all the means required for man to become one
with himself. This was the end for which God called man into existence.
This commerce and union between God and man, with the means needed to
elevate man to this intercourse and to perpetuate and perfect these
relations in an organic form, constitutes the church of God.
The great and unspeakable love of God for man led God, in the fulness of
time, to become man, in order to make the elevation of man to union with
himself easier and more perfect. To this end the God-Man, while upon
earth, declared to his apostle Peter: “I will build my church, and the
gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
This places beyond all doubt or dispute the fact that Christ built a
church, and therefore its institution was divine. Moreover, it is clear
by these words, not that his church should be free from the attacks of
every species of error and wickedness which lead to hell—they rather
imply the contrary—but that these attacks should never prevail against
her, corrupt, overcome, or destroy her.
He added: “Lo! I am with you always, even to the consummation of the
world!” This promise connects Christ’s presence with his church
inseparably and perpetually. Hence once the church, always the church.
The whole world may go to wreck and ruin sooner than Christ will desert
his church. “Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass.”
Let, then, attacks come from any quarter, let revolutions shake the
foundations of the world and conspirators overthrow human society, let
anarchy reign and her foes fancy her destruction—the Catholic Church
will stand with perfect faith upon this divine _Magna Charta_ of her
Founder as upon an adamantine rock.
Before Christ’s ascension he appointed the rulers in his church; he gave
“some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other
some pastors and doctors, for the perfecting of the saints, for the
ministry, for the edifying the body of Christ.” He commanded them to
tarry in Jerusalem until they should receive the Holy Ghost. When the
days of Pentecost were accomplished, the Holy Ghost descended upon them
visibly, “and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost.” That was the
moment when the divine institution of the church was completed, and then
began her divine action upon men and society that never was to cease
while the world lasts. The past dispensations of God were all fulfilled
in Christ, and his church, which was to embrace all mankind in her fold
and guide humanity to its divine destination, was divinely established.
It is quite natural that those races which, by God’s providence, have
been intimately connected with the church from her cradle should be
inclined to think that the church is confined to their keeping and is
inseparable from their existence. Christianity and the church are
undoubtedly affected in their development by the peculiarities of the
races through which they are transmitted, and it is natural that they
should accentuate those truths and bring to the front those features of
organization which commend themselves most to the genius, instincts, and
wants of certain races. This is only stating a general law held as a
maxim among philosophers: _Whatever is received, is received according
to the form of the recipient_. Thus, the contact of the church with the
intellectual gifts of the Greeks was the providential occasion of the
explicit development and dogmatic definition of the sublimest mysteries
of the Christian revelation. And through her connection with the Latins,
whose genius runs in the direction of organization and law, the church
perfected her hierarchy and brought forth those regulations necessary to
her existence and well-being known under the name of “Canon Law.”
The objective point of Christianity, the church of Christ, is to embrace
in her fold all mankind; but she is, in her origin, essence, and
institution, independent of any human being, or race of men, or state,
or nation.
The Italians, the Spaniards, the French, or any other nation or nations,
may renounce the faith and abandon the church, as England and several
nations did in the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, yet
the church exists and is none the less really and essentially Catholic.
The church has existed in all her divinity without including any one
nationality or race, and, if it please God, can do so again. The sun
would give forth its light the same though there were no objects within
the reach of its rays, as when they are reflected from nature and
display all their hidden beauty; so the divinity of the Catholic Church
would exist in all its reality and power the same though there were no
Christians to manifest it by their saintly lives, as at some future day
when, after the victory over her enemies, she will unite in one the
whole human race, and all her hidden glory will be displayed.
This law also holds good and is applicable to her visible head, the
supreme pastor of the faithful. The pope, as pope, was no less the
father of the faithful and exercised his jurisdiction when driven into
the Catacombs, or violently taken by a despot and imprisoned at
Fontainebleau, or, as at present, forced by the action of a desperate
faction of Italians into retirement in the Vatican, than when his
independence and authority were recognized and sustained by the armies
of the Emperor Constantine or defended by the sword of Charlemagne, the
crowned emperor of Christendom.
“The pope,” to adopt the words of Pius IX., “will always be the pope, no
matter where he may be, in his state as he was, to-day in the Vatican,
perhaps one day in prison.”
The perpetuity of the Catholic Church is placed above and beyond all
dangers from any human or Satanic conspiracies or attacks in that
Divinity which is inherently incorporated with her existence, and in
that invincible strength of conviction which this divine Presence
imparts to the souls of all her faithful children. It is this indwelling
divine Presence of the Holy Spirit from the day of Pentecost which
teaches and governs in her hierarchy, is communicated sacramentally to
her members, and animates and pervades, in so far as not restricted by
human defects, the whole church. Hawthorne caught a glimpse of this
divine internal principle of life of the Catholic Church and embodied it
in the following passage: “If there were,” he says, “but angels to work
the Catholic Church instead of the very different class of engineers who
now manage its cranks and safety-valves, the system would soon vindicate
the dignity and holiness of its origin.”[2] This statement put in plain
English would run thus: The Catholic Church is the church of God
actualized upon earth so far as this is possible, human nature being
what it is. The indwelling divine Presence is the key to the Catholic
position, and they who cannot perceive and appreciate this, whatever may
be their grasp of intellect or the extent of their knowledge, will find
themselves baffled in attempting to explain her existence and history;
their solution, whatever that may be, will tax the faculty of credulity
of intelligent men beyond endurance; and at the end of all their efforts
for her overthrow these words from her Founder will always stare them in
the face: “Non prævalebunt”—“the gates of hell shall not prevail against
her.” If this language be not understood, perhaps it may be in its
poetical translation:
“The milk-white hind was fated not to die.”
The radical party now in power in Italy may succeed in ruining their
glorious country, but they may rest assured that this does not include,
as her foes foolishly and stupidly imagine in every turn of her eventful
history, the ruin of the Catholic Church. “What God has made will never
be overturned by the hand of man.”
V.—THE SYLLABUS.
One of the principal offices of the Catholic Church is to witness,
guard, and interpret the revealed truths, written and unwritten, which
was imposed upon her by Christ when he said: “Go and teach all nations
whatsoever I have commanded you.” This duty she has fulfilled from age
to age, in spite of every hindrance and in face of all dangers, with
uncompromising firmness and unswerving fidelity, principally by the
action of her chief bishop, whom Christ charged to “feed his sheep and
lambs” and “to confirm his brethren.” This Supreme Pastor, in watching
over the sheep of Christ’s flock, has never failed to feed them with the
truths of Christ, and, lest they should be led astray, he has pointed
out and condemned the errors against these truths one by one as they
arose.
Whatever some critics may have to say as to the form in which the
Syllabus has been cast, or as to the technical language employed in its
composition, this document nevertheless is all that it purports to
be,—an authoritative and explicit condemnation of the most dangerous and
subversive errors of our epoch.
“That last,
Blown from our Zion of the Seven Hills,
Was no uncertain blast!”
Were the Syllabus the product of the private cogitations of an Italian
citizen named John Mary Mastai Ferretti, promulgated and imposed upon
the unwilling consciences of Catholics by his personal authority,
Catholics would indeed have reason to resist and complain. But the
violent opposition, the hostility and hatred, that the Syllabus has
excited among so many non-Catholics and leading minds is a cause of no
little surprise.
“What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?”
Suppose things were as they dream them to be, the attitude of that
venerable Pontiff in the Vatican, powerless to do physical harm to any
one, even if he would, standing up in the sole strength of his
convictions, and, in spite of the clamors of fanatics, the rage of
conspirators, and the threats of the prime ministers of powerful
empires, proclaiming to them and the world that what they hold to be
truth is a lie, what they maintain to be right is wrong, and what they
desire as good is evil—this presents the most august and sublime figure
the nineteenth century has witnessed. O noble old man! well dost thou
merit to be placed among the great men of the holy church, and as chief
pastor to be ranked on the pages of her history in the list of her
heroic and saintly pontiffs, with her Leos and Gregories.
But read the Syllabus—and few of its opponents have done this; take the
trouble to understand rightly what you have read—and fewer still have
taken this pains—and if you have not lost sight of the prime truths of
reason, and have any faith left in the revealed truths of Christianity,
you must at least assent to its principal decisions and approve of its
censures. For its condemnations are chiefly aimed against pantheism,
atheism, materialism, internationalism, communism—these and similar
errors subversive of man’s dignity, society, civilization, Christianity,
and all religion. What boots it that these distinctive errors are
cloaked with the high-sounding and popular catch-words, “intellectual
culture,” “liberty of thought,” “modern civilization,” etc., etc.? They
are none the less errors, and all the more dangerous on account of their
attractive disguise.
The opposition of those who are not internationalists and atheists to
the condemnation and censures contained in the Syllabus, can be
explained, putting it in the mildest form, on the ground of their lack
of the sense of the divine authority of the church and its office, and
the misapprehension or misinterpretation in great part of its language.
For at bottom the Syllabus is nothing else than the Christian thesis of
the nineteenth century, as against its antithesis set up by modern
sophists and conspirators, who openly put forth their programme as in
religion atheism, in morals free-love, in philosophy materialism, in the
state absolute democracy, in society common property.
This, then, is the significance and the cause of the rage which it has
called forth: the Supreme Pastor of Christ’s flock, with his vigilant
eye, has detected the plots of those who would overthrow the family,
society, and all religion, and, conscious of the high obligations of his
charge, would not in silence take his repose, but dared, in protection
of his fold, to cry aloud and use his teeth upon these human wolves, and
thus warn the faithful and the whole world of their impending danger.
This is the secret of the outcry against the Syllabus and Pius IX.
Herein is the _Quare fremuerunt gentes_. But does not the Syllabus
declare that there can be no reconciliation between the Catholic Church
and modern civilization? O blind and slow of heart! do you not know that
modern civilization is the outcome of the Catholic Church? What was the
answer of Christ to Satan when he offered to him “all the kingdoms of
the world and the glory of them”? “Begone, Satan!” Which means, What you
offer is already mine, and not yours to give; away, hypocrite and
deceiver! So to-day, when the declared enemies of Christian civilization
come in disguise to the Catholic Church and insist upon her
reconciliation with modern civilization, she replies with Christ:
Begone, Satan; modern civilization is the product of the Catholic
Church, and not yours, and not under your protection or jurisdiction;
away, hypocrites and conspirators!
Reconciliation with what these conspirators call “modern civilization”?
Do men who have their wits about them know what this means? This means
the overthrow of the great institutions of society, which have cost
nineteen centuries of toil and struggle of the noblest men and women of
the race. And for what? Only for the tyranny of a commune of declared
atheists, the emancipation of the flesh, and the reign of Antichrist.
Thank God! there is one man who cannot be bought by bribes, or won by
flattery, or made to stoop by fear; who dares meet face to face the foes
of Christ and the enemies of mankind, open his mouth and lift up his
voice, and, in answer to these hypocritical invitations, speak out in
tones that ring in the ears of the whole world and can never be
forgotten: “Non possumus.”
The question is not whether the church will be reconciled with modern
civilization. The real question is whether modern society will follow
the principles of eternal justice and right, and reject these false
teachers; whether it will legislate in accordance with the rules of
right reason and the divine truths of Christianity, and turn its back
upon revolution, anarchy, and atheism; whether it will act in harmony
with God’s church in upholding modern civilization and in spreading
God’s kingdom upon earth, or return to paganism, barbarism, and
savagery. The question, the real question which in the course of human
events has become at the present moment among the Latin race a national
question, and particularly so in Italy, is this: “Christ or Barabbas?”
“Now, Barabbas was a robber.”
It is because the Syllabus has placed this alternative in so clear and
unmistakable a light that Satan has stirred up so spiteful and so
wide-spread an opposition to it among his followers and those they can
influence. Here is where the shoe pinches.
VI.—THE VATICAN COUNCIL.
It is folly to attempt to interpret any society without having first
discovered its animating principle and fairly studied the nature and
bearings of its organization. How great, then, is the folly of those who
seem not to have even a suspicion that the greatest and grandest and the
most lasting of all societies and organizations that the world has ever
known—the Catholic Church—can be fathomed by a hasty glance! Yet there
are men well known, and reckoned worthy of repute, who bestow more time
and pay closer attention to gain knowledge of the structure and habits
of the meanest bug than they deem requisite before sitting in judgment
on the church of the living God. There is in our day a great variety of
demagogues, and their number is very great, but a truly scientific man
is a _rara avis_.
There are also men standing high in the public estimation, and some of
them deservedly so in other respects, who imagine that the decree of the
Vatican Council defining the prerogatives of the successor of St. Peter
has seriously altered the constitution of the Catholic Church, when it
has done nothing more or less than make the common law of the church,
whose binding force from universal usage and universal reception was
admitted, a statute law.
Starting off from this serious mistake as their premise, they wax warm
and become furious against the Vatican Council and its decree concerning
the Roman Pontiff. And the new-born pity with which they are seized for
benighted Catholics, would be worthy of all admiration, were there not
good grounds to question their common sense or suspect their sincerity.
They talk about “a pontifical Cæsar imposed upon the Catholic Church,”
“priestly domination carried to its highest point of development,” “the
_personal_ infallibility of the pope,” “the Roman Church transformed
into an enlarged house of the Jesuit Order,” “the incompatibility of the
Catholic Church, with its _new_ constitution, with the state,” etc.,
etc. Then follows a jeremiad over “the mental dependency of Catholics,”
and so forth. All this and much more has, according to their opinion,
been accomplished by a single decree of the Vatican Council. Apparently
this class of men look upon the Catholic Church as a mere piece of
mechanism, abandoned to the control and direction of a set of priests
swayed by personal ambition and selfishness, and whose sole aim is to
exercise an absolute tyranny over the consciences of their
fellow-Christians; or as an institution still more absurd and vile, for
heresy and infidelity have in some instances succeeded in so blinding
men’s minds that they do not allow the good the church does as hers,
and, stimulated by malice, heap upon her every conceivable vice and
evil. Christ had to defend himself against the Jews, who accused him of
being possessed by a devil; and is it a wonder that his church should
have to defend herself against the charge of misbelievers and
unbelievers as being the synagogue of Satan? The servant is not greater
than his master.
Even Goethe, in spite of his anti-Christian, or rather his
anti-Protestant, instincts, would have saved these men from their
fanatical blindness and their gross errors by imparting to their minds,
if they were willing to receive it, a true insight into the real
character of the Catholic Church. “Look,” he says, after premising that
“poems are like stained glasses—”
“Look into the church from the market square;
Nothing but gloom and darkness there!
Shrewd Sir Philistine sees things so:
Well may he narrow and captious grow
Who all his life on the outside passes.
“But come, now, and inside we’ll go!
Now round the holy chapel gaze;
’Tis all one many-colored blaze;
Story and emblem, a pictured maze,
Flash by you:—’tis a noble show.
Here, feel as sons of God baptized,
With hearts exalted and surprised!”[3]
The “Philistines” we are speaking of infuse into the Catholic Church
their own forensic spirit, and fancy that she is only a system of severe
commandments, arbitrary laws, and outward ceremonies enforced by an
external and absolute authority which, like the old law, places all her
children in a state of complete bondage. They are blind to the fact that
the Catholic Church confines her precepts, such is her respect for man’s
liberty, chiefly to the things necessary to salvation, leaving all the
rest to be complied with by each individual Christian as moved by the
instinct of divine grace.[4]
The aim of the Catholic Church is not, as they foolishly fancy, to drill
her children into a servile army of prætorian guards, but to raise up
freemen in Christ, souls actuated by the Holy Spirit—to create saints.
They are also ignorant of the nature and place, of the authority of the
church, as they are of her spirit.
It is the birthright of every member of the Catholic Church freely to
follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and the office and aim of the
authority of the church is to secure, defend, and protect this
Christ-given freedom.
To make more clear this relation of the divine external authority of the
church with the divine internal guidance of the Holy Spirit in the soul,
a few words of explanation will suffice.
It is the privilege of every soul born to Christ in his holy church in
the waters of regeneration, to receive thereby the indwelling presence
of the Holy Spirit. It is the bounden duty of every Christian soul to
follow with fidelity the promptings of the Holy Spirit. In order that
the soul may follow faithfully the indwelling Holy Spirit, it must be
secured against all mistakes and delusions and protected against all
attacks from error. Every child of the church has therefore a claim in
justice upon the authority of the church for this security and
protection. But it would be absurd and an intolerable indignity for the
soul to obey an authority that might lead it astray in a matter
concerning its divine life and future destiny; for in the future world
no chance or liberty is left for a return to correct the mistakes into
which the soul may have fallen. Therefore the claim is founded in right
reason and justice that the supreme teaching and governing authority of
the church should be divine—that is, unerring. And it is the intrusion
of human authority in the shape of private judgment, or that of the
state, as supreme, in regard to the truths of divine revelation, that is
the radical motive of the resistance to Protestantism as Christianity on
the part of Catholics.
Now, when the soul sees that the authority which governs is animated by
the same divine Spirit, with whose promptings it is its inmost desire to
comply, and appreciates that the aim of the commands of authority is to
keep it from straying from the guidance of the indwelling divine Spirit,
then obedience to authority becomes easy and light, and the fulfilment
of its commands the source of increased joy and greater liberty, not an
irksome task or a crushing burden. This spiritual insight springing from
the light of faith is the secret source of Catholic life, the inward
principle which prompts the obedience of Catholics to the divine
authority of the holy church, and from which is born the consciousness
of the soul’s filiation with God, whence flow that perfect love and
liberty which always accompany this divine Sonship.
The aim of the authority of the church and its exercise is the same as
that of all other authority—secondary. The church herself, in this
sense, is not an end, but a means to an end. The aim of the authority of
the church is the promotion and the safeguard of the divine action of
the indwelling Holy Spirit in the soul, and not a substitution of itself
for this.
Just as the object of the authority of the state is to promote the
common good and to protect the rights of its citizens, so the authority
of the church has for its aim the common good of its members and the
protection of their rights. And is not the patriotic spirit that moves
the legislator to make the law for the common good and protection of his
fellow-countrymen identically the same spirit which plants in their
bosoms the sense of submission to the law? Consequently, to fix more
firmly and to define more accurately the divine authority of the church
in its papal exercise, seen from the inside, is to increase individual
action, to open the door to a larger sphere of liberty, and to raise man
up to his true manhood in God.
It does, indeed, make all the difference in the world, as the poet
Goethe has so well said, to “look at the church” with “Sir Philistine”
in a “narrow and captious” spirit from “the market square” stand-point,
or to gaze on the church from the inside, where all her divine beauty is
displayed and, in a free and lofty spirit, fully enjoyed.
VII.—THE VATICAN COUNCIL (_continued_).
To define the prerogatives of the papal authority, and its place and
sphere of action in the divine autonomy of the church, was to prepare
the way for the faithful to follow with greater safety and freedom the
inspirations of the Holy Spirit, and thus open the door wider for a
fresh influx of divine life and a more vigorous activity. Thanks for
these great advantages to the persistent attacks of the foes of the
church; for had they let her authority alone, this decree of the Vatican
Council would not have been called for, and the prerogatives of the
papal functions might have been exercised with sufficient force as the
unwritten and common law, and never have passed into a dogmatic decree
and become the statute law.
The work of the Vatican Council is not, however, finished. Other and
important tasks are before it, to accomplish which it will be sooner or
later reassembled. Divine Providence appears to be shaping events in
many ways since the adjournment of the council, so as to render its
future labors comparatively easy. There were special causes which made
it reasonable that the occupant of St. Peter’s chair at Rome should in
modern times be an Italian. Owing to the radical changes which have
taken place in Europe, these causes no longer have the force they once
had. The church is a universal, not a national society. The boundaries
of nations have, to a great extent, been obliterated by the marvellous
inventions of the age. The tendency of mankind is, even in spite of
itself, to become more and more one family, and of nations to become
parts of one great whole rather than separate entities. And even if the
wheel of change should, as we devoutly hope, restore to the Pope the
patrimony of the church, the claims of any distinct nationality to the
Chair of Peter will scarcely hold as they once held. The supreme Pastor
of the whole flock of Christ, as befits the Catholic and cosmopolitan
spirit of the church, may now, as in former days, be chosen solely in
view of his capacity, fitness, and personal merits, without any regard
to his nationality or race.
It must be added to the other great acts of the reigning Pontiff—whom
may God preserve!—that he has given to the cardinal senate of the church
a more representative character by choosing for its members a larger
number of distinguished men from the different nations of which the
family of the church is composed. This, it is to be hoped, is only a
promise of the no distant day when the august senate of the universal
church shall not only be open to men of merit of every Catholic nation
of the earth, but also its members be chosen in proportion to the
importance of each community, according to the express desire of the
holy œcumenical Council of Trent. Such a representative body, composed
of the _élite_ of the entire human race, presided over by the common
father of all the faithful, would realize as nearly as possible that
ideal tribunal which enlightened statesmen are now looking for, whose
office it would be to act as the arbitrator between nation and nation,
and between rulers and people.
Since the close of the first session of the Vatican Council nearly all
the different nations of Europe have, of their own accord, broken the
concordats made with the church and virtually proclaimed a divorce
between the state and the church. This conduct leaves the church
entirely free in the choice of her bishops; which will tend to bring out
more clearly the spiritual and popular side of the church; to set at
naught the charge made against her prelates as meddling in purely
secular affairs; and to wipe out the stigma of their being involved in
the political intrigues of courts.
Modern inventions and improvements, such as telegraphs, railroads,
steamships, cheap postage, the press, have added time, increased
efficiency, and lent an expansive power of action to men which poets, in
their boldest flights of fancy, did not reach. These things have changed
the face of the material world and the ways of men in conducting their
secular business.
Pope Sixtus V. readjusted and improved in his day the outward
administration of the church—a reform that was greatly needed—and placed
it by his practical genius, both for method and efficiency, far in
advance of his times. This same work might, in some respects, be done
again and with infinite advantage to the interests and prosperity of the
whole church of God.
One of the most, if not the most, important of the congregations of the
church is that _De Propaganda Fide_. It is the centre of missionary
enterprises throughout the whole extent of the world. No other object
can be of greater interest to every Catholic heart, no branch of the
church’s work calls for greater practical wisdom, more burning zeal, and
more energetic efficiency.
There is, perhaps, no position in the church, after that of the papal
chair, so great in importance, so vast in its influence, so wide in its
action, as the one occupied by the cardinal prefect of the Propaganda.
Could it be placed on a footing so as to profit by all the agencies of
our day, it would be better prepared to enter upon the new openings now
offered to the missionary zeal of the church in different parts of the
world, and become, what it really aims to be, the right arm of the
church in the propagation of the faith.
Who can tell but that one of the results of the present crisis in Italy
will lead by an overruling Providence to an entire renewal of the
church, not only in Italy, but throughout the whole world? Such a hope
has been frequently expressed by Pius IX., and to prepare the way for it
was one of the main purposes of assembling the Vatican Council.
VIII.—IMPENDING DANGER.
Scarcely any event is more deplorable to the sincere Christian and true
patriot than when there arises a discord, whether real or apparent,
between the religious convictions and the political aspirations of a
people. Such a discord divides them into separate and hostile camps, and
it is not in the nature of things that in such a condition both religion
and the state should not incur great danger. Every sacrifice except that
of principle should be made, every material interest that does not
involve independence and existence should be yielded up without
reluctance or delay, in order to put an end to these conflicts, unless
one would risk on one hand apostasy and on the other anarchy.
The discord which has been sown between the state and the church by the
revolutionary movement in Italy has not only excited a violent struggle
in the bosom of every Italian, but has created dissension between
husband and wife, parents and children, brother and brother, friend and
friend, neighbor and neighbor, and placed different classes of society
in opposition to each other. The actual struggle going on in Italy is
working every moment untold mischief among the Italian people. Already
symptoms of apostasy and signs of anarchy are manifest. Every day these
dangers are becoming more menacing. A way out of this dead-lock must be
speedily found.
The church has plainly shown in ages past that she can live and gain the
empire over souls, even against the accumulated power of a hostile and
persecuting state. She has shown in modern times, both in the United
States and in England and Ireland, that independent of the state, and of
all other support than the voluntary offerings of her children, and with
stinted freedom, she can maintain her independence, grow strong and
prosperous. The church, relying solely upon God, conquered pagan Rome in
all its pride of strength, and, if needs be, she can enter again into
the arena, and, stripped of all temporal support, face her adversaries
and reconquer apostate Rome.
But who can contemplate without great pain a nation, and that nation the
Italian, passing through apostasy and anarchy, even though this be
necessary, in the opinion of some, as a punishment and purification? Can
those who believe so drastic a potion is needed to cure a nation give
the assurance that it will not leave it in a feeble and chronic state,
rendering a revival a work of centuries, and perhaps impossible? Every
noble impulse of religion and humanity should combine to avert so dire a
calamity, and with united voice cry out with the prophet: “Is there no
balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why, then, is not the wound
of the daughter of my people healed?”
The balm that will cure the present wound in Italy is not likely to be
found in a closer alliance of the church with the actual state. For the
state throughout Europe, with scarcely an exception, has placed itself
in hostility to the church, and to expect help from this quarter would
indeed be to hope in vain, and to rivet more closely the shackles which
bind the free action of her members. Is it not the apparent complicity
of the church with some of the governments of Europe, since they have
thrown off the salutary restraints of her authority, that has been one
of the principal causes of the loss to a fearful degree of her influence
with the more numerous class of society, giving a pretext to the tirades
of the socialists, communists, and internationals against her? The
church has been unjustly identified, in the minds of many, with thrones
and dynasties whose acts and policy have been as inimical to her
interests as to those of the people.
In the present campaign it would be far from wise to rely for aid on
states, as states now are—whether they be monarchies, or aristocracies,
or republics, or democracies—or upon contending dynasties; the help
needed in the actual crisis can come only from the Most High. “Society,”
as Pius IX. has observed, “has been enclosed in a labyrinth, out of
which it will never issue save by the hand of God.”
The prime postulate of a sound Catholic is this: The church is divine,
moved by the instinct of the Holy Spirit in all her supreme and vital
acts. The Catholic who does not hold this as a firm and immovable basis
has lost, or never had, the true conception of the church, and is in
immediate danger of becoming a rebel and a heretic, if he be not one
already. Whoso fails to recognize this permanent divine action in the
church, the light of the Holy Spirit has departed from his soul, and he
becomes thereby external to the church. Of this truth De Lamennais,
Döllinger, Loyson, are modern and sad examples. Instead of seeking a
deeper insight into the nature of the church, and drawing from thence
the light and the strength to labor for the renewal of Christianity and
the unity of Christendom, they have become blinded by passion and
deluded by personal conceits, and have fallen into heresy and
sectarianism. For the divine Spirit embodied in the church and the
divine Spirit indwelling in every Christian soul are one and the same
divine Spirit, and they bear testimony to each other, and work together
for the same end.
The errors which menaced the truths of divine revelation and the peace
of society are known and condemned by the supreme authority of the
church. The same voice of the Chief Pastor called a general council to
remove all evils from the church, “that our august religion and its
salutary doctrine might receive fresh life over all the earth.”
Again and again he has exhorted the faithful to uphold and encourage the
Catholic press in defence of religion as one of their important duties,
and followed up his advice by his own personal example.
Everywhere he has approved of the formation of societies for the
advancement of science, art, and education; for the protection and
amelioration of the working-classes; and the meeting of Catholic laymen
for the discussion and promotion of the interests of the church and
society.
“_Prayer, Speech, and the Press_”—these are the watch-words of Pius IX.
These words, which have the impress of the seal of divine grace upon
them, have awakened the universal consciousness of the church. The
church gained her first victories by prayer, by speech, and by writing,
and these peaceful weapons are not antiquated, and, if earnestly
employed, are in our day more than a match for needle-guns, Krupp
cannon, or the strongest iron-clads. Above all, when handled by
Catholics they have the power of Almighty God to back them, and that
strength of conviction in Catholic souls which knows no conquerors.
If there be one thing more than any other that strikes dismay in the
camp of the foes of the church, it is the united action of Catholics in
defence of their faith. Let Italian Catholics act unitedly and, wherever
and whenever they can, act politically, saving their faith and their
obedience; uphold generously the Catholic press; let them speak out
manfully and fearlessly their convictions with all the force of their
souls; and for the rest, look up to God, and the enemies of God and of
his church and of their country will disappear “like the dust which the
wind driveth from the face of the earth.”
“It is time, my brethren, to act with courage.”[5]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A MOUNTAIN FRIEND.
I.—OUR BOND.
I know not why with yon far, sombre height
I hold so subtle friendship, why my heart
Keeps it in one dear corner set apart;
No rarer glory clothes it day and night
Than find I otherwhere, yet, whensoe’er
Amid all wanderings wide by road or crest
Mine eyes upon those simple outlines rest,
My heart cries out as unto true friend near.
Nor holds that half-forbidding strength of form
Memories more dear than give so deep a grace
To other heights, yet e’er on yon dark face,
Sun-lighted be it, or half-veiled in storm,
I longing gaze with thoughts no words define,
And feel the dumb rock-heart low-answering mine.
II.—NOON.
I climb the rugged slopes that sweep with strength
And lines, scarce broken, from the desert wide,
Beneath whose shadow frailest flowers abide
And sweetest waters trip their murmuring length;
I stand upon the crown—the autumn air
Blows shivering out of scarcely cloud-flecked skies,
While warm the sunshine on the gray moss lies
And lights the crimson fires low leaves spread there.
Beyond, hills mightier far are lifted, stern
With ancient forest where wild crags break through,
And, nobler still, far laid against the blue,
Peaks, white with early snow, for heaven yearn——
Whose azure depths the quiet shadows wear——
Crowning my mountain with their distance fair.
III.—NIGHT.
The strong uplifter of the wilderness,
Holder of mighty silence voiceful made,
With bird-song drifting from the spruces’ shade,
By quivering winds that murmur in distress,
Proud stands my mountain, clothed with loneliness
That awesome grows when darkness veileth all
And south wind shroudeth with a misty pall
Of hurrying clouds that ever onward press,
As something seeking that doth e’er elude,
Flying like thing pursued that dare not rest,
By some wild, haunting thought of fear possessed——
Not drearness all, the cloud-swept solitude:——
Through changing rifts the starlit blue gives sign
Of mountain nearness unto things divine.
IV.—DAWN.
Slow breaks the daily mystery of dawn——
In far-off skies gleams faint the unfolding light,
Anear the patient hills wait with the night
Whose shadow clings, nor hasteth to be gone.
A passionate silence filleth all the earth——
No wind-swept pine to solemn anthem stirred,
No distant chirp from matin-keeping bird,
Nor any pattering sound of leafy mirth.
And seems that waiting silence to enfold
All mystery of life, all doubt and fear,
All patient trusting through the darkness here,
All perfect promise that the heavens hold.
Lo! seems my mountain a high-altar stair
Whereon I rest, in thought half-dream, half-prayer.
V.—ON FIRE.
Scarce dead the echo of our evening song
That o’er the camp-fire’s whirling blaze up-soared
With wealth of hidden human sweetness stored—
Life-thoughts that thronged the spoken words along;
Scarce lost our lingering footsteps on the moss,
When the slow embers, that we fancied slept,
With purpose sure and step unfaltering crept
The sheltering mountain’s unsmirched brow across.
Alas! for straining eyes that through long days
Of strong-breathed west wind saw the pale smoke-drift
Its threat’ning pennons in the distance lift,
So setting discord in sweet notes of praise.
Yet hath the wounded mountain in each thought
Won dearer love for wrong, unwilling, wrought.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ROC AMADOUR.
La douce Mère du Créatour,
A l’église, à Rochemadour,
Fait tants miracles, tants hauts faits,
C’uns moultes biax livres en est faits.
—_Gauthier de Coinsy, of the thirteenth century._
There is not a place of pilgrimage in France without some special
natural attraction, from Mont St. Michel on the stormy northern coast to
Notre Dame de la Garde overlooking the blue Mediterranean Sea; from
Notre Dame de Buglose on a broad moor of the Landes to Notre Dame de la
Salette among the wild Alps of Dauphiné; but not one of these has the
peculiar charm of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour in Quercy, which stands on
an almost inaccessible cliff overhanging a frightful ravine once known
as the _Vallée Ténébreuse_. And not only nature, but history, poetry,
and the supernatural, all combine to render this one of the most
extraordinary of the many holy sanctuaries of France. For this is the
place where, as hoary legends tell, the Zaccheus of the Scriptures ended
his days in a cave; where the peerless Roland hung up his redoubtable
sword before the altar of the Virgin; where Henry II. of England, Louis
IX. of France, and so many princes and knights of the middle ages came
to pay their vows; where Fénelon, the celebrated Archbishop of Cambrai,
was consecrated to the Virgin in his infancy, and where he came in later
life to pray at his mother’s tomb; and which has been sung by mediæval
poets and rendered for ever glorious by countless miracles of divine
grace.
On a pleasant spring morning we left Albi to visit the ancient province
of Quercy. From the fertile valley of the Tarn, overlooked by the fine
church of Notre Dame de la Drèche—the tutelar Madonna of the
Albigeois—we entered a dreary, stony region beyond Cahuzac, then came
into a charming country with wooded hills crowned with old towers and
villages, as at Najac, where the railway passes through a tunnel
directly beneath the ancient castle in the centre of the town, and
crosses the Nexos on the other side of the hill, which we found merry
with peasant women washing their linen in the clear stream and hanging
it on the rocks to bleach in the hot sun. The whole region is full of
wild ravines kept fresh by capricious streams and the shadows of the
numerous hills. The wayside grows bright with scarlet poppies, the
cherry-trees are snowy with blossoms, the low quince hedges are aflush
with their rosy blooms, and the pretty gardens at the stations are full
of flowers and shrubbery. We pass Capdenac, supposed by M. de
Champollion to be the ancient Uxellodunum whose siege is related by
Cæsar in his _Commentaries_, also on a high hill around which the river
Lot turns abruptly and goes winding on through a delicious valley, the
water as red as the soil, perhaps owing to the recent rains. Soon after
the country becomes rocky and desolate again, with stone walls instead
of flowering hedges, and flocks of sheep here and there nibbling the
scant herbage among the rocks, looking very much inclined, as well they
may, to give up trying to get a living. The whole region is flat, the
earth is ghastly with the pale stones, everything is subdued in tone,
the horizon is bounded by low, dim hills, the sky becomes sombre and
lowering. But there is something about all this desolation and silence
and monotony that excites the imagination. Even our epicurean friends
felt the strange charm, for this is the region where truffles abound,
scented out by the delicate organ of the animal sacred to St. Anthony
the Great!
We were now in Quercy, which comprises such a variety of soil and
temperature. In one part everything is verdant and flowery, the hills
wreathed with vines and the trees covered with fruit-blossoms, and over
all a radiant sun; perhaps a little beyond is a stunted vegetation, the
trees of a northern clime, and a country as rough and bleak as Scotland,
with long, desolate moors, arid and melancholy in the extreme.
Some way this side of Roc Amadour we came upon the singular gap of
Padirac, where St. Martin is said to have had a race with the devil.
They were both mounted on mules, St. Martin’s a little the worse for
wear, and, starting across the country, they flew over walls and
precipices and steep cliffs, without anything being able to arrest their
course. Satan at length turned to the saint and laid a wager he could
open a gap in the earth no unaided mortal could pass. St. Martin laughed
him to scorn. The angel of darkness then stretched forth his hand, and,
laying on the ground his forefinger, which suddenly shot out to an
enormous length, the earth instantaneously opened beneath it to the
depth of a hundred and fifty feet. “Is that all?” cried the undaunted
saint, as he spurred his beast. The mule sprang across the yawning gulf,
one hundred feet broad, leaving the impress of his hoofs in the solid
rock, as is to be clearly seen at this day. One of these foot-prints
turns out, because, we are told, St. Martin’s mule was lame. This, of
course, made his victory the more wonderful. After this feat the saint,
in his turn, challenged the demon, and, resuming their race, St. Martin
hastily thrust a cross of reeds into the fissure of a rock they came to,
whereupon Satan’s mule reared and plunged and overthrew its rider, to
the everlasting glory of St. Martin and the triumph of the cross. A more
durable cross of stone now marks the spot where this great victory was
won over the foul fiend.
Roc Amadour is in the diocese of Cahors, which is a picturesque old town
built on and around a cliff in a bend of the river Lot. It is quite
worthy of a passing glance and has its historic memories. In ancient
times it bore so imposing an appearance that one of its historians
pretends Cæsar, when he came in sight of it, could not help exclaiming
in his astonishment: “Behold a second Rome!” In the middle ages, if we
are to believe Dante, it was notorious as a city of usurers. He ranks it
with Sodom; but perhaps this was owing to his strong Italian prejudices
against the French popes, for at Cahors was born John XXII., whom he
severely consigns to ignominy. We are shown the castle where this pope
passed his childhood, at one edge of the town. Passing by the
university, we are reminded by a statue of Fénelon, in the centre of a
square called by his name, that he was once a student here. There is
likewise a street named after Clement Marot, whose version of the Psalms
became so popular among the Huguenots. He was born at Cahors, and is now
regarded as one of its chief celebrities, though not tolerated in the
place in the latter part of his life from a suspicion of heresy, then
almost synonymous with treason, which caused him to be imprisoned in the
Châtelet. He thus protested against the accusation:
“Point ne suis Lutheriste,
Ne Zuinglien, et moins Anabaptiste,
Bref, celui suis qui croit, honore et prise
La saincte, vraye, et Catholique Eglise.”[6]
Though released, he was obliged to take refuge in Geneva on account of
the use of his paraphrase of the Psalms in the conventicles, but there
he was convicted of misdemeanors, and, by Calvin’s orders, ridden on an
ass and sent out of the city. Neither fish nor flesh, he now sought an
asylum in Italy—“the inn of every grief,” as Dante calls it—and died at
Turin in 1546.
In passing through Quercy we are struck by the constant succession of
old castles bearing some historic name like that of Turenne. Among
others is Castelnau de Bretenoux, associated with Henry II. of England,
on a lofty eminence on the left shore of the Dordogne, overlooking one
of the most beautiful valleys of France, which is said to have inspired
Fénelon with his description of the island of Calypso. A few years since
this vast château was one of the finest specimens of feudal architecture
in France. Its embattled walls and massive towers; the long gallery,
with its carvings and gildings, where the fair ladies of the time of
Louis Treize used to promenade in their satins and rich Mechlin laces,
admiring themselves in the rare Venetian mirrors; the spacious cellars
with their arches; the vaulted stables, and the vast courts with their
immense wells, have been greatly injured by fire and now wear an aspect
of desolation melancholy to behold. Galid de Genouilhac, a lord of this
house, who was grand écuyer in the time of Francis I., and would have
saved his royal master the defeat of Pavia had his advice been listened
to, was disgraced for presuming to admire the queen, and, retiring to
this castle, he built a church, on which he graved the words still to be
seen: _J’aime fort une_.
“Roc Amadour!” cried the guard, as he opened the door of our
compartment, disturbing our historic recollections. We looked out. There
was nothing to correspond with so poetical a name. No village; no
church. Nothing but a forlorn station-house on a desolate plain. Behind
it we found an omnibus waiting to catch up any stray pilgrim, and we
availed ourselves of so opportune a vehicle, rude as it was. We could
not have asked for anything more penitential, so there was no occasion
for scruples. It leisurely took us a few miles to the west, and finally
dropped us mercifully in the middle of the road before a rough wayside
inn that had a huge leafy bough suspended over the door to proclaim that
poor wine only needed the larger bush. We were not tempted to enter. The
driver pointed out the way, and left us to our instinct and the
pilgrim’s staff. There was nothing to be seen but the same dreary
expanse. But we soon came to a chapel in the centre of a graveyard,
where once stood a hospice with kind inmates to wash the bleeding feet
of the pilgrim. Then we began to descend diagonally along the side of a
tremendous chasm that suddenly opened before us, passing by a straggling
line of poor rock-built huts, till we came to the archway of an old
gate, once fortified, that stands at the entrance of a village. This was
Roc Amadour.
Imagine a mountain suddenly cleft asunder, disclosing a frightful abyss
several hundred feet in depth, lined with gray rocks that rise almost
perpendicularly to the very clouds, and, far down at the bottom, a
narrow stream winding sullenly along, looking like one of the fabled
rivers of the _abisso doloroso_ of the great Florentine. Half way up one
side of this _Vallée Ténébreuse_, as it was once called, hangs the
village of Roc Amadour like a cluster of birds’ nests along the edge of
a precipice, over which are suspended several churches, one above the
other, that seem hewn out of the very cliff. These are the famous
sanctuaries of Roc Amadour that have been frequented from time
immemorial.
Several hundred feet above these churches, on the very summit of the
mount, is the old castle of La Charette, with its ramparts overlooking
the whole country. This served in the frequent wars of the middle ages
not only for the defence of the sanctuary below, but of the town of Roc
Amadour, which was then a post of strategic importance, and has its page
in history, as every reader of Sir John Froissart knows.
The sight of this mountain, that looks as if rent asunder by some awful
convulsion of nature, with the castle on its summit; its rocky sides
once peopled with hermits, and still alive with the voice of prayer; the
churches that swell out of the cliff like the bastions of a fortress;
the village on the ledge below; and the dizzy ravine in the depths, is
truly astonishing.
The town looks as if the breath of modern progress had never reached it.
It is the only place in all Europe where we did not meet an Englishman
or an American. One would think the bivalve in which it is lodged just
opened after being closed hundreds of years. There is the Rue de la
Couronnerie, where Henry Court-Mantel was crowned King of Aquitaine.
There are the remains of the house occupied by his father, Henry II. of
England, with the huge well he caused to be dug, from which the
inhabitants still draw water. And there are the remains of the four
fortified gates ruined in the wars of the sixteenth century.
We stopped at the Grand Soleil—a hostel of the ancient time, with an
immense kitchen that would have delighted Jan Steen, with beams black
with the smoke of a thousand fires, hung with smoked hams, and gourds,
and strings of onions, and bright copper kettles—the very place for
roistering villagers such as he loved to paint. It looked ancient enough
to have been frequented by King Henry’s soldiers. It had a very cavern
for a fireplace, with seats at the yawning sides beneath the crook, with
which M. Michelet says the sanctity of the fireside was identified in
the middle ages far more than with the hearth, and curious old andirons,
such as are to be seen at Paris in the Hôtel de Cluny, with a succession
of hooks for the spits to rest on, and circular tops for braziers and
chafing-dishes. Stairs led from the kitchen to the story above, well
enough to mount, but perilous in descent, owing to their steepness.
Everything is rather in the perpendicular style at Roc Amadour. An
invocation to _Marie conçue sans péché_ was pasted on the door of our
chamber, and a statuette of the Blessed Virgin stood on the mantel. The
windows looked out on a little terrace dignified with the name of
Square, where children were playing around the great stone cross. At
table we found the sacrifice of Abraham and other sacred subjects
depicted on our plates, and a cross on the salt-cellar. Roast kid and
goat’s milk were set before us with various adjuncts, after which
patriarchal fare we issued forth to visit the celebrated chapel of Our
Lady of Roc Amadour. We found we had done well in fortifying the outer
man for such an ascent, particularly as the day was far advanced, and
the morning supplies at Albi had been of the most unsubstantial nature.
We passed several houses with old archways of the thirteenth century,
but the most imposing house in the place is a seigneurial mansion of the
sixteenth century, now occupied by the Brothers of the Christian
Doctrine. We soon came to the foot of the staircase leading up the side
of the cliff to the sanctuaries. It consists of about two hundred and
forty steps, partly hewn out of the rock, and is generally ascended by
the devout pilgrim on his knees and with prayer—an enterprise of no
trifling nature, as we are prepared to vouch. On great festivals this
sacred ladder is crowded with people ascending and descending. Their
murmured prayer is a gradual Psalm indeed. The first flight of one
hundred and forty steps leads to a platform around which stood formerly
the dwellings of the fourteen canons consecrated to the service of Mary.
A Gothic portal, with a stout oaken door covered with fine old
scroll-work of iron, leads by another flight of seventy-six steps to the
collegiate church of Saint-Sauveur, one of the six remaining
sanctuaries. Formerly there were twelve chapels built among the rocks in
honor of the twelve apostles, but these all disappeared in the time of
the unsparing Huguenots. Twenty-five steps more, at the left, bring you
to a terrace with the miraculous chapel of Our Lady on one side and that
of St. Michael on the other. Between them, directly before you, is the
cave-like recess in which Zaccheus is said to have ended his days, and
where he still lies in effigy on his stone coffin. _Rupis amator_ he was
called—the lover of the rock—whence St. Amateur, and St. Amadour, the
name given him by the people. _Amadour quasi amator solitudinis_, say
the old chronicles. His body remained here from the time of his death,
in the year of our Lord 70 (we adhere to the delightful old legend),
till 1166, when, according to Robert de Monte, who wrote in 1180, his
tomb was opened at the request of a neighboring lord who was extremely
ill and felt an inward assurance he should be healed by the sacred
relics. His faith was rewarded. The body was found entire, and, on being
exposed to public veneration, so numerous and extraordinary were the
miracles wrought that Henry II. of England, who was at Castelnau de
Bretenoux, came here to pay his devotions. It was now enshrined in the
subterranean church of St. Amadour, where it remained several ages so
incorrupt as to give rise to a common proverb among the people: _Il est
en chair et os, comme St. Amadour_. But when the country was overrun by
the Huguenots, his _châsse_ was stripped of its silver mountings, his
body broken to pieces with a hammer and cast into the fire. Only a small
part of these venerable remains were snatched from the flames.
The terrace between the chapel of Our Lady and that of St. Michael is
called in ancient documents the Platea S. Michaelis. Here all official
acts relating to the abbey were formerly drawn up. The overhanging
cliff, that rises above it to the height of two hundred and twenty feet,
gives it the appearance of a cavern. Built into it, on the left, is the
chapel of St. Michael, on the outer wall of which, suspended by an iron
chain, is a long, rusty weapon popularly known as the sword of Roland.
Not that it is the very blade with which the Pyrenees were once cleft
asunder and so many kingdoms won. That shone as the sun in its golden
hilt, the day the mighty Paladin came, on his way to Spain, to
consecrate it to the Virgin of Roc Amadour and then redeem it with its
weight in silver; whereas this is as dim and uncouth as the veriest spit
that ever issued from a country forge. The wondrous Durandel, to be
sure, was brought back after Roland’s death and hung up before the altar
of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour, to whom it had been vowed, where it
remained till carried off by Henry Court-Mantel, who, adding sacrilege
to hypocrisy, came here in 1183 on the pretext of a pilgrimage, and, in
order to pay the soldiers who served him in his rebellion against his
father, pillaged the holy chapel so revered by King Henry. But his crime
did not remain unpunished. He was soon after seized with a fatal
illness, and died, but not unabsolved, in the arms of Gerard III.,
Bishop of Cahors.
Over Roland’s sword hang the fetters of several Christians delivered
from a terrible slavery on the coast of Barbary by Our Lady’s might.
Among these was Guillaume Fulcheri of Montpellier, whose mother came to
Roc Amadour on the eve of the Assumption to offer a cake of wax to burn
before the image of Mary for the redemption of her son. That same night,
while she was keeping vigil with prayers and tears before the altar of
the Virgin, his fetters were loosened in a mysterious manner, and he
made his escape. One of his first acts on his arrival in France was to
come to Roc Amadour with an offering of gratitude.
So, too, Guillaume Rémond of Albi, being unjustly confined in prison,
with no other hope of liberty but his trust in the power of the glorious
Virgin of Roc Amadour, while he was persevering in prayer during the
night-watches his chains suddenly fell off about the ninth hour, to the
utter amazement of the jailer, who became too powerless to hinder his
escape. He took his fetters with him to hang up before the altar of his
potent protectress.
On the pavement beneath these and other trophies of divine grace is an
old chest with iron bands, fastened with a double lock of singular
mechanism, in which pilgrims centuries ago deposited their offerings.
Just beyond is a doorway over which is painted St. Michael holding the
balance of justice in which we must all be weighed. This door leads by a
winding stone staircase up to St. Michael’s chapel, the oldest of the
existing edifices of Roc Amadour. This singular chapel is built against
the rough cliff which constitutes one side of it, as well as the vault.
It is chilly, and cave-like, and dripping with moisture. A niche at one
end, like an arcosolium in the catacombs, is lined with faded old
frescos of Christ and the evangelists. The windows are low and narrow,
like the fissures of a cave, being barely wide enough for an angel in
each—Michael with his avenging sword, Gabriel and his _Ave_, and Raphael
looking protectingly down on Tobias with his fish. On one side is a
spiral ascent to a balcony over the Platea S. Michaelis, from which the
abbot of Roc Amadour used to bestow his solemn benediction on the crowd
on the great days of pardon.
Descending to the Platea, we stop before the entrance to Our Lady’s
chapel to examine the half-effaced mural paintings of the great
mysteries of her life around the door. Near these can be traced the
outlines of a knight pursued by several spectres, popularly believed to
be the _ex-voto_ of a man who sought to be delivered from the ghosts of
those whose graves he had profaned. But the learned say this fresco
refers to the famous old _Lai des trois Morts et des trois Vifs_ of the
thirteenth century, in which three young knights, gaily riding to the
chase, with no thought but of love and pleasure, meet three phantoms,
who solemnly address them on the vanity of all earthly joys. This
painting was a perpetual sermon to the pilgrims, enforced, moreover, by
the numerous tombs that surrounded the sanctuaries of Roc Amadour. For
many noble families of the province, as well as pilgrims from afar,
wished to be buried near the altar where their souls had gotten grace.
So great was the number buried here in the middle ages that the monks
became alarmed, and refused to allow any more to be brought from a
distance. But Pope Alexander III. issued a bull declaring this place of
burial free to all except those under the ban of the church.
It is, then, with these thoughts of death and the great mysteries of
religion we enter the miraculous chapel around which we have so long
lingered with awe. The season of pilgrimages has not yet fairly opened,
and we find it quiet and unoccupied except by a stray peasant or two,
and a few Sisters of Calvary with sweet, gentle faces. We hasten to drop
our feeble round of prayer into the deep well fed by the devotion of
centuries. Over the altar is the famous statue of Our Lady of Roc
Amadour in a golden niche—black as ebony, perhaps from the smoke of the
candles and the incense of centuries, and dressed in a white muslin robe
spangled with gold. It is by no means a work of high art. Perhaps it is
as ancient as this place of pilgrimage. Tradition says it was executed
by the pious hands of St. Amadour himself, who was doubtless incapable
of expressing the devout sentiments that animated him. It is carved out
of a single piece of wood, and is now greatly decayed. The Virgin is
stiff in attitude. Her hair floats on her shoulders. Her hands rest on
the arms of the chair in which she is sitting, leaving the divine Child,
enthroned on her knee, with no support but that of his inherent nature.
A silver lamp, shaped like a fortress, with towers for the lights, hangs
before her, and beneath is a blazing stand of candles. The profusion of
lights in the chapels of popular devotion throughout France is truly
remarkable. It was the same in the middle ages. The old chronicles tell
us how the mother who sought the cure of a beloved child sometimes sent
his weight in wax to be burned before the powerful Virgin of Roc
Amadour. Others brought candles of the size of the limb they wished to
be healed. And those who had already obtained some supernatural favor
generally sent a candle once a year in token of gratitude. So numerous
were the lights formerly given to this chapel that there was scarcely
room for them. Poets even celebrated this profusion. Gauthier de Coinsy,
one of the most celebrated _cantadours_ of the thirteenth century, among
other poems has left one entitled _Du cierge que Notre Dame de Roc
Amadour envoya sur la vièle du ménestrel qui vièlait et chantait devant
sy image_, relating how our benign Lady accorded one of these votive
candles to a pious minstrel as he was singing her praises: Pierre de
Sygeland was in the habit of entering every church he passed to offer a
prayer and sing a song of praise to the sound of his viol. One day, as
he was prolonging his pious exercises before the altar of Notre Dame de
Roc Amadour, drawing every one in the church around him, both “_clerc et
lai_,” by the melody of his voice, he raised his eyes to the sacred
image of Mary and thus sang: “O sovereign Lady, _Dame de toute
courtoisie_, if my hymn and the sound of my viol be acceptable to thee,
be not offended at the guerdon I venture to implore: bestow on me, O
peerless Lady! one of the many tapers that burn at thy sacred feet.”
His prayer is heard. The candle descends in the presence of five hundred
persons and rests upon his viol. Friar Gerard, the sacristan, accuses
him of using incantations, and, seizing the candle irefully, restores it
to its place, taking good care to fasten it firmly down. Pierre
continues to play. The candle descends anew. The good brother,
suspecting him of magic, is more vexed than before and replaces the
candle. The enraptured minstrel—
“_En vièlant soupire et pleure,
La bouche chante et li cuers pleure_”
—sighing and weeping, singing with his lips and weeping in
heart—continues sweetly to praise the Mother of God. The candle descends
the third time.
“_Rafaict le cierge le tiers saut._”
The crowd, in its transport, cries: “Ring, ring the bells,
_Plus biax miracle n’avint jamais_
—greater miracle was never seen.” The minstrel, with streaming eyes,
returns the candle to her who has so miraculously rewarded his devotion,
and continues during the remainder of his life not only to sing the
praises of Our Lady of Roc Amadour, but to offer her every year a candle
still larger than the one she so graciously bestowed on him.
The moral of this old poem dwells on the obligation of honoring God, not
merely with the lips, but with a sincere heart:
“Assez braient, et assez crient,
Et leurs gorges assez estendent,
Mais les cordes pas bien ne tendent.
————
La bouche à Dieu ment et discorde
S’a li li cuers ne se concorde”
—that is, many bray, and scream, and distend their throats, but their
heart-strings are not rightly attuned.... The mouth lies to God, and
makes a discord, if the heart be not in harmony therewith.
Of the many miraculous chapels of the Virgin, consecrated by the
devotion of centuries, that of Roc Amadour is certainly one of the
oldest and most celebrated. Pope Pius II., in a bull of 1463,
unhesitatingly declares “it dates from the earliest ages of our holy
mother the church.” And Cardinal Baronius speaks of it as one of the
oldest in France. The original chapel, however, built by St. Amadour
himself in honor of his beloved Lady and Mistress, is no longer
standing. That was destroyed several centuries ago by a portion of the
impending cliff that had given way, but another was erected on the same
spot in 1479 by Denys de Bar, bishop and lord of Tulle, whose arms are
still to be seen over the door. This chapel was devastated in 1562 by
the Huguenots, who swept over the country, destroying all that was most
sacred in the eyes of Catholics. They gave not only a fatal blow to the
prosperity of the town of Roc Amadour, but pillaged all the sanctuaries,
carrying off the valuable reliquaries, the tapestry, the sacred vessels
and vestments, the fourteen silver lamps that burned before the Virgin,
the necklaces and earrings, and the pearls and diamonds, given by kings,
princes, and people of all ranks in token of some grace received. Their
booty amounted in value to fifteen thousand livres—an enormous sum at
that period. They only left behind an old monstrance, a few battered
reliquaries, and a processional cross of the twelfth century, carved out
of wood and ornamented with silver, still to be seen. They mutilated the
statues, burned the wood-carvings, and of course destroyed the bells,
which was one of their favorite amusements. The roofless walls were left
standing, however, and the venerated statue of Our Lady was saved, as
well as the sacrificial stone consecrated by St. Martial, and the
miraculous bell that rang without human hands whenever some far-off
mariner, in peril on the high seas, was succored by Notre Dame de Roc
Amadour.
The chapel has never fully recovered from this devastation. It was
repaired by the canons, but their diminished means did not allow them to
restore it to its former splendor. Not that it was ever of vast extent.
On the contrary, it is small, and the sanctuary occupies full one-half
of it. It is now severe in aspect. The wall at one end, as well as part
of the arch, is nothing but the unhewn cliff. The mouldings of the
doorways, some of the capitals, and the tracery of the low, flamboyant
windows are of good workmanship, but more or less defaced by the
fanatics of the sixteenth century and the revolutionists of the
eighteenth, who could meet on the common ground of hatred of the church.
Suspended beneath the lantern that rises in the middle of the chapel is
the celebrated miraculous bell, said to be the very one used by St.
Amadour to call the neighboring people to prayer. It is undoubtedly of
great antiquity. It is of wrought iron, rudely shaped into the form of a
dish about three feet deep and a foot in diameter.
The Père Odo de Gissey, of the Society of Jesus, in his history of Roc
Amadour published in 1631, devotes several chapters to this
_merveilleuse cloche_, in which he testifies that “though it has no
bell-rope, it sometimes rings without being touched or jarred, as
frequently happens when people on the ocean, in danger from a tempest,
invoke the assistance of Our Lady of Roc Amadour, the star of the sea.
Some persons,” he goes on to say, “may find it difficult to believe
this; but if they could see and read what I have the six or seven times
my devotion has led me to Roc Amadour, they would change their opinion
and admire the power manifested by the Mother of God.” The first miracle
he relates is of the fourteenth century, but when he came to Roc Amadour
the archives had been destroyed by the Calvinists, and he could only
glean a few facts here and there from papers they had overlooked. Most
of the cases he relates had been attested before a magistrate with
solemn oath. We will briefly relate a few of them.
On the 10th of February, 1385, about ten o’clock in the evening, the
miraculous bell was heard by a great number of persons, who testified
that it rang without the slightest assistance. Three days after it rang
again while the chaplain was celebrating Mass at Our Lady’s altar, as
was solemnly sworn to by several priests and laymen before an apostolic
notary. One instance the père found written on the margin of an old
missal, to the effect that March 5, 1454, the bell rang in an
astonishing manner to announce the rescue of some one who had invoked
Mary on the stormy sea. Not long after those who had been thus saved
from imminent danger came here from a Spanish port to attest their
miraculous deliverance.
In 1551 the bell was heard ringing, but the positive cause long remained
uncertain. It was not till a year after a person came from Nantes to
fulfil the vow of a friend rescued from danger by Our Lady of Roc
Amadour at the very time the bell rang.
The sailors of Bayonne and Brittany, especially, had great confidence in
the protection of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour, and many instances are
recorded of their coming with their votive offerings, sometimes of salt
fish, after escaping from the perilous waves. The sailors of Brittany
erected a chapel on their coast, to which they gave her name. It is of
the same style as that of Quercy, and the Madonna an exact copy of St.
Mary of Roc Amadour.
In those days, when the miraculous bell was heard the inhabitants of the
town used to come in procession to the chapel, and a solemn Mass of
thanksgiving was sung by the canons amid the joyful ringing of the
bells.
“The tuneful bells kept ever ringing
While they within were sweetly singing
Of Her whose garments drop alway
Myrrh, aloes, and sweet cassia.”
St. Amadour’s bell has not ceased to proclaim the power of Christ’s holy
Mother. It is still heard now and then softly announcing the benefit of
having recourse to her efficacious protection.
To many this may sound weird-like, and recall
“The wondrous Michael Scott,
A wizard of such dreaded fame
That when, in Salamanca’s cave,
Him listed his magic wand to wave,
The bells would ring in Notre Dame.”
We leave such to fathom the mystery. Our part is only that of the
historian. Blessed is he who finds therein something more than sounding
brass or tinkling cymbal!
The holy chapel is no longer adorned with the rich offerings of other
times, but there are still many objects that attest the piety of the
people and the clemency of Mary. On the rough cliff that forms one end
hang a great number of crutches and canes, and models of limbs, in token
of miraculous cures. A glass case suspended on the side wall contains
watches, rings, bracelets, gold chains, lockets, etc., the memorials of
grateful piety. At the side of the altar stand immense Limoges vases, an
offering from that city. And around the chapel are hung several votive
paintings, of no value as works of art, but full of touching beauty to
the eye of faith.
The most interesting of these is one offered by M. and Mme. de Salignac
de Lamothe Fénelon in gratitude for the restoration of their child to
health. The little Fénelon lies with a head of preternatural size in a
long box-like cradle with no rockers. Beside him kneel his father and
mother, the former with a long curled wig, a flowing scarlet robe, over
which is turned a Shaksperian collar, lace at the wrists, his hands
crossed on his breast, and his face bent as if in awe before the Virgin.
Mme. Fénelon wears an amber-colored tunic over a scarlet petticoat, with
deep lace around the low-necked waist. Her hands are prayerfully folded
and her face raised to the Virgin, who appears in the clouds holding in
her arms the infant Jesus, who bends forward with one hand extended in
blessing over the cradle—almost ready to escape from his Mother’s arms.
Madame Fénelon always manifested a particular devotion to Notre Dame de
Roc Amadour, and by her will of July 4, 1691, ordered her body to be
buried in the holy chapel, to which she bequeathed the sum of three
thousand livres, the rent of which continued to be paid till the
Revolution. She is buried near the door that leads to the church of
Saint-Sauveur.
The Château de Salignac, where Fénelon was born, and which had been in
his family from time immemorial, is not far from Roc Amadour. Old
documents go so far as to assert that St. Martial, when he came to
Aquitaine to preach the Gospel in the first century, was hospitably
received at this castle, and that St. Amadour, hearing of his arrival,
went there to see him.
Beyond the miraculous chapel of Our Lady is the church of Saint-Sauveur,
built in the eleventh century for the use of the canons. It is a large
edifice of a certain grandeur and severity of style in harmony with the
cliff which forms one end. Two immense pillars stand in the middle of
the nave, each surrounded by six columns, and between them is a large
antique crucifix quite worn by the kisses of the faithful who come here
to end their pilgrimage at the feet of Christ Crucified.
This church presents a striking aspect on great solemnities, with its
crowded confessionals, the Holy Sacrifice constantly going on at the
different altars amid solemn chants or touching hymns, and the long
lines of communicants moving devoutly to and from the table of the Lord.
Over all is the divine Form of Christ depicted on the arches in the
various mysteries of his earthly life, filling the church, as it were,
with his Presence. On the walls are the majestic figures of some of the
greatest pilgrims of the ages of faith. To mention a few of them: St.
Louis, King of France, came here in 1245 in fulfilment of a vow, after
recovering from a severe illness, accompanied by Queen Blanche, his
three brothers, and Alphonse, Count of Boulogne-sur-Mer, afterwards King
of Portugal. In 1324 came Charles-le-Bel and his queen, with King John
of Bohemia. In September, 1344, came John, Duke of Normandy, eldest son
of Philippe de Valois. In 1463 Louis XI., on his return from Béarn, paid
his devotions to Notre Dame de Roc Amadour on the 21st of July. St.
Englebert, Archbishop of Cologne, of illustrious birth, had such a
tender love for the Blessed Virgin that for many years he fasted every
Wednesday in her honor, and twice during his episcopate he visited her
chapel at Roc Amadour. Simon, Count de Montfort, came here in 1211 with
his German troops, who wished to pay their homage to the Mother of God
before returning to their own country.
To come down to recent times: It was at the feet of the Virgin of Roc
Amadour that M. Borie made his final choice of a missionary life that
won for him the glorious crown of martyrdom in Farther India at the age
of thirty.
The mill where M. Borie was born stands solitary on the border of a
stream, surrounded by chestnut-trees, in a deep, narrow, gloomy valley
of La Corrèze, near Roc Amadour—a humble abode, but the sanctuary of
peace, industry, and piety. When the news of his martyrdom came to this
sequestered spot, his heroic mother was filled with joy, in spite of her
anguish, and his youngest brother cried: “I am going! God calls me to
the land where my brother died. Mother, give me your blessing. I am
going to open heaven to my brother’s murderers!” He went; and we
remember hearing a holy Jesuit Father relate how, like the knights of
the olden time, he made his vigil before the altar of Our Lady of Roc
Amadour the night before he joined the sacred militia of the great
Loyola.
Beneath the church of Saint-Sauveur is the subterranean church of St.
Amadour, with low, ponderous arches and massive columns to sustain the
large edifice above. You go down into it as into a cellar. At each side
as you enter are elaborate carvings in the wood, one representing
Zaccheus in the sycamore-tree, eager to behold our Saviour as he passed;
the other shows him standing in the door of his house to welcome the
divine Guest. On the arches is painted the whole legend of St. Amadour.
Then there is Roland before the altar of the Virgin redeeming his sword
with its weight in silver, and beyond is a band of knights bringing it
back from the fatal battle-field. In another place you see St. Martial
of Limoges and St. Saturnin of Toulouse, coming together to visit St.
Amadour in his cave. And yonder is St. Dominic, who, with Bertrand de
Garrigue, one of his earliest disciples, passed the night in prayer
before the altar of Our Lady in the year 1219.
All that remains of the body of St. Amadour is enshrined in this church
behind the high altar.
A service for the dead was going on when we entered this crypt, with
only the priest and the beadle to sing it. Black candlesticks stood on
the altar, and yellow wax-lights around the bier. The church was full of
peasants with grave, devout faces and lighted candles in their hands.
The funeral chant, the black pall, the motionless peasants with their
lights, and this chill, tomb-like church of the eleventh century, all
seemed in harmony.
The pilgrim, of course, visits the chapel of St. Ann overhanging the
town, and that of St. Blaise, with its Roman arches of the thirteenth
century, built to receive the relics, brought by the Crusaders from the
East, of a holy solitary who lived many years in a cave of the
wilderness, the wild beasts around as submissive to him as to Adam in
Paradise.
The chapel of St. John the Baptist was founded in 1516 by a powerful
lord named Jean de Valon, who became a Knight of St. John of Jerusalem.
Out of piety towards Our Lady of Roc Amadour, he built this chapel,
authorized by the pope, as the burial-place of himself and his family,
and bequeathed the sum of five hundred livres to the prebends, as the
foundation for a Mass of requiem every Monday, and the Mass of Our Lady
every Saturday, for the remission of his sins and those of his friends
and benefactors.
The family of Valon, which still exists, has always shown a remarkable
devotion to Notre Dame de Roc Amadour. We read of a Dame de Valon whose
pilgrimage to this chapel in the twelfth century was marked by a
miracle. This family owned considerable property in the neighborhood,
and had a right to part of the revenues from the sale of the
_sportulas_, or _sportellas_, which were medals of lead bearing the
image of Our Lady on one side and of St. Amadour on the other. Sir
Walter Scott, in his _Quentin Durward_, deridingly depicts Louis XI.
with a number of leaden medals of like character in his hat. The pilgrim
who wore one needed no other safe-conduct in ancient times. His person
was so sacred he could even pass in safety through the enemy’s camp. In
1399, during the war between the French and English, the sanctuary of
Roc Amadour was frequented by both parties, and both camps regarded the
pilgrim hither with so much respect that if taken prisoner he was set
free as soon as his quality was discovered. Three of these old
almond-shaped _sportellas_ are still to be seen in the Hôtel de Cluny at
Paris.
The ancient standard of Our Lady of Roc Amadour was held in great
veneration. It was not only carried in religious processions, but
sometimes to the field of battle. Alberic, a monk of Trois Fonts,
relates that the Virgin appeared three Saturdays in succession to the
sacristan of Roc Amadour, and ordered her standard to be carried to
Spain, then engaged in a critical contest with the Moors. The prior, in
consequence, set forth with the sacred banner and arrived at the plain
of Las Navas on the 16th of July, 1212. The Christians had refused to
give battle the day previous, because it was the Lord’s day, but the
fight began early Monday morning. The Templars and Knights of Calatrava
had been put to flight and the army partly routed. At the last moment,
when all hope seemed lost, the prior of Roc Amadour unfurled the banner
of the Virgin. At the sight of the holy image of Mary with the divine
Babe every knee bent in reverence, fresh courage was infused into every
breast, the army rallied, and the fight was renewed to such purpose that
they smote the infidel hip and thigh. Sixty thousand of the enemy were
slain and a greater number taken captive. The archbishops of Toledo and
Narbonne, the bishop of Valencia, with many other prelates and a great
number of priests, sang the _Te Deum_ on the field of battle. The King
of Castile, Alfonso IX., had always shown a special devotion towards Our
Lady of Roc Amadour. In 1181 he consecrated to her service the lands of
Fornellos and Orbanella, in order, as he says in the charter, to solace
the souls of his parents and secure his own salvation. And, by way of
intimidating the lawless freebooter of those rough times, he severely
adds: “And should any one trespass in the least on this gift or violate
my intentions, let him incur the full wrath of God, and, like the
traitor Judas, be delivered over to the torments of hell as the slave of
the devil. Meanwhile, let him pay into the royal treasury the sum of one
thousand livres of pure gold, and restore twofold to the abbot of Roc
Amadour.”
This gift was afterwards confirmed by Ferdinand III., Ferdinand IV., and
Alfonso XI.
King Alfonso was not the only royal benefactor of the miraculous chapel.
Sancho VII., King of Navarre, for the weal of his soul and the souls of
his parents, gave in 1202 certain rents amounting to forty-eight pieces
of gold, to be employed in illuminating the church of St. Mary of Roc
Amadour. A candle was to burn night and day before the blessed image on
Christmas, Epiphany, Candlemas, Whitsunday, Trinity Sunday, the
Assumption, and All Saints’ day. And twenty-four candles, each weighing
half a pound, were to be placed on the altar on those days. The
remainder of the money was to be used for the incense.
Sancia, wife of Gaston V. of Béarn, and daughter of the King of Navarre,
sent the chapel of Roc Amadour a rich piece of tapestry wrought by her
own royal hands.
Count Odo de la Marche in 1119, during the reign of Louis-le-Gros,
offered the forest of Mount Salvy to God, the Blessed Mary of Roc
Amadour, and St. Martin of Tulle, free from all tax or impost, adding:
“And should any one presume to alienate this gift, let him incur the
anger of God and the saints, and remain for ever accursed with Dathan
and Abiram.”
In 1217 Erard de Brienne, lord of Rameru, allied by blood to the royal
families of Europe, and Philippine, his wife, daughter of Henry, Count
of Troyes and King of Jerusalem, made an offering of two candles to burn
night and day before the image of Notre Dame de Roc Amadour for the
redemption of their souls and the souls of their parents.
Alfonso, Count of Toulouse, brother of St. Louis, presented a silver
lamp to burn before the statue of Our Lady, and another was given by the
Countess de Montpensier, a French princess.
Letters are still extant by which Philip III., King of France, in 1276,
ratified the foundation of his uncle Alfonso, Count of Toulouse,
amounting to twenty livres of Touraine money, to be paid, one-half at
the Ascension and the other at All Saints, to keep a candle constantly
burning before the Virgin of Roc Amadour.
Pope Clement V. bequeathed a legacy to this church in 1314 that a wax
candle might burn continually in Our Lady’s chapel, in her honor and to
obtain the redemption of his soul. It was to be honorably placed in a
silver basin or sconce.
Savaric, Prince de Mauléon and lord of Tulle, celebrated for his
familiarity with military science and the elegance of his poesy, among
other gifts in 1218 gave the lands of L’Isleau, exempt from all tax, to
the church of St. Mary of Roc Amadour.
Louis of Anjou, afterwards King of Sicily, in 1365 ordered twenty livres
to be given annually to this church from his domain of Rouergue, out of
the love he bore the holy Virgin.
The Vicomte de Turenne, in 1396, assigned a silver mark annually from
one of his _seigneuries_ as a contribution to the support of the
miraculous chapel.
On the 22d of June, 1444, the noble and puissant lord, Pierre, Count of
Beaufort, moved by his devotion towards Jesus Christ, the Redeemer of
the world, and to Mary, his glorious Mother, and desirous of procuring
his own salvation and the solace of the suffering souls in purgatory,
assigned to the monastery of Roc Amadour the sum of ten livres annually
from the ferry over the Dordogne at Mount Valent, that a solemn Mass
might be sung every Thursday, at least in plain chant, with three
collects, one in honor of the Holy Ghost, another of the Blessed Virgin,
and the third for the repose of the faithful departed. After Mass the
priest, laying aside his chasuble, was to go daily, with all the clergy
of the chapel, to sing before the statue of Our Lady either the _Salve
Regina_ or the _Regina Cœli_, according to the season, with the _Libera_
or the _De Profundis_, for the repose of his and his wife’s souls and
the souls of his parents.
We could multiply these beautiful examples of devotion to the Blessed
Virgin, but forbear, though it is not useless to recount the deeds of
our forefathers in the faith. They have their lesson for those who know
how to read aright.
Among the glorious prerogatives with which the chapel of Notre Dame de
Roc Amadour is favored is the Grand Pardon, accorded by several popes of
the middle ages, on the feast of _Corpus Christi_ whenever it coincides
with the nativity of St. John the Baptist. This frequently happened
before the correction of the Calendar by Gregory XIII., but it now only
occurs when Easter falls on St. Mark’s day—that is, the 25th of April.
The Grand Pardon comprises all the privileges of a solemn jubilee, and
is gained by all who visit the miraculous chapel on the appointed day,
receive the sacraments with the proper dispositions, pray for concord
among Christian princes, the extirpation of heresy, and the exaltation
of our holy mother the church. So great was formerly the affluence of
the pilgrims on such occasions, as in the jubilee of 1546, the town
could not contain them, and tents were set up in the country round.
Pilgrimages to this ancient chapel are still common.
A remnant of the old palace of the abbot of Roc Amadour is still
standing, but is used for the sale of objects of devotion. Here Arnaud
Amalric, the papal legate, spent the whole winter of 1211, and many
other eminent prelates received hospitality, as the holy martyr St.
Englebert, Archbishop of Cologne. Behind this building a narrow,
dangerous path leads along the side of the cliff to an ancient hermitage
that now bears the title of _Maison à Marie_, where people desirous of
spending a few days in retreat can find an asylum. It hangs like a
bird’s nest on the edge of a fearful precipice, and must be a trying
residence to people of weak nerves. The Sisters of Calvary, who have
charge of it, look like doves in the clefts of the rocks. Still further
along the cliff is their convent.
A winding stair of two hundred and thirty-six steps, hewn out of the
live rock, and lighted only by the fissures, leads from the sacristy of
the church up to the ancient castle, and a scarcely less remarkable
ascent has been constructed zigzag over the cliff. This castle, half
ruined, was bought by the Père Caillau about forty years ago, and
repaired as a residence for the clergy who served the sanctuaries of Roc
Amadour under his direction. The old ramparts remain, affording a fine
view of the whole country around. Bending over them, you look straight
down on the group of churches below, and the village still further down,
while in the very depths of the horrid abyss is a faint line marking the
course of the Alzou along the bottom of the _Vallée Ténébreuse_.
A few years ago the ruined castle and crumbling churches below looked as
if they belonged to the time of King Dagobert, but they have lost in a
measure their air of charming antiquity in the necessary restorations,
by no means complete. Nothing, however, can destroy the singular
grandeur and wild beauty of the site, or the thousand delightful
associations—historic, religious, poetic, and legendary—connected with
the place.
We close this imperfect sketch by echoing the sentiments that animated
the saintly Père Caillau when he entered upon his duties as superior of
Roc Amadour: “With what joy I ascended the mysterious stairs that lead,
O Mary, to thy august sanctuary! With what fervor I celebrated the holy
mysteries at thy altar! With what love and respect I kissed the sacred
feet of thy statue! With what impatience I awaited the hour for
returning! Happy the moments passed at thy feet! The world seemed as
nothing in my eyes. What devotion, what profound silence there was in my
soul! What sweet transports of joy! My heart seemed consumed by a sacred
fire. Why, why were such moments so short? May their remembrance, at
least, abide for ever! And may I never cease to chant thy praise and
exalt thy wondrous mercy!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A SILENT COURTSHIP.
Italian hotels of the old kind are a very pleasant remembrance to
travellers from the north; they have the romance and the forlorn beauty
which one expects to see, and few of the obtrusively modern arrangements
called comforts. The new hotels that have arisen since the age of
progress are very different, and not nearly so pleasant, even to the
traveller with the most moderate expectations of the picturesque. The
less-frequented towns inland have kept the old style of hostelry, as
travel does not increase enough in their neighborhood to warrant the
building of new-fashioned hotels; and though the palace floors and walls
may be cold and look cheerless on a damp winter day, there are a hundred
chances to one that no foreigner will be there to note down such an
experience.
But Macchio, in the Umbrian Marches, once had a hotel more singular than
almost any other. It had no name, such as even the most unmistakable
palazzo generally puts on to show its present destination; it was called
after the name of the old family whose stronghold it had once been; and
as of this stronghold only one part was whole, the hotel was called
“Torre Carpeggio.” It consisted, indeed, of a tower—that is, only the
tower was whole, furnished, and usable; among some ruins of the rest of
the building were a rude kitchen and stables, patched up with modern
masonry not half so solid as the original, and some servants slept in
the lofts above these apologies for “offices,” but the remarkable tower
only was in good repair. The owner, a native of the place, and whose
family had been for generations in the service of the Carpeggios, was an
unsophisticated countryman of the old school, not at all like the
exasperating landlord of city hotels, who has just begun to wake up to
the dignity of his position and to experiment in his behavior towards
his foreign guests. He was the real owner, having paid good money down
for the castle; but he still called the last Carpeggio his young master,
and loved him like his own son. This youth, like some of his remoter
forefathers, was fond of learning, and, seeing no other means of
securing an education and a start in life that should make something
better out of him than a starveling noble of the Marches, had sold his
inheritance to his old retainer, keeping back only one-third of the
vintage produce as a small yearly income to fall back upon, and had gone
to a German university, where even the most exacting of the professors
considered him a modern Pico della Mirandola. The selling of his old
ruined castle had brought down upon him the anger and contempt of
neighbors of his own class, but he was indifferent to local opinion and
despised the disguised meanness of too many of his neighbors. He had in
reality passed through a severe struggle with his own prejudices before
yielding to his better sense and parting with the shadow to pursue the
substance.
If learning should ever bring him money, he meant to reclaim the old
place, which in the meanwhile could not be in safer hands; but on this
he did not reckon, and while he looked down on the sordid poverty that
only prompted his neighbors to sell butter and milk, and take toll from
visitors coming to see the faded frescos or old armor in their ruinous
dwellings, he saw with very different eyes the probable future of
another kind of poverty before him: the pittance and privations of a
student’s lot, the obscure life of a professor or the uncertain one of a
discoverer; but withal the glorious counterweight of intellectual life,
the wealth of vigor and progress, and stimulated, restless thought,
doubling and trebling his interests, and making akin to himself all the
mental processes or achievements all over the world, which would come of
a few years’ study and the sacrifice of his home. Far more patriotic and
far more proud was this youth who sold his inheritance than the
indignant vegetators around him, who all felt the honor of their order
insulted by his unheard-of deed, and their country deprived of another
son unworthy of her because he could see in Germany something more than
a barbarous, hereditary tyrant and enemy!
So it came about that the good Salviani kept a hotel in Carpeggio tower,
the walls of which had always been kept in good repair, and which was
easily furnished, at no great expense, from the contents of various
lumber-rooms and a little intelligent help from the local carpenter,
who, like most Italians, had an intuitive understanding of the artistic.
Tourists who had stopped here for a night or two; artists who had
established their sketching headquarters here; Italians of some fortune
who passed here on their way to their inland _villeggiature_; anglers
and peddlers, friars, and even commercial travellers of various nations
who had begun to experiment on the rural population hereabouts; pilgrims
to the two neighboring shrines hardly known beyond twenty miles around,
and yet the boast of the neighborhood for nearly four hundred years;
wine merchants from the next cities—these and many more could witness to
the satisfactory way in which Salviani kept the only hotel in Macchio.
And of course his prices were moderate—indeed, to a foreigner they
seemed absolutely ridiculous; and he always made it a point to give an
Englishman or an American plenty of water, having found that by
experience a salve to the fault-finding spirit, and his young master
having also accustomed his old attendant to it by requiring it himself
ever since his boyhood. Foreigners with a “turn” for antique furniture
spent more time roaming the old chambers than they did eating at the
landlord’s excellent, if strictly national, table (for Salviani, knowing
that he was ignorant of foreign dishes, never attempted to drive away
his guests by bad imitations). The tower was very high and uncommonly
large in proportion; in fact, it reminded you rather of two Cecilia
Metella tombs raised one above the other than of an ordinary tower; and
it was oddly distributed within. A staircase wound in the centre of the
building, communicating with the rooms on each tier by a circular
corridor on which the doors opened; but from the third floor this
staircase ceased, and from that to the fourth there was no access except
from a winding stair within the thickness of the outer wall. The great
stairs were of stone and uncarpeted, and in the corridor on which the
doors of the rooms opened were placed at intervals pieces of furniture,
such as chairs, tables, stands, bronzes, vases, marble cornices, things
picturesque, but not always available for use, and many sadly injured
and mutilated, yet forming such a collection as sent a thrill of envy to
the heart of a few stray connoisseurs who had come across it and never
been able to bring away even a specimen. Old Salviani had his
superstitions, but, unlike his countrymen in general, he felt that these
forbade him to sell anything belonging to the old family seat,
especially to a foreigner.
One day two travellers stopped at the hotel, a mother and
daughter—“English, of course,” said the landlord with a smile, as he saw
their costume and independent air. The daughter was, equally of course,
in evident and irrepressible raptures about everything she saw in the
place, from the ruinous outhouses to the museum-like interior. Their own
rooms on the first floor, large, marble-paved, and scantily but
artistically furnished with the best preserved of the antique things,
satisfied them only for a short time; they wanted to be shown over the
whole house. The bedrooms were not quite in such good taste, they
thought; and indeed, as Salviani was not perfect, here the “cloven foot”
_did_ appear, for a peddler had once beguiled him into buying some
Nottingham lace curtains with which he disfigured one of the third-story
rooms, and some cheap chintzes which he had made into curtains for some
of the patched-up bedsteads. But as the two strangers went up through
each corridor, looking down at the tier below and at the various
beautiful things beside them, they forgot these blemishes in their
delight at a sight so unusual as this large, inhabited, well-preserved
tower. They had seen nothing like it and could never have imagined it.
It had an air of dignity, of grandeur, of repose, and yet of connection
with the present to which one is more accustomed in old English
country-houses than in Italian palaces.
One of the rooms on the fourth tier was almost unfurnished, having only
two dilapidated bedsteads, one very large and promiscuously heaped with
bed-quilts of equal dilapidation, while the other, in the form of a cot,
or child’s bed, was also much larger than such beds are made now. On
this was thrown an old-fashioned but almost new black mantle trimmed
with silk ribbon. This was the room afflicted with the Nottingham lace
curtains, which were cleaner than seemed natural in such a room. The
view hence was beautiful, and the young Englishwoman was moved to
suggest that they should change their plans a little and stay here a few
weeks, when she would endeavor to learn the language and would make a
study of this tower-nest with the fine view. It would be so out of the
way, and a few antique chairs and a table would be enough furniture to
replace the beds, which could be put into the next room. The mother
smiled; she was used to these sudden schemes growing up full-fledged out
of any pleasant and suggestive-looking circumstances, but the landlord,
seriously entering into the proposal, said he feared the other room was
too small to hold the beds—certainly the big one, which could not be got
through the door, and, in fact, did not take to pieces. This set the
young girl to examining the bed, and suddenly she called her companions
to notice a panel in the tall head-board, which reached nearly to the
ceiling. It seemed movable, she said, and might she not try to find the
spring? Did the signor know anything about it? Salviani turned rather
pale and hastily crossed himself, muttering something in Italian; then,
in bad French, attempted to explain to his guest that there was a story
of a former Carpeggio who was said to have lived alone on this top story
and to have been a wizard, but how long ago he could not tell, nor if
the bed had been there then. The young girl insisted on getting to the
bottom of the secret of the panel, which at last yielded, and revealed a
space between itself and another room of which only a corner was
visible, and a very small grated window high up in the wall. She
scrambled through the panel opening, out into a lot of rubbish which
filled the intervening space and covered the sloping floor several
inches deep. The door into the other room was gone, or else there had
never been one, and there were large hooks on either side of the gap, as
if curtains might once have hung there. The floor was sunk much lower
than this level—quite three feet—giving one the impression of a shallow
well, so that there must have once been some movable way of descent. An
old press or chest, with two drawers at the bottom, filled one corner,
and on it was a faded piece of green silk, looking unmistakably part of
a woman’s dress, and a beautiful, delicate ivory desk lying open, with
many thin plates folding together like the leaves of a portfolio. The
curious girl handled it with a sort of dread, yet eagerly and closely
inspected it, leaving it afterwards in just the position in which she
had found it. As she turned from it she gave a cry of surprise; a chair
stood in the corner, half hidden by the press, and across the back of it
hung a long lock of hair, brown and silky, now fluttering in the
unaccustomed draught from the open panel. Suddenly the intruder was
aware that the walls were covered with books but they were hidden behind
a close, thin green wire netting, which had at first looked like the
pattern of the wall. She eagerly called for a chair to stand on to
examine them; the landlord handed her one through the door, and then for
the first time, fascinated yet afraid, gazed into the room. Many were
the voluble and simple exclamations he uttered; but he was evidently
more concerned as to the risk of touching such uncanny things than
pleased at the discovery of the energetic stranger. Meanwhile, she
looked at the books, which filled up two sides of the room from floor to
ceiling—they were a treasure, as she knew: old Italian and German books
on theological and philosophical subjects; translations into Italian of
some Elizabethan authors—these, perhaps, unique of their kind, and rarer
than originals in either English or Italian; Italian translations of
more modern English books; poetry, science, illuminated manuscripts,
first editions of sixteenth-century printed books—the Italian ones, even
those in black-letter, perfectly clear and legible to a tyro, while a
few English books of a century later were not half so decipherable; a
good many Greek and Latin books, but not so many as of the Italian and
German; and a few Oriental manuscripts, chiefly Hebrew, Arabic, and
Syriac. In two places on the wall, which showed traces of a rough kind
of painting as a background, were hung unframed Chinese landscapes on
wood, and in other parts of the room old engravings, some plainly
framed, some not, but pasted on to boards, and one or two unfinished
etchings. The most interesting purported to be a head of St. Peter—not a
conventional one, but a copy from some old painting, itself copied from
a Byzantine fresco, and claiming to be—so said the quotation at the foot
of the etching—a portrait of the apostle as he really was. The pedigree
of the portrait, however, was the really interesting point, and this was
minutely traced in the foot-note, added by one signing himself Andrea
C., to the unfinished etching of the artist, who, it seems, had died
while engaged on this work.
And here ends the part the strangers took in the affair; for they
continued their journey to Ancona, and often in after-years, in their
quiet English home between lake and rocky fell, wondered what became of
the books of Torre Carpeggio. But the faithful Salviani had written to
his young master at once, and Carpeggio returned a joyous answer, full
of excitement and curiosity, promising a visit as soon as his means and
his studies combined would allow of it. It was a year before he was able
to come—a year during which he had changed and ripened, but which had
left the old tower, and, indeed, the sleepy, beautiful old city, as
unchanged as anything can be where human beings are being born, married,
and buried in due season. Even this inevitable change, however, was
neutralized by the firmly-grooved life which, as each generation grew
up, it placidly inherited from the last and religiously carried out,
undreaming of any other possibilities and ignorant even of its own
dormant energies. This was before the commotions of the last twenty
years, and there was not even a political ferment, much less an
intellectual one, to disturb the even flow of things. One or two of the
cathedral clergy had the reputation of being great scholars, and,
indeed, had the right to be so looked upon, if by scholarship we
understand the kind of knowledge which made the men of the Medici days
fully the equals of the Oxford dons of only one generation ago; but that
sort of scholarship harmonized well with the air of serene drowsiness
that covered the picturesque and half-deserted old city. The old canons
kept much to themselves, and studied in a dainty, desultory, solitary
way, not extending the daintiness to dress or furniture, but keeping up
an unconscious kind of picturesqueness which they chiefly owed to such
details as velvet skull-caps and bits of stray carving, or an old and
precious ivory crucifix or Cellini relic-case—things prized by them for
their meaning rather than for their art-value.
To this quaint, quiet city Emilio Carpeggio came back, after a two
years’ absence, a youth still—for he was only twenty—but a phenomenon,
if any one had known what was passing in his brain. He found the state
of things more deplorable than ever, now that he had had experience of a
different lot; he had thought it hopeless enough before. Practical and
far-seeing, he did not find a panacea in reckless political
disturbances, and in impossible strivings to make citizens and statesmen
out of his easy-going neighbors, so he was saved the loss of time that
clogged the efforts of so many well-meaning men of his acquaintance
abroad; individual mental activity was what he looked forward to as the
thin edge of the wedge that should break up this spell of what he could
not help looking upon as lamentable stagnation, however beautiful the
disguise it wore.
His three months’ holiday came to an end, and he disappeared again,
carrying off his treasures with him to Germany, where they became the
wonder and envy of the professors. But such luck, after all, was only
due, said the kindly old men, to one who had done so much to win
knowledge.
There was one of these men, not nearly so old as the rest, the special
teacher to whom Carpeggio had attached himself, who was the young man’s
best friend. To him only the dreams and hopes and resolves of this
concentrated young mind were made freely known; for, though young as
regards most of the professors, Schlichter was like a father to the
Italian student. He was only forty-two, and already had a European
reputation in his own line—mining engineering. A year after Carpeggio
came back from his visit to Italy his master received an invitation from
a scientific society in England to give a course of lectures in London
during the summer. He proposed to the young man to accompany him,
telling him that there was no knowing what practical advantages might
result from his visit to a country where you needed only energy to grasp
success.
“But you forget the Mammon-worship of the English,” said Emilio, “of
which you yourself have so scornfully told me, and that obscure young
foreigners without interest are not likely to have a chance of showing
off their energy. I think I had better stay and study here another year
or two, instead of deliberately exposing myself to the vertigo of
London.”
“Nonsense!” said Schlichter impatiently. “Society is not likely to
dazzle us, or, indeed, take much notice of us; they know how to keep the
streams separate, even if the fine ladies do play at a little pretty
enthusiasm for science now and then. A lecture nowadays is only another
excuse for a pretty toilette, a change from the breakfast and morning
concert or the afternoon kettle-drum; but that does not imply a real,
personal notice of the lecturer, or, indeed, of any other working-bee.
But, seriously, I know some men in London who might help you, if they
had a mind to do it. You know how many surveys and plans there
are—always some new expedition to far-away places—and young men of
brains are always useful, especially single men, who can leave home
without regret or difficulty. You speak English and other useful modern
languages, and you have every chance, I tell you, if you will only keep
your eyes open. As for study, a man need never say he can find no time
for it, however busy he is. If my evil genius had made me a merchant, I
should have found time for study, and so will you, just as well as if
you stayed at home. It is settled, is it not?”
So they went, and the lectures were given, and the little world of
learned men which is the leaven of England met the two strangers
heartily; but, as Schlichter had foretold, nothing very remarkable or
very dazzling occurred to them, though, to be sure, the elder man kept a
jealous eye on his young friend, as if he had fears or expectations of
something happening. But Emilio calmly came and went, studied and saw
sights, went to quiet family gatherings or to large parties which the
uninitiated could not have distinguished from those of the charmed
uppermost circle, and yet no one of the many girls he saw seemed to
dwell in his thoughts more than courtesy required while he was in their
presence. One day Schlichter told him that a friend of his had
recommended him to a mine-owner as general overseer and agent of his
underground property, and that he probably would have nothing to do but
to step into the place. “You would rather have been tacked on at the
tail of some South American expedition or Central African survey, I dare
say,” he said; “but you had better take this and be thankful, Carpeggio.
The country is wild and picturesque, I believe—Monmouthshire, just on
the Welsh border—and you will be pretty much your own master. It only
depends on you to go up higher; but still I would not have you forget
the practical altogether. One must live, even if one does not run after
money for its own sake, which you, at all events, are not likely to do.”
So Emilio was left alone in England, in a responsible if not very
brilliant position, and faithfully did his work so as to gain his
employer’s whole confidence and respect. The local society decidedly
flattered the grave young overseer, whose title had over women the vague
charm it always awakens in romantic or speculating Englishwomen, and was
even not obnoxious to the men, whose practical minds forgave the
“foreign bosh” for the sake of the man’s good English and modest,
hard-working life. He was popular among the miners, and altogether, in
his little sphere, supreme. But parties and picnics sadly wearied him,
and he feared he was growing misanthropic (so he wrote to Schlichter),
when his employer took a new turn and began to court the notice of
guests for one of his newest mines, of which he made a pet and a show.
Whenever he had people to see him he arranged a party for going to see
the mine and its new improvements; it was to be a model, the machinery
was carefully chosen on improved principles—in fact, the place became a
local show. Strangers came, and the country people began to take pride
in it, so that Carpeggio often had to escort fat dowagers, experienced
flirts, fast young men, and statesmen on a short holiday, down the mine.
The contrast between this and his old home among the vineyards of Umbria
often made itself felt with strange vividness as he sat by these people
in the large cage or basket, swinging up or down between the dark, damp,
unfragrant walls of the shaft, he shouting one steady word to the men
who held the ropes, and then quieting the half-sham tremors of a young
lady, or smiling at the equally assumed carelessness of another whose
part in the play was the reverse of the old-fashioned ingénue.[7]
It was the contrast between his old life in Germany, so true and still,
and this English one, so full of froth and shifting scenes, that kept
him from feeling the fascination of his new surroundings. Graver and
graver he grew, as the wonder in his mind grew also, concerning the
effect that all this whirl of unreality must have, in its different
degrees, upon its victims. Were they all willing or passive ones? Did no
one ever rebel against the mould? Did no woman’s heart and woman’s hopes
strive against those worldly calculations which seemed to hedge in every
family, from that of the half-starving village solicitor, and even that
of the hard-working vicar, to that of his employer, and no doubt also of
the squires and the marquis, whose two daughters had just been presented
at court? Report said that one of these was very beautiful; it also
added, wilful. But that probably meant only a spoilt child, not a woman
with an individuality of her own.
One day Emilio was in the mine, making a sketch by the light of a
lantern for an improvement that had just occurred to him, when he heard
a noise not far off, and knew it to be the basket coming down the shaft.
He was putting his papers together to go and see who had come, when he
was met by one of the men smiling covertly, who told him that two young
ladies had insisted on coming down with him as he returned from an
ascent with a load of ore. They were alone, he said, and wore gray
waterproof cloaks and rubber boots, which they said they had put on on
purpose, meaning to go down the mine. He had begged them to wait till he
brought the overseer to do them the honors. “As pretty as pictures,”
said the man as Carpeggio moved off, “but evidently strangers to the
place.” A solution at once darted to the young man’s mind, but he said
nothing, and, when he got to the opening, he saw before him the great,
dirty basket, and two laughing, fresh faces still inside, as the girls
clung with ungloved hands to the ropes and peered out into the darkness
beyond them.
“Allow me,” he said, as he offered one of them his hand. “I am afraid
you will be disappointed in the very little there is to see, but I shall
be happy to show you over the place.” The two girls seemed suddenly
confused and answered only by letting him help them down. He led them
on, and here and there explained something which was Greek to them.
Presently one whispered to the other: “Why, Kate! he is a gentleman.”
“Hush,” said the other in sudden alarm: “he will hear you.” And she
immediately asked a question of their guide. When she found out that
there was a lower level than the one they were on, she asked to go down
at once, but Carpeggio gravely declined, on the plea of their being
alone and his not wishing to take the responsibility if they should get
wet through.
“No one need know,” said one of them. “We ran away on purpose, and there
is just time to go down and get home for tea. Luncheon does not matter.”
“Forgive me, madam,” said the young man with a smile, “but I would
rather not, and you can easily come again, with any one authorized to
let you have your own way. I cannot in conscience allow it while you are
alone.”
“It is no fun coming with a lot of old fogies, and in a carriage, and
one’s best behavior, and so on,” said the spokeswoman; “is it, Kate?”
The other blushed and hesitated, and at last said she thought it was
best to give up the lower level and go home; yet she seemed just as full
of life and fun as her companion, and had evidently enjoyed the escapade
just as much. Carpeggio looked at her for a moment and led the way
towards the basket. He went up with them and courteously bade them
good-by at the mouth of the shaft. The younger one held out her hand and
said: “You will tell us whom we have to thank, I hope?”
“Oh!” he said confusedly, glancing at the other and only seeing the
outstretched hand just in time not to seem rude, “I am only the
overseer.”
The other girl suddenly looked up and held out her hand to him, saying:
“Thank you; I am sure you were right about going further down. And now
we must say good-by.”
Carpeggio went down again to his interrupted drawing, but the face and
name of “Kate” came between him and his work. He saw neither of the
girls again for weeks, and carefully forbore to make any inquiries; the
gossip of the men did not reach the society which might have twitted him
with the visit of those unexpected explorers, and he kept his surmises
to himself.
Yet the door had been opened, and he was no longer the same, though to
outsiders no change was visible. Two months later there was a public
ball in the county town—an occasion on which many persons meet
officially on terms that are hardly kept up all the year round, but
which yet offer opportunities of social glorification “warranted to
keep” till the same time next year. This ball was to be followed the
next night by another, given by the regiment; and though this was “by
invitation,” it was practically nearly as public as the other. These
gayeties greatly excited the small world of the mining district, and for
the first time became of interest to Emilio, though he was angry and
ashamed to acknowledge it to himself. His work was the only thing that
did not suffer; as to his studies, they were interrupted, and even his
calm gravity became absent-mindedness. He was one of the earliest guests
present at the county ball, and watched the door eagerly for an hour at
least before he was rewarded. Then came a large party, to whom the
appointed ushers paid unusual attention, though the head of it seemed
but a kindly middle-aged man, remarkable only for his geniality. Every
one, however, knew the marquis by sight; Carpeggio, who did not, felt it
was he before even the deference paid to him told him so. By his side
were the two girls he had first seen in the mine-basket, now dressed in
white ball-dresses, airy and commonplace, just the same society uniform
as the three co-heiresses, the daughters of his own employer, but to him
how different, how tender, how sacred! That is to say, Lady Katharine’s;
for her pretty sister seemed an ordinary woman beside her.
And now began all the sweet, old-fashioned, foolish tumult of which
bards and romancers weave their webs; the trembling and fear and joy and
jealousy which Carpeggio had read of, but thought impossible in this
century of sham excitements and masqueraded lives. He thought that she
looked much more beautiful in her gray cloak and drooping black hat; but
still “Kate” in any dress was a vision of heaven rather than a common
mortal. As she came into the room, she looked anxiously around and saw
him at once. She had expected to meet him here, then—both were conscious
of it in that one look, and it seemed as if this blissful understanding
between them were enough. The youth turned to do his duty by his
employer’s three daughters and all the rest of his acquaintances, to
whom, in the character of a “dancing man” as well as a good match, he
was interesting; he spun off little courteous speeches, not untrue but
commonplace, until he felt that he had satisfied natural expectations,
and then he allowed himself a respite and gazed at the marquis’ youngest
daughter. Towards supper time Carpeggio’s employer, proud of the great
man’s courteous notice of him, suddenly bethought himself that an
“Italian nobleman” in his wake might make the marquis respect his
all-powerful purse the more, so he introduced his young overseer to the
marquis with a flourish very unpleasant to the former and rather amusing
to the latter. Emilio was struck with dumbness or confusion; his new
acquaintance took compassion on him and led him up to his daughters,
whose eyes had been for some time fixed upon him with breathless
interest. As he shook hands with them the second time he was in an
awkward bewilderment whether or no to allude to their former meeting; in
fact, his usual indifference was wholly upset. Lady Katharine was
equally silent; whether she shared his embarrassment he could not tell;
but the other, Lady Anne, skilfully and with a latent, suppressed gleam
of mischief in her eye, talked so as to cover his confusion and clear
away the thorns that seemed to grow up between him and her sister. At
last he had the courage to ask each of the girls for a dance, and this,
together with a word in the cloak-room as he escorted them to their
carriage, and the certainty of meeting them again at the military ball
next night, was all that happened to feed the flame of a feeling he knew
to be already beyond the bounds of reason.
Yet he did nothing to check this feeling; are not all lovers fatalists
for the time being? Of course it was hopeless, insane, impossible—he
could see it with the eyes of the world; but he also knew that it was
true love, the ideal and pure love of Arcadia, the one thing which,
whether realized or not, lifts men above conventional life and turns
gold to dross. He also fancied that this love might be returned, and did
not care to inquire further just now, when to be blind to details was to
be happy. Besides, these were the first girls he had seen that had not
lost their naturalness, and he wanted to watch and see if they could
keep it in the atmosphere in which they lived. This was not quite an
excuse; for the young cynic had really got to be a sharp observer of
human nature, and had, like most such observers when young, hastily
concocted one or two theories which he was now becoming anxious to test.
Nothing happened at the military ball more than the most uninterested
spectator might see at any ball; and yet much happened, for Carpeggio
met Kate and danced with her, and both, as if by mutual understanding,
were very silent. Her sister, however, made up for this by chattering in
the most meaningly meaningless way, and delighting the lovers by her
tacit abetment of anything they might choose to think, say, or do. After
these balls there was for a long time no more opportunity for meetings,
and Emilio chafed against his fate, using the leisure time he had before
spent in study for long walks to the marquis’ house—that is, as near as
he dared go without danger of trespassing. Once or twice he was lucky
enough to meet the girls on the highroad outside the park, and this he
enjoyed indeed; the progress was quicker, though as silent as in the
ball-room. Then once he met them out driving with their father, and on
another occasion came upon them at a neighboring squire’s, where they
were on a state visit. But all this made little outward difference,
though he felt as if he no longer needed anything but a solemn pledge to
change the inner certainty into an acknowledged fact. Lady Anne was
evidently a thorough partisan, and her sister’s silence and looks told
him all he wanted to know; yet he refrained from saying the word, and
knew that she understood why he did so. The fact was, he trusted to
Providence and his own power of shaping any opportunity sent him. The
whole thing seemed to him wonderful and mysterious; and as it had begun,
so doubtless would it be guided to a happy end.
One day his employer told him with much importance that he was going to
bring a “very distinguished” party to see the mine, and afterwards to go
through the works and see the melted ore pouring out from the furnaces,
“as that always amused young people so.” The marquis was coming with his
daughters and his only son from Eton, and a young friend, a cousin of
his, Lord Ashley; then he would have one or two of the “best people”
from the immediate neighborhood, and his own daughters, besides the son
of a friend out in Australia, a Mr. Lawrence, whom Carpeggio had heard
rumor speak of as a not unwelcome son-in-law in the eyes of the rich
mine-owner. He wondered whether Lord Ashley might be destined by her
father as a suitor for Kate; but the elder daughter would be more likely
to be thought of first, besides being the prettier.
The day came, and with it the party, who arrived in the afternoon,
picnicked in the adjoining woods, and then sauntered over to the shaft,
where Emilio met them. Kate wore the same gray-water proof, and, as he
took her hand to help her into the basket, he gave it the slightest
pressure, with a look that spoke volumes. She was almost as grave as
himself. I cannot describe all that went on during the inspection, which
to all, save Mr. Lawrence and the marquis, was a pleasure party in
disguise; for the former knew something of the subject from Australian
experiences, and the latter was considering the question of renting, or
himself working, a mine lately found on his own property. Technical
questions, explanations, and discussions, between these two visitors and
the owner and overseer took up the time, while the young ladies, Lord
Ashley, and the jolly Eton boy, who was a counterpart of his livelier
sister, laughed and joked like a mixed school in play-time. Carpeggio,
however, kept his eye on Kate the whole time, and was comforted; for
there was no fear of that nature being spoiled, though he thought with
sorrow that it might be bruised and crushed. Suddenly, in the midst of a
discussion, his ear caught an unaccustomed sound, and he turned pale for
a moment, then bent forward composedly and whispered in his employer’s
ear. The latter, after an almost imperceptible start, said briskly to
his guests: “As it is near the hour for the furnaces to show off at
their best, I think we had better be moving,” and led the way rather
quickly to the shaft. Carpeggio contrived to get near Kate, whose
silence showed how glad she was of the companionship, but he was
preoccupied and anxious and spoke a few words absently. A loud noise was
heard, seemingly not far away, and the visitors asked, “What is that?”
while the master hurriedly said, “Oh! it is only a blast, but we must
not be late for the furnaces; come,” and tried to marshal his guests
closely together. Instinctively they obeyed and hurried forward; the
marquis looked round for his children. Anne and the boy were near him,
but Kate not to be seen. There was a corner to be turned, and she was
just behind it, when another noise overhead was heard and Carpeggio
rushed like the wind from behind the angle, carrying the girl in his
arms. It was the work of a second; for as he set her on her feet by her
father’s side, and almost against the basket, down came a huge fragment
and all but blocked up the gallery behind them, falling on the spot
where she might have been had she lingered another moment. Whether or
not she had heard his passionate whisper, “My own,” as he gathered her
suddenly in his arms and took that breathless rush, he could hardly
tell, for she was dazed and half-unconscious when he set her down again.
Her father thanked him by an emphatic shake of the hand and a look he
treasured up in his soul; but there was no time for more, as the basket
was hastily loaded with the girls and drawn up. As the signal came down
that they were safe, the owner’s tongue was loosed, and he explained
rapidly that something had happened on the second level (they were on
the third) and shaken the rock below; he trusted nothing more would
happen, but he must beg his guests to visit the works alone, as he must
stop to see to the damage.
“No,” said the overseer, “think of your daughters’ anxiety, my dear sir;
there is probably nothing very serious, and it is nearly time for the
men to come up. I shall do very well alone.”
The marquis looked at him admiringly; he could not advise him to leave
without doing his duty, yet he felt suddenly loath to have anything
happen to the preserver of his daughter. After a short altercation the
master consented to go up, provided Carpeggio would send for him, if
necessary; and the basket came down again. As they reached the next
level, where the overseer got out, they heard uncomfortable rumblings at
intervals; and when they got out at the mouth of the shaft, where they
met a good many of the men who had come up by another opening, they were
very unlike a gala party. Kate was still there; they had wanted her,
said the girls, to go in and rest in a cottage near by, but she insisted
on waiting; and when she saw all but Carpeggio she only turned away in a
hopeless, silent way that concerned her sister, who alone knew the
cause. Anne immediately put questions that brought out the facts of the
case; and as their host tried hard to put the party at their ease again
by hastening to the furnaces under the sheds, she whispered: “Kate, do
keep up, or there will be such a fuss.”
“Never fear,” said the girl; “and try and make them stay till we hear
what has happened, Anne; I do not want to go home without knowing.”
It was nervous work for the master and the men who were tending the
molten ore to conceal their anxiety. The beautiful white iron, flowing
like etherealized lava, rushing out from the dark, oven-like furnaces
and spreading into the little canals made ready for it, gave one a
better idea of pure light than anything could do. The heat was intense,
and the men opened the doors with immense long poles tipped with iron;
the gradual darkening of the evening threw shadows about the place, and
the streams of living light, that looked as the atmosphere of God’s
throne might look, settled into their moulds, hardening and darkening
into long, heavy, unlovely bars. A suppressed excitement was at work;
groups of men came up every minute with contradictory reports as to the
accident; women and children met them with wild questions or equally
wild recognition; and the master repeatedly sent messages to the mouth
of the shaft. At last, throwing by all pretence, he begged his guests to
wait for news, and with Lawrence went back to the mine. More men were
coming up—the last but five, he was told—and Mr. Carpeggio had said he
thought he and his four mates could do all that was needed and come up
before any mischief happened to them. The soil was loosening under the
action of water, and to save the ore accumulated below, and which could
not be hauled up in time, they had built a sort of wall across the
gallery as well as the circumstances and the time would allow; Mr.
Carpeggio had sent the men away as fast as he could spare them, and kept
only four with him to finish, which was the most dangerous part of the
business, as the water threatened them more and more.
“He sent all the married men up first, and asked the rest to volunteer
as to who among them should stay, as he only wanted four,” said one of
the men; “and I thought they would all have insisted upon staying, but
he grew angry and said there was no time; so they agreed to draw lots.”
Another quarter of an hour’s suspense, and then a low, muttering sound
that spread horror among the whispering multitude gathered at the mouth
of the shaft. Some men went down to the first level, and soon came up
with blank faces and whispered to the master: no sound but that of water
was to be heard below, and fears for the safety of the workers were too
confidently expressed. Nothing remained but to give orders for affording
relief; the only comfort was that there had been no sign of the air
becoming vitiated. Here the master’s experience was at fault, and he had
to rely on that of some of the older men. “If Carpeggio had been here,
he would have got the men out in two hours,” he asserted confidently;
“but he must go and get himself mewed up there, and leave me no one to
direct things—though I believe he can get himself out as quick as any of
us can dig him out,” he said, with a half-laugh; and one of the men
whispered to his neighbor:
“I do not wonder he sets such store by him; I had rather be down there
myself than have him killed.”
At last it became certain, by signs which this faithful chronicler is
not competent to explain technically, that the five men had been cut off
behind a mass of rock and ore, and that it would take two days or more
to get them out. Work was vigorously begun at once; relays of men went
down to search, by making calls and rapping on the echoing walls, in
which direction lay the least impenetrable of the obstacles between them
and the sufferers; the pumps were set going and every one worked with a
will. The news was received by the party at the works in a silence that
marked their interest well, and the young men eagerly asked their host
if they could be made of any service personally, while the marquis
offered to send down some of his men to help, if more were wanted, and
promised to send all he and his daughters could think of as useful to
the imprisoned men when they should be brought out of their dangerous
predicament. But as this accident refers only, so far as our tale is
concerned, to the links between Emilio and Kate, we must pass over the
hourly exciting work, the reports, the surmises, the visits and
inspections of newspaper men and others, the telegrams and sympathy of
people in high places, the details which accompany all such accidents,
and which it takes a skilled hand to describe in words that would only
make the expert laugh at the ambitious story-teller. Space also, and
mercy on the feelings of practised novel-readers, make us hesitate to do
more than hint at the state of mind of the girl whose dream of love and
happiness hung in the balance for nearly five days. Only her sister
guessed the whole, and skilfully managed to shield her from inconvenient
notice and inquiry; and, indeed, the excitement of the time helped her
in her work. The fifth day, towards evening, a messenger on horseback
brought word of the safety of the men—all but one, who had died of
exhaustion and hunger. Carpeggio and the rest had narrowly escaped
drowning as well as starvation, but had nevertheless managed to help on
his deliverers by working on his own side of the bed of earth and
clearing away no small part (considering his disadvantages) of the
embankment. The men had declared that but for him and his indomitable
spirit, their suspense, and even their danger, would have increased
tenfold; and, besides, he had contrived, by his efforts previous to the
final falling in of earth and rushing in of water, to save a large
portion of valuable ore which must otherwise have been either lost or
much spoilt. He had been taken to his employer’s house, where the
greatest care was bestowed on him, and the other men to their respective
homes. The marquis resolved to go over the next day and inquire after
him, and showed the greatest interest and anxiety about him; but Lady
Anne shook her head as she said to her sister:
“He will do anything, Kate, for Mr. Carpeggio” (the young man had
tacitly dropped his proper title for the time being), “except the one
thing you want; and you know that, with me, the wish is far from being
father to the thought in this matter.”
There was nothing to do but to wait, and then came the overseer’s
recovery and first visit to the house of his love as a cherished guest,
his silent look of longing and uncertainty, the gradual and still silent
knitting together of a new and happier understanding than before, and
finally the offer of the father to make him manager and part owner of
the new mine on his own estate. The ownership he at once refused; but,
as he could well manage the overseeing of the marquis’ colliery without
prejudice to his first employer’s interests, he joyfully accepted the
first part of the proposal. Then a cottage was pressed upon him, and
this also he accepted, provided it was understood to form part of his
salary. The old man was both pleased and nettled at his stiff
independence; but when Anne reminded him that the circumstances of the
case made this the only proper course, he forgot his vexation and
heartily praised the manliness of his new _employé_.
Carpeggio was often at the house, and in fact grew to be as familiar a
presence there as that of the inmates themselves, and still the silent
bond went on, seemingly no nearer an outward solution, though the
marquis’ favor visibly increased. The colliery prospered and brought in
money, and the overseer carefully put by his salary and studied hard at
night, till his name got to be first known, then respected, in the
scientific world; and one day an official intimation was made to him
that the third place on a mining survey expedition to South America was
at his disposal. He had written to Schlichter constantly, and at last
had made a clean breast of what he called his unspoken but not the less
sealed engagement. The two girls had gone through two London seasons;
Lord Ashley and Mr. Lawrence had become brothers-in-law by each marrying
one of the trio who had so long expected to make a conquest of the
overseer himself; and Carpeggio had enough to buy a large share in the
concern of either of his two employers. Such was the state of affairs
when the proposal of an American trip was made to him; if the survey was
satisfactory, and a company formed in consequence, he would be out at
least three years, with the chance of a permanent settlement as director
of the works and sharer in the company. Both pecuniarily and
scientifically a career was open to him, while at home there was success
in all but love—nearly as certain. Schlichter strongly advised him to
go; the marquis himself saw the thing as a thorough Englishman, and was
willing to lose his right-hand man, as he called him, for the sake of
this opening; Carpeggio saw the alluring chance of travel, adventure,
the prestige of his possible return in a different character, the
enlarged field which he could not help looking on as more tempting than
success—equally solid, perhaps, but more humdrum—at his very elbow, and
the glorious southern climate, like to, and yet more radiant than, the
old home one to which he had been used as a boy among the vineyards of
Umbria. He knew that Kate would follow him there gladly, as she would
had he gone to the North Pole; but there was _the_ intangible yet
terribly real barrier. In everything but the weighty affair of mating he
was held as Kate’s equal, and the equal of all whom he met at the
marquis’ house; even in London, where he had once stayed with them a
week, and gone into that society which was “their world,” he had been
received in a way unexceptionally satisfactory; he was put on more than
an equal footing with young Englishmen of good standing, but he knew
that he shared with them the cruel, tacit exclusion from competition for
first-class prizes. He was good enough to dance with, ride with, flirt
with, and escort to her carriage the daughter of a duke; so were the
many young fellows who made the bulk of the young society of the day;
but there were preserves within preserves. The second sons, the young
lawyers, the men in “marching” regiments, the naval cadets, the
government clerks, and even the sons of admirals, clergymen, and men who
had made their mark in the literary and scientific as well as the social
world—all these were tacitly, courteously, but inexorably tabooed as
regards marriage with their partners, friends, and entertainers. In
fact, society had bound these youths over to “keep the peace,” while it
encouraged every intimacy that was likely to lead to a breach of it.
Carpeggio had lived long enough in England to be quite aware of this and
to “know his own place” in the world; but he trusted to time and Kate’s
faithfulness. He at last made up his mind to go to South America, and
that without saying anything that would weigh Kate down with the
knowledge of a secret to be withheld from her father; but he had
likewise made up his mind to speak to the marquis on his return. He
would be true to his employer, but could not afford to be false to
himself; his own rights as a man were as present to his mind as the
position and prejudices which he appreciated and tolerated in the person
of a man so thoroughly gentlemanlike as his patron; and this compromise
of a three years’ absence and silence seemed to him to honorably fulfil
all the expectations that could be formed of him. He said good-by to the
girls together in their father’s library, and the old man blessed him
and bade him Godspeed in the heartiest fashion, almost with tears in his
eyes; but of more tender and definite speech there was none. Who is
there, however, but knows the delicate, intangible farewell, the firm
promise conveyed by a pressure of the hand, and one long, frank, brave
look, and all that true love knows how to say without breaking any other
allegiance and without incurring the blame of secrecy?
So Emilio Carpeggio went and prospered, while Kate remained a beauty and
a moderate heiress (she had half of her mother’s small fortune), courted
and loved, and going through the weary old treadmill of London seasons
and country “parties.” People wondered why she did not marry. Her sister
did, and made a love-match, though there was no violent obstacle in the
way, and the lover was perfectly acceptable as to station and fortune.
She was lucky, also, in loving a man who had some brains to boast of.
This unknown brother-in-law in after-times became a powerful lever in
favor of Carpeggio’s suit; but long before the young engineer came back
the kind, tender-hearted old marquis had found out his daughter’s
secret, and after some time overcame his natural prejudices, and as
generously agreed to Kate’s hopes as he had before vigorously opposed
them. And yet all this was done while hardly a word was spoken; for if
any courtship was emphatically a silent one, it was this. Everything
came to be tacitly understood, and a few hand-pressures, a kiss, a
smile, or a long look expressed the changes and chances of this simple
love-story. At the end of three years the young man came home on a
holiday, which he meant to employ in determining his fate. He had
promised the new company to go back permanently and take charge of their
interests as a resident, and many of the native members had shown
themselves willing and eager to make him a countryman and a son-in-law.
He went home, and saw the marquis the first evening of his stay, two
hours after he got off the train. To his surprise, he found his request
granted before he made it and his road made plain before him. The old
man did not even ask him not to return to America. It is of little use
to descant on his meeting with Kate and on his (literally) first spoken
words of love. They told each other the truth—that is, that the moment
they met in the mine, five years before, was the beginning of their
love. They were married with all the pretty pastoral-feudal accessories
of a country wedding in England, and spent their honeymoon in the old
tower of Carpeggio, where the bride explored the library-room with great
curiosity, and was charmed with the old-fashioned figures of the
principal people of the town, whom she entertained in what was now again
her husband’s own house.
Signor Salviani had built a pretty, villa-like hotel half a mile
further, and was as proud on the day when his young master again took
possession of the old tower as the bridegroom himself. From there
Carpeggio went to his German friends, presented the famous Schlichter to
his wife, and got his rough and fatherly congratulations on his choice,
his perseverance, and his success. In three months the young couple set
sail for their new home, where Carpeggio had sent the last orders needed
to set up quickly the nest he had half-prepared already in anticipation
of his visit to England. When they arrived, Kate found a lovely,
fragile-looking, cool house, half-southern, half-northern, covered with
vines which the natives still looked upon with distrust, but beautiful
and luxuriant beyond measure (this was the oldest part of the house, the
original lodge which the overseer had lived in when he first came), some
rooms with white tile floors, and some partially covered with fancy mats
of grass, while one or two rejoiced in small Turkey rugs, suggestive of
home, yet not oppressively hot to look at. All his wife’s tastes had
been remembered and gratified, and Carpeggio was rewarded by her telling
him that if she had built and furnished the house herself, she could not
have satisfied her own liking so thoroughly as he had done. One room was
fitted up as their _den_ (or, as the world called it, the library), and
was as much as possible the exact counterpart of the room in Torre
Carpeggio where the books and curiosities had been found. Of course the
collection had been carefully transferred here. Years afterwards this
place was the rallying-point of English and American society; travellers
came to see it and its owners; its hospitality was the most perfect,
generous, and delicate for a hundred miles around; no jealousies arose
between its household and those of the natives; the mining company
prospered, Carpeggio grew to be an authority even in German scientific
circles, and a sort of paradise was once more realized. True, this kind
of thing only happens once or twice in a century; but then it really
does, so it is pardonable for a story-teller to choose the
thousand-and-first couple for the hero and heroine of his tale.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CRIMINALS AND THEIR TREATMENT.[8]
The judicious management of the criminal classes is a question which has
long occupied the serious consideration of legislators and social
reformers throughout the civilized world; and though much of what has
been said and written on the matter is visionary and based on imperfect
data, the agitation of the question cannot but be productive of
advantageous results. In pagan times penal laws were enacted chiefly
with a view to the punishment of crime, and but little account was taken
of the criminal. The Julian law and the Justinian Code and Pandects
inherited this cruel and unchristian character, which attached itself to
them for centuries even after the birth of our Saviour. The influence of
Christianity was long powerless to mitigate the horrors of barbarous
legislation. In vain did the bishops of the church protest against the
atrocities which were everywhere practised on prisoners. So far from
listening to these humane appeals, hard-hearted rulers exhausted their
ingenuity in devising new modes of penal torture, while for the wretched
culprit not a pitiful word went forth from royal or baronial legislative
halls. Among the Romans treason was punished by crucifixion, the most
cruel of deaths. The parricide was cast into the sea enclosed in a sack,
with a cock, a viper, a dog, and a monkey as companions. The incendiary,
by a sort of poetic retribution, was cast into the flames, while the
perjurer was flung from the heights of Tarpeia’s rock. But the treatment
of prisoners for debt was still more barbarous and quite out of
proportion to the magnitude of the offence. The unfortunate being who
could not meet the demands of his creditors was compelled to languish in
a filthy dungeon for sixty days, during which time he was fed upon
twelve ounces of rice daily and had to drag a fifteen-pound chain at
every step. If, at the expiration of that time, the claim against him
was still unsatisfied, he was delivered over to his obstinate and
unrelenting creditors to be torn limb from limb as a symbol of the
partition of his goods.
The severity of these provisions was somewhat softened in later times,
but throughout the middle ages, and, indeed, down to the latter half of
the eighteenth century, the same fierce and Draconian spirit pervaded
all laws having reference to the punishment of crime. Vast numbers of
prisoners, without distinction of age, sex, rank, or character of crime,
used to be huddled together in wretched pens, where they rotted to death
amid blasphemous and despairing shrieks. Spiritual comfort and advice
were withheld from them; for it was a feature of these miserable laws to
pursue their victims beyond the grave by a clause which stipulated that
they should die “without benefit of clergy.”
Individual efforts here and there were not wanting to alleviate the
sufferings of prisoners, and many a bright page of the martyrology grows
brighter still with a recital of the noble sacrifices made by the saints
of the church to ameliorate the condition of captives. St. Vincent de
Paul, a voluntary inmate of the _bagnes_ of Paris, teaching and
encouraging his fellow-prisoners, was the prototype of Goldsmith’s
kind-hearted Dr. Primrose, with the exception that the saint outdid in
reality what the poet’s fancy merely pictured. Other saints, when
prevented from offering relief at home, sold themselves into foreign
servitude; and we read of their noble efforts to render at least
endurable the acute sufferings of captives in Barbary, Tripoli, and
Tunis.
But these spasmodic and unsystematic endeavors to better the condition
of criminals were attended with no lasting good, and not till the
serious labors of the noble Howard invited attention to the importance
of the matter was public attention fully awakened. His visits to the
prisons of the Continent of Europe, and his frequent appeals to the
governments to introduce much-needed reforms and to redress palpable
wrongs, enlisted the active sympathies of the wise and good. Then for
the first time the doctrine which Montesquieu and Beccaria had so often
admirably set forth in their writings was adopted in practice, and
legislators and governments assumed as the basis of prison reform the
principle that all punishment out of proportion to the crime is a wrong
inflicted on the criminal. Advances at first were exceedingly slow, but
the true impetus to prison reform was given and a new and higher social
lode was struck.
While John Howard was yet engaged in the effort to solve the problem he
had set before himself, a new science was springing into existence which
was to lend to his labors the full promise of success. The value of
statistics was but little understood and appreciated till the latter
portion of the last century, and so imperfect in this respect had been
the records of town, provincial, and national communities that history
has keenly felt the loss of this important adjunct to her labors, and
has been compelled to grope in darkness because the light of statistical
information could not be had. Since this century set in, however,
statistics have risen to the dignity of a science, and the truly
valuable information they afford, the floods of light they have shed on
all social matters, the service they have lent to medical science, to
hygiene, to sanitary reforms, and above all to the prevalence of crime
with its grades and surroundings, fully attest the sufficiency of its
title.
Through statistics, then, we are placed in possession of the facts
relating to crime and criminals, and facts alone can give the color of
reason and good sense to all measures of reform, to all projects looking
to the suppression of crime and the elevation of the criminal classes.
Statisticians, therefore, whatever may be their theories, whatever their
pet views about crime and criminals, deserve well of the community; for
without their close and painstaking work the most ingenious theorist and
the best-inclined philanthropist would be utterly at sea; for as Phidias
could not have chiselled his unrivalled Zeus without the marble, neither
can the most zealous reformer advance a foot without clear and
well-tabulated statistics.
For this reason we bid especial welcome to the interesting monogram of
Mr. Dugdale, which is a monument of patient and laborious exploration in
a field of limited extent. It is evident that he did not set about his
work in a _dilettante_ spirit, but spared no effort and avoided no
inconvenience—and his inconveniences must have been many—to ascertain
the utmost minutiæ bearing on his topic. He has not contented himself
with adhering to the methods of inquiry usually in vogue, but has added
to the law of averages, which ordinary statistics supply, individual
environments and histories which may be considered causative of general
results, and as such are the key to common statistics.
“Statistics,” he says, “cumulate facts which have some prominent
feature in common into categories that only display their static
conditions or their relative proportions to other facts. Its
reasoning on these is largely inferential. To be made complete
it must be complemented by a parallel study of individual
careers, tracing, link by link, the essential and the accidental
elements of social movement which result in the sequence of
social phenomena, the distribution of social growth and decay,
and the tendency and direction of social differentiation. To
socio-statics must be allied socio-dynamics. Among the notable
objections to pure statistics in the present connection is the
danger of mistaking coincidences for correlations and the
grouping of causes which are not distributive.”
Thus, Mr. Dugdale recognizes as underlying the testimony of mere figures
a variety of factors essentially modifying the inferences which the
former, exclusively viewed, would justify us in drawing, and endeavors
to catch the ever-shifting influences of individual temperament, age,
and environment. Heredity and sex, being fixed, are covered by the
ordinary methods of statistical compilation. But as environment is the
most potent of the varying factors which determine a career of honesty
or crime, so heredity may be regarded among the fixed causes as the most
contributive of effect in the same direction. “Heredity and environment,
then, are the parallels between which the whole question of crime and
its treatment stretches, and the objective point is to determine how
much of crime results from heredity, how much from environment.” It is
to the solution of this rather complicated problem that Mr. Dugdale
addresses himself; and when we say it is complicated we do not
exaggerate, so that we may be pardoned if, at times, in the course of
the sinuous meanderings the question must necessarily take, we find
ourselves at variance with some of his conclusions. Heredity is of two
sorts: 1, that which results from cognate traits transmitted by both
parents; and, 2, that which exhibits the modification dependent on the
infusion of strange blood. This distinction is important as bearing on
the question of heredity in its tendency to perpetuate propensities. If
consanguineous unions intensify and transmit types of character with any
degree of constancy and uniformity, we are justified in conceding that
heredity is a criminal factor quite independent of environments, and
that its relation to the solution of the problem why crime is so
prevalent cannot be ignored. Now, the test furnished by the infusion of
strange blood will enable us to judge whether constancy and uniformity
of types are confined to consanguineous unions or not; for if, the
environments remaining the same, a change of type is induced by
non-consanguinity, then to the admixture of fresh blood alone can we
attribute change of type, and so we must again admit the importance of
heredity in the study of the case, but only to the extent and within the
limits we shall hereafter point out. Mr. Dugdale is of opinion that both
heredity and environment play a very important part in the career of the
criminal, and it is with the design of sustaining his opinion that he
has given us the history of the “Jukes.” Before we deal further with his
conclusions we will here present a brief summary of the facts as related
by him.
The term “Jukes” is a sort of pseudonym very considerately intended to
cloak the identity of members of the family who may now be engaged in
honest pursuits. The family had its origin in the northern part of the
State of New York, and has rendered the place notorious by the unbroken
chain of crime which, link after link, binds the jail-bird of to-day
with the jolly and easy-living “Max” of a century ago, who drank well,
hunted well, and ended his days in the quiet enjoyment of animal peace.
He certainly was more intent on hospitable cares and the gratification
of his passing desires than on the welfare of his progeny; for no man
ever left behind him a more serried array of criminal descendants whose
name has become the synonym of every iniquity the tongue can utter or
the mind conceive. This man had two sons, married to two out of six
sisters whose reputation before marriage was bad. The eldest of the
sisters is called “Ada Juke” for convenience’ sake, though in the county
where the family lived her memory is unpleasantly embalmed as “Margaret,
the mother of criminals.” Ada had given birth before her marriage to a
male child, who was the father, grandfather, and great-grandfather of
the distinctively criminal line of descendants. She afterwards married,
and thus commingled in her person two generations exhibiting
characteristics essentially peculiar to each, though they often bear
leading features of resemblance. The sisters “Delia” and “Effie” married
the two sons of Max, and in this way, though somewhat obscurely, Mr.
Dugdale connects Max with the most criminal branch of the Jukes. We say
somewhat obscurely; for the reader is first inclined to believe that Ada
was married to one of Max’s sons, till on chart No. iv., page 49, he
quite casually lights on the remark “Effie Juke married X——, brother to
the man who married Delia Juke, and son of Max.” While acknowledging the
inherent difficulty of a lucid arrangement of facts so complicated and
bearing such manifold relations, we believe that a little more fulness
of statement would lead to at least an easier understanding of Mr.
Dugdale’s work. “Effie” became, through her marriage with the second son
of Max, the ancestress of one of the distinctively pauperized branches
of the family. The progeny of Delia inclined more to crime, and Ada thus
became the parent stem whence both the criminal and pauperized army of
the “Jukes” mainly sprang; for it is a circumstance deserving notice
that, whereas the offspring of “Ada” before marriage founded the
criminal line of the family, her offspring after marriage inclined
rather to pauperism than to crime. So likewise in the case of “Effie,”
whose known offspring was the result of marriage; we find few criminals,
but nearly all paupers, among her descendants.
In the first chart Mr. Dugdale exhibits a detailed history of the
illegitimate posterity of “Ada” throughout seven generations. The first
legitimate consanguineous union in the family took place between the
illegitimate son of “Ada” and a daughter of “Bell,” from which six
children resulted. The branch is considered illegitimate, as far as
“Ada” is concerned, so that Mr. Dugdale sets down each collateral branch
as either legitimate or illegitimate, according to the legitimacy or
illegitimacy of that child of the five sisters which stands at the head
of the list. Now, glancing along the column of the third generation, or
that exhibiting the six legitimate children of the illegitimate son of
“Ada” and a legitimate daughter of “Bell,” we find their history to be
as follows: The first, a male, lived to the age of seventy-five; was a
man of bad character, though inclined at times to be industrious, and
depended on out-door relief for the last twenty years of his life. The
sisters and brothers of this man strongly resembled him in character,
being all noted for their longevity, their propensity to steal, and
their habitual licentiousness. They were, moreover, exceedingly
indolent, with one exception, and were a constant burden on the
township. It is unnecessary to trace out the history of these or of
their descendants, except to present a few typical cases which will
enable us to understand the conclusion arrived at by Mr. Dugdale.
The first son of “Ada,” just mentioned, married a non-relative of bad
repute, by whom he had nine children. This woman died of syphilis; and
it is well to note at what an early period this poisonous strain showed
itself in this the illegitimate branch of “Ada’s” descendants. These
nine children surpassed their father, their uncles, and their aunts in
criminal propensity. They were especially more violent, were frequently
imprisoned for assault and battery, and, though no more licentious than
their father, were especially addicted to licentiousness in its grosser
forms. They inherited the constitutional disease of which their mother
died, and with it the penalty of an early death, the oldest having died
at the age of fifty-one and the youngest at twenty-four. It will be
observed that they were not so constantly dependent on out-door relief
as the generation immediately preceding them; this fact being
attributable to the greater violence of their temper, which induced them
to acquire by robbery and theft the means of livelihood, while the
others preferred to beg. One aunt of these nine—viz., the second sister
of their father and fourth from him in birth—never married, but had four
children by a non-relative; and, for a purpose soon to be understood, we
will compare their career with that of their nine cousins, who, it must
be remembered, were born in wedlock. These four were illegitimate all
the way back to their grandmother, “Ada”; and if there be any force in
the statement that prolonged illegitimacy has an influence in the
formation of character, we here have an opportunity of verifying it. The
first of these, a male, was arrested at the age of ten; was arraigned
for burglary soon after, but acquitted; was indicted for murder in 1870,
and, though believed to be guilty, was again acquitted; was in the
county jail in 1870, and in 1874 was depending upon out-door relief. The
second, a female, began to lead a loose life at an early age, which
rapidly developed into a criminal one. The third, a male, was guilty of
nearly every known crime, and at last accounts was undergoing a term of
twenty years’ imprisonment in Sing Sing for burglary in the first
degree. The fourth, also a male, died at the age of nineteen, after
having spent three and a half years in Albany penitentiary. Thus, though
the record of the nine cousins is not very flattering, the vicious
proclivities of these four illegitimates are manifestly more marked and
decided.
If we now turn to the chart exhibiting the posterity of the legitimate
children of Ada Juke, we will find an order of things entirely
different. The husband of “Ada” was lazy, while her paramour, on the
contrary, was always industrious. Syphilis likewise showed itself at a
still earlier period than in the illegitimate branch; for whereas this
disease first appeared in the generation of the illegitimate line, Ada’s
first child by marriage became a victim to it at an early age, and her
two legitimate daughters are set down as harlots at an equally early
age. Ada’s first child, a son, married after the poisoned taint had got
into his blood, and transmitted the loathsome heritage to his eight
children. The immediate descendants of these eight were for the most
part blind, idiotic, and impotent, and those who were not so became the
progenitors of a line of syphilitics down to the sixth generation.
Moreover, the intermarriages between cousins were much more frequent
along this line than in the illegitimate branch. It is a noteworthy fact
that in this chart one of the “Juke” blood is, for the first and only
time, set down as being a Catholic—the only time, indeed, that reference
is made to the question of religion. Mr. Dugdale allows us to infer from
this exceptional allusion that he found but one Catholic in this
edifying family. We would recommend this fact to the consideration of
our rural friends who think that chiefly in the metropolis abound the
criminals, _quorum pars maxima_ they believe to be Catholics. The first
time these unco-pious people had the fierce light that beats upon a town
turned upon themselves, the spectacle thus revealed is not
over-pleasant. This _en passant_. Were we to examine the other
statistical exhibits of Mr. Dugdale, we would find pretty nearly the
same result made clear. Without, therefore, entering into details that
are painful in character and difficult to keep constantly in view, we
will give a summary of the conclusions which the detailment of facts
seems to justify:
1. The lines of intermarriage of the Juke blood show a minimum of crime.
2. In the main, crime begins in the progeny where the Juke blood has
married into X—— (non-Juke blood).
3. The illegitimate branches have chiefly married into X——.
4. The illegitimate branches produced a preponderance of crime.
5. The intermarried branches show a preponderance of pauperism.
6. The intermarried branches show a preponderance of females.
7. The illegitimate branches produced a preponderance of males.
8. The apparent anomaly presents itself that the illegitimate criminal
branches show collateral branches which are honest and industrious.
We here find a most curious and interesting history and an epitome of
conclusions which challenges serious consideration. That the family of
the “Jukes” was more vicious than their neighbors whose surroundings
were similar cannot be disputed, and the question arises, What was there
peculiar and exceptional in their case that made the fact to be such?
The habits of life of the immediate descendants of Max were bad in the
extreme, but partly forced upon them by environments. These people dwelt
in mud-built cabins, with but one apartment, which served all the
purpose of a tenement. Here they slept and ate, and of course privacy
was rendered entirely impossible. Decency and modesty were out of the
question, and the anomaly of whole families utterly bereft of all regard
for domestic morals began to exhibit itself. We will now lay down a
fundamental principle, by the light of which we hope to be able to solve
the knotty question of this intense perversity of a series of
blood-related generations, and Mr. Dugdale himself will furnish the
proofs.
Early impurity beyond all other causes warps the moral sense, blunts the
delicacy of womanly modesty, dims the perception of the difference
between right and wrong—in a word, is quickest to sear the conscience.
Crimes of violence, crimes of any sort, which are not traceable to this
origin are outbursts of momentary distemper; but impurity of the sort
mentioned lays the foundation of an habitual aptitude to commit the
worst crimes, as though the tendency to do so were inborn and natural.
Let us examine the facts as exhibited in the history of the Jukes
family. Throughout the six generations studied by Mr. Dugdale he found
162 marriageable women, including, as facts required him to do, some of
very tender years. Of these 84 had lapsed from virtue at some time or
other. This is an enormous percentage compared with the police returns
of our most crowded seaboard cities. Among the Jukes women 52.40 per
cent. were fallen women. In New York, London, Paris, and Liverpool the
highest calculation does not exceed 1.80. If such was the moral _status_
of the female portion of the family, it is not difficult to conceive
what a low ebb morals among the males must have reached. The more
closely we look into the facts recorded by Mr. Dugdale, the more
irresistible becomes the conclusion that these moral pariahs yielded
themselves up without restraint to every excess from the moment sexual
life dawned upon them, and blushed not to commit crimes which do not
bear mention. In the record of their lives we meet at every line
expressions which brand these people as the modern representatives of
the wicked ones who 3,700 years ago shrivelled in the fire of God’s
anger on the plains of the Dead Sea. Indeed, the fact that the infamous
practices which made the “Jukes” family notorious are the beginning of
an utter loss of conscience has been long recognized by Catholic
theologians, who, while admitting that loss of faith is a more serious
loss than that of purity, contend that the latter is more degrading,
more profoundly disturbs the moral nature of man, and speedily blinds
him to the perception of every virtue. Many more facts might be adduced
in support of this proposition, both from the pages of Mr. Dugdale and
the various reports of our reformatory and punitive institutions, but
what has been said will no doubt be deemed sufficient.
If, then, it be admitted that a corrupt life begun in early youth and
continued for a long time is the broadest highroad to crime, it is
interesting to enquire how far so-called criminal heredity is influenced
by the transmission of impure propensities. It has become the fashion of
late days to allow to hereditary influence a vast importance in the
discussion and management of crime, so that there is danger even that
the criminal will be led to look upon himself as naturally, and
consequently unavoidably, vicious, and that society ought not to visit
upon him the penalty of his misdeeds any more than it should punish the
freaks of a madman. Dr. Henry Maudsley, in his recent work entitled
_Responsibility in Mental Disease_, holds language startling enough to
make every inmate of Sing Sing to-day regard himself as one against whom
the grossest injustice had been done. He says:
“It is certain, however, that lunatics and criminals are as much
manufactured articles as are steam-engines and calico-printing
machines, only the processes of the organic manufactory are so
complete that we are not able to follow them. They are neither
accidents nor anomalies in the world, in the universe, but come
by law and testify to causality; and it is the business of
science to find out what the causes are and by what laws they
work. There is nothing accidental, nothing supernatural, in the
impulse to do right or in the impulse to do wrong—both come by
inheritance or by education; and science can no more rest
content with the explanation which attributes one to the grace
of heaven and the other to the malice of the devil than it could
rest content with the explanation of insanity as a possession by
the devil. The few and imperfect investigations of the personal
and family histories of criminals which have yet been made are
sufficient to excite some serious reflections. One fact which is
brought strongly out by these inquiries is that crime is often
hereditary; that just as a man may inherit the stamp of the
bodily features and characters of his parents, so he may also
inherit the impress of their evil passions and propensities; of
the true thief, as of the true poet, it may indeed be said that
he is born, not made. That is what observation of the phenomena
of hereditary [_sic_] would lead us to expect; and although
certain theologians, who are prone to square the order of nature
to their notions of what it should be, may repel such doctrine
as the heritage of an immoral in place of a moral sense, they
will in the end find it impossible in this matter, as they have
done in other matters, to contend against facts.”
We have quoted the words of Dr. Maudsley at some length, in order to
show to what unjustifiable lengths the recent advocates of heredity are
inclined to go.
The argument employed by Dr. Maudsley is very weak—happily so, indeed;
for were his conclusions correct man’s misdeeds would be neither
punishable nor corrigible, any more than the blast of the tempest which
strews the shore with wrecks and desolation. They would be the necessary
outcome of his constitution. The trouble is that Dr. Maudsley pushes to
excess a doctrine which has in it much that is true. We do not deny the
doctrine of hereditary impulses; we know that some are more prone to
evil than others, that the moral lineaments are often transmitted from
parent to child to no less an extent than physical traits and
resemblances; but we know that free will remains throughout, and that,
no matter how strong the impulse to do a certain act may be, the power
to resist is unquestionable. Habit and association may render the will
practically powerless, but, unless a man has lost the attributes of his
race, he never becomes absolutely irreclaimable. The allusion to grace
and diabolical temptation is, to say the least, stupid. Dr. Maudsley
knows as much about the matter, to all appearances, as the inhabitants
of Patagonia. No theologian deserving the name ever asserted that man is
swayed to good by grace alone, or equally moved to evil by the spirit of
darkness, without any will-activity. The doctrine would be just as
subversive of free-will and moral order as Dr. Maudsley’s, and
consequently as absurd. The truth is that man’s will has been weakened
by his fall (_labefactata ac debilitata_), is weaker in some than in
others, but never becomes extinct, unless where the abnormal condition
of insanity occurs. We regret that Mr. Dugdale accepts Dr. Maudsley as
an authority and quotes approvingly the following words:
“Instead of mind being a wondrous entity, the independent source
of power and self-sufficient cause of causes, an honest
observation proves incontestably that it is the most dependent
of all natural forces. It is the highest development of force,
and to its existence all the lower natural forces are
indispensably prerequisite.”
This is simply scientific jargon. It conveys no meaning, and in reality
substitutes new and more obscure terms for old and well-understood ones.
We are told to reject the “wondrous entity” mind, and to consider
instead all so-called mental operations as the outcome of force. In a
previous article[9] we pointed out the great diversity of meanings
annexed to the word force, and proved that none of those who so glibly
use it have a clear conception of what it signifies. Mr. Dugdale further
accepts the recent materialistic doctrine of Hammond, Vogel, and the
so-called modern school of physiologists, who make will a mere matter of
cerebral activity and cell-development.
His system of psychology is exceedingly brief and meaningless, and
invites the social reformer to deal with the criminal as the watchmaker
would deal with a chronometer out of repair, or as a ship-calker would
attend to a vessel that had felt and suffered from the hard buffets of
the ocean. Now, while we utterly repudiate the doctrine which views the
criminal as a mere machine, we do not wish to reject any doctrine or
theory which facts sustain, and we accept the doctrine of heredity in
the sense we shall shortly mention, and contend that the facts justify
its acceptance to no further extent.
In the first place, most people of good sense will admit that
environment is a far more potent criminal factor than heredity, and that
the constant similarity of environments where heredity exists
disqualifies the observer for ascertaining the exact extent to which the
latter operates. The children of the vicious for the most part grow up
amid the surroundings which made their parents bad, and no child born of
the most depraved mother will fail to respond to healthful influences
early brought into play, unless an obviously abnormal condition exists.
The advocates of heredity in the ordinary sense point to the vast army
of criminals propagated from one stock, and claim this to be an
incontestable proof of their doctrine. But right in the way of this
argument is the fact that it ignores similarity of environment, and that
it overlooks the diversity of crimes. If the law of heredity were
strictly as stated by many writers, then the burglar would beget
children with burglarious instincts, the pickpocket ditto, and so
throughout the whole range of crime. But nothing of this sort is the
case. The vicious descendant of a sneak-thief is as likely to be a
highwayman or a housebreaker as to follow the safer paternal pursuits.
No special propensities to commit crime are transmitted, but appetites
are transmitted, and appetites beget tendencies and habits. Now, the two
appetites which prove to be of most frequent transmission are the erotic
and the alcoholic. The erotic precedes the alcoholic, and, indeed,
excites it to action. Mr. Dugdale says (p. 37): “The law shadowed forth
by this scanty evidence is that licentiousness has preceded the use of
ardent spirits, and caused a physical exhaustion that made stimulants
grateful. In other words, that intemperance itself is only a secondary
cause.” And again: “If this view should prove correct, one of the great
points in the training of pauper and criminal children will be to pay
special attention to sexual training.”
It would appear, then, from this that heredity chiefly affects the
erotic appetite, and through it the entire character. The impure beget
the impure, subject to improvement through grace and will-power, and,
despite of changed environments, the diseased appetite of the progenitor
is apt to assert itself in the descendant, though it is not, of course,
so apparent in the matter of the erotic passion as in the alcoholic.
These are the facts so far as they justify the view of crime as a
neurosis. This conclusion, while harmonizing with the data of
observation, renders the solution of the question, What shall we do with
criminals? comparatively easy, and points to the best mode of treatment.
Until society holds that the virtue of purity is at the bottom of public
morality, and that the custom to look indulgently on the wicked courses
of young men is essentially pernicious, we cannot hope to begin the work
of reform on a sound basis. _Corrumpere et corrumpi sœclum vocatur_ is
as true to-day as eighteen hundred years ago, only now we call it
“sowing wild oats.” And how is this change to be wrought? By education?
Yes, by education, which develops man’s moral character—by that
education which gives to the community a Christian scholar, and not a
mere intellectual machine. Mr. Richard Vaux, ex-mayor of Philadelphia,
who is a believer in Maudsley, and consequently an unsuspected
authority, speaks in these significant terms:
“Without attempting to discuss the value of popular
instruction for the youth, or to criticise any system of
public or private education, we venture to assert that there
are crimes which arise directly out of these influences, and
which require knowledge so obtained to perpetrate. If the
former suggestion be true, that the compression of the social
forces induces to crime, then those offences which come from
education are only the more easily forced into society by the
possessed ability to commit such crimes. _If facts warrant
this suggestion, then education—meaning that instruction
imparted by school-training—is an agent in developing
crime-cause...._ It is worthy of notice that a far larger
number of offenders are recorded as having attended ‘public
schools’ than those who ‘never went to school.’”[10]
This is a startling exhibit, upheld, it seems, by undeniable figures. Is
it possible that the state is engaged in “developing crime-cause,” and
that it is for this purpose oppressive school-taxes are imposed? Alas!
it is too true. The majority of those who get a knowledge of the three
“Rs” in our public schools come forth with no other knowledge. God is to
them a distant echo, morality a sham, and they finish their education by
gloating over the blood-curdling adventures of pirates and cracksmen in
the pages of our weekly papers. Mr. Dugdale proposes some excellent
means for the reclamation and reformation of the criminal, but they come
tainted, and consequently much impaired, by his peculiar psychical
theories. On page 48 he says:
“Now, this line of facts points to two main lessons: the value
of labor as an element of reform, especially when we consider
that the majority of the individuals of the Juke blood, when
they work at all, are given to intermittent industries. The
element of continuity is lacking in their character; enforced
labor, in some cases, seems to have the effect of supplying this
deficiency. But the fact, which is quite as important but less
obvious, is that crime and honesty run in the lines of greatest
vitality, and that the qualities which make contrivers of crime
are substantially the same as will make men successful in honest
pursuits.”
These remarks are full of significance and point unmistakably to the
necessity of supplying work to the vicious. Hard work is the panacea for
crime where healthful moral restraints are absent. The laborer expends
will-force and muscular force on his work, and has no inclination for
deeds of violence or criminal cunning. But how absurd it is to suppose
that, as an educational process, its whole effect consists in the
changed development of cerebral cells, and not, as is obviously true, in
the fatigue which it engenders! Mr. Dugdale thus sets forth the
philosophy of his educational scheme for the reformation of the criminal
(p. 49):
“It must be clearly understood, and practically accepted, that
the whole question of crime, vice, and pauperism rests strictly
and fundamentally upon a physiological basis, and not upon a
sentimental or a metaphysical one. These phenomena take place,
not because there is any aberration in the laws of nature, but
in consequence of the operation of these laws; because disease,
because unsanitary conditions, because educational neglects,
produce arrest of cerebral development at some point, so that
the individual fails to meet the exigencies of civilization in
which he finds himself placed, and that the cure for unbalanced
lives is a training which will affect the cerebral tissue,
producing a corresponding change of career.”
This is downright materialism, and is the result of Mr. Dugdale’s hasty
acceptance of certain views put forward by a school of physiologists who
imagine that their science is the measure of man in his totality. We
admit that crime is closely connected with cerebral conditions, that the
brain is the organ of manifestation which the mind employs, and that
those manifestations are modified to a considerable extent by the
condition of the organ. But this does not interfere with the character
of the mind viewed as a distinct entity; indeed, it rather harmonizes
with the facts as admitted by the universal sentiment of mankind. Mr.
Dugdale makes a fatal mistake when he supposes that a changed cerebral
state may be accompanied by a change in the moral character; for it is
possible that a chemist may one day discover some substance or
combination of substances which might supply the missing cells or
stimulate the arrested growth. Man is not a machine; neither is he a
mere physiological being. He is a rational animal, consisting of a soul
and a body, two distinct substances hypostatically united; and until
this truth is recognized no reform can be wrought in the ranks of the
criminal classes by even greater men than Mr. Dugdale. If the “whole
process of education is the building up of cerebral cells,” admonitions,
instructions, and example are thrown away on the vicious. There is
naught to do but to “build up cells” and stimulate “arrested cerebral
development.” How false is this daily experience proves; for we know
that a salutary change of prison discipline often converts brutal and
hardened criminals into comparatively good men. Take as an instance what
occurred in the _Maison de Correction de Nîmes_ in 1839. This prison was
in charge of certain political favorites who were fitter to be inmates
than officials. Mismanagement reigned supreme, and the excesses
committed by the prisoners can scarcely be believed. The most revolting
crimes were done in broad daylight, not only with the connivance but at
the instigation of the keepers. At last things had come to such a pass
that the government was compelled to interfere, and, having expelled the
unworthy men in charge, substituted for them a small band of Christian
Brothers under the control of the late venerable Brother Facile, when an
amazing change soon ensued. There was no question with the brothers of
studying the increase of cerebral cells or stimulating arrested
development. They changed the dietary for the better; they separated the
most depraved from those younger in crime; they punished with
discrimination; they encouraged good conduct by rewards; they set before
the convict the example of self-sacrificing, laborious, and mortified
lives; and in three weeks they converted this pandemonium into the model
prison of France.
Can these facts be made to accord with the statement that the whole
process of education is “building up of cerebral cells”? If Mr. Dugdale
would substitute the term “moral faculties” for “cerebral cells,” he
would theorize much more correctly and to better practical effect.
Speaking of subjecting the growing criminal to a system of instruction
resembling the _Kindergarten_, he says:
“The advantage of the _Kindergarten_ rests in this: that it
coherently trains the sense and awakens the spirit of
accountability, building up cerebral tissue. It thus organizes
new channels of activity through which vitality may spread
itself for the advantage of the individual and the benefit of
society, and concurrently endows each individual with a
governing will.”
We agree with Mr. Dugdale that such a system of training is well
calculated to bring about these results, but certainly not in the manner
he indicates. Let us translate his language into that which correctly
describes the process of improvement in the criminal, and we find it to
be as follows:
Let the subject on whom we are to try the system of training in question
be a boy of fourteen rescued from the purlieus of a large city. His
education must be very elementary indeed. His intellectual faculties are
to be treated according to their natural vigor or feebleness, but his
moral faculties are especially to be moulded with care and watchfulness.
He has been accustomed to gratify his evil passions and to yield to
every propensity. The will, therefore, is the weakest of his faculties,
and constant efforts must be made to strengthen it. With this view he
should be frequently required to do things that are distasteful to him,
beginning, of course, with what is easy and what might entail no
discomfort on the ordinary boy. The will is thus gradually strengthened,
both by this direct exercise and by the reaction upon it of the
intellect, which is undergoing a concurrent training.
This is all that Mr. Dugdale means to convey when his words are
translated into ordinary language. When he dismounts from his scientific
hobby, however, he imparts counsel for the treatment of criminals which
we heartily endorse. Thus, in speaking of industrial training, he says
(p. 54): “The direct effect, therefore, of industrial training is to
curb licentiousness, the secondary effect to decrease the craving for
alcoholic stimulants and reduce the number of illegitimate children who
will grow up uncared for.” He tells us that with the disappearance of
log-huts and hovels—and, we might add, the reeking tenements of our
cities—lubricity will also disappear. This is true to a great extent,
but surely it is not all that is required. We might cultivate the
æsthetic tastes to the utmost, we might have a population dwelling in
palaces and lounging in luxurious booths, and be no better morally than
those who, while enjoying those privileges, tolerated the mysteries of
the _Bona Dea_ and assisted at the abominations which have made the city
of Paphos the synonym of every iniquity. All attempts at the reformation
of our criminal classes without the instrumentality of religion will
prove unavailing. You may “make clean the outside of the cup and of the
dish, but within you are full of rapine and uncleanliness.” These words
will for ever hold true of those who inculcate and pretend to practise
morality without religion. The attempt has often been made, and has as
often signally failed, so that we regard the presentation of proof here
superfluous. The student of the history of social philosophy is well
aware of the truth of this principle, and none but the purblind or the
unwilling fail to perceive it. Religion is the basis of morality, and
morality the pivot of reform. Let the friends of the criminals recognize
these fundamental truths, and they may then hope to make some progress
in their work. Then it will be time to defend and demonstrate the merits
of the congregate system of imprisonment; then we might with profit
insist upon the proper classification of prisoners, the necessity of
proportioning penalty to offence, and not blasting the lives of mere
boys by sending them for twenty years to Sing Sing for a first offence,
thus compelling them to consort with ruffians of the most hardened
description during the period which should be the brightest of their
lives. Then all those reforms which philanthropists are ever planning
might be wisely introduced, but not till then can we hope for the
millennium of true reform to dawn upon us.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
RELIGION IN JAMAICA.
The population of Jamaica numbers about half a million, of whom nearly
four-fifths are blacks, one hundred thousand colored people, and only
thirteen thousand Europeans. In addition to these there are several
thousand Cubans and Haytians, who have been driven from their homes by
political troubles, some thousands of Indian coolies, and a few Chinese
and Madeira Portuguese.
Of this motley population only a few thousand are Catholics. The greater
part of the English belong to the Church of England, which, however, has
been disestablished in Jamaica for some years. These enjoy the full
benefit of the usual High Church and Low Church party warfare. One of
the leading clergy of this denomination has started a monthly paper in
Jamaica, called the _Truth-Seeker_. It is to be hoped that he may be
successful in his search. The last number which the writer saw contained
arguments in favor of spiritualism, homœopathy, and Extreme Unction. The
editor is a vegetarian and teetotaler, and is said to have employed in
the communion service, as a substitute for wine, the juice of a few
grapes squeezed into a tumbler of water. When the bishop was asked about
it he made a wry face and expressed a hope that he might never receive
the communion in his teetotal friend’s church again. This reminds us of
an incident related by a Church of England parson. He arrived at
Kingston by the mail steamer from England on a Sunday morning, and duly
betook himself to a church. It happened to be communion Sunday, and he
“stayed.” He noticed that most of the white people went up to receive
first, and that the few who neglected to do so, and who communicated
with the negroes, came back to their seats screwing up very wry faces.
Our friend solved the mystery when, going up nearly last, he found that
his black friends’ lips had imparted such a flavor to the cup that he
did not lose the taste of it for hours!
But the most popular sect amongst the blacks is the Baptist. The Baptist
ministers are credited with having been the cause of the insurrection a
dozen years ago, which was attended with so much bloodshed. Their great
recommendation to the people appears to consist in their teaching
virtually that the country belongs to the black man, and that the whites
endeavor to defraud them of their rights by giving them insufficient
wages and by other means. The consequence is that the negroes frequently
defraud their employers by theft, shirking work, injuring their
property, and so forth.
The Wesleyans and Presbyterians have large followings. There are also
some Moravian stations. After a certain term of years the Moravian
missionary is judged worthy to be rewarded with connubial bliss, and a
spouse is selected by the authorities in Europe and sent out to him. The
Jews are numerous and opulent, a great part of the commerce of the
country being in their hands. But they are said to be very indifferent
as to their religion, Jewish ladies often marrying people of other
religions and ending by professing none at all.
It is pleasant to turn from these conflicting sects to consider the
Catholic Church. Kingston, the capital of Jamaica, contains forty
thousand people, and of these seven thousand are Catholics. The Jamaica
mission is in the hands of the Jesuits. They do not number more than
half a score, and are consequently hardly worked. They have a convenient
house, popularly called the “French College,” though there is only one
French priest there. Attached to it is a small college for the education
of Catholic youths, but several Protestants are permitted to benefit by
the instruction there given. In the little chapel at the back of the
house the Blessed Sacrament is reserved. Among the priests is a
venerable man whose tall, ascetic figure commands universal respect. He
was formerly a Protestant clergyman, a fellow of his college at Oxford,
and one of that remarkable band of men who founded the Oxford or
Tractarian party. His quiet, instructive sermons are of a very high
order, simple, admirably expressed, and pregnant with matter. Equally
beloved is a white-headed French priest who has labored in Kingston for
thirty years, and who endeared himself to all by his indefatigable
devotion to the sick and dying during a terrible epidemic of yellow
fever which raged there some years ago. He is well acquainted with, and
sympathizes in, the joys and sorrows of all the congregation, and, in
spite of a strong French accent which renders his conversation nearly
unintelligible to a stranger, all seem to understand him perfectly.
There are several younger priests who conduct the college, and one
devotes his energies especially to work amongst the Cubans. There is
also an excellent lay brother, a convert from Protestantism, who
presides over a school for the children of poor Catholics. The church,
dedicated to the Holy Trinity, is a plain brick structure, like all the
churches and chapels in Kingston, but it is distinguished from the
others by crosses on the gable ends. There are two side altars in
addition to the high altar. The latter is handsomely adorned, and above
it is a rose-window of stained glass. There is a good attendance at the
daily Masses, which are said from five to half-past six, the
congregation consisting mainly of black or colored people.
Besides the large church there is a smaller one dedicated to St. Martin,
and commonly called the “Cuban Chapel,” because it is employed
especially for their use. Spanish sermons are preached there at the
eight o’clock Mass on Sundays. At the commencement of the month of May a
handsome new altar was built and High Mass celebrated, the church being
crowded with devout worshippers.
Near the large church is a convent with a private chapel, the nuns
devoting themselves to the education of a number of young ladies, mostly
Haytians, who reside with them.
A mile from the town is the camp of the First West India Regiment, a
corps of Black Zouaves. Some of them being Catholics, Mass is said there
on Sundays by a priest from Kingston. Another goes on alternate Sundays
to Port Royal, a few miles from Kingston, where the guard-ship, the
_Aboukir_, is stationed, and says Mass for the Catholic seamen.
The whole of the remainder of the island is served by three priests, who
lead a most arduous life, constantly riding or driving from one station
to another. Newcastle, a beautiful place in the Port Royal mountains
nearly four thousand feet above the sea, is the station of the
Thirty-fifth Regiment of the Line, and Mass is said here on alternate
Sundays by a young priest who has just arrived from England, and
replaced a stalwart father who was formerly senior captain in his
regiment. Another extensive district is served by a worthy Belgian
father with venerable beard and simple manners. This apostolic man rides
long distances, often having to ford dangerously swollen torrents, and
frequently having no lodging but the sacristy of a rural chapel, and no
food but a little yam and salt fish.
But the most experienced missionary in the island is the superior of the
Jesuits, who is vicar-apostolic. He has travelled about Jamaica on
missionary journeys for sixteen years, and boasts that he knows every
road and track in the country. He is generally beloved by Catholic,
Protestant, and Jew alike, his genial manners and cheerful conversation
making him a welcome guest everywhere, and his medical skill (for he was
a physician before he joined the Society of Jesus) having enabled him to
confer material benefits on many suffering persons. He has always led an
active life, and is especially fond of relating his reminiscences of the
siege of Sebastopol, where he was senior Catholic chaplain to the
British forces. He drives about in a buggy, with spare horses following
under the charge of his servant, or “boy,” who rides on horseback. The
Jamaica horses are small, poor-looking animals, costing little, and very
hardy and inexpensive, but they are capable of a great deal of trying
work.
To reach Kingston for the confirmation on Pentecost Sunday, the good
father had to drive for some miles over a road on which the water had
risen from a neighboring river to such an extent that it was as high as
the axles, and sometimes even came into the buggy. Fording swollen
streams on horseback in the rainy season is often very dangerous work.
This father having one day with difficulty crossed such a stream, a
negro, who had been watching him all the time, told him that he was the
first person who had succeeded in crossing there for some days, three
men who had attempted it having been drowned.
“Why didn’t you tell me, then?” asked the priest.
“My sweet minister, me want to see what you do.”
Not that the man bore him any malice, but these people seem to be
totally reckless of human life.
If he can be said to have any home, the vicar-apostolic lives in a
pretty little house on the northwest coast. It is about a mile from the
sea, but some hundreds of feet above it, and commands a magnificent view
of the well-wooded hills, the sea, and the numerous small islands
covered with mangroves. Near the house is a small oratory, built as a
coach-house. It is very plain, and yet unpaved, the congregation
kneeling on small pieces of board placed on the earth. Attached to the
house is a pen, or grazing farm, of about seven hundred acres. It is for
the most part overgrown with bush, the property having been much
neglected; but strenuous efforts are being made to set it in good order,
and not without success. It is hoped that it will eventually realize
sufficient to support four or five missionary priests, which will be a
great advantage to the church in Jamaica, as the mission there is very
poor. The property was left to the church by a Catholic gentleman who
resided on it and died some few years ago. It now supports about one
hundred head of cattle, besides which it is planted with a number of
pimento, lime, and cocoanut trees, the fruits of which are of value.
A private chapel, which stands in the grounds of a gentleman who resides
on one of the most beautiful pens in the island, is well worthy of
mention. This gentleman is a convert and has done much for the church.
His chapel is the most charming little rustic oratory imaginable, the
chancel screen and other wood-work being made of rough twisted branches
of trees, and the staircase to the gallery consisting of the trunk of a
pine tree with steps cut in it. On the Sundays when Mass is said here
the Catholics from eight or ten miles round drive or ride in, and the
chapel is sometimes nearly filled. After Mass they take their dinner,
which they have brought with them, and walk about and admire the
beautiful garden, the hospitable proprietor and the ladies of the family
saying kind words of welcome to their humbler friends. An hour after
Mass there is rosary and benediction, after which the people return to
their distant homes.
But not always can a church be had for Mass. In some places a room in a
private house is all that can be obtained, and the Catholics of the
neighborhood, having been warned by letter of the intended service,
assemble at the appointed hour. The priest will sit in one room to hear
confessions, whilst the people wait in an adjacent one, where a
sideboard or table is prepared as an altar. After Mass will often follow
baptisms, marriages, or confirmations. But the great work before the
church in Jamaica now is to form stations with churches where Mass may
be celebrated at stated times. Several such are already established, and
things are better than formerly, when the Holy Sacrifice had often to be
offered up in the houses of Protestants. But much has yet to be done,
and there is good reason to hope that the time will come when the small
Jamaica church will develop into a flourishing diocese. In spite of the
prevalent indifference as to religion, some of the Protestants are
beginning to see that truth is not to be obtained in their conflicting
sects, and they are turning their eyes Romeward in search of peace.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MARGUERITE.
“Frogs, fresh frogs! Buy a few frogs!” cried a sweet girl’s voice, which
blended strangely with the other sounds and voices round about the
little booth near Fulton Market. “Frogs, fresh frogs!”
“Ride up, gentlemen, ride up!”
“Move on quick, move on!”
“Look out, mister, or I’ll run over you!”
And on the ’buses and drays and express-wagons rumbled and rolled, and
the policeman screamed himself hoarse trying to keep the great
thoroughfare clear; the mud, which was knee-deep, flew in all
directions, the jaded horses floundered and fell in the grimy slough,
and ’twas Pandemonium indeed just here where pretty Marguerite’s
frog-stand stood. But the girl, who was used to the bustle and din, went
on quietly knitting a stocking and calling out, “Frogs, fresh frogs! Buy
a few frogs!” while her words, like a strain of sweet music, floated
away upon the muggy April air, heavy with oaths and villanous cries.
We have called our heroine pretty; yet this was not strictly true. Many
a young woman passed through the market with more beautiful features
than she had. Her nose was of no particular shape—we might term it a
neutral nose—and her mouth was decidedly broad; while the tall, white
cap she wore gave her a quaint, outlandish appearance that made not a
few people stare and smile. But Marguerite’s eyes redeemed, ay, more
than redeemed, whatever was faulty in the rest of her countenance. Oh!
what eyes she had—so large and black and lustrous. Like two precious
stones they seemed; and when she turned them wistfully upon you, you
were fascinated and rooted to the spot, and if the girl ever sold any
frogs it was thanks to those wonderful eyes.
Poor thing! at the age of seventeen to be left an orphan, alone and
friendless in the big city of New York. Poor thing! From the Battery up
to Murray Hill, and across from river to river, not a solitary being
knew or cared about her; and had she died—died even a violent,
sensational death—the coroner’s inquest would have taken up scarce three
lines in the daily papers, after which, like a drop of water falling
into the ocean, she would have passed out of sight and mind for ever.
But no, we are wrong; there was one who did care for Marguerite—one who
had known her parents when they first came over from France, and had
done everything she could to help them. But, alas! down in the whirlpool
of poverty husband and wife had disappeared and died, and many a pang
shot across Mother Catherine’s breast as she thought of the child left
now to shift for herself like so many other waifs.
The girl’s home was in a tenement-house, and the room where she slept
was shared by three other women, who would have made it a filthy,
disorderly place indeed except for Marguerite. Every morning she swept
the floor, opened the window to let in fresh air, and imparted a cosey
look to what would otherwise have been the most squalid chamber in the
building. By her mattress hung a crucifix, a gift from Mother Catherine,
and near the crucifix was a piece of old looking-glass which Marguerite
had found in a dust-barrel. Before this she would daily spend a quarter
of an hour making her toilet. Her dark hair was neatly gathered up
beneath her Norman cap—only one little tress peeping out; across her
bosom was pinned a clean white kerchief; the mud-spots were carefully
brushed off her tattered gown; then, after lingering a moment to admire
herself, she would sally forth, the envy of all the slatterns in the
neighborhood, and the boys would wink to one another and say: “What a
nice-looking gal!”
Marguerite often wished that she had a better class of admirers than
these. “But, alas!” she would sigh, “I am poor. Poverty like a mountain
presses me down. If I could sell more frogs and get a new dress, then
real gentlemen might notice me. But, alas! I must be thankful I have
this old calico thing to cover me. But even this is falling in rags, and
I may soon be without shoes to my feet.”
One day, while she was thus inwardly bemoaning her hard lot and crying
out: “Frogs, fresh frogs! Buy a few frogs!” without having anybody come
to buy even a dime’s worth, her attention was drawn to a middle-aged
man, dressed in a faded suit of black, who had paused on his way up the
street, and seemed to be listening with wonder to her cry.
He was not at all handsome, yet there was something very striking about
him, and you would have marked him out in a crowd as one who did not
follow in the beaten ways of other men.
When he first halted, his thin, wan face had assumed an air of surprise;
but presently, advancing nearer to the booth, this changed to an
expression of melancholy which caused the girl to feel pity for him.
“Are you selling frogs, miss—frogs?” he said, fixing his deep, sunken
eyes upon her.
“Yes, sir. Would you like a few?” replied Marguerite, her heart
fluttering with hope.
“Well, now, I thought I had eaten almost everything that is eatable; but
upon my word this does go a little beyond my experience,” said Abel Day,
as he bent down to examine the delicate white frogs’ legs, which were
ranged in rows, tastefully fringed with a border of parsley leaves. “But
are you sure they are what you say they are? No toads among them?”
“We don’t eat toads in France, sir,” returned Marguerite, the blood
mounting to her cheeks.
“In France! Why, are you from France?”
“I am. _O la belle France!_ And father and mother used to keep a
frog-stand in Rouen; and they had a fine mushroom garden there, too. But
folks here don’t know what is good to eat. Oh! I wish my parents had
never come to America; and so did they wish it before they died.”
“Well, what sort of a place is France?” inquired the other, who began to
feel interested in the girl.
“I was very young, sir, when I left it; therefore I cannot describe it
to you. But I know France is a beautiful country. It must be beautiful;
no country in all the world can compare with it. Father and mother used
to drink wine in France.”
“Well, people here drink wine, too, sometimes.”
“Do they? All those I know drink nasty water or else horrid whiskey,”
said Marguerite, making a wry mouth.
“Humph! you are the first I ever met who didn’t like America,” pursued
Abel Day. “However, I’ll not let this set me against you; so what is the
price of your frogs?”
“How many do you wish?” inquired Marguerite, who hardly expected him to
take over a quarter of a dollar’s worth at most.
“Let me have the whole lot.”
“Well, will four dollars be too much?” she said hesitatingly.
“Here is your money,” answered Abel, drawing forth the sum. “And now,
while you are wrapping up these funny-looking creatures—verily, I might
take ’em for little pigmies just ready for a swim—please tell me how
business is.”
“Bad, sir. It always is with me; and I sometimes think of giving it up.”
“And trying something else? Well, now, take my advice—don’t. This
business can be made to pay as well as any other. All that’s wanted is
to know how to go about it.”
“Oh! I’d be only too thankful if you’d tell me what to do,” exclaimed
Marguerite. “Too thankful; for I’m almost in despair.”
“Well, then, open your ears, and I’ll give you a ‘wrinkle’ that’ll set
you on the highroad to prosperity.” Here Abel lifted his forefinger;
then, after clearing his throat, “My young friend,” he went on, “you
must know that the world is largely composed of fools. Of course it
wouldn’t do to tell ’em so; nevertheless, it’s the truth, though they
are not to be blamed for it—not a bit. We are born what we are; we don’t
make ourselves. A pumpkin can be nothing but a pumpkin; a genius is a
genius. And this makes the world all the more interesting, at least to
me. Why, what a dull place ’twould be if we were all alike! Oh! I do
love to look down upon the broad pumpkin-field of humanity, and feel how
far, far above it some few men are elevated—some very few.”
“Like yourself,” interposed Marguerite, with an air of seriousness, only
belied by a laughing gleam in her eyes.
“Please let that pass; no digressions,” said Abel, waving his hand. “But
come back now to where we started from—namely, how to make the frog
business pay.” Here he gave another cough. “In the first place, my young
friend, this booth is altogether too small. It not only doesn’t allow
your frogs half a chance to be seen, but you yourself are almost hidden
inside of it. And, speaking of yourself, do not be offended if I observe
that you have wonderfully attractive eyes, and a charming voice, and
spirits which keep bright and cheerful no matter how cloudy the sky is.
Yes, this much I know, though I never met you before. Well, now, here is
the advice I give: Hire a small store close by; then have an immense
sign-board hung over the entrance, with Frog Emporium painted on it in
twelve-inch letters, and let every letter be of a different color, so
that people will be attracted by it when they are a good block off. Then
beneath the words Frog Emporium, and on the left-hand side, you must
paint a fat, contented old mother frog, squatting, at the edge of a
pond, watching a lot of merry tadpoles swimming about. This will
represent maternal felicity. At the other end of the sign you may paint
a hungry-looking man with mouth wide open, and Mr. Bullfrog taking a
header down his throat, and screeching out as he goes down, ‘This fellow
knows what’s good!’ You should likewise get a cooking-stove, so as to
have a dainty dish of frogs all prepared for anybody who may come in and
wish to taste them. There, now, is my plan; I submit it to your
consideration. Carry it out, and you’ll soon find it difficult to supply
all your customers.”
“Well, indeed, sir,” answered Marguerite, “I thank you from the bottom
of my heart for the interest you take in me. But, alas! I am too poor to
pay the rent of ever so small a store; why, I couldn’t even pay for such
a sign-board as you describe. In fact, if you knew how very narrow my
means are, you would wonder that I can manage to keep alive.”
“Is that so?” said Abel, in a tone of compassion. “Well, then, leave the
sign to me; I will order it this very day, and the moment it is ready it
shall be brought to you. I’ll also go security for your rent.”
At these words Marguerite’s eyes filled with tears, glad tears, and,
clasping one of his hands, she pressed it warmly; while Abel thought to
himself, “How full of sentiment she is! Poor creature!”
“Oh! what a blessed thing it is to be rich,” exclaimed the girl
presently. “But all rich people, sir, are not like you—no, indeed.”
“Never mind my wealth,” said Abel; “we’ll talk about that some other
time. Go ahead, now, and carry out my notion; put implicit trust in me.
Everything will come out right in the end.”
Again Marguerite pressed his hand—her heart was too full for words—after
which Abel Day went away, promising to return before the week was ended
to see how she was getting on. The girl followed him with her eyes until
he was lost to view, wondering who he could be. “Well, whoever he is,”
she thought to herself, “he is a real gentleman. True, his clothes are
rather worn; but we cannot judge a man by his clothes. Yes, he is a real
gentleman, and different from any other that I have ever seen. He didn’t
beat me down in my price; no, he bought all my frogs and paid me what I
asked. Anybody else would have forced me to take three dollars and a
half or three dollars. I might even have let them go for two and a half.
But no, he isn’t like other rich persons. And, oh! may God bless him and
make him happy; for I am sure from his looks there is something weighing
on his heart.”
During the next few days Marguerite’s thoughts constantly turned upon
her strange friend, who had evidently been in downright earnest and kept
his word; for the sign-board was promptly sent to her, and she could not
contain her delight when she saw it hanging above the doorway of the
little store which she hired.
True to his promise, Abel Day came soon again to visit Marguerite,
bringing money wherewith to pay her month’s rent in advance. It seemed
to do him good to talk to her, and his face brightened when she told him
how many people had already entered the Frog Emporium. “And every one,
sir, who eats a plate of my frogs declares they are better than an
oyster-stew. And they say, too, that the sign-board makes them roar with
laughter and entices them in whether they will or no. O sir! how can I
thank you enough for what you have done for me?”
“Don’t speak any thanks,” replied Abel. “No, don’t speak any; but show
your thanks by being good and virtuous. ’Tis getting down in the world
leads so many to the bad. Ay, misery is the devil’s best friend.
Therefore, my dear girl, improve your condition as fast as you can. Put
money in the savings-bank; then when you meet any poor wretch hard up,
and you have the means to help him, do it.”
“Oh! indeed I will,” said Marguerite. “But now please, kind sir, let me
know the name of my benefactor. I wish to know it, that I may tell it to
the only other friend I have on earth—Mother Catherine. She’ll be sure
to ask me who you are.”
“My name is Abel Day,” he replied.
“And you live—? Well, perhaps I shouldn’t ask that, sir. Though if I did
know your address, I’d slip into your kitchen some morning bright and
early, and cook you a nice mess of frogs for breakfast.” Then, arching
her pretty eyebrows: “You live in Fifth Avenue—beautiful Fifth Avenue?”
“I do, and yet I don’t,” answered Abel. “I often see myself there,
dwelling in a marble mansion; ’tis sure to happen—so sure that I may
consider myself already in Fifth Avenue.” Here, observing a puzzled look
upon Marguerite’s face, “Ah!” he added, “you do not understand me. Well,
nobody else does, either. But never mind. The world will wake up some
fine morning and find the name of Abel Day on every lip. And ’tis all
coming out of here—here.” At these words he tapped his forehead. “My
fortune will not be built on other men’s misfortunes; ’twill not come
through gambling in stocks, through swindling, through falsehood,
through dishonor. But out of my brain the great thing is slowly but
surely taking shape and form which ere long will astound the world.”
“Well, truly, sir, I believe you. Oh! I do,” exclaimed Marguerite, who
felt herself carried away by his own enthusiasm. “I knew from the first
moment I laid eyes on you that you were an extraordinary man.”
“’Tis often thus,” pursued Abel musingly. “Genius is not seldom
recognized by the humble ones of earth, when those who dwell in high
places, with ears and eyes stuffed and blinded by prosperity, have only
fleers and gibes to give.”
“And would it be showing too much curiosity,” inquired Marguerite, “if I
were to ask what is this wonderful thing which I doubt not will bring
you in riches and renown? And certainly no one deserves these more than
yourself; for but for you, oh! I shudder to think what might have become
of me. My future was dark—dark—dark.”
“And I have brightened it a little. Yet what is what I have done
compared with what remains to be done!” said Abel, speaking like one who
thinks aloud. “O mystery of life! Why is there so much misery around
me?” Then, addressing Marguerite: “Well, if you like, I will be here at
four o’clock this afternoon, when I shall make clear to you what now you
do not comprehend. But, remember, it must be a profound secret; no other
human being except yourself must know what I am inventing—no other human
being.”
“You will find, sir, that I can keep a secret,” said Marguerite. “So
please come at the hour you mention.”
Punctual to the minute Abel Day was at the Frog Emporium, which was so
thronged with customers that he had to wait half an hour for the girl.
But at length, the last frog being sold, off they went together; and as
they took their way along the streets Marguerite wondered whither he
would lead her. Would it be to some fashionable quarter of the city—to
some place where quiet, well-mannered people dwelt? And as her companion
did not open his lips, she was left to her own hopes and conjectures,
and kept wondering and wondering, until by and by she found herself,
with a slight pang of disappointment, in Tompkins Square. A few minutes
later the girl was following Abel Day into a third-class boarding-house,
and, observing several scrawny females making big eyes at her as she
mounted up to his room, which was on the top story, he whispered: “They
are jealous of you, my dear; but pay no attention to them, and above all
do not reveal to any of these Paul Prys what I am going to show you.”
Presently they reached the door of his chamber, which he hastily
unlocked, saying to Marguerite: “Pass in quick—pass in quick”; for Abel
fancied he heard footsteps and voices close behind him.
Marguerite obeyed and made haste into the room; then, while Abel was
stuffing paper into the keyhole, she threw her eyes about her in utter
astonishment.
The apartment was barely half the size of her own at the tenement
building; nor could it compare with it for order and neatness. Indeed,
’twas in the greatest disorder. Numberless slips of paper were strewn
over the floor, with queer pencil-marks upon them, and the wall was
covered by the same odd drawings, especially near the bed, as though
Abel did most of his brain-work after he retired for the night and
before he arose in the morning. On a shelf by the window lay a
dust-covered manuscript, and beside it a cigar-box half full of buttons,
dimly visible through a spider’s web.
But where was the wonderful machine he had told her about?
“Here it is,” spoke Abel in a semi-whisper and drawing something out
from under the bed.
“Really! Oh! do let me see,” cried Marguerite, flying towards him.
“It is almost finished,” added Abel. “But pray lower your voice, for
there are listeners outside—vile eavesdroppers.”
He now went on to explain what this curious object was, which looked
like nothing so much as a big toy; for all the girl could perceive was a
stuffed chicken sitting in a box, gaudily painted red, white, and blue.
“You must know,” said Abel, “that every time a hen lays an egg the very
first thing she does is to turn and look at it, as if to make sure it is
really laid. Well, now, this machine which you behold is the Magic Hen’s
Nest. There is a spring bottom to it, so that the instant the egg is
dropped it will disappear. Then, when the fowl turns to see if it is
there—lo! she’ll find it isn’t there. Whereupon, concluding she must
have made a mistake, like a good creature she’ll sit down again, and
presently out’ll come egg number two, which will likewise vanish through
the trap. And so on and on and on, until—well, really, I can’t tell what
may happen in the end, for of course there is a limit to all good
things: the hen may lose her wits. But if she doesn’t—if she keeps her
senses, and if I can force her to continue laying and laying—why, my
fortune is made sure, and I’d not change places with old Howe and his
sewing-machine—no, indeed I wouldn’t.”
“Well, I declare!” ejaculated Marguerite when Abel was through with the
explanation. “This is certainly a grand idea. Why, one hen will do the
work of a score of hens.”
“Of five hundred,” said Abel solemnly. “And I wrote some time ago to a
couple of my acquaintances on Long Island, advising them to sell off
every hen on their farm except one. But they are not willing to follow
my advice; and, what’s more, they both came here last week when I was
out, and asked all kinds of questions about my health. The fools! But
never mind; it’s all the worse for them, for just as soon as I get out
my patent down will go the price of hens to zero.”
“Well, upon my word, this is wonderful, wonderful!” said Marguerite,
kneeling and stroking the back of the stuffed chicken.
“Ay, and I am filled with wonder at myself for having invented such a
thing,” continued Abel. “But it only shows what the brain of man can do.
And yet what man is able to accomplish now is nothing compared with what
he will accomplish in the ages to come.”
“Well, what is needed, sir, to make this Magic Nest perfect? It seems to
me to be in good working order.”
“Nothing remains to be done but to get a live hen and put it to the
proof; though I have no more doubt of its success than I have of my own
existence.”
“Well, do let me be present when you make the trial. Will you?”
“Yes, you may come, for you do not laugh and jeer at me like the rest of
the world; and, moreover, there is something soothing in your presence.
Oh! I believe if I had had you always by my side this Magic Nest would
have been ready long ago.”
“And when I come again,” said Marguerite a little timidly, “I’ll put the
room in order—may I?”
Here Abel’s brow lowered; but quickly the dark look passed away, for she
was gazing so sweetly at him, and he said: “You perceive, then, that it
is not in order? Well, you are right. I live all by myself and have no
time to sweep and dust—no time.”
“All by yourself!” repeated Marguerite compassionately.
“Yes; and when evening comes round I light my candle and play at
solitaire, and listen to the cats caterwauling on the roof.”
“How lonely!” exclaimed the girl.
“Perhaps it may be. Yet in solitude one hears and sees strange things. I
love solitude.”
“Really?”
“I do; nevertheless, I own ’twould be better in some respects not to
dwell so much by myself. Therefore I give you leave to come here
whenever you please; yes, come and sweep and rummage and turn things
topsy-turvy, if you like.”
At this Marguerite burst into a laugh.
“Ha! probably you think my apartment is already topsy-turvy? Well, it
only seems so to you; to my eye there is perfect order in all this
chaos.”
“And the buttons, sir, in yonder cigar-box—”
Marguerite did not end the phrase; she hoped he would understand her,
and Abel did.
“Humph! you have discovered those buttons, eh? Well, they came off my
clothes. And here let me observe, my young friend, the next important
thing to invent is a suit of clothes without any buttons.”
“Well, until you invent one, please allow me to sew those buttons on
again. Will you?”
“Alas!” replied Abel, “the shirts and coats and trousers to which they
once belonged are long since worn out; and now I have no clothes left
but the clothes I have on.”
“This was a very fine suit once,” said Marguerite. “The cloth is
excellent.”
“Yes, I had it made by a fashionable tailor; for I intended to wear it
when I went to visit influential people, and try and interest them in
my—in my—”
Here Abel heaved a sigh, while a look of deeper gloom shadowed his face
than the girl had yet observed upon it.
“Pray tell me what troubles you,” said Marguerite. “Do tell me. Perhaps
I may be able to comfort you.” Then, as he made no response, she went
on: “Have those of whom you sought aid turned a cold shoulder upon you?
Have they refused to help you with this Magic Hen’s Nest? Why, I
thought, sir, ’twas a profound secret; that you had told nobody about
it.”
“No, no; I don’t allude to this, but to something else—to something
which I cannot think of without an agony of mind I hope God may spare
you from ever suffering. I had forgotten all about it; I had not thought
of it for ever so long, till our conversation brought it back to me. Oh!
do let me forget it—forget it for ever.”
“I guessed when I first saw you, poor dear man, that there was a heavy
burden on your heart,” spoke Marguerite inwardly. “Now your own lips
have confessed it to me. Oh! if I only knew you better, I might be able
to console you.”
She refrained, however, from asking again what his cross was; but little
doubting that ’twas connected in some way with another invention, she
determined on a future occasion to ask him to tell her the history of
his life. “And who knows but I may find the means of bringing back the
smiles to his mournful visage. If I do, ’twill be a slight return for
all the kindness he has shown me.”
Here Marguerite cast another glance about the forlorn-looking chamber,
and wondered how he had been able to pay the first quarter’s rent of her
store. “He must have pinched himself to do it,” she thought to herself.
“Oh! what other man in New York with only one suit of clothes would have
been so generous?”
And now, ere she withdrew, her feelings got the better of her judgment,
and she burst into a fervent expression of thanks for his great
benevolence and sympathy, and hoped that for her sake he had not
deprived himself of money which he really needed. But Abel sharply
interrupted her.
“Do not talk thus,” he said, “if you have true faith in my Magic Nest.
Poor I may seem, but I consider myself rich—ever so rich; a mountain of
gold is within my reach. You ought to be convinced of it, yet still you
doubt.”
“Oh! no, no; I don’t doubt it for one moment,” answered Marguerite, very
much confused. “Pray, sir, be not offended at my words—I forgot”; then,
looking up in his face, “But I cannot help speaking what is in my heart.
O sir! you are the dearest person to me in all the wide world.”
“Well, come here some evening and play at solitaire with me,” said Abel
in a milder tone. “But no, it won’t be solitaire with you—it will be
two-handed euchre.”
“Oh! I’ll come most willingly. True, I know nothing about cards, but you
can teach me.”
The girl now bade him adieu, and his parting words to her were:
“I will inform you when I am ready to experiment with the live hen. But,
remember, breathe not a syllable of it to any human being.”
During the week which followed this visit to Abel Day’s den—as the other
boarders called his room—Marguerite did not see her benefactor. But
daily she looked for him, and he was seldom absent from her thoughts. He
was so vastly unlike other people—the selfish, deceitful herd around
her; loving solitude, yet evidently glad to have her with him; poor, yet
calling himself rich; full of bright hopes, yet a prey to melancholy.
His very singularities possessed a charm for the girl and made her long
for his coming.
“He brings me into quite another world,” she said; and while she was
selling frogs (business at the Frog Emporium was increasing rapidly)
Marguerite would indulge in pleasing reveries about good Abel Day. She
almost hoped that his fortune might not come too soon.
“Yes, I should like him to stay awhile longer in his humble home, so
that I might have a chance to make it snug and cosey for him. We might
pass happy days there together—happy days.”
And every morning and evening she knelt before her crucifix and prayed
for Abel.
But if Marguerite often thought of Abel Day, he did not think of her;
no, not once during these seven days. Her presence had indeed flashed a
ray of light into the darkness of his soul; but it was like the coming
and going of a meteor, and the instant she left him he relapsed into his
sombre mood. The paper remained stuffed in the keyhole; ever and anon he
would utter a word to himself, but ’twas in a whisper; and thus from
morning till night, solitary and silent, he passed the time, seated on a
bench with his hollow eyes fixed upon the Magic Nest—inventing,
inventing, inventing; for, although Abel had not told Marguerite, there
was still one little thing wanting to make the invention absolutely
perfect.
Then, when dusk approached and the first cat began to caterwaul, he
would get into bed, and there rack his brain for hours longer and until
the candle went out. People wondered how he managed to live without
eating; but a few crusts of bread sufficed to keep Abel alive, and ’twas
one of his odd fancies that we might in time bring ourselves to live
without nourishment.
“Oh! he is thinner than ever, poor dear man,” exclaimed Marguerite, when
she saw Abel entering her store the next Monday afternoon; and he was
carrying a hen under his arm. Then, after the first warm greeting was
over, she made haste to prepare a nice dish of frogs, which she invited
him to partake of. But Abel shook his head, and it was not until she had
almost gone on her knees that he finally placed the hen in her
safekeeping and sat down to the savory repast.
“Oh! I’m so glad you relish my frogs; everybody declares I cook so
well,” said the girl, as she stood watching him.
“The world thinks far too much about eating,” returned Abel. “It is the
grossest act humanity can perform; and I believe if we tried we might
exist without food.”
“Well, I hope that day is far off,” said Marguerite; “for when it
arrives I’ll have to close my business.”
“Ah! true, I didn’t think of that,” said Abel, rising up from the table.
“But now are you ready to accompany me and witness the triumph of my
Magic Nest?”
“Yes, indeed I am; I wouldn’t miss it for anything,” answered
Marguerite; and so, telling a customer, who appeared just at this
moment, that the last Emporium frog was sold, not a single one left, she
closed the store and they departed.
“You are happy to-day,” observed the girl when they had gone half-way to
Tompkins Square, and hearing Abel give a laugh. “Oh! I’m so glad. Let us
always try to be happy.” But even as she spoke his countenance settled
once more into the old look, and, bending down (for Abel was rather
tall), “Learn this truth, my young friend,” he said: “Nothing lies like
a laugh.”
“Oh! no, no,” exclaimed Marguerite, making bold to disagree with him;
“people only laugh when they feel happy. Laughter always tells the
truth. And since I have known you, sir, I laugh ever so much; for I have
now a good thick pair of shoes, and the water cannot soak in and wet my
feet. And don’t you see, too, I have a new dress? And I am already
laying by money in the savings-bank; and it all comes from your
brilliant idea of setting up a Frog Emporium. Oh! yes, yes, I laugh a
great deal now—a very great deal.”
Then, as he made no response, she went on: “You are a genius, sir, a
genius!”
“Ah! you recognize in me the divine spark?” murmured Abel, his visage
faintly brightening. “Well, you are the first who has done so—the very
first—and you shall share in my triumph; ay, half the gold-mine shall be
yours.” Then, after a pause, “Do you know,” he added, “you may ere long
be dwelling in Fifth Avenue and wearing diamonds and silks; though, if
you follow my advice, you will always dress plainly and never change
your pretty French cap for a fashionable hat full of feathers and
ribbons.”
“Really!” cried Marguerite, whose faith in Abel Day was unbounded.
“Living in Fifth Avenue, beautiful Fifth Avenue!” And she clapped her
hands and skipped merrily along in front of him.
But presently from Abel’s lips burst another laugh, and this time there
was something strange and wild about it which caused Marguerite to pause
and look around; then, taking his hand, they walked on side by side in
silence, and oh! how much she wished that he might not appear so
unhappy.
At length they reached Abel’s home; and if Abel’s fellow-boarders had
stared with astonishment the first time they saw him mounting to his
room accompanied by a strange young woman, they made bigger eyes now as
he ascended the stairway with a hen under his arm; nor was it easy for
Marguerite to keep a grave countenance when presently the chicken began
to cackle; and the cackling of the chicken and the giggling of the
inquisitive females, who were following at a proper distance, made a
very queer chorus.
“Let ’em laugh,” growled Abel after he had entered his chamber and
fastened the door—“let ’em laugh; my day of triumph is nigh, and then
they’ll be the veriest sycophants at my feet. But I’ll spurn them all;
let ’em laugh.”
And now began the trial of the Magic Nest; Abel first cautioning
Marguerite to speak in an undertone, if she had anything to say. Gently,
as tenderly as a mother might handle her baby, the fowl was placed in
the box; and forthwith she ceased to cackle, while the others ceased
even to whisper. Then, motioning the girl to sit down on the bench, Abel
stood beside her, awaiting with intense excitement the laying of the
first egg. In a couple of minutes his brow was wet with perspiration,
then his whole face became moistened; and when, by and by, after what
seemed an age—’twas only a quarter of an hour—the hen did lay an egg,
then rose up to look at it, Abel trembled so violently that Marguerite
inquired if he were ill. But without heeding her question he went on
trembling and saying, “The egg has vanished, vanished! and she can’t
believe her eyes—she can’t believe her eyes!” And now for about a minute
and a half it did really seem as if the hen, concluding she had made a
mistake, was going to proceed and lay another egg, when, lo! she coolly
stepped out of the box, and, after shaking her feathers, commenced
pecking the bits of paper scattered over the floor.
When Abel Day perceived this his head swam a moment; then clenching his
fists, and his cavernous eyes flashing fire, he sprang towards the
chicken, and, forgetting all about eavesdroppers, he screamed loud
enough to be heard from cellar to garret: “I’ll force you to do your
duty! I will, I will!”
But, as ill-luck would have it, the window was open, and out of it flew
the hen, so hotly pursued by Abel that he came within an ace of passing
through it too; which had he done, his neck would certainly have been
broken, for Abel had no wings.
Then, as if to make sport of him, the perverse creature perched herself
on a neighboring chimney, where she set up a loud cackling.
“Hark, they are mocking me again! Hear them, hear them!” groaned Abel
Day, clapping his hands to his head. “And the horror, too, is coming
over me again: it always comes with those jeering voices.”
“I hear nobody. Oh! I beg you to be calm,” said Marguerite, now
thoroughly alarmed on Abel’s account. Then, leading him to the bench,
“What agitates you so, dear friend? Oh! do, do calm yourself and tell me
what you fear.”
Abel sank down on the bench, and, after groaning once more, “Hark! hark!
They are mocking me,” did not utter another word, hard though she urged
him to speak; but, with eyes glued to the Magic Nest, he remained dumb
and motionless.
Then by and by evening came, and the twilight deepened into night, yet
still Abel moved not, nor opened his lips, unless occasionally to heave
a sigh. Then the moon rose, and as its pale rays streamed into the room
and fell upon the sufferer’s face, it assumed an expression so unearthly
that Marguerite was filled with awe.
And now a dreadful, startling thought occurred to her: her dear friend
might be mad! What a pang this gave her tender heart! What bright,
new-born hopes became suddenly blasted. How many fair castles in the air
crumbled away into ghostly ruins at the thought that Abel Day was mad!
“Is it possible,” she asked herself, “that this good man—he who has been
so kind to me, whom I looked up to as one far, far above the cold,
heartless world—is it possible that he is bereft of reason?” And even as
Marguerite breathed these words she for the first time grew conscious of
something glowing in her bosom more ardent than friendship for Abel Day.
“I love him,” she murmured—“I love him. And no matter what people may
think of me, I’ll stay by him and nurse him; I’ll be his servant and
truest friend as long as he lives.”
Trying indeed was this night for Marguerite—oh! very, very. It seemed as
if it never would end. Nor did day bring any relief to her anxiety. The
blessed, life-giving sunshine shimmered in; the chimney-swallows
twittered by the window; a stray bee, blown away by the morning breeze
from his far-off hive, flew in and buzzed about the chamber; still Abel
remained like one turned into stone, except for the deep-drawn sighs
which ever and anon escaped his lips.
And so this day passed, and so day followed day, without bringing any
change in his mysterious condition.
Of course Marguerite was not with him the whole time. But she took care
whenever she quitted the room to lock the door; then she would hasten
with winged feet to the Frog Emporium, where she would spend four or
five hours; then back Marguerite hurried, hoping and praying that no ill
had befallen Abel during her absence. But while she was with the poor
man she did more than simply watch him. The ugly pencil-marks were
rubbed off the wall; the floor was thoroughly swept; the cobwebs were
brushed out of the corners; and many another thing which only woman’s
hand can do Marguerite did. On a little table, too (the only piece of
furniture besides the bench and bed), was spread a good, substantial
meal for Abel to eat the moment he felt hungry; and it amazed her to see
him fasting so long.
We need not say that everybody in the house had his curiosity now raised
to the highest pitch; and the gossiping, prying females shook their
virtuous heads and muttered no complimentary things of Abel’s faithful
nurse.
“Well, they may say of me whatever they like,” said the brave girl. “My
conscience doesn’t reproach me; it tells me I am doing right. When I was
down Abel Day helped me, and now, when he is down, I’ll help him.”
At length, one afternoon, weary of the long, unbroken silence of the
chamber, Marguerite began to sing. The song was one she had learnt from
her mother, and was called “Normandie, chère Normandie.” She had a rich
contralto voice, and the effect which the melody wrought upon Abel was
something perfectly marvellous; and as her face happened to be turned
towards his, she noticed the change at once, and her eyes filled with
glad tears.
“Glory! glory! I am escaping from the infernal regions; the darkness and
the voices are leaving me. Thank God! thank God!” he cried. And
Marguerite, only too happy to rouse him out of his lethargy, continued
singing for well-nigh half an hour. Then, placing herself beside him on
the bench, she gave way to her joy in laughter and merry talk, while
Abel’s countenance wore an expression almost radiant, and, resting one
of his hands on her head as a father might have done, “All is blue sky
at last,” he said. “I feel as I have not felt in many a day. Oh! had I
had you always with me, the demons would never have shrieked in my ears;
your angelic songs would have driven them away.”
“Well, you can’t imagine,” returned Marguerite, “how happy it makes me
to make you happy.” Then, after a pause: “But now, dear friend, I have a
favor to ask: I wish you to tell me the history of your life; for there
is a mystery in it—I am sure there is. Do tell it to me. Not that I am
curious, but I firmly believe ’twill do you good to let me carry a part
of the burden which has almost crushed you down.”
“Fool, fool that I was to live all by myself so many years!” spoke Abel
in a musing tone, and paying no heed to her request. “The mocking voices
cannot abide cheerful company; it frightens them off.” Then, turning to
Marguerite: “You’ll not let them come back, will you?”
“You are dreaming,” answered the girl, patting his hand. “Why, this room
was still as the tomb until I began to sing.”
“No, no, it wasn’t; I heard them all the while.”
“Well, don’t fear them any more. I’ll stay with you; I’ll be your
canary, your nightingale, your musical box,” she said with a merry
laugh. “So pray begin and give me a little of your past history; for the
sooner you begin the sooner you’ll end, and then I’ll sing another
song.”
“Well, well, to please you I’ll do anything. Therefore learn that I was
born in Massachusetts. But of my early years I need say very little. My
father died when I was a child; at the age of fourteen I had to shift
for myself, and from that time on it was a hard struggle against
poverty. Somehow I didn’t succeed in anything I put my hand to. I tried
this thing and that; I tried everything almost, but was always
unfortunate. And, do you know, I believe in luck. Oh! I do. Some are
born with it, others are not; and these last will turn out failures, be
they ever so honest and hard-working. Well, undoubtedly I belong to the
unlucky ones; and, what’s more, I verily believe there is such a thing
as having too much brains. Why, many a pumpkin-headed fellow I used to
know is to-day a millionaire—can’t explain it, but there’s the fact;
while I am—well, you see what I am, and I have reached middle life; and
my miserable home”—here he threw a glance around the room; then,
clasping his hands: “But dear me, what has happened? Is this my den?
Why, how changed it looks!”
“I have been turning things topsy-turvy,” answered Marguerite, with a
twinkle in her eye. “But pray don’t stop to admire the change. Please go
on; I am so interested.”
“Well, finally, after trying everything,” continued Abel, “and, as I
have observed, failing in everything I tried, I one day bethought myself
of turning inventor. And the more I thought about it the more confident
I felt that I should succeed; indeed, I passed a whole week in a
delightful reverie, wherein I saw myself wealthy and famous, and all
from one single invention. Then, when this dreamy, happy week was gone
by, I set about inventing a Patent Log—a thing very much needed by
mariners; for the present method of determining the speed of a vessel is
both clumsy and unreliable. ’Twas here in this chamber, on this bench, I
began my brain labor, and for a while I made excellent progress. But
after a couple of months I got tired of sitting up and took to my bed,
where I used to lie inventing—inventing all day long, and even all night
too. I seemed to be able to do without sleep; until one evening—oh! I’ll
never forget it”—here he paused and shuddered—“one evening the room
became suddenly full of voices. From under the bed, through the keyhole
and window, down the chimney, on every side of me these horrible voices
were yelling and screeching, ‘He’ll never succeed—never succeed’; ‘Born
to ill-luck’; ‘All time wasted’; ‘He’ll go to the dogs and hang
himself!’ What happened after this terrible moment I can’t say; I must
have gone off into a fever. I remember nothing. All I know is that one
day—but how long afterwards I cannot tell—I became, as it were, alive
again, and found myself inventing quite a different thing—namely, the
Magic Nest, which, as you know, has once more proved that I am born to
fail in whatever I undertake. And now, alas! I don’t see how I’ll be
able to earn a living; to confess the truth, I have not one dollar left
in the world.”
“Bah! Don’t be down-hearted on that account,” said Marguerite. “My Frog
Emporium is a little gold-mine, and you shall need for nothing. Why, as
I have already remarked more than once, I’d have been ere now in a
wretched plight but for you. You stretched out a helping hand; and
whatever the world may think of you, and whatever you think of
yourself—I—I call you a genius.”
When Marguerite had delivered this speech, so full of balm to poor
heart-broken Abel, she rose from the bench and flew to the old,
neglected manuscript. A bright idea had flashed upon her—’twas an
inspiration. She had already turned over its pages and found them
covered with drawings as unintelligible to her as Egyptian
hieroglyphics; but she remembered that in one place, written in pencil,
were the words, “This is Abel Day’s Patent Log.”
In a moment she was back at Abel’s side, and, holding up the manuscript
before him, “I do believe,” she said, “had I been with you when you were
laboring on this invention, that you would not have fallen ill, for I
should not have let you overtask your brain; and by this time ’twould
have been quite finished, and you’d have been in the eyes of the whole
world what I know you to be—a great, great, great man.”
But Abel, instead of replying, put his hands to his ears and shivered as
if he were stricken with cold.
“O dear friend! what is the matter now?” exclaimed Marguerite.
“The very sight of that manuscript makes me dread the voices—the horrid
voices. Hark! one is beginning to yell again. It says I must hang myself
in the end. Hark! Don’t you hear it?”
“Listen to me, and not to the voice,” said Marguerite, still holding
before his eyes the page whereon was written, “This is Abel Day’s Patent
Log.” “Take courage and look bolder at this manuscript, while I sing for
you.”
It was a cheery, jovial song she sang. She threw her whole soul into it,
and it wrought upon Abel the happy effect she hoped it would. When the
song was ended, he bowed his head and murmured: “O my blessing! my good
angel! How much sunshine you bring to me! Already the voice is gone. You
have indeed power to drive the fiend away.”
“Well, now, Abel,” answered Marguerite, “you whom—whom I—I—” Here her
tongue faltered.
But as mother earth cannot restrain the crystal waters murmuring within
her bosom, so it was impossible for the girl to hold back the words
which were bubbling up from the pure fountain of her heart; and
presently, with a blushing rose on each cheek, she spoke out and said:
“You whom I love, let me ask you to kneel with me and offer thanks to
Almighty God that I am able to drive away your melancholy. Yes, let us
say a prayer of thanksgiving.”
Abel did as she wished, and they knelt and prayed together.
Then, when they had risen from their knees, “And now,” added Marguerite,
“I hope you will set courageously to work at this Patent Log, and while
you are thus engaged I’ll play the nightingale and sing my very best;
will you?”
Abel’s eyes were swimming with tears, and, taking her hand in his, “You
love me?” he said in tremulous accents. “Oh! how kind, how good it is in
you to love me. I have been alone since my boyhood—all alone. Nobody
since the far-off day when I parted from my mother ever spoke to me as
you do. The world appeared like a desert to me. I cared very little for
life. All was a barren waste on every side of me until this hour. But
now I would not die for anything. I wish to live because you live; and,
O Marguerite! my heart would stop beating if you were to leave me.”
“But I never will leave you.”
“No, don’t. Let us live together, Marguerite, always together; be my
wife.”
“Well, now,” answered Marguerite, her heart overflowing, yet at the same
time speaking with firmness and decision, “you must set immediately to
work; a quarter of an hour will be enough for to-day. To-morrow you may
labor half an hour, and perhaps next day an hour, until this invention
is completed; and, remember, all the while you are inventing I’ll play
the lark, the canary, or whatever you choose to call me.”
Abel listened to her words, and, albeit weak and hardly in a state to
use his brain, he actually made a little progress with his invention
during the brief space she allowed him to work. What unspeakable joy it
gave Marguerite to think that she might be able to restore him to full
mental health! “And when he does become entirely himself—oh! then—then—”
Here her song waxed louder and more melodious; for her heart was
thrilling with a rapture which only the voice of music can express.
Yes, Marguerite, ’twas verily an inspiration that caused you to direct
Abel’s mind anew to the Patent Log; for this is a sane and wholesome
object whereupon to exert his faculties, and not a madman’s dream like
the Magic Hen’s Nest.
Day by day Abel gained in health; his appetite and sleep returned; he
laughed as merrily as Marguerite; and people could scarcely believe he
was the same man. But the girl never relaxed her vigilance. So passed
away the spring and summer; and when autumn came round not the fairest
castle in the air which Marguerite had built for herself did surpass the
bright reality which opened before her vision. For, lo! the Patent Log
was patented, and its success went beyond Abel’s most extravagant hopes.
A mass-meeting of ship-owners and merchants was held at the Cooper
Institute to do him honor; the press lauded him to the skies; the tongue
of Fame was chiming his name far and wide. But, better than all, a
cataract of gold was rolling into his pocket.
Of course before long our friend changed his quarters; and, in his new
and elegant home, right above the bed Marguerite hung the crucifix which
Mother Catherine had given her; then she and her betrothed went to the
Convent of Mercy to visit the good nun, who wept glad tears when she
heard their story.
“Well, I lean upon her as much as she leans upon me; we love and help
each other in all things,” spoke Abel.
“And always, always will,” continued Marguerite.
“God bless you, my children!” said Mother Catherine.
A fortnight later the happy couple were married; after which they sailed
on their wedding tour across the sea to Normandy. And one day, as they
were leaving the beautiful church of Saint-Ouen, whither they had gone
to give thanks to God for their great happiness, Marguerite spoke and
said: “I once thought there was no country in all the world like France;
but now, my dear husband, I love America more.”
“And I,” returned Abel, “love France as much as I do America; for,
although I believe good wives may be found everywhere, it was this sunny
land which gave me my pretty Marguerite.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE BELLS.
I stand by Giotto’s gleaming tower,
In gloom of the cathedral’s wing,
And hear, in the soft sunset hour,
The bells to benediction ring.
That Duomo boasts: “Stone upon stone,
Eternally I rise and rise;
So, pace by pace, zone over zone,
I am uprounded to the skies.”
But simpler effort, as direct
As that of palm or pine, impels
This wonder of the architect
To strike heaven’s blue with clash of bells.
Etrurian Athens! long ago
Thy sister of the Violet Crown,
In colonnades like carven snow—
All crumbled now, and bare, and brown
With ashes of dead sunshine—sate
Among her gods, and had no voice
Potential as their high estate
To summon to the sacrifice.
Worth even the Phidian Jove sublime,
Chryselephantine, and all else
Of the lost forms of olden time,
Fair Florence! are thy living bells.
O bells! O bells! when angels sang,
Surely—though no Evangelist
Has told—a silvery peal first rang,
And Christian chimes came in with Christ.
For bells! O bells! not brazen horn,
Nor sistrum, sackbut, cymbals, gong,
Harsh dissonance of creeds forlorn,
But your sweet tongues to Him belong.
Crowning with music as ye swing
This lily in stone, this lamp of grace,
Wherever Christ the Lord is King,
Ye have commission and a place.
This tower stands square to winds that smite,
Nor fears the thunders to impale.
Prince of the Powers of Air! by rite
Of baptism shall the bells prevail.
Shine, _Stella Maris_! and O song
Of _Ave Mary_, and Vesper bells,
Be drowned not in the city’s throng!
For—sad and sweet as Dante tells—
Comes, strangely here, the sense to me
Of parting for some unknown clime,
A sense of silence and the sea,
Charmed by the tryst of star and chime.
O bells! O bells! the worlds are buoyed,
Like beacon-bells, on waves profound,
In all no silence as no void—
The very flowers are cups of sound.
We dream—and dreaming we rejoice—
That we, when great Death draws us nigh,
Hearing, may understand the Voice
Which rocks a bluebell or the sky;
And, with new senses finely strung
In grander Eden’s blossoming,
May see a golden planet swung,
Yet hear the silver lilies ring!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
OUR NEW INDIAN POLICY AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.
“While it cannot be denied that the government of the United
States, in the general terms and temper of its legislation, has
evinced a desire to deal generously with the Indians, it must be
admitted that the actual treatment they have received has been
_unjust and iniquitous beyond the power of words to express_.
Taught by the government that they had rights entitled to
respect, when these rights have been assailed by the rapacity of
the white man the arm which should have been raised to protect
them has been ever ready to sustain the aggressor. The history
of the government connections with the Indians is _a shameful
record of broken treaties and unfulfilled promises_.”
We take the above sentences from the first report of the Board of Indian
Commissioners appointed by President Grant under the act of Congress of
April 10, 1869. The commissioners, nine in number, were gentlemen
selected for their presumed piety, philanthropy, and practical business
qualities. None of them was a Catholic; in taking their testimony not
only with respect to the general treatment of the Indians, but in regard
to the religious interests of some of the tribes, we shall not be
suspected of summoning witnesses who are prejudiced in favor of the
Catholic Church. One of the commissioners, indeed, Mr. Felix R. Brunot,
of Pittsburgh, the chairman of the board, appears to have been inspired
at times with a lively fear and hatred of the church; his
colleagues—Messrs. Robert Campbell, of St. Louis; Nathan Bishop, of New
York; William E. Dodge, of New York; John V. Farwell, of Chicago; George
H. Stuart, of Philadelphia; Edward S. Tobey, of Boston; John D. Lang, of
Maine; and Vincent Colyer, of New York—are gentlemen quite free from any
predilection in favor of Catholicity. The passage we have taken from
their first report relates only to the worldly affairs of the Indians.
But a perusal of the various annual reports of this board, of the
Commissioners of Indian Affairs, and of the Indian agents, from 1869
until 1876, has convinced us that the injuries inflicted upon the
Indians have been by no means confined to those caused by the avarice
and rapacity of the whites. Sectarian fanaticism, Protestant bigotry,
and anti-Christian hatred have been called into play, and the arm of the
government has been made the instrument for the restriction, and even
the abolition, of religious freedom among many of the Indian tribes.
We are confident that such treatment is not in consonance with the
wishes of the American people. Have we not been taught, from our youth
up, that the two chief glories of our country were the equality of all
its citizens before the law and their absolute freedom in all religious
matters? True, the Indians are not citizens, but we have undertaken the
task of acting as their guardians, with the hope of ultimately fitting
them, or as many of them as may be tough enough to endure the process,
for the duties of citizenship. To begin this task by teaching our pupils
that religion is not a matter of conscience—that the government has a
right to force upon a people a form of Christianity against which their
consciences revolt—and to punish them for attempting to adhere to the
church whose priests first taught them to know and to fear God, is not
merely a moral wrong; it is a crime.
The whole number of Indians in the United States and Territories,
according to the very careful and systematic census contained in the
report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1875, was 279,333,
exclusive of those in Alaska. It is not a very large number; the
population of the city of New York exceeds it nearly fourfold. The
Indian Bureau classifies these people under four heads:
I. 98,108 Indians who “are wild and scarcely tractable to any extent
beyond that of coming near enough to the government agent to receive
rations and blankets.”
II. 52,113 Indians “who are thoroughly convinced of the necessity of
labor, and are actually undertaking it, and with more or less readiness
accept the direction and assistance of government agents to this end.”
III. 115,385 Indians “who have come into possession of allotted lands
and other property in stock and implements belonging to a landed
estate.”
IV. 13,727 Indians who are described as “roamers and vagrants,” and of
whom the commissioner, the Hon. Edward P. Smith, speaks in the following
Christian and statesman-like language:
“They are generally as harmless as vagrants and vagabonds can be
in a civilized country. They are found in all stages of
degradation produced by licentiousness, intemperance, idleness,
and poverty. Without land, unwilling to leave their haunts for a
homestead upon a reservation, and scarcely in any way related
to, or recognized by, the government, they drag out a miserable
life. Themselves corrupted and the source of corruption, they
seem to serve by their continued existence but a single useful
purpose—that of affording a living illustration of the tendency
and effect of barbarism allowed to expand itself uncured,”
—or, perhaps, of “affording a living illustration” of the wisdom and
mercy of a policy which, neglecting these poor wretches “without land,”
comes down upon other tribes, living peaceably and thrivingly upon
reservations “solemnly secured to them for ever,” takes from them their
homes and farms, and drives them forth to a new and desolate land; or,
if they resist, exasperates them into a war that ends by adding them to
the number of “roamers and vagabonds.” The sanguinary conflict which, as
we write, is still being waged between a portion of the Nez-Percés
Indians and the troops under command of that eminent “Christian
soldier,” General Howard, is a flagrant instance of the manner in which
Indians of the first and second classes enumerated by the commissioner
are driven into the category of “roamers and vagabonds.” We cannot pause
to trace the history of this our last and most needless Indian war; we
pass it by with the remark that one of the indirect causes of it,
according to the report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1874,
appears to have been the action of the “American Board of Commissioners
for Foreign Missions,” a Presbyterian organization, in selling to a
speculator certain lands within the reservation which did not belong to
the board, but to the Indians themselves.
The report of the commissioner for 1876—the Hon. J. Q. Smith—contains a
number of statistical tables, an analysis of which will aid us in
forming a correct conception of the present condition of the Indians
embraced in the commissioner’s third class, as well as a portion of
those in his second class. According to these tables—which contain the
latest _official_ returns from all the agencies—the whole number of
Indians, exclusive of those in Alaska, and of the “roamers and
vagrants,” is put down at 266,151, of whom 40,639 are of mixed blood.
The latter are for the most part the children of Indian mothers and of
French, Spanish, and American fathers. No less than 153,000 of the whole
number “come directly under the civilizing influences of the government
agencies,” and of these 104,818 “wear citizen’s dress.” The abandonment
of the picturesque blanket for the civilizing coat, the embroidered
buckskin leggings for the plain pantaloons, and the gay plume of
gorgeous feathers for the hideous hat, is certainly a mark of progress.
But when the wigwam is torn down, and the log, frame, or stone house is
erected in its stead, a still more decided step towards civilization has
been taken; and it may be with surprise that some of our readers will
learn that our “savages” have built for themselves, or have had built
for them, 55,717 houses, of which 1,702 were erected during last year.
The progress of education is a still further test of the condition of
these people. There are 367 school buildings upon the reservations; and
in these are conducted 63 boarding-schools and 281 day-schools, 23 of
the school buildings, apparently, being unoccupied. The number of
teachers is 437, and of pupils 11,328, of which number 6,028 are males.
The amount of money expended for education during the year was $362,496,
an average of $32 per pupil. The number of Indians who can read is
25,622, of whom 980 acquired that useful accomplishment during the year.
The number of births (exclusive of those in the five civilized tribes in
the Indian Territory) was 2,401, and of deaths 2,215. The religious
statistics in this table are evidently incorrect in at least one
particular. The number of church buildings on the Indian reservations is
177; the number of missionaries “not included under teachers” is 122;
and “the amount contributed by religious societies during the year for
education and other purposes” was $62,076.
These figures we do not call in question, but the “number of Indians who
are church members” is put down at only 27,215. It is to be desired that
the compiler of the statistics had furnished us with a definition of
what he understands by the words “church members.” He sets down for the
Pueblo agency, in New Mexico, for example: “Number of Indians, 8,400;
number of church buildings, 19; number of church members, _none_!” The
truth is that all, or nearly all, of these Pueblo Indians are Roman
Catholics, as their fathers were before them for more than three
centuries; and that the 19 “church buildings” on their reservation are
Catholic churches, in which the Indians are baptized, shriven, married,
and receive the Holy Communion; but in the opinion of the honorable
commissioner none of the Pueblos are “church members.” So with the
Papago Indians in Arizona, who are 5,900 in number, who have a Catholic
school, four Catholic teachers, and a Catholic church, but none of whom,
in the eyes of the commissioner, are “church members.” In the seven
reservations of which the religious control has been assigned to the
Catholic Church there is a population of 24,094 souls and 32 churches,
but the commissioner’s tables admit only 7,010 “church members” among
this population. The truth is, as we shall show, the number of Catholic
Indians alone is more than thrice as large as the whole number of
“church members” accounted for by the commissioner’s tables. When a
human being has received the Catholic rite of baptism he becomes a
member of the Catholic Church; and from that moment it is the duty and
the privilege of the church to watch over and protect the soul thus
regenerated. It is because the church has wished to discharge this duty
to her Indian children that certain of the sects have cried out against
her, and even the commissioner (Hon. E. P. Smith), in his report for
1875, has not been ashamed to reproach her.
“At the seven agencies assigned to the care of the Catholics,”
he remarks, “no restriction has been placed upon their system
and methods of education, and no other religious body, so far as
I am aware, has in any way attempted to interfere. I regret to
say that this is not true, so far as the Catholics are
concerned, of some of the agencies assigned to other religious
bodies, and in some instances the interference has been a
material hindrance to the efforts of this office to bring
Indians under control and to enforce rules looking toward
civilization.”
_We_ regret to say that while, on the one hand, the Catholic Church has
sought only to continue her ministrations to those of her children who
were dwelling upon reservations “assigned to other religious bodies”—a
duty which she could not neglect nor permit to remain unfulfilled—on the
other hand, the most cruel, persistent, and petty persecution has been
waged against Catholic Indians under the charge of Protestant agents,
for the reason that they were Catholics, and the most unwarrantable
interference, opposition, and maltreatment have been in many instances
manifested in cases where Catholic priests were merely exercising the
rights they possessed as American citizens, and discharging the duties
imposed on them as Christian teachers.
But before we enter upon the proof of these unpleasant facts let us
return to the statistics of the commissioner’s report, for the purpose
of completing our review of the condition of the semi-civilized and
civilized tribes. The whole number of acres of land comprised in the
Indian reservations as they now exist is 159,287,778, of which, however,
only a very small portion (9,107,244 acres, or 14,230 square miles) is
“tillable”—that is, land fitted for agricultural pursuits, and on which
crops can be raised. Now, from these figures, which are official, a very
important truth may be deduced. The policy of the government, as
explained by the commissioners in successive reports, is to gather all
the Indians upon these reservations (or upon a few of them), to wean
them from their life of hunting and fishing, and to teach them to
support themselves and their families by purely agricultural pursuits.
The idea may perhaps be a good one; but care should have been taken to
provide ample means for its execution. There are, as we have seen,
266,151 Indians, exclusive of those in Alaska and of the “roamers and
vagrants.” All these, if the present policy of the government be
successful, will be finally planted upon this region of 14,230 square
miles of tillable land, and bidden to live there, they and their
children, for ever, earning their bread by the sweat of their brow in
cultivating the soil. Now, 14,230 square miles of land is equal only to
28,460 farms of 320 acres each, or to 56,920 farms of 160 acres each.
The tradition established by the government, by its original surveys of
the public lands, by its Homestead Law, and by its Land Bounty Acts, is
that 160 acres of land is the normal quantity for an ordinary farm;
general experience has shown that this is none too much. But if the
attempt were made to arrange the 266,151 Indians into families of 4
persons each, and to allot to each family a farm of 160 acres, there
would not be tillable land enough “to go round”; 9,617 families would be
left out of the distribution. We do not mean to say that a farm of
something less than 160 acres may not be found sufficient for the
maintenance of a family of four persons; but we do wish to call
attention to the fact that the Indian reservations have been now reduced
so far that only 56,920 farms, of 160 acres each, of “tillable land”
remain in them. There is the more necessity for accentuating this fact
since even in the last report of the commissioner is repeated the
suggestion that the reservations are still too large, and that a few
more treaties might be broken and a few more sanguinary wars provoked
with advantage, in order to reduce further the area set apart for Indian
occupation. This suggestion is made plausible by the device of calling
attention to the whole area of the reservations—159,287,778 acres, or
248,886 square miles—while hiding away in very small type, and at the
end of an intricate table of figures, the fact that 150,180,534 acres,
or 234,656 square miles, of these lands are wholly unfitted for tillage,
and can never be made available for agricultural purposes.
The number of acres of land cultivated by the Indians during the year
covered by the last report of the commissioner was 318,194, and 28,253
other acres were broken by them during the year. No less than 26,873
full-blood male Indians were laboring in civilized pursuits, exclusive
of those belonging to the five civilized tribes in the Indian Territory.
These people are not savages; they worship God—many of them enjoying the
light of Catholic truth; they educate themselves and their children;
they live in houses and wear decent clothes; they toil and are producers
of valuable articles. Let us see, now, what is said about these and the
other Indians less advanced in civilization, by their rulers, the
successive Commissioners of Indian Affairs and their subordinates, the
agents. When we remark that we select our quotations from nine volumes
of official reports, the reader will understand that we lay before him
only a very few out of the numberless proofs of two facts:
1. That the commissioners, while repeatedly confessing that the Indians
have been most cruelly and unwisely wronged in the past, are of the
opinion that it would be a kind and wise thing to wrong them a little
more in the future.
2. That the Indians are perfectly well aware of their wrongs; are quite
able to formulate them; are often hopeless, from long and painful
experience, of any effectual redress for them; and very frequently
display a remarkable degree of Christian forbearance and forgiveness in
resisting the wanton provocations to revolt offered to them.
“The traditionary belief which largely prevails,” writes the
Hon. J. Q. Smith, in his report for 1876, “that the Indian
service throughout its whole history has been tainted with
fraud, arises not only from the fact that frauds have been
committed, but also because, from the nature of the service
itself, peculiar opportunities for fraud may be found.”
After an exposition of the duties of an Indian agent he thus proceeds:
“The great want of the Indian service has always been thoroughly
competent agents. The President has sought to secure proper
persons for these important offices by inviting the several
religious organizations, through their constituted authorities,
to nominate to him men for whose ability, character, and conduct
they are willing to vouch. I believe the churches have
endeavored to perform this duty faithfully, and to a fair degree
have succeeded; but they experience great difficulty in inducing
persons possessed of the requisite qualifications to accept
these positions. When it is considered that these men must take
their families far into the wilderness, cut themselves off from
civilization with its comforts and attractions, deprive their
children of the advantages of education, live lives of anxiety
and toil, give bonds for great sums of money, be held
responsible in some instances for the expenditure of hundreds of
thousands of dollars a year, and subject themselves to
ever-ready suspicion, detraction, and calumny, for a
compensation less than that paid to a third-class clerk in
Washington or to a village postmaster, it is not strange that
able, upright, thoroughly competent men hesitate, and decline to
accept the position of an Indian agent, or, if they accept,
resign the position after a short trial. In my judgment the
welfare of the public service imperatively requires that the
compensation offered an Indian agent should be somewhat in
proportion to the capacity required in the office, and to the
responsibility and labor of the duties to be performed.”
It is impossible to avoid making the remark, in this place, that there
is a class of men who have no “families”; who are ever ready to renounce
the “comforts and attractions of civilization”; who are accustomed to
“live lives of anxiety and toil”; and who are impervious to “suspicion,
detraction, and calumny,” while at the same time they are “able,
upright, and thoroughly competent.” If the government, when it
inaugurated its plan of filling the Indian agencies with men nominated
by “the churches,” had allowed our bishops to nominate agents in
proportion to the number of Catholic Indians, the chances are that the
right men would have been forthcoming, and the commissioner would not
now be complaining that, in order to keep an Indian agent from stealing,
he must be paid $3,000 a year.
“Relief had been so long delayed,” says the same officer in the
same report, “that supplies failed to reach the agencies until
the Indians were in almost a starving condition, and until the
apparent intention of the government to abandon them to
starvation had induced large numbers to join the hostile bands
under Sitting Bull.”
Two other instances of the same kind are mentioned; and a third is
recorded, in which, owing to the failure of Congress to provide money
promised by a treaty, “hundreds of Pawnees had been compelled to abandon
their agency, to live by begging and stealing in southern Kansas.” “In
numerous other instances,” adds the commissioner pathetically, “the
funds at the disposal of this office have been so limited as to make it
a matter of the utmost difficulty to keep the Indians from starving”—and
this, too, when the same Indians had large sums of money standing to
their credit held “in trust” for them in the treasury of the United
States. A long discussion advocating the removal of all the Indians to a
few reservations—although this could not be done without violations of
the most solemn treaties—is clinched with the cynical remark that “there
is a very general and growing opinion that observance of the strict
letter of treaties with Indians is in many cases at variance both with
their own best interests and with sound public policy.”
And these words are from the official report of the chief of a great
bureau in the most important department of our government! Did we know
what we were about when we made these treaties? If “no,” we were fools;
if “yes,” then we are knaves now to violate them without the consent of
the other, the helpless party. “The Indians claim,” says the
commissioner, “that they hold their lands by sanctions so solemn that it
would be a gross breach of faith on the part of the government to take
away any portion of it without their consent, and that consent they
propose to withhold.” Still, let us do it, cries the commissioner;
“public necessity must ultimately become supreme law.” “Public
necessity”—which in this case means private rapacity—“public necessity,”
and not truth, good faith, and justice, must rule. Many tribes are
living peaceably and doing well, on lands solemnly promised to them for
ever, in various parts of the West; the civilized and semi-civilized
tribes in the Indian Territory are living peaceably and doing well on
lands solemnly promised to them for their own exclusive use for ever,
and in some cases bought with their own money. But it would be more
convenient for us to have them all together; so let us tear up the
treaties, and drive all the Indians into the one territory.
From the same report we take this paragraph, which is only one of very
many like it:
“The Alsea agency, in Oregon, has been abolished, but inadequate
appropriations have worked hardship and injustice to the
Indians. They are required to leave their homes and cultivated
fields” (for no other reason than that white men covet them)
“and remove to Siletz, but no means are furnished to defray
expense of such removal or to assist in their establishment in
their new home.”
The Board of Indian Commissioners, in their third annual report (1871),
in view of the continued violation of treaties by the government in
compelling tribes to remove from the reservations assigned to them,
found themselves constrained to say:
“The removal of partially civilized tribes already making fair
progress and attached to their homes on existing reservations is
earnestly deprecated. Where such reservations are thought to be
unreasonably large, their owners will themselves see the
propriety of selling off the surplus for educational purposes.
The government meanwhile owes them the protection of their
rights to which it is solemnly pledged by treaty, and which it
cannot fail to give without dishonor.”
But it _has_ failed to give this protection in numberless instances, and
it seems to rest very easily under the stigma of dishonor thus
incurred—as, for instance, in the case of the Osages, of whom their
agent, in a report dated Oct. 1, 1870, thus speaks:
“This tribe of Indians are richly endowed by nature, physically
and morally. A finer-looking body of men, with more grace and
dignity, or better intellectual development, could hardly be
found on this globe. They were once the most numerous and
warlike nation on this continent, with a domain extending from
the Gulf to the Missouri River and from the Mississippi to the
Rocky Mountains; but they have been shorn of their territory
piece by piece, until at last they have not a settled and
undisputed claim to a single foot of earth. It is strictly true
that one great cause of their decline has been fidelity to their
pledges. More than sixty years ago they pledged themselves by
treaty to perpetuate peace with the white man. That promise has
been nobly kept—kept in spite of great and continual
provocation. White men have committed upon them almost every
form of outrage and wrong, unchecked by the government and
unpunished. Every aggressive movement of the whites tending to
the absorption of their territory has ultimately been
legalized.”
These Osages are nearly all Catholics, and the agent who thus writes of
them is Mr. Isaac T. Gibson, a Quaker, or an “Orthodox Friend.” Would it
be believed that three years afterwards the kind and sympathizing Friend
Gibson was busily engaged in inflicting upon the people for whose wrongs
he was so indignant an injury greater than any they had yet suffered?
“Enterprising scoundrels” of whom he wrote in his report had robbed the
Osages of everything save their faith; and good Friend Gibson tried to
rob them of that. How he set about the task, and how he fared in it,
will be told later.
If this be not enough, look at the picture of a model Indian reservation
drawn by a lawyer of California, and addressed to J. V. Farwell, one of
the members of the Board of Indian Commissioners. He is describing the
Hoopa Valley reservation:
“I found the Indians thoughtful, docile, and apparently eager to
enter into any project for their good, if they could only
believe it would be carried out in good faith, but utterly
wanting in confidence in the agent, the government, or the white
man. Lethargy, starvation, and disease were leading them to the
grave. I found, in fact, that the reservation was a rehash of a
negro plantation; the agent an absolute dictator, restrained by
no law and no compact known to the Indians. During my stay the
superintendent visited the valley. He stayed but a few days. We
had drinking and feasting during this time, but no grave
attention to Indian affairs; no extended investigation of what
had been done or should be done. The _status quo_ was accepted
as the _ne plus ultra_ of Indian policy. He, too, appears to
think that annihilation is the consummation of Indian
management. If the reservation was a plantation, the Indians
were the most degraded of slaves. I found them poor, miserable,
vicious, degraded, dirty, naked, diseased, and ill-fed. They had
no motive to action. Man, woman, and child, without reference to
age, sex, or condition, received the same five pounds of flour
per week, and almost nothing more. They attended every Monday to
get this, making a day’s work of it for most of them. The oldest
men, or stout, middle-aged fathers of families, were spoken to
just as children or slaves. They know no law but the will of the
agent; no effort has been made to teach them any, and, where it
does not conflict with this dictation, they follow the old forms
of life—polygamy, buying and selling of women, and compounding
crime with money _ad libitum_. The tribal system, with all its
absurd domination and duty, is still retained. The Indian woman
has no charge of her own person or virtue, but her father,
brother, chief, or nearest male relative may sell her for a
moment or for life. I was impressed that really nothing had been
done by any agent, or even attempted, to wean these people from
savage life to civilization, but only to subject them to
plantation slavery.”
The official volumes from which we are taking our information contain
the successive annual reports of the various Indian agents and
superintendents, who are 88 in number, and the reports of many councils
held between the Indians and the Board of Indian Commissioners, agents,
army officers, and special commissioners. The Hon. Felix R. Brunot,
chairman of the Board of Indian Commissioners, is the Mercurius in many
of these councils. He does nearly all the talking on the side of the
government, and before he talks he always prays. Thus: “Gen. Smith
announced that Mr. Brunot would speak to the Great Spirit before the
council began. Mr. Brunot offered a prayer.” In the interests of
religion it is to be regretted that councils thus begun sometimes
appeared to have been designed for the purpose of inflicting new wrongs
upon the Indians. But we mention the councils here only for the purpose
of taking from the reports of their proceedings, as well as from the
annual reports of the agents, a very few of the remarks made by the
Indian chiefs concerning themselves, the government, the agents, and the
whites generally. The limits of our space compel us to string these
together without further introduction:
RED CLOUD: God raised us Indians. I am trying to live peaceably.
All I ask for is my land—the little spot I have left. My people
have done nothing wrong. I have consulted the Great Spirit, and
he told me to keep my little spot of land. My friends, have pity
on me, if you would have me live long. My people have been
cheated so often they will not believe.
BUFFALO GOOD.: If you are going to do anything for us, do it
quick. I saw the Commissioner of Indian Affairs at Washington,
and he told me he was going to fix it up, but I have heard that
so often I am afraid it is not true. I have been disappointed,
and I think Washington is not so much of a chief after all.
Because we do not fight, he takes away our lands and gives them
to the tribes who are fighting the whites all the time.
HOWLISH-WAMPO (“the Cayuse chief, a Catholic Indian, in dress,
personal appearance, and bearing superior to the average
American farmer”): When you told me you believed in God, I
thought that was good. But you came to ask us for our land. We
will not let you have it. This reservation is marked out for us.
We see it with our eyes and our hearts; we all hold it with our
bodies and our souls. Here are my father and mother, and
brothers and sisters and children, all buried; I am guarding
their graves. This small piece of land we all look upon as our
mother, as if she were raising us. On the outside of the
reservation I see your houses; they have windows, they are good.
Why do you wish my land? My friend, you must not talk too strong
about getting my land; I will not let it go.
HOMLI (chief of the Walla-Wallas): My cattle and stock are
running on this reservation, and they need it all. It is not the
white man who has helped me: I have made all the improvements on
my own land myself.
WENAP-SNOOT (chief of the Umatillas): When my father and mother
died, they gave me rules and gave me their land to live on. They
left me to take care of them after they were buried. I was to
watch over their graves. I will not part from them. I cultivate
my land and I love it.
PIERRE (a young chief): I do not wish money for my land; I am
here, and I will stay here. I will not part with lands, and if
you come again I will say the same thing.
WAL-CHE-TE-MA-NE (another Catholic chief, as, indeed, were the
three last named): You white chiefs listen to me: you, Father
Vermeerch, are the one who rules my heart. I am old now, and I
want to die where my father and mother and children have died. I
see the church there; I am glad to see it; I will stay beside it
and die by the teachings of the father. I love my church, my
mills, my farm, the graves of my parents and children. I do not
wish to leave them. (Happily, the firmness of these Catholic
Indians, the Umatilla, Cayuse, and Walla-Walla tribes, carried
the day, and they were permitted to remain on their little
reservation).
TENALE TEMANE (another Catholic Indian): We cannot cheat our own
bodies and our own souls. If we deceive ourselves we shall be
miserable; _only from the truth can we grow ourselves, and make
our children grow_. Of all that was promised to me by Gov.
Stevens I have seen nothing; _it must have been lost_.
THE YOUNG CHIEF: What you promised was not done; it was as if
you had taken the treaty as soon as it was made, and torn it up.
The treaties made with the Indians on all the reservations have
never been kept; _they have all been broken_. I do not want to
teach you anything about God; you are wise and know all about
him. (The irony of this is exquisite.)
TASENICK (a Wascoe chief): The people who are put over me teach
me worse things than I knew before. You can see what we were
promised by the treaty: we have never got anything; all we have
we bought with our own money. Our Great Father may have sent the
things promised, but they never got here.
CHINOOK: When we made the treaty they promised us schoolmasters
and a great many other things, but they forget them. We never
had any of them. They told us we were to have $8,000 a year; we
never saw a cent of it.
MACK (a Deschutes chief): It is not right to starve us; it is
better to kill us.
JANCUST: I cannot look you in the face; I am ashamed: white men
have carried away our women. What do you think? White men do
these things and say it is right.
NAPOLEON (a Catholic chief of the Tulalip reservation, who “came
forward with much dignity and laid before Mr. Brunot a bunch of
split sticks”): These represent the number of my people killed
by the whites during the year, and yet nothing has been done to
punish them. The whites now scare all the Indians, and we look
now wondering when all the Indians will be killed.
JOHNNY ENGLISH: We like Father Chirouse very well, because he
tries to do what is right; when he begins to work he does one
thing at a time.
HENRY (a Catholic on the Lumni reservation): I have been a
Christian for many years. We have some children at school with
Father Chirouse; we want our lands for them to live on when we
are dead.
DAVID CROCKETT (a Catholic chief): I ought to have a better
house in which to receive my friends. But we want most an altar
built in our church and a belfry on it; this work we cannot do
ourselves.
SPAR (a young chief): All the agents think of is to steal; that
is all every agent has done. When they get the money, where does
it go to? When I ask about it they say they will punish me. I
thought the President did not send them for that.
PETER CONNOYER (of the Grande Rondes): About religion—I am a
Catholic; so are all of my family. All the children are
Catholics. We want the sisters to come and teach the girls. The
priest lives here; he does not get any pay. He teaches us to
pray night and morning. We must teach the little girls. I am
getting old. I may go to a race and bet a little, but I don’t
want my children to learn it; it is bad.
TOM CURL: We want to get good blankets, not paper blankets. I
don’t know what our boots are made of; if we hit anything they
break in pieces.
When, in 1870, President Grant announced the inauguration of his new
Indian policy, the sects saw in it an opportunity of carrying on their
propaganda among the Indians with little or no cost to themselves, and
of interfering with, and probably compelling the total cessation of, the
work of the Catholic Church among many of the tribes. To begin with,
here were 72 places in which they could install the same number of their
ministers, or laymen devoted to their interests, with salaries paid by
the general government. Once installed as Indian agents, these men would
have autocratic power over the affairs of the tribes entrusted to them;
and they could make life so uncomfortable for the Catholic missionaries
already at work there that they would probably retire. If they
disregarded petty persecutions, the agent could compel them to depart,
since it is held by the Indian Bureau that an agent has power to exclude
from a reservation any white man whose presence he chooses to consider
as inconvenient, as well as to prevent the Indians from leaving the
reservation for any purpose whatever. There were, it was known, many
Indian agencies at which the Catholic Church had had missions for many
years, and where all, or nearly all, the Indians were Catholics. If
these agencies could be assigned to the care of the sects, how easily
could the work of converting the Indian Catholics into Methodists,
Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, or Unitarians be accomplished! The
priests could be driven away and forbidden to return; the sectarian
preachers would have full play; and the Indian appetite for Protestant
truth could be sharpened by judicious bribery and intimidation. On the
borders of the reservation there might be—as there are—Catholic churches
and Catholic priests; but the Catholic Indians on the reservation might
be—as they have been—forbidden to cross the line in order to visit their
priests and to receive the sacraments.
The new Indian policy which furnished this opportunity was probably not
original with President Grant, and we are not disposed to call in
question the purity and kindness of his motives in adopting it. At the
time of its inauguration, however, he was surrounded by influences
decidedly hostile to the Catholic Church; and it is probable that from
the beginning the men “behind the throne” had a clear conception of the
manner in which the new policy could be worked for the benefit of the
sects. It was based upon an idea plausible to non-Catholics, but which
no Catholic can ever accept—the idea that one religion is as good as
another, and that, for example, it does not make much difference whether
a man believes that Jesus Christ is God, or that he was simply a
tolerably good but rather weak and vain man. This idea has been carried
out in practice-for even to the “Unitarians” have been given two Indian
agencies: those of the Los Pinos and White River in Colorado, whose
entire religious education for 1876, as reported by the agents,
consisted in “a sort of Shaker service of singing and dancing held for
two or three days.” The chairman of the Board of Indian Commissioners,
Mr. Brunot, appears to have been anxious to spread abroad the doctrine
of indifferentism among the Catholic Indians. Whenever, in his numerous
“councils,” he found himself in company with such Indians, he undertook
to enlighten them after this fashion:
“A chief said yesterday: ‘I don’t know about religion, because
they tell so many different things.’ Religion is like the roads;
they all go one way; all to the one good place; so take any one
good road and keep in it, and it will bring you out right at
last.” ... “I heard an Indian say that the white man has two
religions. In one way it looks so; but if you will understand
you will see it is only one.” ... “It is not two kinds of
religion, but it is as two roads that both go the same way.”
We scarcely think it is within the province of the federal government to
pay a gentleman for preaching this kind of doctrine to Catholic Indians.
But what was the new Indian policy? It was explained by President Grant,
in his message of December 5, 1870, in these words:
“Indian agents being civil officers, I determined to give all
the agencies to such religious denominations as had heretofore
established missionaries among the Indians, and perhaps to some
other denominations who would undertake the work on the same
terms—that is, as missionary work.”
There is an undesirable lack of exactness in these words—for, as they
stand, they might be understood as promising the agency of a tribe to a
sect which had established on its territory a missionary station years
ago, and had subsequently abandoned it. This, however, was certainly not
the intention of the President; if he intended to act in good faith in
the matter, he proposed, doubtless, to assign the agencies to churches
that had established _successful_ missions—missions actually existing,
having churches, schools, and converts. It is impossible to believe that
it was the intention of the executive to transfer tribes of Catholic
Indians to Protestant sects, under the pretence that the sects, at some
remote period, had made feeble and fruitless attempts to establish
missions among them. This, however, has been the construction placed
upon the President’s policy by the sects; and, strange to say, they have
experienced no difficulty in persuading successive Commissioners of
Indian Affairs to agree with them in this interpretation, and to carry
it out in a manner productive of the most wanton cruelty and injustice.
There are seventy-two Indian agencies: three in Arizona, three in
California, two in Colorado, fifteen in Dakota, eight in the Indian
Territory, one in Iowa, two in Kansas, one in Michigan, three in
Minnesota, four in Montana, five in Nebraska, five in New Mexico, one in
New York, two in Nevada, six in Oregon, one in Utah, seven in Washington
Territory, two in Wisconsin, and one in Wyoming. According to any fair
construction of the new policy, no less than forty of these agencies
should have been assigned to the Catholic Church. In all of them the
church had had missions for many years; in many of them all of the
Christian Indians, or the great majority of them, were Catholics; in
some of them the Indians had been Catholics for centuries, and their
civilization was wholly due to the instruction they had received from
Catholic priests. The following is a list of these agencies, with their
location and the number of Indians embraced in each:
Name of Agency. No. of
Location. Indians.
Yakima Washington 3,000
Fort Hall Idaho 1,500
Tulalip Washington 3,950
Puyallup Washington 577
Skokomish Washington 875
Chehalis Washington 600
Neah Bay Washington 604
Colville Washington 3,349
La Point Wisconsin 646
Pottawattomie Indian 1,336
Territory
Flatheads Montana 1,821
Blackfeet Montana 14,630
Papagoes Arizona 6,000
Round Valley California 1,112
North California ——
California
Mission Indians California 5,000
Pueblos New Mexico 7,879
Osages Indian 2,823
Territory
Cœur d’Alenes Idaho 700
Quapams Indian 235
Territory
Was, Peorias, Indian 217
etc. Territory
Hoopa Valley California 725
Pimas and Arizona 4,326
Mariscopas
Moquis Arizona 1,700
Warm Spring Oregon 626
Grande Ronde Oregon 924
Siletz Oregon 1,058
Umatilla Oregon 837
Alsea Oregon 343
Malheur Oregon 1,200
Nez-Percés Idaho 2,807
Navajoes New Mexico 9,114
Mescaleros New Mexico 1,895
Milk River Montana 10,625
Crows Montana 4,200
Green Bay Wisconsin 1,480
Chippewas Minnesota 1,322
Mackinac Michigan 10,260
Grand River Dakota 6,269
Devil’s Lake Dakota 1,020
———
Total 117,585
Within the jurisdiction of these agencies there are 52 Catholic
churches, 18 Catholic day-schools, and 10 Catholic boarding industrial
schools. The Catholic priests and teachers employed among the Indians
during the year 1875 numbered 117; while for the same year the
Protestant sects had only 64 missionaries employed in all the agencies
under their control. Would it not have been supposed that a fair
interpretation of the new policy of President Grant—nay, that the only
fair interpretation of it—would have awarded these 40 agencies to the
Catholic Church? The missions of the church, in 1870, were in almost
uncontested possession of these fields of labor. Her priests had borne
the labor and the heat of the day; asking and expecting no aid from the
state, and receiving very little from any other source, they had given
themselves to the work of Christianizing these Indians; and while the
sects had from time to time made spasmodic and desultory attempts at
Indian missions, our priests and their coadjutors, the sisters of the
teaching orders, had remained steadfast in their self-denying and
arduous labor. But the sects were now inspired with a new and sudden
zeal for the salvation of the Indians. They were not content with the 32
agencies in which, although there were many Catholic Indians, the church
had not been able to establish permanent missions. They set up claims to
the agencies we have enumerated, and it was observed that the fervor
with which these demands were pressed was in exact proportion to the
richness of the reservation and its desirableness as a future home for a
missionary with a large family and with a numerous corps of needy
relations. So fierce was their onslaught, and so rapidly were their
demands conceded by the then commissioner, that, almost before the
authorities of the church had been informed of what was going on, no
less than 32 of the 40 agencies which, by any fair interpretation of the
President’s policy, should have been assigned to Catholic care, were
divided among the sects. Fourteen of the agencies, with 54,253 Indians,
fell to the Methodists, the sect then, and perhaps now, most in favor
with the administration; five, with 21,321 Indians, went to the
Presbyterians; the same number, with 5,311 Indians, were awarded to the
Quakers; the Congregationalists received three, with 2,056 Indians; the
Reformed Dutch Church were given two, with 6,026 Indians; the “American
Missionary Association” (a Congregational society) obtained two, with
2,126 Indians; and the Protestant Episcopal Church was gratified with
one agency, the Chippewas of Missouri, 1,322 in number, who had been
Catholics all their lives. There remained eight of the agencies to which
the Catholic Church possessed a claim, and these were left in her
possession, not, however, without a threat that they also would be taken
from her—a threat already carried into execution in one case, the
Papagoes, a tribe of 6,000, residing in Arizona, having been kindly
transferred to the care of a sect called the “Reformed Church.” The
agent of this tribe, in his last report, says:
“There is no school at present taught among these Indians. The
intellectual and moral training of the young has been, for a
long time, in the hands of the Roman Catholics, and the school
hitherto kept by the sisters of the Order of St. Joseph.”
The school is now closed, it appears; and the “Reformed Church”
seemingly does not intend to open another, as their agent remarks that
“there is, perhaps, but little use to establish schools, or look for any
considerable advance in education among them.”
The seven agencies still left to the care of the church are those of
Tulalip and Colville, in Washington Territory; Grande Ronde and
Umatilla, in Oregon; Flathead, in Montana; and Standing Rock (or Grand
River) and Devil’s Lake, in Dakota. These agencies, according to the
last report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs, have a population of
12,819 Indians. No less than 7,034 of these wear “citizen’s dress”; they
have 825 frame or log houses; they have six boarding-schools and three
day-schools, taught by 19 teachers; 382 of the adults can read; they
have 12 churches, and 7,510, or more than half the whole number, are
“church members.” Nothing like this can be shown at any of the agencies
under Protestant control, save the five civilized tribes in the Indian
Territory. The whole of the Indians on the Grande Ronde reservation—755
in number—are so far civilized that all of them wear citizen’s dress.
They have 375 houses, and 690 of them are “church members.” Their agent
speaks of them in glowing terms; last year, without receiving a penny of
the sums due them by the government, they not only supported themselves
in comfort, but were able “of their charity” to relieve the necessities
of two neighboring tribes, the Salmon River and Nestucca Indians, who
were starving to death “in consequence of the failure of the government
to fulfil the promises made by the honorable Commissioner Simpson.” The
parsimony of the government compelled them to dispense with the services
of their regular physician; but, writes the agent, “we have been
fortunate in securing the services of a sister, who has, in addition to
her duties as a teacher, kindly dispensed medicines with the most
gratifying success.” “The school,” he adds, “is in a very prosperous
condition under the efficient management of Sister Mary, superior, and
three assistants.”
The Indians on the Tulalip reservation, 3,250 in number, are equally
well advanced; the whole of them wear citizen’s dress; they have 2
boarding-schools, with 6 teachers, and 2,260 of them are “church
members.” We look in vain for statistics like these among the agencies
under Protestant control; when there is anything like it, it is found in
the reports from the tribes which have been civilized and Christianized
by the Catholic Church and then stolen away by the sects.
In addition to the 33 agencies which belonged by right to the church,
but were distributed among the sects, 30 others were portioned out among
them, so that, according to the last report of the commissioner, while
the church, entitled to 40 agencies, has but 7, the Quakers have 16; the
Methodists 14; the Baptists 2; the Presbyterianscc 7; the
Congregationalists 6; the “Reformed” 4; the Protestant Episcopalians 9;
the Unitarians 2; the “Free-will Baptists” 1; the “United
Presbyterians,” who seem to be disunited from the other Presbyterians,
1; and the “Christian Union,” which is not in union with any of the
other sects, 1. If our space permitted, we should point out the
miserable results after a seven years’ possession of these agencies. The
four agencies under the care of the “Reformed” body, for example,
embrace 14 tribes, numbering 17,049 souls. Among these are the Papagoes,
5,900 in number, already tolerably well-civilized by Catholic
instruction, and all of whom wear citizen’s dress. With the exception of
these, the “Reformers,” after seven years’ labor, have 50 Indians who
wear citizen’s dress, 2 schools, 1 church building, and 4 church
members! As they have not thought it worth while to send out any
missionaries, one wonders what they do with their church building, but
it is probably used as a store-house by the “Reformed” agent.
The Hicksite Quakers have 5 agencies in Nebraska, with 4,098 Indians.
They have 392 “church members,” but 348 of these belong to a civilized
tribe—the Santee Sioux, who are 793 strong. After seven years of labor
the Quakers have got only 44 out of the other 3,300 Indians under their
care to call themselves “church members.” In the Hoopa Valley
reservation, given to the Methodists, there is a “school building,” but
no school, no teacher, and no pupils; there is a “church building,” but
no missionary and no “church members.” The poor mission Indians in
California, the children of Catholic parents for many generations, also
under the tender care of the Methodists, have neither houses, nor
school, nor church, nor missionary. The 6,000 Indians on the Red Cloud
agency in Dakota, under the charge of the Protestant Episcopalians, have
a “school building,” but no teacher, no scholars, no church, no
missionary, and no “church members.” The 3,992 Cheyennes and Arapahoes
in the Indian Territory, in charge of the Quakers, have a school-house,
but no church, no missionary, and no “church members,” and so with the
rest.
In selecting a few typical illustrations of the injustice perpetrated by
the assignment of tribes of Catholic Indians to non-Catholic sects, we
are embarrassed by the richness and plenitude of our facts. We mention
only two—the Chippewas of Lake Superior, and the Osages.
The agency of the Chippewas of Lake Superior became vacant early in
1873, and General Ewing, on the 19th of March of that year, addressed a
letter to the Secretary of the Interior, submitting “that, under the
Indian policy of President Grant, this agency should be assigned to the
Catholic Church.” He accompanied his letter with a brief of the facts on
which he thus claimed the agency for the church. The Chippewas number
4,551, and 3,696 of them wear citizen’s dress; they have six schools and
three churches. More than 200 years ago the Catholic fathers Dablon and
Marquette established the mission of St. Mary among the Chippewas, and
the church has ever since looked upon them as her children. The Catholic
missions, first permanently established among them in 1668, continued in
a flourishing manner until the year 1800; they were revived after a
lapse of 30 years; and for the past 47 years they have been continuously
attended by Catholic priests—one being assigned exclusively and
continuously to the religious instruction, education, and care of the
Indians. The Indians at their own expense have built three Catholic
churches, at Bayfield, La Pointe, and Bad River. The successive reports
of the Commissioners of Indian Affairs from 1868 to 1872 set forth these
facts. Praise is given in 1868 to Father Chebal for the good result of
his labors; the agent, writing in 1870, says: “The religious instruction
has been almost entirely under Catholic missionaries; 99 out of 100 of
them are Catholics, and Father Chebal has labored industriously and
successfully among them.” The agent, writing in 1871, again says: “Most
of these people are members of the Roman Catholic Church. Their pastor
has been a missionary among them for many years, and has labored with
the zeal for which his church is proverbial to secure converts. He has
accomplished much good.” The report of the agent for 1868 likewise
mentions that the “Rev. L. H. Wheeler and his most estimable lady” had
been conducting a Protestant mission there “under the control of the A.
B. C. F. M. Society,” but that “_this society having almost withdrawn
their support, and further for the purpose of educating their own
children, Rev. Mr. Wheeler has abandoned his mission_.” The agent in
1869, Lt.-Col. Knight, of the army, thus writes:
“The Chippewas of Lake Superior generally have abandoned the
heathen faith of their fathers. If they have not all been made
intelligent Christians, they have abandoned heathenism. The
Catholic missionaries are the most assiduous workers among them,
and the largest portion of them have espoused that religious
faith; yet the Protestant religion has its adherents among them.
Father Chebal, of the Catholic faith, is untiring and devoted in
his labors with them. The Protestant religion is without a
missionary representative, which is unfortunate,” etc.
The case, it will be seen, was plain. The Catholic missions were shown
to be the oldest and the _only successful_ missions among the Chippewas,
and “the right of the Catholic Church, under the policy of the
administration, to the agency” was incontestable. But the agency had
already been given to the Congregationalists, who had never before
attempted to establish a mission among the Chippewas, and whose minister
knew nothing about the tribe. Pressed hard by General Ewing, the
secretary referred the matter to our pious friend Mr. Brunot, who, in an
elaborate and most disingenuous opinion, decided that, although the
assignment of the agency to the Congregationalists might have been
erroneous, now that it was made it ought not to be changed—and this,
too, although the department had made similar changes in other
instances, taking, for example, the Nez-Percés agency from the
Catholics, to whom it had been assigned, and giving it to the Methodists
in 1870. General Ewing, unwilling to submit to this palpable injustice,
again addressed the Secretary of the Interior, reviewing the whole
question and incontestably proving the justice of his claim. But all was
in vain; the agency remains in the hands of the Congregationalists, and
the Catholic Chippewas and their priests are at the mercy of men who
have no sympathy or bond of common feeling with either.
The Osages, now in the Indian Territory, are and long have been almost
wholly Catholic. But they were assigned to the Quakers, and good Friend
Gibson, whose pathetic lament over the worldly sufferings of his
_protegés_ we have already given, had not been long in charge of them
ere he issued an edict forbidding Catholic priests or teachers to remain
on the reservation. Accustomed to oppression and maltreatment of every
kind, the Indians felt that this last blow was too hard to bear without
remonstrance, and in June, 1873, they drew up and signed a memorial to
the President, asking that “their former Catholic missionaries and
school-teachers be restored to them and allowed to again locate in the
Osage nation.” No response was given to this petition, and on the 31st
of March in the next year a delegation of the tribe, with the governor
of the nation at their head, arrived at Washington, and, without
assistance or suggestions, drew up and presented to the Assistant
Secretary of the Interior a memorial which it is impossible to read
without emotion. After setting forth that the signers of the memorial
are “the governor, chiefs, and councillors of the Great and Little Osage
nation of Indians, and all duly-constituted delegates of said nations,”
they recount the story of their former petition, and say:
“... In the name of our people, therefore, we beg leave to renew
our said petition, and to ask that our former Catholic
missionary, Father Shoemaker, and those connected with him in
his missionary and educational labors among our people previous
to the late war, be permitted to again locate among us. We think
that this request is reasonable and just. Catholic missionaries
have been among our people for several generations. Our people
are familiar with their religion. The great majority of them are
of the Catholic faith, and believe it is right. Our children
have grown up in this faith. Many of our people have been
educated by the Catholic missionaries, and our people are
indebted to them for all the blessings of Christianity and
civilization that they now enjoy, and have for them a grateful
remembrance. Since the missionaries have been taken away from
us, we have done but little good and have made poor advancement
in civilization and education. Our whole nation has grieved ever
since these missionaries have been taken away from us, and we
have prayed continuously that the Great Spirit might move upon
the heart of our great father, the President, and cause him to
return these missionaries to us. We trust he will do so, because
in 1865, when we signed the treaty of that date, the
commissioners who made it promised _that if we signed it we
should again have our missionaries_.”
The assistant secretary received the memorial, promising to present it
to the President at once and to obtain for the delegation a reply: but
on the next day Mr. Gibson, who had followed them to Washington in a
state of great alarm, hurried them away from the capital to
Philadelphia, and thence homewards, not permitting them to return.
Immediately after their departure the petition they had filed in the
department was missing, and its loss was only supplied by General Ewing,
who had a printed copy with the certificate of the secretary placed on
file. Simultaneously with the mysterious disappearance of this petition
the Commissioner of Indian Affairs received a paper purporting to come
from the Osages at home. We dislike to use the phrase, but the proof is
clear that this document was a forgery. It purported to be signed by
twenty-eight chiefs and braves, with their “mark”; but, as General Ewing
says, “it was evidently got up by interested white men and the names of
the Indians signed without their knowledge.” The substance of it was
that the delegation which had gone to Washington was not to be regarded.
Upon their return home the delegation met their people in council, and
the result of this conference is related in a letter to General Ewing,
signed by Joseph Paw-ne-no-posh, governor of the nation; Alexander
Bezett, president of the council; T. L. Rogers, secretary; and the
eighteen councillors. The letter is too long to be given here. In
presenting it to the Secretary of the Interior, with a full account of
the whole transaction, General Ewing used some very strong, but not too
strong, language. “Their petitions,” said he, “have not been heard, and
now, through me as the representative of the Catholic Indian missions,
they make a final appeal. The petition of a defenceless people for
simple justice at the hands of a great government is the strongest
appeal that my head or heart can conceive; and it is of course
unnecessary for me to urge it upon you. It is as plain and open as the
day; and if you can decline (which I cannot believe) to comply with the
repeated petitions of this people, it is useless for me to urge you to
it. You must give this agency to the Catholic Church, or you publish the
announcement that President Grant has changed his policy, and that he
now intends to _force_ that form of Christianity on each Indian tribe
that _he_ may think is best for each.”
But it was all in vain. Friend Gibson carried his point, and, although
he has since been compelled to retire from the agency, it is still in
the hands of the Quaker organization. The population of the reservation,
according to the last report, was 2,679; very nearly the whole of these
are good and faithful Catholic Christians; but the agent reports:
“Church members, none; churches, none; missionaries, none!” The Quakers
have driven away the Catholic priests, and have not even taken the
trouble to send a missionary of their own to fill their place.
But we must make an end, although we have only, as it were, touched the
skirt of our subject. Time and space would fail us to tell of the priest
in California who was thrown into prison, brutally beaten, and expelled
from his flock, for the offence of coming to his old mission after the
agency had been assigned to a Protestant sect; of the bishops who have
been denied permission to build churches and schools on reservations for
the use of Catholic Indians; of the frauds committed by Protestant
agents on Catholic tribes; of the mingled tyranny and temptation with
which the Protestant agents have repeatedly assailed our poor Indian
brethren, making their apostasy the condition of their rescue from
starvation. Are not all these things written in the reports of the
Indian Bureau, in the annals of the Catholic Indian missions, and in the
letters of our bishops and priests published from time to time?
The duty of the Catholic laity throughout the United States in this
business is clear. Happily, the way for the discharge of this duty has
been made easy. It is simply to provide generously for the support and
increase of the work of the Bureau of Catholic Missions at Washington.
This bureau was established in January, 1873; it is composed of a
commissioner, appointed by the Archbishop of Baltimore, with the
concurrence in council of the archbishops of the United States; a
treasurer and director; and a Board of Control, of five members,
appointed in like manner. The commissioner is a layman; he is recognized
by the government as the representative of the church in all matters
among the Indians. The treasurer and director must be a priest; the
president of the Board of Control must be a priest; the other four
members are laymen. The salaries of the commissioner and of the Board of
Control are—nothing. Their work, like that of the directors in the
councils of the Propaganda, is given in charity. “General Charles Ewing,
the commissioner,” says Father Brouillet, “has for over four years
generously given to the work of the bureau his legal services and a
large portion of his valuable time gratuitously. He never made any
charge nor received any pay for his services, and on more than one
occasion he has advanced his own money to keep up the work.” The
director and treasurer and two clerks are the only persons connected
with the bureau who are paid, and their united salaries are only $1,000
a year. The whole expenditures of the bureau, for salaries, printing,
stationery, postage, rent, and travelling, have not exceeded $1,600 a
year during the four years of its existence—all the balance of its funds
going directly to the benefit of the missions. The business of the
bureau is to defend Catholic Indian missions against the organized
assault which has been made upon them. For those desirous of aiding so
good a work we add the information that “all remittances to the
treasurer of the Catholic Indian mission fund should be by draft on New
York or by post-office order, and should be addressed to lock-box 60,
Washington, D. C.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ST. HEDWIGE.[11]
The bulwark of Christendom is the title which Poland long claimed and
well deserved, even when the country now known as that of Sobieski and
Kosciusko was itself half-barbarous, and, instead of being a brilliant,
many-provinced kingdom, was a disunited confederation of sovereigns.
Among the many mediæval heroes who fought the invading Tartars on the
east, and the aggressive heathen Prussians on the west, and looked upon
their victories as triumphs of the cross and their death as a kind of
martyrdom, were two Henrys, “the Bearded” and “the Pious,” the husband
and the son of the holy Princess Hedwige, Duchess of Silesia and Poland
during the first half of the thirteenth century. Her life, chiefly
through her connection with other princely houses, was an eventful and
sorrowful one, and, towards the last years of it, personally a checkered
one. If God chastises those whom he loves, the mark of grace was surely
set upon St. Hedwige of Andechs, the aunt of St. Elizabeth of Hungary,
and second daughter of a Bavarian sovereign whose titles and possessions
included parts of Istria, Croatia and Dalmatia, Swabia, and the Tyrol.
The life and customs of the thirteenth century, the magnificence on
state occasions, and the simplicity, not to say rudeness, of domestic
life at ordinary times; the difficulty of communication, and
consequently the long separations between friends and kindred; the
prominent part of religion in all the good works and public improvements
of the day; the tales and legends that grew up among the people; the
traditions which there was no one to investigate or contradict, and
which did duty then for newspaper and magazine gossip; the personal
connection between the sovereign and his people, and the primitive ideal
of charity unclouded by doubts and theories, experiments and
“commissions”; the summary processes of justice, tempered only by the
pleadings of generous and tender women; government in a chaotic state,
the profession of arms the dominant one, private wars at every turn, and
individual acts of heroism, barbarity, and charity all alike received as
a matter of course—all this is well known, and is equally true of all
Christian and civilized lands of that day.
But as you went eastward through Europe confusion increased and manners
grew rougher; primitive standards of right and wrong existed under the
name of the law of the strongest; and whatever generosity human nature
displayed was an untutored impulse, a half-heathen quality guided by a
natural sense of honor rather than by fixed rules of morality. The
Slavs, the Czechs, and the Magyars were magnificent barbarians, as the
Franks and Teutons of four centuries earlier had been—Christians,
indeed, and as fiercely so as Clovis when he drew his sword at the first
recital of the Passion and exclaimed, “Would to God I and my Franks had
been there”; but unrestrained and wild, more generous than obedient
towards the church, which they would rather endow and defend than curb
their passions in accordance with its teachings—splendid material, but
an unwrought mine. Bishops and priests had fallen into loose ways among
them and lost the respect of the people; vassals of the great lords,
they stood on much the same level as the secular clergy at present do in
Russia, and the popes had long striven in vain to make them give up
marriage when they took Holy Orders. The parish clergy were mostly
ignorant men, often employed in common labor to support their families,
while of teaching monasteries or any places where learning was imparted
and respected there were very few.
Hedwige came from a well-regulated country, where church dignitaries
were the equals of civil ones, where the Roman standard was paramount,
and churchmen were looked upon as powerful and learned men. Monasteries
for both sexes abounded; Hedwige herself had been brought up by the
Benedictines at Kitzingen, where her special friend and teacher,
Petrussa, many years afterwards, followed her into Silesia and became
the first abbess of the monastery of Trebnitz, near Breslau. Hedwige,
whose mind was from her earliest years in advance of her time, and who
mastered all the accomplishments of a woman of high station at that day
before she was twelve years old, set herself the task of bettering her
adopted country as soon as she had entered it. The men of that time knew
less than the women; for their education, unless they were destined for
the church, was purely military. Ecclesiastics were lawyers, doctors,
authors, travellers, _savants_, poets, and schoolmasters; while the
majority of laymen were only soldiers. But the women of corresponding
birth were taught Latin and a good deal of medicine, besides household
knowledge, embroidery, the national literature, music, and painting. For
the times this was no unworthy curriculum. They had a practical
knowledge of surgery and of the healing herbs of the field—which, in
days when the chances of life and death often hung on the possibility of
reaching or finding a physician within the radius of forty or fifty
miles, was a very valuable gift—and an equally practical and useful
acquaintance with all the details of housekeeping. Nothing in those days
was “made easy”; mechanical contrivances for saving time and trouble
were not thought of; and even the highest people worked slowly with
their hands and did cheerfully without the luxuries which a cottage
would scarcely lack in these days. Hedwige in her later years—for she
never gave up her habits of industry—often reminded her attendants of
the maxim, “He that worketh not, neither let him eat,” and would never
allow that the rule did not apply to sovereigns as well as to private
individuals. Her own life was laborious; she rose with the dawn, winter
and summer, and, though her devotions took up many hours, she yet had
enough to give to the education of her children, the making of vestments
for poor churches, and of clothes for her pensioners. Her virtues, which
were great and generous, flowed naturally into the mould of her time;
she built and endowed monasteries, interceded for prisoners and
criminals, made daily distributions of alms to the poor, nursed the sick
and leprous in the hospitals—which she was the first in her adopted
country to found and secure—and she brought up a number of orphan
children. Of these she was so fond that when she travelled she took them
with her in several covered wagons. Later on she kept in the palace at
Breslau, at her own expense, thirteen poor men, whom she served every
day at dinner, just before her own meal, and otherwise ministered to
their wants in memory of our Lord and his apostles. In fact, her life is
a kind of transcript of that of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, and even the
poetical legends of miracles wrought to turn away her husband’s
displeasure, familiar to us all through the pictures of St. Elizabeth
and the bread turned to roses, have a counterpart in Hedwige’s life.
There is a prevalent idea that holiness and the present time are
incompatible, or rather that the holiness of which the biographers of
mediæval saints admiringly tell us is out of place in this century. The
mistake lies in the frame of the picture presented to us. Holiness is of
all times, and is the same in substance as it ever was. If, instead of
reproducing the beautiful legends of old, and restoring a sort of
literary Preraphaelitism in the history of the strong and wise women of
by-gone times, the modern biographer were to go to the root of the
matter and bring out in strong relief the commonsense virtues, the
simplicity and faithfulness to natural duties, the reliance upon God,
and the single-minded purpose which distinguished the women who are
known as saints, they would succeed in winning the interest of modern
readers. These saints were wives, mothers, and mistresses, lived and
loved, sorrowed, rejoiced, and suffered, as women have done from the
wives of the patriarchs down to the good women of our own century,
perhaps of our own acquaintance. They were models whom it is
praiseworthy to copy—not pictures held up to our gaze as beautiful
inaccessibilities. The very rudeness of life then should make them more
human in our eyes; they made mistakes with good intentions; they had
predilections which savored of weakness; they struggled through
temptations to final perfection—for saintship implies, not the
glorification of every act they ever did, but the general state of their
life and soul after they had suffered and conquered in the fight that we
all have to wage with the world, the flesh, and the devil. Of the
striking incidents of a saint’s life it is best to judge as one would of
those in the life of any other personage of by-gone ages—that is,
according to the standard of the age in which he or she lived; of the
root-virtues which won the saint’s canonization: by the everlasting
standard of the Ten Commandments. There is no more mischievous error,
nor one more likely to blind us to the good we can draw from the lives
of men and women who have gone before us, than the view which sets a
barrier between historic holiness and every-day life at the present day.
Hedwige lived in times which had their share of wars, invasions,
pestilences, and other such stirring events: Poland and Germany were in
a stormy state, and the fate of many of her own family was peculiarly
stormy; indeed, hardly a sensational drama of our day could deal in more
violent incidents than did the half century through which she lived. Her
sister Agnes became the wife of Philip, King of France, in place of his
lawful but divorced wife, Ingeburga, and incurred not only personal
excommunication as an adulteress, but was the cause of the French
kingdom being laid under an interdict for more than a year. Her elder
sister Gertrude, Queen of Hungary, was assassinated by a political
faction in the absence of her husband, who had left her regent. Her two
brothers, Henry and Egbert (the latter Bishop of Bamberg), were the
accomplices of Otho of Wittelsbach, the suitor of Hedwige’s only
daughter, in the murder of Philip, the Emperor of Germany, whom he slew
to revenge himself for the warning the emperor had given the Duke of
Silesia against the would-be suitor of the young princess; for Otho was
as cruel as he was brave. For this deed the Electors at Frankfort
degraded the brothers from their dignities, titles, and possessions,
after which Henry exiled himself to the Holy Land, where he fought the
Saracens for twenty years, and Egbert fled to Hungary, where the queen,
his sister, gave him a home and shelter for the rest of his life. Otho
was beheaded, his head thrown into the Danube and his body exposed to
the birds and beasts of the forest.
But the punishment of treason did not end here; Hedwige’s home was
destroyed by the indignant avengers of the emperor, and her father’s
heart was broken at the news of his son’s crime; so that of the old
cradle-land of the family nothing but smoking ruins and sad memories
remained, while a few years later she saw her two sons, Henry and
Conrad, meet in deadly conflict as the heads of two rival parties in the
duchy, the latter defeated and pursued by his brother, and only saved by
his father to die a few days later from a fall when out hunting. Her
husband and her remaining son died within three years of each other, the
latter in battle against the invading Tartars; and, what no doubt
pierced her heart still more, her husband was excommunicated for
retaining church property in provinces which he claimed as his by right
of the testament of the Duke of Gnesen and Posen. The early death of
three other children must have been but a slight sorrow compared with
these trials, and the peaceful life of her sister Matilda, Abbess of
Kitzingen, and of her daughter Gertrude, second abbess of Trebnitz—the
same who escaped becoming the bride of “Wild Otho,” as he was
called—could not but have made her envy it at times. She had had in her
youth an inclination towards the monastic life, but gave it up at her
parents’ desire, and married, according to the customs of her time and
class, at the childish age of twelve. But she had seemed from her
infancy marked out for no common lot; she was grave, sedate, and
womanly; she felt her marriage to be a mission and the beginning of
duties; she saw at a glance the state of neglect and uncivilization and
the need of betterment in which her adopted country stood, and set about
imbuing her husband with her ideas concerning improvement. He was only
eighteen, and loved her truly, so he proved to be her first disciple.
She began by learning Polish, which her husband’s sister Adelaide taught
her, and then gathered all the inmates of the palace, to teach them
prayers and the chief doctrines of the faith, in which they were very
imperfectly instructed, although full of readiness, even eagerness, to
believe. Her father-in-law, the reigning duke, fully appreciated her
worth and respected her enthusiasm. Her husband joined her in plans for
founding monasteries and building churches when it should come to his
turn to reign over Silesia; and in the meanwhile she strove to teach the
nobles and the people a greater respect for the priesthood by herself
setting the example of outward deference towards priests, whether native
or foreign, ignorant or learned. The strangers she always asked to the
palace, gave them clothes and money for their journey, attended their
Masses, and sometimes served them at table.
In order to introduce clerical learning and morals into Silesia and
Poland, it was necessary to rely upon Germans, as has often been the
case in other countries, where a foreign element has been, for some
time at least, synonymous with civilization. In England Italians
chiefly, in a less degree Normans, and in one signal instance a
Greek,[12] brought with them the knowledge of church architecture and
chant, besides secular learning; Irish missionaries had before that
helped on the Britons, and Saxons, later on, carried the same
influence across the sea to heathen Germany, who in her turn became
the evangelizer of the Slav nations. Still later, when Poland was as
fervent a Catholic country as Germany, another Hedwige (the name had
then grown to be a national one) converted the Lithuanians and became
the mother of the Jagellon dynasty. Here, on the confines of Russia,
the Latin Church stood face to face with the Greek, and the tide of
progress and conversion was stayed. Then came the perpetual turmoils
with the warlike Turks, till religion became rather an affair of the
knight than of the missionary, until that wave of circumstances having
passed away, and the Turks having sunk from the height of their
military renown to the insignificance of a mongrel and undisciplined
crowd, the battle between faith and scepticism—the modern form of
heathenism—has shifted to a great degree to the arena of the mind. The
Lepanto of our day is being fought out as obstinately on paper as that
of three hundred years ago was on sea; of its nature it cannot be as
short or as decisive, but it is nevertheless the counterpart—and the
only worthy one—of that romantic and daring feat of arms. The struggle
in the days of Hedwige was in some sense much narrower; but though her
husband and son engaged in it rather as blind instruments than
far-seeing directors, she, with the instincts of her sex and her
habitual union with God, helped in it as a teacher and missionary. She
proved her gift for it first upon her household, then, in the years of
her retirement, upon her special charge—some young heathen girls,
natives of Prussia, whom she taught herself and provided for in life.
One of these, Catherine, to whom she was godmother, she married to her
trusty chamberlain, Schavoine, and left them the estate of that name
after her death. But notwithstanding her thirst for doing good and her
high idea of her duty to her subjects, she thoroughly enjoyed the
quiet of home-life, away from the court, and, whenever it was
practicable, would spend some weeks at a time with her young husband
and her children at Lähnhaus. It is here that her memory lives
freshest at present; here that she tended her dovecot, which is
brought to mind by the yearly market of doves, unique of its kind,
still held at Lähn on Ash-Wednesday; here that she and her favorite
doe crossed the Hedwigsteig, a rough, rocky pathway, to the Chapel of
the Hermit and the image of the Blessed Virgin, which afterwards
became a pilgrimage-shrine, where the neighboring peasants came to see
her and unite in her prayers, so that the present village dates back
to the huts of branches hastily put up around the spreading tree that
formerly protected the image; here that she rested on the Hedwigstein,
or moss-grown boulder, yet remaining, with her name attached to it;
here that she built a chapel dedicated to St. Nicholas, and
established some Benedictine monks; and here that in her later years
she received the confidence of her friend, Baroness Jutta of
Liebenthal, a pious widow, who founded the monastery of that name for
Benedictine nuns and the education of young girls, and herself became
its first abbess.
Duke Henry, when he came to be sovereign, did not forget his plans and
promises, but helped her generously in the endowment of her hospitals,
churches, and monasteries. Himself the son of a German princess, he had
great faith in the influence for good, in morals, in agriculture, in
learning, of his mother’s and his wife’s countrymen; and, according to
the custom of the time, Hedwige was accompanied on her journey to
Silesia, as a bride, by an escort of German knights, who were not to
compose a separate court or household for her, but to settle in the
country and make it their home. Such immigration, of course, had its sad
as well as its good side; it led to jealousies that were neither
unnatural nor inexcusable, although it also leavened the country with
some useful and healthy habits. It was on this delicate question that
her two sons quarrelled so violently as to make it the pretext of a
civil war; Conrad, the youngest, being passionately attached to the old
Polish customs and not discriminating between these and crying abuses,
while Henry, the eldest, inherited his father’s love for the Germans.
The old nobility formed a powerful party and rallied round Conrad,
hailing him as their future national sovereign, although his father was
still alive and his elder brother the acknowledged heir. Henry the
Bearded had by that time retired from public life, and divided his
possessions between his two sons, giving the eldest the city of Breslau
and all Middle and Lower Silesia, while the youngest received the
provinces of Leubus and Lausitz. The latter were less cultivated than
the former, but this was chiefly due to that want of, or remoteness
from, German influence and immigration; so that the father, knowing his
sons’ opposite views on this subject, hoped to satisfy each by his
partition. Conrad, however, resented the gift of a less civilized and
extended territory, and took this pretext to make war on his brother,
with the result already noted.
The retirement of Henry, the husband of Hedwige, which lasted for twenty
years or more, was the result of a strange form of piety and
self-renunciation not uncommon in the middle ages. The Duke and Duchess
of Silesia had been married twenty-three years, and had had six
children, three of whom died in infancy. A little after the birth of the
youngest, in 1209, Hedwige, still in the bloom of her years (she was
only thirty-five and her husband forty-one), and after many prayers and
struggles, felt herself impelled to dedicate the rest of her life to God
only, and, with her husband’s consent, to live separate from him. They
had always loved each other tenderly, and Henry’s conduct, unlike that
of many sovereigns of his and of later times, had been irreproachable;
he looked upon his wife as a saint, and upon her wishes as commands; he
had allowed her to guide his charities and public improvements, had
followed her advice, had trusted to her to bring up his children exactly
as she thought fit, which was more rigorously and less luxuriously than
is often the case with royal children—in a word, had leant wholly upon
her. To signify his full acquiescence in this half-monastic vow, he
received the tonsure, and, contrary to the custom of his class at that
time, let his beard grow, whence came his surname, the Bearded.
Hedwige retired to Trebnitz, where she lived in a separate house with
her own women and the chamberlain Schavoine, who took his name from the
estate which Henry gave her on their separation. Other grants of money
were also made her, and her husband promised his countenance and help in
any good work she should wish to do there or elsewhere throughout his
possessions. They often met in after years, generally at festive
ceremonies for the building or opening of churches, and once at the
grave of their unhappy son Conrad; and Henry himself, though keeping up
a court and moving from place to place, betook himself to prayers,
study, and good works, having given over the government to his sons. In
his old age he came forth again in the character of a sovereign and a
leader, and, indeed, led a stormy, stirring life for a few years before
his death.
Hedwige, in this proceeding of her retirement, had another object in
view—that is, the example which she hoped her voluntary giving up of
married life would be to the married priesthood of Poland and Silesia.
Such was, to a great extent, the case, and the celibacy of the clergy,
so long preached in vain, became in a few years the rule instead of the
exception.
The Cistercian abbey of Trebnitz, now Hedwige’s home, was the first
institution of its kind for women. It was begun in 1200 and finished
eighteen years later, but was ready to be inhabited in 1202. It stood in
a wooded region, three miles from Breslau. The legend of its foundation,
as commemorated in an old rhyme or _Volkslied_ (people’s song), refers
it to a vow made by Henry, who, while out hunting, got entangled in a
morass and could see no human means of rescue; but what is certain is
that the royal couple had long planned and looked forward to a monastery
for women, and the date of the laying of the first stone of Trebnitz
corresponds with that of Henry’s accession to the throne. The building
was intended to accommodate a thousand persons, and was built by the
hands of convicts and prisoners, even those who were condemned to death,
whose work on it was to be equivalent to the rest of their sentence.
Hedwige’s pity for, and kindness to, captives, whether innocent or
guilty, was a conspicuous trait of her character; and the undeserved
physical hardships of prisoners in those times were enough to turn the
sympathies of every kind-hearted person from justice towards the
criminal. In the same way did the neglected sick, and especially the
lepers, touch her heart; indeed, all the oldest hospitals in Silesia are
due to her.
The neighboring Cistercian monks of Leubus cast the leaden plates for
the roof and the smaller bells of the new monastery, in return for which
Henry gave them two estates; and the duke himself with his foremost
nobles inspected the progress of the work, and solemnly made the round
of the land deeded to the institution, marking his own name on the
boundary stones. Bishop Egbert of Bamberg, Hedwige’s brother (this was
before his disgrace), procured a body of Cistercian nuns of his diocese
as a beginning, and accompanied them himself on their journey to their
new home. Hedwige’s great-uncle, Provost Popo of Bamberg, came too, and
the meeting of these strangers with the high clergy of Silesia and
Poland was, as the old chroniclers would have said, “a brave and
pleasant sight.” The buildings were decorated with evergreens, and the
pomp of jewelled garments, clerical and national costumes, armor, horses
richly caparisoned, embroidered robes and canopies, was dazzling. It was
the Sunday within the octave of the feast of the Epiphany—a sharp,
bright winter’s day; the cavalcade from the court of Breslau, consisting
of the duke and duchess and their retinue, escorted the nuns and the
foreign ecclesiastics, while the bishops of Breslau and Posen, each with
his chapter, and the Cistercian abbot under whose jurisdiction Trebnitz
was placed, received the latter at the gate of the finished portion of
the new church. Here the duke handed the Abbess Petrussa, Hedwige’s old
friend and teacher, a deed of the property henceforth belonging to the
order—a document which, like all following ones of the same kind, ended
with a forcible denunciation of any future injury to the rights of the
abbey. “Whoever injures this foundation, without giving full
satisfaction therefor, shall be cut off from the church; and let his
everlasting portion be with Judas, the Lord’s betrayer, who hanged
himself, and with Dathan and Abiron whom the earth swallowed up alive.”
When the deed had been read, and the dedication of the building “to the
honor of God and of the holy apostle Bartholomew” declared, the clergy,
who held torches in their hands, threw them on the ground, as a sign of
all secular claims on the possessions of the abbey being extinguished;
and during this ceremony the solemn excommunication against all who
should injure the monastery was read aloud once more. The men who had
worked at the building, or in any way contributed to it, were freed from
all feudal claims, from the obligation to fight, to furnish huntsmen,
falcons, or horses for the ducal household, to work at the fields or at
the public works, and received the immunities and protection usual to
the vassals of a monastery.
Although Trebnitz was undoubtedly named after the neighboring village so
called, a story grew up of the humorous mispronunciation of a Polish
word, _trzebanic_, by the German abbess, when asked by Henry if “there
was anything else she needed?” The word signifies “We need nothing
more,” and has some likeness to the name of Trebnitz; but popular tales
such as this abound everywhere. Among the later gifts to the monastery
were three villages, bound to supply the nuns with honey, wax, and
mead—the first for their “vesper-meal,” the second for their candles and
torches, and the third for their “drink on holidays.” The object of the
institution, which the original deed set forth as being the securing of
“a place of refuge wherein the weaker sex may atone for its sins through
the mercy of God,” was at once obtained, and other advantages also grew
up around the women’s republic of Trebnitz. It was soon filled with
young girls sent there to be educated; widows came either to enter the
order or to live under its rule and protection as out-door members;
women fled there to repent, and others to avoid temptation; and lastly
came Gertrude, the duke’s daughter, to become a nun within its walls.
Seven years after its festive opening Hedwige herself retired there and
began the second half of her long life by caring for and educating the
heathen maidens from Prussia. Trebnitz was her favorite home until her
death, and the institution which was most identified with the holy
Duchess of Silesia; but the list of great works she and her husband set
on foot, each of them a starting-point of much hidden good, is a long
one. The parish church of Bunzlau having, with most of the town itself,
been burnt, she built a new one, dedicated to Our Lady. At Goldberg, a
village near one of the royal summer palaces, she founded a Franciscan
convent, intended to serve the purpose of a school for the neighborhood.
Nimptsch, her place of refuge during the civil war between her two sons,
was not forgotten; for while there she laid the first stone of a church,
and almost at the same time began one dedicated to St. Andrew for the
town of Herrnstadt. Her friends often remarked on her lavishness in
building, and asked her whence she could expect to draw the means. She
used to answer confidently: “I trust that the heavenly Architect who
made the world, and my dear and faithful husband Henry, will not let me
be shamed, so that I should be unable to finish what I have begun with
good motives and to their honor. Do not be too anxious about my doings;
all will end well with God’s help.” In Breslau, the capital, she built
three hospitals—that of the Holy Ghost, that of St. Lazarus (this was
for lepers), and that of St. Barbara. For many years Hedwige’s charity
towards the sick had produced a rivalry among all good men, both nobles
and burghers, to tend and care for some sick persons in their own houses
or in rooms hired or built for the purpose; but her wish always was to
found a public hospital. The duke gave her a suitable piece of land for
the building and garden; the abbot of the Augustinians, Witoslaus, gave
his lay brothers as sick-nurses and his choir-monks as overseers and
confessors. Contributions flowed in from the rich members of the
population, and the first hospital was finished in a very short time.
The third contained what was an immense luxury in those days—a number of
bath-rooms, open gratis to the poor on certain days, and rooms where
they could be bled, as was the custom on the slightest illness. All
those who came in contact with Hedwige caught her spirit of generosity,
and rich men, lay and ecclesiastic, vied with her in founding churches
and monasteries. Canon Nicholas of Breslau, the duke’s chancellor,
obtained Henry’s leave to endow a Cistercian monastery with the estates
which the duke had given him for his lifetime, and others followed his
example.
These ceremonies were always solemn and the deed of gift publicly read,
signed, witnessed, and sworn to. As much pomp hedged them in as was
usual in a treaty of peace or the betrothal of sovereign princes; and,
indeed, the foundation of churches, though a common occurrence, was
looked upon as quite as important as any civil contract. In 1234 a
terrible famine, fever, and pestilence decimated the land, and, among
many other Silesian towns that possessed as yet no hospital, Neumarkt
was in special distress. Hedwige hurried there and set on foot a
temporary system of relief and nursing, but also entreated her husband
to build a permanent hospital for incurables, where they might be cared
for till their death. This he did, and attached to it a provostship, the
church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and Pope Innocent IV. sent
special blessings to the Bohemian Benedictine monks who were entrusted
with the care of the sick. Four years later Henry built a church in
Löwenberg and gave it to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem; this was
a month or two before his death. But these are only a few of the works
of this generous couple. Many villages and remote places obtained
benefits from them, travelling priests were cared for, young girls
helped in their need and protected or dowered, many poor families housed
and fed; and the famine of 1234 especially gave Hedwige an opportunity
of justifying her title of “Mother of the poor.” She distributed
unheard-of quantities of grain, bread, meat, and dried fruits to the
people, who came for relief from long distances. She gave lavishly, with
that apparent recklessness that marks the charities of saints, smilingly
saying, “We must help the poor, that the Lord may have pity on our own
needs and appease our own hunger.” She forgave all feudal dues for years
on her own possessions, and looked after her employés so diligently that
they complained that the “duchess left them nothing but the leavings of
the peasants.” When she did not distribute her alms in person, the poor
groaned and wept, and cared less for the charity than if it had been
seasoned by her gracious presence. When Breslau was wholly burnt down in
1218, and three years’ distress fell upon the land, she did the same and
relieved thousands. That year was marked by the death of the Abbess of
Trebnitz, Petrussa, and the choice of Princess Gertrude as her
successor, which coincided with the festival held to celebrate the
entire finishing of the monastery and the dedication of the church. The
religious ceremonies were followed by a banquet in the refectory and by
games for the people in the courtyard. Henry was present and rejoiced
with her; her son’s wife, Anna, daughter of King Ottokar of Bohemia, was
there with her children, one of whom was to fill, but unworthily, the
throne of Silesia. It was a family gathering as well as a religious
feast; but if, as tradition says, Hedwige was then gifted with a more
than ordinary insight into the future, she must have felt sad to think
of the turmoil that was coming and that would part her more and more in
spirit from her husband.
After the death of his second son, Conrad, Henry turned his arms against
a relation of his own, Duke Ladislaus of Gnesen and Posen, and came off
victorious. His old warrior-blood once again stirred in him, it was
impossible to keep him from the excitement of war, and Hedwige’s
entreaties and messages were of no avail. She feared the excommunication
which Pope Innocent had more than once threatened to launch against the
restless Polish sovereigns, and was relieved when he undertook a war
against the Prussians, who at least were heathens, and whose cruelties
really needed strong repression. Still, it was rather the thirst for
fighting that led the Duke of Silesia against them than any exalted
motive of justice or desire to open the way for their conversion.
The pretext for the expedition was the cruelties they committed on their
inroads into Poland, and especially the duchy of Masovia. To attack them
among their own forests and morasses was so hopelessly difficult that
the bishops, whom the pope had admonished to preach a “crusade” against
them, had hitherto refrained from doing so. The event proved the wisdom
of this inaction; for after marching a large army over the border, under
the command of Henry of Silesia and Duke Conrad of Masovia, with whom
the bishops with their men-at-arms joined forces, the assailers found
themselves in a network of marshes, behind which the assailed quietly
waited. The wearied troops had at last to be ingloriously marched back
again, while the enemy came out in their rear, made a raid into Masovia,
carried off five thousand Christian captives, burnt a thousand villages
and hamlets as well as almost every church in the province, and drove
Duke Conrad into Germany for refuge. Henry then advised the fugitive
duke to call upon the German Knights of Venice, a military order who
afterwards under their grand master, Hermann Balk, settled in Kulmerland
and effectually routed and conquered the Prussians. The conversion of
the latter was, therefore, a feat of arms rather than a triumph of
missionary zeal; and perhaps it was less to be wondered at that, after
only three hundred years’ Christianity, they should have accepted
another change in the shape of the Lutheran Reformation. The order
itself, however, was more blamable, in that it departed, in the person
of its head, the famous Albert of Brandenburg, from its old chivalric
standard of honor, and went over to the “new doctrine,” as it was
called, because this defection promised political independence. And,
again, it strikes one, in reading of these thirteenth-century feuds,
that history repeats itself; for a new religious war has sprung up
between Prussia and Posen, and the two civilized races are in much the
same relative positions, speaking broadly, as the two barbarous ones
were then, although Posen can point to a short and dazzling career
between the two eras of persecution.
It is impossible here to recount the various and sad events that led up
to the death of Henry. He died in 1238, at the age of seventy, under the
ban of excommunication, which was only partially removed, and deprived
to the last of the presence of his saintly wife. The scene of the return
of his body to the abbey church at Trebnitz was heartrending. The nuns
and vassals, no less than his widow and children, looked upon him as
their stay and their protector; they bewailed him with genuine grief as
their benefactor, and buried him with all imaginable respect and pomp as
their founder. Hedwige’s life as a widow became more penitential than
before.
After her death a hair-shirt and a belt with small, sharp points turned
inwards were found on her body; but these she had worn for many years
before her widowhood. Her cloister-life, however, was not her only one,
for she watched with intelligent interest the politics of the time, the
great events, and even the less obtrusive details, whose consequences to
the cause of good might afterwards be manifold; and above all she lived
in her son, Henry the Pious, a worthy and able sovereign, whose reign
was to be short, stormy, and glorious.
In January, 1241, the Tartars, under their chiefs Batu and Peta, having
previously desolated Russia, fell with nearly three hundred thousand
fighting men upon Bohemia, Hungary, Silesia, and Poland. The King of
Hungary, Bela, was beaten by Batu, while Peta besieged, took, and burnt
Cracow on his way to Silesia. The King of Bohemia, Wenzel, brought as
large an army as he could to defend his frontiers, while Henry gathered
thirty thousand men in his father’s city of refuge, Liegnitz, waiting to
attack Peta on his road to Breslau. Trebnitz was in dire confusion;
monasteries always fell the first prey to the heathen invaders, and the
nuns judged it prudent to scatter themselves and claim each the
protection of her own family, while Hedwige, with her daughter, the
Abbess Gertrude, and her daughter-in-law, Anna, shut themselves up in
the strong castle of Crossen on the Oder. Before she left she gave her
son a scarf, or rather sword-belt, embroidered with her own hands, which
he received as an omen of good-fortune, cheering her with hopes of his
speedy and victorious return, while the stricken, heroic mother feared
but too surely that she should never see his face again. All Breslau
retired within the citadel to await the attack, and Henry tried to
intercept the foe on his way. He drew up his army on some high ground
just outside the walls—Wahlstatt, a good battle-ground, as he judged—and
himself gave the signal to attack the oncoming foe. He commanded the
main body, while lesser brother-sovereigns directed the wings; but the
irresistible might of numbers, which was the chief reliance of the
Tartars, bore down all opposition, as a whirlwind does the densest
forest. The Poles and Silesians fell like heroes, defending themselves
and asking no quarter, until a cry arose in German, “Strike dead! strike
dead!” which, whether raised by accident or by treachery, produced a
panic by its likeness to the Polish word for “Fly! fly!” The army seemed
literally to melt away; squadrons broke and ran, and a cloud of small,
sharp Tartar arrows clove the air after them; the Asiatic cavalry hunted
and trampled down the fugitives. One of the Polish leaders at last
succeeded in rallying part of the troops, and the fight began again with
some hopes of victory, when the enemy had resort to a kind of infernal
machine used in ancient Indian warfare, the likeness of a gigantic head,
which was so made as to give out a dense smoke and unbearable stench,
besides being in some degree explosive. The contrivance was held by the
Christians to be magical and devilish, and the Tartars themselves, so
dangerous was it to those of their own men who had the handling of it,
only resorted to it in the utmost extremity, which shows how
hard-pressed they were on this occasion by the Silesian soldiery. But
the terrible device stood them in good stead this time. The panic was
renewed, and once more a wild flight and wilder pursuit took place; the
leaders, the knights, and Henry himself, regardless of the flight of
their followers, fought on long after they knew their fate to be
hopeless and death certain. One by one the brave fellows were cut down,
the little band decreased at every stroke of sword or flight of arrows,
and the duke, with four knights, found himself almost alone on the lost
field of battle. They urged him to try to save his life by flight; he
scouted the proposal, and told them that since God had not willed that
he should conquer, he would at least die. “For the faith,” he said; “at
least, it will be a martyr’s death.” His charger was killed under him,
and he fought on foot for some time, hewing a lane for himself through
his enemies. One of his knights managed at last to bring him a fresh
horse, which he had no sooner mounted than his person was recognized by
hundreds of his foes and he was hemmed in on all sides. While in the act
of lifting his sword to cut down a Tartar in his front, he was wounded
from behind by a long lance thrust in precisely where a joint in his
armor exposed the shoulder; the spear went right through and pierced the
lung, and the son of Duchess Hedwige sank dying from his horse. The
enemy cut off his head, and, hoisting it on a spear, paraded it before
the walls of Liegnitz, summoning the defenders to surrender; but they,
guarding Henry’s young sons, answered back from the battlements: “If we
have lost one duke to-day, we have four yet with us in the castle, and
these we will defend to the last drop of our hearts’ blood.” The next
day they were relieved by King Wenzel of Bohemia, who, however, came too
late to do anything but hasten the departure of the Tartar horde, which
had suffered severely in the encounter, but rallied soon enough to
maraud, burn, and sack churches, abbeys, villages, etc., throughout
Hungary and Silesia, Bohemia and Mähren, until, one year later,
Jaroslaus von Sternberg finally routed their diminished army under the
walls of Olmütz. This roused Germany and France, and the Christian
sovereigns combined sent a mighty army, under the command of Wenzel of
Bohemia, to defend the Austro-Hungarian frontiers, whence the Tartars
retreated, by the same road by which they had come, to their steppes on
the high table-lands of Asia. Their traces in Europe, however, were not
blotted out for half a century; the ruined churches, blackened villages,
and ravaged fields long showed their awful track; and the outward work
of Hedwige’s life would have been well-nigh destroyed had not the spirit
she had brought with it remained alive as the germ of a future exterior
restoration.
The night of the lost battle, when Henry’s headless body lay on the
field, Hedwige, after a prayer of unusual length, woke her nearest
friend and favorite attendant, and said to her:
“Demundis, this night I have lost my only son. He has left me as
swiftly as a bird flies upwards, and I shall never look upon his
face again.” She forbade her to say anything of this to the dead
man’s wife and sister until some messenger from the army should
bring news of the battle; and it was not till the third day that
Jaroslaus von Janowitz came with the terrible tidings. Anna,
Henry’s young widow, hastened to the field to seek and recover
her husband’s body, which was so mutilated that she only
recognized it by the six toes of the left foot. The corpse was
brought to Trebnitz and buried with his father, brother, and
infant sons in the abbey church. Hedwige prayed thus aloud over
his grave: “O Lord! I thank thee that thou hast given me such a
son, who, as long as he lived, loved and honored me truly, and
never gave me an hour’s sorrow. However gladly I would have kept
him by my side on earth, I hold him blessed in that, by the
shedding of his blood, he is now united in heaven with thee, his
Creator. With supplication, O Lord! do I commend his soul unto
thee.”
Hedwige’s life and work were drawing to an end. Her last public act was
one of charity to the dead and comfort to the bereaved living. The
bodies of many heroic defenders of their country had been left to rot
upon the field of battle. She had these gathered together and buried in
consecrated ground, and ordered solemn requiems to be sung for the
repose of their souls, while she made herself accessible to every
sorrowing widow, mother, sister, or orphan of the dead soldiers,
listened to their complaints and laments, comforted and helped them, and
brought God’s peace once more into their hearts. After this she prepared
herself to die. Her first care was a practical one: she set her affairs
in order—a moral duty too often foolishly confounded with worldliness.
Then she redoubled her devotions, and, sending for her chaplain, asked
to receive Extreme Unction. He demurred, seeing no sign of death about
her; but her holiness was so well known that he asked her the reason of
her request.
“It is a sacrament,” she answered reverently, “which should be received
in full consciousness, that we may treat it with due reverence and
thankfulness; and I fear that sickness would make me receive it with
little or no preparation, and would prevent me from being, as far as
possible, worthy of this dying grace. I shall belong to the sick before
many days are over, and I would fain be strengthened for the passage
through death to the joy of meeting my God.”
Her agony was not long, but she seemed to struggle with a fear of death
and of the devil’s temptations. When her daughter wished to send for
Anna, she said: “No; I shall not die before she comes home” (she was
then absent on a visit to her brother, King Wenzel of Bohemia). Her
biographers tell us that angels and saints visited her on her death-bed.
She died with the veil of her holy niece, Elizabeth of Hungary, wound
round her head, and held in her hand, and often to her lips, a little
ivory image of the Blessed Virgin. At the very last she was calm and
peaceful, blessed her daughter and daughter-in-law, and every nun in the
monastery of Trebnitz, her chosen home, and died at evening twilight, on
the 15th of October, 1243. Twenty years later the clergy of Silesia,
Poland, and Bohemia sent deputies to Rome to beg for her canonization,
which Pope Clement IV. proclaimed almost immediately. Many miracles
through her intercession were sworn to by credible witnesses, and the
neighborhood blossomed with gracious and beautiful legends of the
sainted duchess, the mother of the poor and the guardian angel of
Silesia. The ceremony of transferring her body to a shrine in the abbey
church at Trebnitz in 1268 was the occasion for a national festival;
pilgrims flocked in from the remotest districts, and many foreigners
came too. Sovereigns and knights, in costly robes and armor, walked in
procession to her altar; lay and ecclesiastical pomp was showered upon
and around her remains; but nothing of all this was so great a tribute
as the memory she left, deep in the heart of the people, of a model
wife, mother, mistress, and sovereign, a woman strong in principle,
truthful in every word and deed, charitable yet not weak, merciful yet
not sentimental, a wise, far-seeing, but tender, brave, and thoroughly
womanly woman.
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THE CHARACTER OF THE PRESENT INDUSTRIAL CRISIS.
FROM THE REVUE GENERALE.
Every one agrees that “business is bad”; but how many give themselves
the trouble to look for the causes of this persistent stagnation? Some
are distressed, others astonished, by it. The calmer observers—those who
are not dismayed beyond measure by a deceptive view from the bank of the
river of fortune—seek for comparisons in the crises of 1837, 1848, and
1866.
A gifted writer, who conducts with deserved success a technical magazine
of our country, the “Monitor of Material Interests” (_Le Moniteur des
Intérêts Matériels_), has examined this interesting subject in a series
of remarkable articles. M. George de Laveleye—who must not be confounded
with his relative, the professor at Liege—maintains that the present
crisis is not transient. He attributes to it a permanent character. If
the reader will follow attentively the summary that we are about to give
of the argument of M. De Laveleye, he will not be too alarmed at his
conclusion.
Generally, these crises have had the effect of rarefying the capital by
which the great industrial enterprises were fed; these, then, deprived
of the food which enabled them to live, seemed to hesitate; then they
shook and fell. But to-day what do we see? Entirely the reverse. Money,
floating capital, unused funds, are more abundant than ever; the
cash-boxes overflow; the large banks literally sweat with gold; and this
excess, this plethora of unemployed capital causes the public funds to
advance and the price of money to decrease. It is business that is
wanting; it is the employment of capital that is in default.
Whence comes this accumulation of savings and this inertia of capital,
and how does it happen that new and tempting enterprises do not attract
it, notwithstanding its apparently low price? M. De Laveleye thus
instructs us:
“All these tempests,” says he, speaking of the crises of 1837,
1848, 1857, and 1866, “which reproduced themselves at almost
equal intervals, were periods of settlement which marked the
impatience of the industrial speculation over-excited during a
period of forty years; each time that it had abused credit, each
time that there was a disproportion between the engagements
entered upon and the available resources, industrial,
commercial, and financial Europe received a warning; credit
vanished suddenly; there was a series of commercial or
industrial failures; there was a violent contraction in the
stock exchanges and in business; there was a slackening of new
enterprises or of those already in hand; there were more losses
than one could reckon. But at each of these momentary and
transitory crises a remedy was very quickly found. Thus we had
free trade and the upward movement of commercial relations; we
had the play of free joint-stock companies; we had the war of
secession, which, from a European point of view, was a powerful
derivative; finally, during this long period we had the
discovery of gold and silver mines, coming annually to swell the
stock of metal at the disposal of business and of speculation.
Thus these crises were not of long duration. It sufficed to let
the overworked market have time to assimilate the stocks of
paper or of merchandise from which it suffered, to re-establish
the equilibrium between the current debts, circulating capital
and credit, and immediately industrial and commercial Europe
resumed her progressive march; the new enterprises which
presented themselves obtained public favor; the warning was
forgotten; the play of credit renewed itself; and after a period
of enforced quiet, which never exceeded three years, we felt
vibrating anew that febrile activity which, in forty years, has
caused a veritable transformation of the world.”
This was always the course of these crises in the past. To-day there is
nothing like this; on the contrary, “if there be a disproportion between
undertakings and resources, it is absolutely the reverse of that which
marked the preceding crises: the undertakings are almost null, and the
resources are exaggerated.”
Why? Because the present crisis is not merely a transitional crisis: it
is a permanent, final one; the origin of the evil from which the
industry and the commerce of Europe suffer is to be traced to other
causes than those commonly attributed to it. The true origin of the
crisis, says M. De Laveleye, is the withdrawal of capital from the
operations in which it had been employed, and the inactivity and
unproductiveness to which it has been since doomed. At the beginning of
the crisis of 1873 a general panic was produced among the lenders, whose
confidence was profoundly shaken, and they exerted themselves all at
once to realize their money. The bankers and the money-lenders of Europe
were seized, by a unanimous accord, with a desire to have their capital,
or that which remained of it, in their hands—“to see their money again,”
as M. De Laveleye says. They realized their foreign securities; they
retired _en masse_ from the industrial enterprises in which they were
engaged abroad; and, above all, they cut off credit. The countries and
the establishments which lived on credit and on outside capital saw
their resources cut off and suspended their activity, believing,
however, that the crisis would be only temporary. The three principal
lending countries—England, France, and Holland—realized their money, at
the price of heavy losses on more than one occasion; and, under the
influence of the panic, they contented themselves with keeping it under
lock and key in their cash-boxes. From this resulted a great and rapid
decline in the rate of interest. Bank paper fell to one per cent., and
the lenders upon short bills, with incontestable securities, got but a
half per cent. This was the result of the return of the capital drawn
back from the foreign countries to which it had been lent; the
capitalists had but one ambition: they wished to be certain that their
money was running no risk whatever.
The result of all this was that, in every instance where they lived on
borrowed capital, industrial works were stopped and all sorts of
enterprises were cut short. On the other hand, a plethora of capital was
produced among those who had realized, and who could no longer find
means to employ their funds with profit. This is the explanation and the
first characteristic of the present crisis—the accumulation of capital
and the low price for the use of money.
The accumulation is general; but it is principally in the rich
countries, like England and France, that this excess was produced. The
same phenomenon, however, also showed itself in Austria, Italy, Sweden,
etc.—countries which live in part upon foreign capital. On the other
hand, the countries which depended entirely upon this capital—Turkey,
Egypt, Peru, etc.—were crippled, as they were deprived of the resources
which credit had previously placed at their disposal.
Thus, then, nothing happened as in the preceding crises, and from 1873
to 1877 all has been new, the phenomena themselves and their causes.
There would be reason for surprise and bewilderment at this if one did
not admit, with M. De Laveleye, that only now has ceased the industrial
and speculative movement which has led Europe for forty years to send
her money abroad. New employments for capital are very nearly exhausted;
new sources of riches have been exploited as much as they can be. The
movement of the last forty years, especially active since 1851, is not
merely arrested for a moment to resume its march once more, as in the
previous crises; it is definitely terminated.
The design of the past movement was the economical furnishing of Europe
and of the world: and this equipment is completed, or nearly so. But in
giving proof of this assertion and seeking for its justification, M. De
Laveleye supplies a very clear account of the direct and specific causes
of the crisis through which we are passing.
“Western Europe,” he says—“and by this generic expression we
mean Europe rich in capital and feeding great foreign
enterprises—Western Europe has made a rude return upon herself.
She has retaken her money; she has made an inventory of what she
possessed abroad, and she shows herself solicitous to preserve,
to keep by her, this scattered wealth. The first element of the
force of progress, then, is in default; the money is wanting; it
is hidden; it is refused. Concurrently, what have the borrowing
countries done since 1873? They have abandoned the game and
ceased an impossible struggle, which consisted in paying to
Western Europe a revenue which was not produced by the soil or
by practicable enterprises. They have become bankrupt, and the
crisis in their government funds has opened the eyes of the two
champions. Each perceived that he was ruined: the borrower by
becoming indebted without sufficient motive; the lender not only
by lending his capital upon illusory guarantees, but by
receiving finally only a part of it, under the form of
arrearages.”
This is the second cause. As for the third:
“It is the depreciation of silver, due to the incapacity and the
improvidence of the Western states, which imagined they could
make a good stroke of political economy by allowing one of the
agents of circulation to debase itself.
“Principal possessors of the stock of gold these states have
obeyed an egoistic thought in seconding the movement for a
single metal as currency—gold; a movement which had for its
first effect an increase in the relative value of their metallic
circulation. But they took no note of another very grave
consequence of this disturbance of equilibrium.
“When a nominal money submits to variations in value as great as
those which have been noted in silver, it becomes provisionally
inapt for its functions. Commercial enterprises, based upon this
metal, become extremely dangerous, and are no longer attempted
by those who wish to operate only with the security attached to
studied and matured plans. But all the commerce with the East is
based upon silver, which, for these countries, is the nominal
money. When the value of silver, and, following it, the course
of exchange, became subject to oscillations of ten and fifteen
per cent., there was no longer any security for international
commerce. The cost of despatching and of selling raw material or
manufactured goods could no longer be precisely fixed; and the
most careful merchant became a speculator in spite of himself.
He then stopped, and by that very act he added to the difficulty
of the situation. The fall in the value of silver broke the
charm exercised by the constant augmentation of the stock of
metals put at the disposal of international enterprises.
“This is the third element in the advance of progress which has
disappeared in its turn; and we may thus sum up:
“1. The lenders are not willing, provisionally, to enter upon
new schemes.
“2. The borrowers, weary or feeble, are incapable of giving
birth to new illusions.
“3. The monetary crisis has added its action to these two
negative elements.
“So that to-day, after proper deliberation, people decide to do
nothing; or, at least, to do nothing under the former conditions
of international enterprises.”
But is it admissible that we shall do nothing henceforth, and that the
present situation will prolong itself indefinitely? No, assuredly; and,
so far as this goes, M. De Laveleye recognizes with every one that the
stagnation of business cannot endure, that a reaction is inevitable, and
that it will come in its time.
“But,” he hastens to add, “this return to activity will not be
produced at all in the form known and hoped for by those who
have seen the revivals of speculation after the crises of 1837,
1857, and 1866; and this for the logical reason that the
industrial, commercial, financial, and speculative activity of
the middle of this century has had for its base and aim the
economical furnishing of the world (_l’outillage économique du
monde_), and that this furnishing is very nearly completed.
“The base and the object of the former activity will no longer
exist, or scarcely so. We must, then, wait for a profound
modification in the form and conditions of this activity.
“This is why we have called the present crisis a permanent, a
final crisis”—_une crise définitive_.
He goes on to give his reasons for this idea, that the economical
furnishing of the world is finished, or so far advanced that henceforth
we can expect no such development as we have seen in the past:
“In Holland the great works are done: the drains are
continued; Amsterdam is connected with the sea; international
communications are established.
“In Italy, in Spain, the great arteries are provided with iron
roads, and the products of their working are notoriously below
what one could reckon as remuneration upon the capital. The
seaports, the mines, are sufficiently provided for in these
countries; the towns, there as elsewhere, have their markets,
their water and gas works, their new quarters, their tramways.
“As for the Pyrenees, they are crossed; the Alps also; and after
the tunnel already made by Mont Cenis toward France, the road in
construction through Saint-Gothard toward Germany, and the very
sufficient pass through the Brenner toward Austria, industrial
activity will no longer find any occupation in this quarter.
“In Russia the principal railroad lines are completed.
“The railway system of Prussia is finished, and in that country
industry is so well furnished that she is murdered with her own
tools; the means of production and of transportation are too
vast, and in evident disproportion to the possible business of
the country.
“Austria is supplied, and there it would be rash to go further.
“Turkey has railroads. It has been difficult enough to construct
them; one does not speak of them willingly.
“The United States have borrowed enough from us to establish
their system; it is compact and well provided with lines, even
opposition lines. That country has regained its lost time; it is
necessary to watch its steps now that it is furnished
sufficiently to put itself in competition with the industry of
Western Europe.
“The Isthmus of Suez is opened.
“The transatlantic cables are laid.
“The transformation in the merchant marine is three-fourths
completed; the sailing ship has disappeared, or at least is
relegated to the second place; the steamers have the principal
trade.
“On whatever side we turn our eyes we see these accomplished
results of the work of the last forty years. These results may
not be always excellent from the financial point of view; many
errors have been brought out, and by the side of some brilliant
exceptions we must count a number of deceptions for the
capitalists engaged, and for the governments which have become
needy and insolvent. But, whatever may be the financial result,
these lands have been stirred up and dug out; the blocks and the
rails have been laid; the towns have been transformed; the
distances have been shortened; the new apparatus has been given
in profusion to the rich countries, in more reasonable limits to
countries less open; everywhere what was strictly necessary has
been done; often too much has been done.”
Here, very clearly expressed, is the result of the forty years of
activity which we have had, and this result is really the end toward
which tended the great industrial movement that, for so long a time, has
held minds awake, has kept the dockyards, the workshops, the factories,
the forges at work. This end is attained; we see it; and among the
serious consequences of this fact is one which M. De Laveleye exposes
with his usual lucidity:
“Thanks to the facilities of communication, to the new routes
opened, to steam and to electricity, the conditions of commerce
and industry are changed. There is no longer any place, as there
was at the beginning of this century, for the boldness of the
manufacturer or the trader, counting upon his skill as well as
on his risk to obtain a large remuneration due to his audacity,
to his special knowledge, and to his capital.
“Between the new and the old commerce and industry there exists
the same difference as between the wars of the empire and the
last campaigns of France and of Austria.
“The same causes have produced the same results. In war the
cannon and guns of perfection, the railways and the telegraphs,
the vast masses of men, have produced rapid campaigns, in which
personal valor and the chances of war, going almost for nothing,
contributed very little to the final result. In industry the
same perfection of apparatus has changed the conditions of
trade; and the masses of men are replaced by the abundance of
circulating capital and the facility of the means of credit—two
other products of this active period of forty years.
“Only, in war the final result places the vanquished at the
mercy of his foe, who can, as it appears, dictate his laws; in
industry and in commerce the final gain is not left arbitrarily
to the swiftest or to the best equipped. He must content himself
with little; he is forbidden to abuse the victory which, without
this moderation, will not be long in escaping him.”
This is what we have come to; and from a purely economic point
of view we can recognize, with the judicious writer who has
furnished us with the process of the struggle, that the most
certain consequences of all this will be the following:
.pm letter-start “There will be an excess of circulating
capital, free from employment.
“Now, as long as this has not been the case the product of
capital has been as follows:
“From three to four and a half per cent. on unquestionable
securities of the first class.
“From four and a half to six per cent. on real estate security
of the second class.
“From six to eight per cent. on loans and limited liabilities.
“From eight to ten per cent. and upwards on industrial,
financial, and speculative ventures.
“In the future and during a still indefinite period, which
cannot fail to be long, very long, this scale must be modified
by the excess of unemployed capital.
“Unquestionable securities will descend to three per cent., or
below that; those of the second class will bring four and a
half; men will be happy to make six per cent. in manufactures or
production; finally, one can obtain eight per cent. only by
running wild risks. There will be a general change in the rate
of capitalization, in the sense of lessening the interest while
increasing the amount of capital. Some exceptions—that is to
say, some happy chances, some skilful personal strokes—may occur
to confirm this rule. The general movement, however, will, we
believe, be that which we have indicated.”
But what remains, then, to be done? Little of anything, if we wish to
attribute to the revival of activity, which will come in its own time,
only the sense and the direction which the movement has had until now.
On the other hand, forced to admit that the human spirit has not at all
gone to sleep, and that the inventive genius which the Master of all
things in his goodness has bestowed upon his humble creatures has not in
the least diminished, it is necessary also to confess that in the future
it is the unknown which opens before us; and just as, before this
century, people had not even thought of all the beautiful applications
of heat, electricity, steam, and light which have made the material
glory of our age and of an illustrious galaxy of _savants_, even so
to-day we cannot say toward what end the efforts of humanity might tend
to-morrow. One Being only knows it—he who knows all and sees all, he for
whom the past, the present, and the future are but one, he who does not
depend at all on time—God, in fact, the creator of all that has been,
that is, and that shall be, the great dispenser of all good and of all
progress; he who disposes of man at his will in one way or the other,
often while the latter, in his folly, refuses to abase his blind
presumption sufficiently to recognize him.
Let us, then, leave to the future that which belongs to the future, and
let us hold ourselves, each one for his own account, ready to obey the
impulse which it may please God to give us.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LAST PILGRIMAGE TO MONT SAINT-MICHEL.
When the traveller who is visiting the beautiful localities of the
Channel Peninsula quits the southern faubourg of Avranches—a picturesque
little town built of sparkling granite—a road, marked by a succession of
rapid declivities, brings him to the shore of a large bay formed by the
sinking of the coasts of Normandy and Brittany. Before him reaches, far
away and out of sight, the flat extent of sands, furrowed by the rivers
Sée, Sélunce, and Coësnon, whose silvery windings the eye can follow to
a considerable distance. On the higher parts of these sands grows a fine
kind of grass, the _poa_ of the salt-meadows, and which, mingled with
marine plants and sand-weeds, furnishes a favorite pasture for sheep.
The lower and barren portion of the sands disappears twice a day beneath
the tide, which at times spreads gently and caressingly over them, while
at others it rolls foaming in with precipitate fury, as if eager to pass
its appointed boundary. At high tide nothing is visible but an immense
lake, partially engirdled with hills; and in the distance, like a
pyramid of granite, sometimes from the bosom of the waves, sometimes
from the expanse of sand, rises a nearly circular rock, laden with
constructions of various kinds intermingled with vigorous vegetation,
and crowned by large and lofty buildings.
This is the famous Mont Saint-Michel: _au péril de la mer—in periculo
mortis_, as our fathers were wont to say in their strong and simple
language, which, like nature, speaks in images.
The first time we saw St. Michael’s Mount was in sailing from
Southampton to St. Malo, towards four o’clock one bright morning in
June. The early sunshine lighted up the higher part of the rock, with
all its wealth of natural and architectural inequalities, in one blaze
of gold, while its base lay still in shadow. The only illuminated
object, rising from a purplish haze, its brightness heightened by the
blue of sea and sky, above, beneath, and around, it appeared rather like
an ethereal vision than anything of earth.
Mount St. Michael! What memories are awakened only by the name, which is
in itself a magical evocation of bygone centuries! Here, too, present
realities still rival the memories of the past. With respect to its
natural situation, as well as the share which human hands have had in
its formation, there is about it much that defies comparison. It is at
once a nest of legends, the home of religious thought, of prayer and
meditation, as well as of learning and the arts. Mount St. Michael,
being a monastery, a cathedral, and a fortress, is, in its triple unity,
a summary of the three great elements of the life of France during all
the poetic, heroic, and religious though stormy period of the middle
ages.
Beaten into ruggedness by the storms of heaven, and discrowned of the
golden statue of its patron archangel, the summit of the mount no longer
springs upward into space with the same loftiness and lightness that
used to strike so forcibly those who beheld it for the first time. The
great human work thus seems as if arrested in its heavenward climbing;
but, like other and grander majesties, St. Michael’s Mount has been
uncrowned without undergoing any diminution of its glory, and it still
presents its singular threefold aspect to the eye. On the western side
the rock, stern and bare, seems to bid defiance to the hand of man; on
the north a strong wall rises to the height of two hundred feet from
base to battlements, strengthened with buttresses and flanked by
bastions, pierced irregularly with pointed windows, and surmounted by a
series of elegant arcades. To the south we find a rich display of
architectural art, the exuberance of which is almost equalled by its
caprice. Above all, and larger than all the rest, rises the church, with
its forest of granite pinnacles and turrets overlooking the distant
horizons of Normandy and Brittany, and, to use the language of the
ancient chroniclers, imposing the fear of the archangel on the vast
expanse of ocean—_immensi tremor oceani_.
In ages long anterior to any of its architectural constructions, and
before the Christian era, this rock, much loftier then than now, rose
from the midst of a vast forest which extended from Coutances to the
rocks of Cesembre beyond St. Malo. This forest of Scissey, or Chesey
(Sissiacum), took its name from the goddess Sessia, who was invoked at
the time of sowing, and worshipped as the protectress of the corn while
in the ground. The rock itself was called Tomba, and also Belenus, the
name given by the Gauls and Druids to their sun-god,[13] and which was
identical with Baal of the Phœnicians, Bel of the Assyrians, and the
Apollo of the Greeks.
On Mount Belenus was a college of nine Druidesses, the eldest of whom,
like the pythoness of Delphi, uttered oracles.[14] The Romans, in the
course of their conquests in Gaul, made Bel give place to Jove: Tomba
Belenus became _Mons Jovis_ and was sacred to Jupiter.
In the year 708 Mount Belenus, which until that period had formed a part
of the mainland of Armorica, was suddenly detached from it by a terrible
catastrophe which spread desolation over the country. The sea, flowing
in with tempestuous fury, overpassed its limits, submerged the ancient
forest, as well as the inhabited parts of the coast, and, except when
the tide is out, made an island of the Mount.[15] It was in this same
year of 708, in the reign of Childebert II., that St. Aubert, the first
Bishop of Avranches, in obedience to a vision built there a church
dedicated to the Archangel St. Michael, and at the same time founded a
monastery of clerks regular, who replaced the two or three hermits who
had formerly lived in seclusion on the Mount.
This monastery acquired, later on, a fresh importance under the Dukes of
Normandy. Duke Richard I. enlarged and made of it an abbey of the Order
of St. Benedict. In 1002 or 1003, great part of the church and
surrounding buildings being consumed by a fire which broke out, Duke
Richard II. considerably enlarged as well as strengthened the foundation
by the construction of the crypt, upon which the new edifice was raised.
This crypt appears to be cut out of the solid rock, and is divided in
two parts by a wall. Its low and vaulted roof is supported by massive
pillars, round or square. A larger or grander subterranean vault does
not perhaps exist, with its space of seventy metres in length by twelve
in breadth, and its three aisles formed by about twenty pillars. The
roof sustains the weight of two stories of building, the dormitory over
the refectory, and the magnificent cloister over the Hall of the
Knights.[16]
The original church soon becoming too small to contain the numerous
pilgrims who flocked thither, the construction of a new one was begun by
the Abbot Raoul, who, in 1048, raised the four pillars and the arch of
the great tower. The nave, and that part of the monastery called _La
Merveille_, were built by his successor, Renaud.
It was in 1091 that Henry, the youngest son of the Conqueror, was
besieged in the fortress of Mont Saint-Michel by his brothers Robert and
William. After the expulsion of the wretched John from Normandy, Abbot
Jourdain wishing to preserve the Mount to the kings of England, Philip
Augustus sent against him Guy de Thouars, who, after a lengthened siege,
being unable to take it, set in on fire. It suffered severely from
another conflagration in 1350, when struck by lightning during a
terrible storm. The liberality of Philip de Valois restored the church
and monastery to more than their former splendor.
Early in the fifteenth century Abbot Jolivet surrounded the town with
fortifications. The English, at this time invading France, besieged Mont
Saint-Michel, but were repulsed by the brave d’Estouteville and his
companions-in-arms, one hundred and twenty-nine in all, who successfully
defended the post entrusted to them when the greater part of France had
submitted to the conquerors.
During the religious wars Mont St. Michel was several times attacked by
the Protestants. On the Feast of St. Mary Magdalen, July 22, 1577, a
number of them, habited as pilgrims and concealing their weapons, were
admitted without suspicion into the church, where, after hearing several
Masses with great show of devotion, they divided into small groups, and,
with an air of calm indifference, occupied different parts of the
buildings, until, secure of their position, they murdered such of the
guards as did not escape by flight or concealment, and then fell not
only upon the garrison but on the monks, even massacring the priests who
had been saying Mass for them.
This noble abbey had for more than a thousand years an existence worthy
of its origin. Mingling in the religious and warlike history of France,
it was simultaneously or by turns occupied by knights and monks; the
abode of faith and courage; an advanced sentinel in the direction of
England, and thus affording protection against the foes of this world
and of the next, defending alike with the cross and with the sword, and
held in veneration by the whole of Christendom.
During the ages of faith pilgrims came hither by thousands, from all
lands, braving the danger of these treacherous sands, to invoke in this
his sanctuary the prince and leader of the armies of heaven.
The sacrilegious impiety of modern times could no more spare St.
Michael’s Mount than so many other holy and beautiful relics of the past
which it has seen fit to mutilate or destroy. The First Republic
suppressed the monastery, drove out the monks, demolished a portion of
their church, changed the name of Mont Saint-Michel to that of _le Mont
Libre_, or the Free Mount, and turned it into a prison!—doubtless in
order to prove the suitability of its new appellation.
The first prisoners there were the priests of Brittany and Normandy.
Prayer was thus at least not yet banished from its ancient abode. In
1811 Napoleon made of it a _Maison de Réclusion_, which, in 1818, became
a _Maison de Détention_, and it was at the same time also a state
prison. Rarely has any place seen more sad and strange vicissitudes. The
chosen dwelling-place of those called to serve God in a religious life
became the sink of every crime pursued and punished by society, and the
population of Mount St. Michael was now recruited not from men who had
received a holy vocation, but from courts of assize.
A decree of 1863, however, relieved it from this unworthy fate, alike
saddening to Christians, archæologists, and poets, and Mont
Saint-Michel, which now belongs to the see of Coutances, has been
confided by the ecclesiastical administration to the charge of twelve
priests of the Congregation of Pontigny in the diocese of Sens, who
carry on the services in its church, receive the visitors drawn thither
by the sanctity or historical interest of the place, and fulfil the
office of preachers and missionaries to all the parishes of the Channel
Islands. An orphanage for boys is now flourishing in the old barracks,
and by its side are _ateliers_ where painting on glass is carried on—a
kind of painting (or staining, rather) which, more than any other, has a
religious object. All this is, so far, a return to a better state of
things, but the solicitude of its diocesan does not find it enough,
feeling that, though much has been done, still the present is too unlike
the past, and earnestly desiring to restore the abbey to its former
splendor. And he will do it yet. Already the pilgrimages thither are
renewed with a fervor worthy of ancient days.
Few things can be more beautiful and edifying than the holy festivities
of which the most recent of these pilgrimages has just been the
occasion, and which have left so deep an impression on those who took
part in them, and who followed the imposing order of the successive
religious ceremonies, stamped as they were with the character of dignity
and grandeur which the Catholic Church has impressed upon her liturgy
and worship.
From earliest dawn long bands of pilgrims, conducted by the priests of
their respective parishes and preceded by their banners, began to enamel
with picturesque groups the white monotony of the sands. On arriving at
the Mount they formed into regular columns and slowly ascended the steep
acclivity to the church. Towards nine in the morning the Mount presented
a singular aspect, not unlike a gigantic ant-hill: the flights of steps
disappeared under the long processions mounting them, while the ramparts
were as if crenellated with the heads of the crowds watching for the
arrival of the Bishop of Coutances and Avranches and the Bishop of
Bayeux and Lisieux. An involuntary delay on the part of the bishops was
for a time the cause of extreme anxiety. Anything may be feared from
this dangerous bay, whose shifting sands change their direction after
every tide, and engulf the late or unwary traveller in an abyss of mud.
The first carriage had passed safely on to _terra firma_, but the wheels
of the second were perceived to be sinking, and the horses, terrified at
no longer finding any footing, were becoming so unmanageable that a
fatal catastrophe would have been almost inevitable, had not the men of
the place hastened to the rescue and succeeded by their prompt energy in
dragging the carriage out of danger.
The two prelates presented themselves at the entrance gate as the clock
of the great tower began to strike eleven, and were saluted by
acclamations so enthusiastic that it seemed as if the whole Mount were
bidding them welcome. They proceeded up the steep lane that winds upward
between houses that look as if piled almost one upon another, and which
date from three or four centuries back, low, square, and solid, and
having for the most part only one story, plunging their foundations into
the rock, and wedged, as it were, against each other, the better to
resist the force of hurricanes and tempests. Here and there trees of
thick foliage overshadow the narrow, winding ascent, which at intervals
through some unexpected opening shows a vast horizon over the waters of
the Channel, with its lovely islands, and the coast of France.
The procession reached in due time the threshold of the ancient abbey,
and, after a few words of warm and respectful welcome spoken to the
bishops by the reverend father prior, entered the church.
There is something unique in the beauty of this basilica which so nobly
crowns the summit of Mont Saint-Michel, and of which the four
extremities rest on four enormous arched vaults founded in the rock. It
possesses all the essential parts of a great cathedral—nave, aisles,
transepts, choir, and apse. The nave is Roman, the choir Gothic, and the
aisles _Moresque_ or Byzantine. Boldly cut in granite, the architecture
is as remarkable as the site.
The nave was formerly two hundred and forty feet in length, but
underwent an irreparable mutilation under the First Republic, when it
was shortened by the cutting away of four of its eight transverse
vaultings. It nevertheless remains singularly imposing—simple even to
severity, but relieved by its triforium and a gallery with deep arcades.
The collateral arches, which are somewhat narrow, have the horseshoe
form usual in Arabian architecture; the transepts, like the nave, are
Roman, but of more recent date; the choir, which is of the best period
of flamboyant Gothic, very delicately sculptured, has in the clerestory
a square window of remarkable richness; and in the apse, which is of
granite, delicate lines of tracery spring upwards with exquisite
lightness. On the keystone of its vaulted roof is the escutcheon of the
abbey. The choir is surrounded by bas-reliefs representing the four
evangelists, and a ship, symbolical of the church militant, tossing on
an angry sea which cannot overwhelm her, guided as she is by an unerring
pilot—_Fluctuat, non mergitur_.
The noble edifice had on this day received an additional decoration from
the number and beauty of the banners there displayed, the principal of
which was a large standard in the nave representing the archangel St.
Michael victorious over the dragon. On the balustrade in front of the
altar were hung the sword and banner of General Lamoricière, with his
motto, _In Deo spes mea_. Within the balustrade were erected the two
episcopal thrones. The chapel of St. Michael, which occupies the left
arm of the cross, and in which is the statue of the archangel, was
thickly hung with the banners of the different parishes represented in
the pilgrimage. Among their mottoes were such as these: _Quis ut Deus?_
_Defende nos in periculo_; _Deo soli semper Honor_; _Deo et Patriæ_,
etc. Above these floated the banner of the Sovereign Pontiff. There is
in the same chapel some rich tapestry, the work and offering of the
ladies of Avranches—_les Avranchines_, as they are prettily called in
the country.
In the chapel facing this one, and in the left arm of the cross, are the
two crowns offered to the glorious archangel, the one by the Holy
Father, the other by the faithful of France. The latter, resplendent
with diamonds and other precious stones of great value, is to be used
next year for crowning the statue of St. Michael.
High Mass having been sung by the Bishop of Bayeux, his right reverend
colleague addressed the assembled multitude. Mgr. Germain, although one
of the youngest members of the French episcopate, is also one of the
most eloquent, and owes simply to his merit the rapidity with which he
has risen to be chief pastor of one of the most religious dioceses of
France. As chaplain of the _Lycée_ of Caen, he quickly gained the hearts
of the youth placed under his spiritual care; as _curé_ of the Cathedral
of Bayeux, he made his influence felt in the whole city; and now, as
Bishop of Coutances and Avranches, the influence for good which has
marked each step of his career finds a wider field of action, of which
he does not fail to profit. With a few words from his discourse, which
are a summary of the whole, we conclude:
“The days in which we live find the church still engaged in a warfare
similar to that which St. Michael, the champion of God, sustained
against the rebel angels. Still the same revolt continues, and man has
learnt from Satan to declare, ‘_Non serviam!_’ As children of God and of
his church, let it be our happiness, as it is our privilege, to _obey_.
God and his church having an authoritative claim on our obedience, let
us see that ours shall resemble that of the blessed angels, which is
loving, intelligent, thorough, and prompt.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
THE LIFE OF MARIE LATASTE, Lay Sister of the Congregation of the Sacred
Heart. With a brief notice of her sister Quitterie. London: Burns &
Oates. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)
The history of the church is marked at intervals by the appearance of
favored souls whose wonderful gifts of the supernatural order fully
attest the holiness which our divine Lord has willed should be the
pre-eminent attribute of his blessed spouse. These manifestations of
sanctity in individual souls have, besides, a special reference to the
wants of those times in which they appear. When rapacity and luxurious
wastefulness characterized the upper classes of French society, Almighty
God raised up St. Vincent de Paul, the grand apostle of charity, to
rebuke men’s hardness of heart towards their poor and suffering
fellow-creatures. So likewise, in an era of spiritual torpor and
cowardice, he gave to the world that prince of spiritual warriors,
Ignatius of Loyola, and his devoted band of spiritual heroes to awaken
men from their lethargy. Our own times are a period of intellectual
pride, of contempt for spiritual things, and a corresponding exaltation
of the material order; and divine Providence has seen fit to confound
this dangerous spirit by working great things through weak instruments,
and by proposing new devotions which demand an increased exercise of
faith. As there is nothing more opposed to the peculiar spirit of the
world of to-day than devotion to the Real Presence, the Sacred Heart,
and the Blessed Virgin Mary, so the church directs the attention of her
faithful children to these objects of pious veneration with renewed
fervor, and God himself attests her wisdom by many wonderful signs
having reference to these three goals of spiritual life. No doubt it was
with such intent that he bestowed those extraordinary favors on the
simple peasant girl of Mimbaste, Marie Lataste, which, studied in the
light of worldly philosophy, confound and bewilder, but which, viewed as
part of God’s supernatural economy, cannot fail to edify and encourage
the devout Christian.
Marie Lataste was born in the department of the Landes in 1822, and died
a lay sister of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart in the year 1847;
so of her it may be said that she compressed a long career of virtue
into a brief compass of time, and earned by intensity of work the crown
which is most frequently won by many years of laborious effort. No
sooner had she made her First Communion than our divine Lord began to
attract her most powerfully to himself as he exists in the sacrament of
the altar. As a little girl she had been wilful and rebellious, and with
difficulty was brought to study her catechism and the merest rudiments
of learning. Indeed, her schooling never went beyond the art of reading
and writing, so that the wonderful theological and ascetic knowledge
which her letters disclose cannot be otherwise regarded than as revealed
to her by God. After her First Communion a wonderful change was made
manifest in her. Thenceforth her sole delight was to commune for long
hours at a time with our divine Lord in the tabernacle, to converse
familiarly with him, and to hold him for ever in her thoughts. She was
never easy when other occupations kept her aloof from him, and when
released from these she sped to him again with all the ardor which could
impel a loving heart. Nor did our Lord fail to reward in a signal manner
this intensity of devotion to the sacrament of his love. One day,
towards the close of the year 1839, as Marie was repairing to the
village church to perform her usual acts of adoration, a mysterious but
irresistible force hurried her along; earthly objects faded from her
view, the Spirit of God filled her soul, and when she entered the sacred
edifice she beheld our Lord himself upon the altar, surrounded by his
angels. “She did not,” the recital states, “see him at first with
perfect distinctness. A thin cloud, like an almost imperceptible veil,
appeared partially to conceal him from her sight.... At last Jesus
descended from the altar and approached, calling her benignantly by name
and raising his hand to bless her. Then she beheld him with perfect
clearness in the brilliant light with which he was invested.” “From that
moment,” she said, “the society of mankind has never ceased to be
displeasing to me; I should wish to fly from them for ever and shut
myself up in the tabernacle with him.” Thus did her interior life at
once ascend to the highest plane of sanctity, and she, the poor, almost
illiterate peasant girl, began to experience those intimate dealings and
relations with our divine Lord which are usually deemed to be the
prerogative of the greatest saints—of those in whom supreme holiness
goes hand in hand with profound knowledge.
But it is a well-known characteristic of the divine economy to select
feeble instruments for its higher operations and manifestations, and in
this manner to confound human presumption and to put our pride of
intellect to the blush. “Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and
prudent, and hast revealed them to little ones.” And if ever it pleased
Almighty God to show forth his power through the humblest of his
creatures, he seems to delight in doing so at the present time. He
permits our philosophers to split hairs over the subtleties of
evolution, to wander in perplexity through the mazy intricacies in which
they have enveloped themselves, whilst he reveals the undreamt wonders
of his wisdom to the lowly and simple-minded. Father Faber has happily
designated a too common class of Christians as “viewy”—_i.e._, holding
opinions which are but the reflection and expression of their petty
egotism. Such was not the case with Marie Lataste; she was simplicity
itself, and our Lord favored her accordingly. She sat at his feet as
meek and docile a pupil as ever listened to the words of an instructor,
and he poured into her heart the treasures of his wisdom. It is truly
wonderful to read the profound sentiments with which her letters abound,
and to reflect that she, a girl barely able to read and write, has given
expression to the most abstruse and difficult points of dogmatic
theology with correctness, clearness, and force, and has left behind her
precepts for our spiritual guidance which savor of the wisdom and
prudence of the most consummate masters of the spiritual life. Many
things in her letters may appear strained because of the minuteness with
which she describes her visions of spiritual things, unless they are
scanned with the eye of faith. But both internal and external evidences
of the genuineness of the apparitions with which she was favored, and of
the absolute reliability of her statements, are so numerous that in the
face of them to doubt is to question the validity of all human
testimony. There can be no doubt that God has vouchsafed to our
generation this beautiful picture of a soul thoroughly united to himself
in order that our pride may be abashed, our faith strengthened, and our
love for him, because of his manifold mercies towards us, increased. The
style of the book is attractive, and whoever reads it cannot fail to
reap a large share of edifying knowledge.
A POPULAR LIFE OF POPE PIUS THE NINTH. By Rev. Richard Brennan, A.M. New
York: Benziger Brothers. 1877.
THE LIFE OF POPE PIUS IX. By John Gilmary Shea. New York: Thomas Kelly.
1877.
A LIFE OF PIUS IX., DOWN TO THE EPISCOPAL JUBILEE. By Rev. Bernard
O’Reilly. New York: P. F. Collier. 1877.
The appearance within the space of a few months of three extended and
elaborate biographies of His Holiness Pius IX., some of which have
already run into two or three editions, is a fact most significant of
the deep interest which is taken by the reading public of America in
everything connected with the venerable head of the church on earth. The
length of years vouchsafed the present successor of St. Peter, his own
illustrious character, and the preternatural malice of his enemies have
naturally heightened the curiosity regarding him of the non-Catholic
portion of the community, while his piety, benevolence, and
long-suffering have endeared him to the hearts of all true children of
the church. The magnificent displays of Catholic sympathy and loyalty to
the Holy See which everywhere characterized the celebration of his late
episcopal Jubilee have also increased the popular demand for information
concerning the life of a man who, morally and officially, is
acknowledged to be the foremost in Christendom. Judging by the volumes
before us, it will not be the fault of our Catholic writers if this
laudable desire remain long unsatisfied. Each of these valuable works,
written by gentlemen of varied accomplishments and qualifications for
the task, is, in style, mode of treatment, and selection of matter,
different from the others; yet all present the same leading facts and
reproduce the same vivid scenes which have rendered so instructive and
dramatic the long and eventful life of the Holy Father.
Father Brennan’s book, justly called a popular life of the great Pope,
is written in a simple, concise, yet comprehensive manner, with little
attempt at ornamentation or philosophic deduction. The author evidently
intended that his work should be read and understood by persons of
average intelligence as well as by those of higher mental gifts. He has
therefore aimed at telling the story of Pius IX.’s life plainly and
consecutively, without departing to the right or left, except when
absolutely compelled to do so in order to elucidate what is yet but
imperfectly understood in the policy of the Catholic powers of Europe.
While stating conscientiously the details of a career so full of changes
and reverses of fortune, he succeeds in placing before us the true
lineaments of his august subject in all their simplicity and beauty of
expression. This is more particularly observable in the chapter on “The
Supernatural Life of the Pope,” which will doubtless be read with great
satisfaction by those who consider the Sovereign Pontiff a providential
man; and by such as do not, with respect and admiration. It is to be
regretted that Father Brennan had not given at length an account of
proceedings in Rome and the Catholic world generally for the past few
years, thus completing an otherwise very full and instructive biography.
Mr. Shea has also succeeded in producing a very readable life of the
Holy Father, though we do not think he has done full justice to his own
merits as an accomplished and painstaking writer. There are evident
marks of haste throughout his pages which, though they do not seriously
interfere with the continuity or authority of the work, are apt to
produce an unsatisfactory impression on the minds of critical readers.
His _Life of Pope Pius IX._ will, however, have its admirers; for,
excepting these slight defects, it is a book that will interest the
general reader, no matter what may be his opinions or prepossessions,
written as it is by an intelligent layman whose reputation as an author
has long since been established in this country and in Europe.
The Rev. Father O’Reilly’s biography is, however, not only more
voluminous and more ample in its details than either of the preceding,
but it is enriched by copious extracts from encyclical letters and other
important documents, the proper understanding of which necessarily
belongs to the elucidation of the history of Pius IX.’s pontificate.
Apart from its completeness and elegance of style, its chief
distinguishing feature is the insight it gives us into the policy and
designs of contemporary rulers and conspirators in France, Italy, and
Germany in their attempts on the integrity of the church, and their
underhand alliances with the secret societies to effect their evil
purposes. Only a man who has had personal knowledge of the actors who
figured in the bloody drama of “United Italy,” and an intimate
acquaintance with their present and prospective strategy, could unfold
to the public gaze, in all its base enormity, the culpable indifference
of the men who professed the greatest regard for the sovereign of the
states of the church, and the insidious schemes of the modern champions
of liberty, whose sole and whole object is the disruption of all forms
of government under which civil and religious freedom would be possible.
This it is that makes Father O’Reilly’s book not only interesting but
highly instructive; for, to a certain extent at least, it furnishes us
with a key to the enigma of European Continental politics which we
Americans, happily removed from kingcraft and secret terrorism, so much
require. The venerable and venerated Chief Pastor of the church has been
fortunate in his American biographers, and we have little doubt that he
will find some solace in his afflictions in the thought that three among
our writers have almost simultaneously devoted their pens to recording
the incidents of his life and defending his rights as a spiritual and
temporal sovereign.
REPORT OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF THE MEDICO-LEGAL SOCIETY UPON SCHOOL
HYGIENE. New York: Terwilliger. 1876.
Few subjects are of more engrossing importance than the conditions
requisite for the physical well-being of the rising generation; and as
our embryo men and women spend a very large portion of their lives in
school-rooms, it becomes a serious matter to determine whether these
nurseries of learning are constructed in such a manner as to consist
with the highest possible health standard. The investigations undertaken
by Dr. R. I. O’Sullivan and his fellow-committeemen at the instance of
the Medico-Legal Society reveal a condition which is truly startling.
Oxygen is the life of our life-blood, and, if it is not supplied in the
requisite quantity, the human system becomes predisposed to every
disease and the foundation of a lifetime of misery is laid. Yet it is
notorious that the arrangements of our much-vaunted school buildings go
far short of ensuring a sufficient supply of this life-sustaining gas.
Much of this deplorable lack of suitable arrangements is the result of
ignorance. Many self-constituted sanitarians deem loftiness of ceiling
to be the main and, indeed, the only condition required to ensure proper
ventilation and a sufficient supply of air. They accordingly build
without referenced horizontal breathing-space, in the absurd belief that
all foul air ascends and is got rid of, some way or other. Now, the
truth, says the report, is “that a lofty ceiling only makes that portion
of space above the tops of the windows a receptacle for foul air, which
accumulates and remains to vitiate the stratum below.” This is of itself
a proof that a scientific supervision of our school buildings is the
only guarantee we can have that the health of the children will be
properly considered. The quantity of carbonic acid gas given off at each
expiratory effort is far in excess of what our amateur sanitarians
imagine; and when school buildings are erected without due regard for
the diffusion of this deadly emanation, we must not be surprised to see
our schools filled with pale and stunted children. In addition to the
carbonic acid gas other deleterious exhalations of the human body poison
crowded rooms, and are especially the cause of the peculiarly offensive
and stuffy odor at which healthy olfactories revolt. Who that has
entered one of our city public school class-rooms, between the hours of
two and three in the afternoon, has failed to experience this
disagreeable sensation? Yet physiology, as well as common sense, tells
us that this effete organic matter which is constantly escaping from the
lungs and from every pore of the skin is eminently injurious to health.
Not only this, but in certain crowded portions of the city the adjoining
streets and buildings lend their quota of noxious effluvia to the
poisonous agents mentioned. The committee visited “one of the newest,
best-arranged, and best-appointed schools in the city, and found it
overcrowded and unventilated, tainted throughout the halls, and at
times, by way of the fan-lights over the doors in the class rooms, odors
arising from the latrines in the basement, which are emptied only once
or twice a week.” In this model school-house only from thirty-three to
forty-one cubic feet of air are allowed to each child, while nature
vigorously clamors for at least eight hundred feet in the twenty-four
hours.
In the second report read by Dr. R. I. O’Sullivan we are invited to
contemplate a picture which but faintly reveals the evil effects that
the early overcrowding exercises in after-days over the adult
population: “Look around us in public assemblies, and see in those
scarcely entering middle life the evidence of physical decline, the
prematurely bald and gray, the facial muscles photographing the wearied
brain and overtaxed nervous system.” Few can fail to realize, on due
reflection, how much of the terrible truth of this picture is
attributable to the bad condition of our school-houses. The conclusion
is plain that the judgment of the trained sanitarian is of vital
importance in the erection of school buildings, and that, until the
necessity of his sage interposition is recognized by the Department of
Public Instruction, diseases, the result of early confinement in close
and crowded schools, which are quite preventible, will continue to
prevail among us.
GOD THE TEACHER OF MANKIND: A plain, comprehensive explanation of
Christian Doctrine. By Michael Müller, C.SS.R. New York, Cincinnati,
and St. Louis: Benziger Bros. 1877.
CATECHISM OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE, for Academies and High Schools. With
the approbation of the Most Rev. J. Roosevelt Bayley, D.D.,
Archbishop of Baltimore. Intermediate No. III. Benziger Bros. 1877.
This is a most useful and comprehensive book, clear and definite in its
plan, popular and interesting in its style. It is divided into two
parts. Part I. deals with “The Enemies of the Church” from the beginning
down to our own times. These enemies Father Müller sets down in the
order of time as “Heathenism,” “Heresy,” and “Freemasonry.” Part II. is
occupied with showing what in these days of vague beliefs and religious
indifferentism it is most important to show—namely, that God himself is
the teacher of mankind, and therefore that his voice must be listened to
and obeyed. The church is the voice of God on earth; consequently, the
everlasting object of the enemies of God is to silence and destroy the
church. These avowed enemies were in the old days the heathen; later on
the heretics. A deadlier foe than either, and combining the evil
elements of both, the author points out to-day as Freemasons, the term
covering, of course, all forms of secret oath-bound societies.
Father Müller’s sketch of Freemasonry is very extensive. For his charges
against the societies comprehended under that head he relies mainly on
Masonic documents and publications. Amid a vast amount of rubbish and
jargon in the official rites and ceremonies of Masonry is plainly
discernible a distinct purpose and plan, which can be considered none
other than the destruction of all fixed belief in God and his
revelation, in his church, and in the order of society and government
founded on that belief. To expose this conspiracy against God and
man—for such it is, and nothing less—is as much a service to any
civilized state as it is to the direct cause of religion. On this
account we do not think that in a book intended as much for ordinary
readers as for those who are better instructed Father Müller has been at
all wasteful in the large amount of space devoted to this portion of his
subject. There is a tendency sometimes to pooh-pooh Masonry as a
convenient scarecrow. Yet those who have noted the march of events in
Europe within the century, and particularly within the latter half of
it, will discover a startling resemblance between events as they have
occurred, and as it was desired they should occur according to the
programmes laid down beforehand by the leaders of the secret societies.
The church does not waste her excommunications, and the fact that these
societies have been again and again solemnly condemned by her ought to
be sufficient warning against any Catholic joining, not simply societies
which are avowedly Masonic, but secret societies of any kind whatever. A
good and lawful society has no need of secrecy.
The second and more important portion of the book is taken up with what
is really a most lucid and careful explanation of that portion of the
catechism which refers more especially to God and the church. The
questions and answers in the catechism are necessarily brief, and the
explanation of the answers is left to the teacher. The teacher,
unfortunately, is not always as instructed as he or she might be,
without at all being a paragon of learning. For such, as indeed for all,
this portion of Father Müller’s book will be of the greatest assistance.
Here, for instance, is a question in the catechism: “How do we know that
Jesus Christ is the promised Redeemer and the Son of God?” Now, upon a
right answer to this and a thorough comprehension of the answer depends
a Christian’s faith. The answer in the catechism is: “We learn it, 1,
from the mouths of the prophets; 2, from the declarations of the angels;
3, from the testimony of his heavenly Father; and 4, from his own
testimony.” A correct reply, doubtless; but simply to give such an
answer to the ordinary student of whatever age is to speak to him almost
in an unknown tongue, while to saddle the average Sunday-school teacher
with a clear and comprehensive explanation of the answer is quite to
overweight him.
Father Müller’s explanations attached to such questions are excellent.
They are full without being tedious, and condensed without being
obscure. About half the second part is very wisely devoted to an
exposition of the Ninth Article of the Apostles’ Creed—“The Holy
Catholic Church”—which is to be commended, as, indeed, may be the whole
book, just as highly to the attention of earnest and inquiring
non-Catholics as of Catholics. As a whole, the book serves two great
ends: it is a solemn warning against the prevalent evils of the day,
unbelief and hatred of the truth; also, a judicious and able exposition
of the two great facts in the Christian belief, God and the church. The
work has this advantage over more learned treatises on the same
subjects: that while it commands the attention of the highest, it is
within the comprehension of any person of ordinary intelligence. We know
of no work in English better adapted to afford Catholics whose
opportunities of study have not been very great a clear and intelligent
reason for the faith that is in them. The catechism, noticed at the
head, in addition to the usual instruction, contains a short form of
morning and evening prayers, instructions for confession, prayers at
Mass and before and after communion, as well as a brief but useful
summary of sacred history.
THE GRAMMAR-SCHOOL SPELLER AND DEFINER: Embracing graded lessons in
spelling, definitions, pronunciation, and synonymes; proper names and
geographical terms; a choice selection of sentences for dictation;
and a condensed study of English etymology; also ecclesiastical
terms, etc. By E. D. Farrell. New York: The Catholic Publication
Society Co. 1877.
With the exception of Swinton’s, there is scarcely a speller in general
circulation through the schools of this country which is worthy of the
name. Whatever is valuable in many of them has been unscrupulously
pilfered, directly or indirectly, from Sullivan’s _Spelling-Book
Superseded_, the text-book used in the Irish national schools; and
doubtless it is all the better for the pupils that it has been so. The
present work possesses at least one merit: it is a brave departure from
the well-beaten path of the plagiarist. Not that it is completely
original; that is impossible; but it is as nearly so as is compatible
with utility. It has strong marks of individuality in every page and
lesson, and is evidently the production, not of a mere book-maker, but
of an experienced instructor of youth, who has felt, in common with
other teachers, the necessity of more thought in the conception, and
system in the arrangement, of lessons in orthography.
We find, after a careful inspection, that the work contains information,
not to be found in similar works, on Anglo-Saxon roots, ecclesiastical
terms, noted names of fiction and of distinguished persons; words
relating to various occupations and sciences, etc., all of which are
strict essentials to a useful education. Miscellaneous words and
definitions, Latin roots and English derivatives, and miscellaneous
sentences for dictation occupy nearly half the volume, the remainder
being distributed between twenty-six other subdivisions of the subject;
and well-informed and competent teachers will say that such an
apportionment of the space is right.
We have noticed what we consider a few imperfections, unimportant,
doubtless, but needing emendation—viz., on page 33 this definition:
“Assassinate, to attack and murder a person of importance.”
Assassination is not necessarily restricted to persons of importance.
The author also takes the trouble to correct such pronunciations as _pī
an´ o_ for pĭ ä´ no, _thrissle_ for thistle, _akrawst_ for across. Of
what use is the teacher, if the book must attend to such matters? He
also orders us, on page 114, not to pronounce ge-og _jog_ in the words
geography and geometry. There are pupils who pronounce these words
joggraphy and jommetry, we know, and such is evidently the error against
which he wishes to guard. These oversights, so prevalent in other
spellers, are, fortunately, of rare occurrence in this, and a little
careful revision will render the book still more worthy of the title, to
which it has already such strong claims, of the model speller of the
present day.
MISSA DE BEATA MARIA ET MISSA IN FESTIS DUPLICIBUS, ITEM IN DOMINICIS
ADVENTUS ET QUADRAGESIMÆ: uti in Graduali Romano et Ordinario Missæ,
ab illustri Domino Frederico Pustet, S. Sedis Apost. typographo, “sub
auspiciis SS. D. N. Pii IX., curante Sacr. Rit. Cong.” Cum permissu
superiorum. Opus II. Published by the author, P. Ignatius Trueg,
O.S.B., St. Vincent’s Abbey, Beatty P.O., Pa.
We heartily congratulate all who may be interested in the study or
execution of Gregorian chant upon the production of this work. Within a
very few years the study of the holy chant of St. Gregory has occupied
the attention of church musicians both in Europe and America, and many
notable efforts have been made to restore it to its rightful place in
the sanctuary. In fact, there is a true revival and reformation of
church music in progress.
One of the chief difficulties which presents itself to the ordinary
modern musician who acts as choir-master or organist is the simple
melodic form of the chant with its musical notation as it is printed in
all authorized office-books. Unaccustomed to its tonality, he makes
wretched work of the phrasing and accentuation, and his execution is
like that of a schoolboy spelling his words before pronouncing them.
Ignorant also of its modality, his attempts at harmony are more wretched
still. Under the hands of such performers the chant becomes poor
_music_, without expression, in the minor key.
Translations of the chant into modern notation harmonized with a view to
giving some notion of the distinctive character of the various modes,
are therefore a necessity for all who have not made such a thorough
study of the chant as to enable them to read from the original notation
and harmonize it at sight.
The present work of Rev. F. Trueg has been composed to supply this want,
and will be found in many respects to be superior to the greater number
of such translations hitherto published. It comprises the three masses
of the _Graduale Romanum_ as given in the Ratisbon edition—viz., for
feasts of the Blessed Virgin, for double feasts, and for the Sundays in
Advent and Lent, together with the responses at Mass. The harmonization
is arranged in such a manner that it serves not only as an instrumental
(organ or string quartette) accompaniment, but also, if so preferred,
for a vocal execution in four parts without instrumental accompaniment.
Some excellent remarks also accompany it by way of preface, explaining
the notation employed, and giving some valuable hints as to the proper
_tempo_ to be observed.
We commend its careful study to organists and chanters, and trust that
it may receive such patronage as to warrant the composer in completing
his design of publishing the entire _Graduale_ and _Antiphonarium_ in
the same form.
BLANCHE CAREY; OR, SCENES IN MANY LANDS. By Patricia. New York: P.
O’Shea. 1877.
“Blanche Carey was a charming girl of twenty-two summers, beautiful and
accomplished. She had just completed her education at a fashionable
boarding-school, and was gifted with those graces which constitute the
true characteristics of woman. She was the admired of all who knew her,
the pride of the family circle, the delight of society, unrivalled in
intellectual attainments. If we add to these beauty and grace of form,
the picture is complete.”
_Phew!_ And we are only at the first page. What is one to say of so
oppressively perfect a heroine? But “the picture” is _not_ “complete”
yet; for in the second page the inventory of her qualities and
accomplishments is continued in this thrilling style: “The harp she
fingered with unrivalled skill; the piano keys she swept like a
whirlwind” (good gracious!), “while she executed on the guitar with no
less grace and finish.” We are slightly at a loss to understand whether
or not this highly-accomplished young lady performed all these startling
feats at once, as the author would seem to imply. The picture of a girl
“fingering” the harp with unrivalled skill, “sweeping” the piano-keys
“like a whirlwind,” while she “executes” on the guitar “with no less
grace and finish” than a whirlwind presumably, is something that
certainly possesses the merit of novelty. “Finding that she was already
proficient in music, she did not wish to devote further time to
painting”—why, we do not know. However, “it’s of no consequence,” as Mr.
Toots would say.
Blanche goes to Rome and sees the Holy Father, who “was quite affable”
to her, she assures us. Here is one of the “Scenes in Many Lands”:
“Our Irish tourists” (Blanche and her grandfather, a Mr. O’Rourke) “had
already made quite a sojourn in Italy, and to the old gentleman’s
astonishment, as he entered the coffee-room with his granddaughter
leaning on his arm, both apparently fatigued after a long drive in the
suburbs” (we are at a loss to understand whether the writer means by
“suburbs” the suburbs of Italy or the suburbs of the coffee-room), “they
observed a young man of prepossessing appearance seated at an opposite
table, gazing at them very earnestly. His travelling companions were two
ladies. One of them, though by no means elderly, might be taken for his
mother; the other young and somewhat coquettish in manner—evidently his
sister from the striking resemblance she bore him. _All denoted the air
of the Parisian._
“‘That gentleman must be going to make our acquaintance,’ said Blanche.
‘He must, I imagine, be dying to know us. All three are looking at us. I
know they are French _by the way they drink wine_.’
“The party in question rose to adjourn to their apartments. As they left
the room, Frank Mortimer—for such was his name—glanced several times at
Blanche. _She, of course, not condescending to notice the supposed
curiosity, evaded it._”
Artful yet discreet Blanche! Of course she makes his acquaintance in the
next page—we have only reached page 6 yet, so that it will be seen
events move rapidly—and here is how she makes it:
“Having waited for some moments in the pretty boudoir, looking out on a
veranda of orange-trees not yet in blossom” (we copy _verbatim_),
“Blanche was humming one of her favorite airs, ‘Beautiful Isle of the
Sea,’ which she imperceptibly changed to ‘Let each man learn to know
himself.’ Frank entered _on the words_, and seemed slightly confused for
an instant, but, quickly recovering his composure, he addressed his
visitors _with the ease and grace of a debonair_.”
“May we not hope to meet _ye_ in Paris?” is one of the questions put by
the easy and graceful “debonair” to his visitors. He falls in love with
Blanche, of course, though he confesses that he “almost fell in love
once with a lady from South America,” and no wonder. “She was a most
perfect creature in face and form; that delicate cast of countenance
with an exquisite profile; hair that might be called golden, coiled _on
the tip of her head_.”
The parting at the end of the first chapter, between Blanche and Frank,
is not altogether as poetical as it might have been made. The train
whistle interferes with it considerably. “A whistle, and all was
confusion; everybody astir to get on board. A second one, and Frank
started to take leave. He tried to speak, but it was impossible. His
face quivered with emotion. He pressed the hand of Blanche in silence,
and, darting out of the carriage, he encountered Mr. O’Rourke at the
door. Bidding him a hasty farewell, he was soon lost in the crowd. ‘What
a fool I am!’ he thought, ‘but _I am human nature_. Yet is it not a
weakness to bow to its dictates? Should I ever meet that gifted creature
again, I will tell her all....’ He wiped the cold perspiration from his
forehead, and, with a sigh, tried to forget his misery.”
What a fool he was indeed! Yet he said one sensible thing: “‘Oh!’ said
Blanche, laughing, ‘am I not a favored child of fortune? When I go home
I shall write a novel or some work of fiction.’
“Frank Mortimer smiled as the words fell from her lips. ‘Heaven save
you,’ he said, ‘from such a fate!’”
Frank’s prayer was not heard, seemingly, and the result, we suppose, is
_Blanche Carey_. We have not got beyond the first chapter of this
fascinating “work of fiction,” and we are not likely to get beyond it.
The reader may easily judge of its attractions by the extracts given,
which were positively too tempting to pass by.
THE LETTERS OF REV. JAMES MAHER, D.D., LATE P.P. OF CARLOW-GRAIGUE, ON
RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS. With a memoir. Edited by the Rt. Rev. Patrick
Francis Moran, D.D., Bishop of Ossory. Dublin: Browne & Nolan. 1877.
Seldom do we have an opportunity to welcome the appearance of so
valuable a book as this, which is the embodiment of those sentiments,
views, and convictions that distinguish the modern Irish priest. Few men
loved his religion and his native land with a more intense fervor than
Father Maher. This double love nourished his frame, increased his
strength, stimulated his thoughts, nerved his heart, and underlay every
thought and action of his life. He was a man who simply delighted in
every opportunity of saying a word or doing a deed in behalf of his
creed or his country. As a controversialist his enthusiasm made him
almost bitter, but with that bitterness which is born of zeal for the
truth. A man of stalwart frame and magnificent proportions, he exercised
a magnetic influence over his listeners by his presence alone.
Throughout the entire range of controversial literature it would be hard
to find anything equal to his scathing arraignment of Archbishop Whately
_apropos_ of the Nunnery Inspection bill: “I have myself,” he writes,
“two sisters and eighteen nieces who, following the call of Heaven, have
selected the religious life. Some of them are in convents in England,
some in Ireland, some in America; all engaged in the noble service of
forming the tender minds of the children of the poor to virtue, for
whose sake and the sake of their Father in heaven they most willingly
surrendered in the morning of life all earthly prospects. I well
remember what they were under the paternal roof. I know what they are in
the cloister. I have never lost sight of them; and as to their
happiness, to which I could not be indifferent, I have only to affirm,
which I do most solemnly, that I have never known people more happy,
more joyous, more light-hearted, or with such buoyant hopes as good
_religieuses_. Their character, my lord, is unknown and will remain a
mystery to that world for which Christ refused to pray.” These are the
brave words of one of the most conspicuous champions of religious
freedom, and one of the most determined antagonists of the smelling
committee who strove to insult the purest and noblest of women. His
spirit is not dead among his _confrères_ in the Irish vineyard, for
Cardinal Cullen, the nephew of Father Maher, and the distinguished
prelate who has given these inestimable letters to the world—a near
relative of the great priest—lives to represent every feeling and pulse
of his heart.
SPECIALISTS AND SPECIALTIES IN MEDICINE. Address delivered before the
Alumni Association of the Medical Department of the University of
Vermont. Burlington. 1876.
This address of Dr. Henry, though unpretending in form, is exceedingly
well timed and full of suggestiveness. The doctor evidently belongs to
the conservative class of his profession, who long for the day when
eminent respectability, which is the escutcheon of the medical man in
European countries, will be fairly won and worn by every one who
subscribes M.D. to his name. As a consequence, he is the bitter enemy of
every form of quackery and undue pretentiousness. He certainly handles
_soi-disant_ specialists without gloves, and gives the best of reasons
why the community should rebel against their assumption of skill. Too
many so-called specialists are men who have devoted their time and
attention to a special branch of the profession while entirely
neglecting the others. This is illogical and cannot be done. Medicine is
a science whose parts are bound together as indissolubly as the stages
of a reasoning process, and whoever imagines that he can master one
department without a knowledge of the others simply follows the advice
of Dogberry. We have oculists and aurists and gynœcologists without
number who have no knowledge of general pathology. This is altogether
wrong. The true _raison d’être_ of a specialist is that, having
profoundly studied the science of medicine, he finds that his natural
aptitude or taste draws him to one branch of the profession rather than
to others. In this manner only have the prominent and highly-reputed
specialists in Europe and among ourselves won their fame and fortune.
Dr. Henry, in a clear and trenchant style, demonstrates the absurdity of
specialties, as such.
MONGRELISM. By Watson F. Quinby M.D. Wilmington, Del.: James & Webb.
This curious monogram is worth perusing, if for no other reason than the
fanciful and novel views which it presents. The author attributes many
of our present social evils to mongrelism, or the admixture of distinct
types of men. He finds in the Book of Revelation the foreshadowing of
the natural distribution of men into white, red, and black, deeming the
three similarly colored horses to be typical of those three branches of
the human family, while the fourth horse, on which sat Death, he
considers to be the emblem of mongrelia. He opposes J. J. Rousseau’s
idea that man’s primitive condition was one of barbarism, and contends
that historical and archæological discoveries prove rather a
retrogression than an improvement. The Chinaman is Dr. Quinby’s ideal of
a mongrel. In the land of flowers every art once flourished, learning
was cultivated, the harpist filled the air with sweetest strains, and
the poet sang delicious lays in the beautiful vale of Cashmere, till the
bane of mongrelism fell on it and all progress ceased. Mexico and South
America are other evidences of the pernicious influence of hybridism.
The conclusions of the author are in many instances sound, but his
reasoning is too fanciful to satisfy a sober-minded reader. His
statement that the rapid influx of Chinese into our midst is fraught
with mighty perils is well worth pondering over, and no true statesman
will shun the serious consideration of this knotty problem.
JACK. From the French of Alphonse Daudet. By Mary Neal Sherwood,
translator of _Sidonie_. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. 1877.
Another painful story by this gifted author. It is cleverly told and the
treatment is highly artistic, showing all that careful finish that
French writers bestow even on their smallest characters. The characters
in this story are most of them wretched enough. Lovers of the real in
fiction will find them realistic enough. There is a tone of hopelessness
and helplessness in _Jack_, as in _Sidonie_, that is very disheartening.
According to M. Daudet, a relentless Fate would seem to clutch some
miserable mortals, and hold them till death came as a happy release.
“The mother cried in a tone of horror, ‘Dead’?” “No,” said old Rivals;
“no—_delivered_,” are the last lines of _Jack_.
There is much truth and also much untruth in the lesson of the book.
Social surroundings, of course, influence very materially the growth,
physical and moral, of lives. But they are not everything; over and
above them all is a man’s own will, and that is the true lever of his
life. “Jack” only needed a little more resolution and nerve to have made
him a very useful member of society instead of a nincompoop. As in
_Sidonie_, so here, the minor characters are to us the most interesting.
The humor in _Jack_ is unfortunately less in quantity and more sardonic
in quality than in _Sidonie_. We suppose it is hopeless to expect M.
Daudet to look for once at the brighter side of life and find his heroes
and heroines among respectable people. Meanwhile, we give him all praise
as a very powerful artist, though a very unpleasing one. He is fortunate
in his American translator.
MCGEE’S ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY: Devoted to Catholic Art, Literature, and
Education. Vol. I. New York: J. A. McGee, Publisher. 1877.
An illustrated Catholic weekly journal, which should successfully
compete in point of illustration and literary workmanship with the
numerous non-Catholic and anti-Catholic—we had almost said
diabolic—journals that are so abundant to-day, was something greatly
needed in this country. Various attempts have been made in the past to
establish such a journal. They were so many failures. The volume which
forms the subject of the present notice is certainly the most successful
we have yet seen here, and we have great hopes that, with an increased
patronage, which it certainly deserves, it may be all we could wish it
to be. It has advanced very much, both in style of illustration, in
selection of subjects, and above all in editorial character and ability
on its own earlier numbers.
The publisher has had the good fortune as well as the good sense to
secure a really able editor in Col. James E. McGee, who, in addition to
being an excellent writer, possesses that sound journalistic sense and
judgment without which the very best matter is simply wasted in a
publication of this kind. Most of the illustrated journals of the day
are so much mental and moral poison, and the deadliest are those that
are most generally liked and enjoy the widest circulation. To furnish an
antidote to this bane is a good as well as a bold work, which deserves
well of Catholics everywhere. We most heartily wish continued success to
the new venture.
THE BIBLE OF HUMANITY. By Jules Michelet. Translated from the French by
Vincenzo Calfa. With a new and complete index. New York: J. W.
Bouton. 1877.
This is a translation of what may be called a sensational romance by
Jules Michelet, founded on the earliest records of various races of the
human family, including the Old and the New Testament. The author runs
riot amidst these ancient documents; and his disordered imagination
misinterprets them unscrupulously, denies boldly what does not answer
his purpose, and invents at pleasure, until in the end nothing is left
on the mind of the reader except the impression of a defying, scoffing,
and voluptuous disciple of M. Voltaire—Jules Michelet.
The translation is in good English; we have no reason to think it is not
faithfully done.
THE POETICAL AND PROSE WRITINGS OF CHARLES SPRAGUE. New edition. With a
portrait and a biographical sketch. Boston: A. Williams & Co. 1876.
Mr. Sprague’s writings, whether in prose or poetry, are of that kind, we
fear, that are not destined to live long in men’s memories, however much
immediate interest and attention they may excite at the time of their
publication. His verse was smooth enough and sweet enough as a rule,
with little or nothing in it to jar on sensitive feelings, and little or
nothing in it also to rouse feeling of any kind. The present edition is
handsomely brought out.
ANNALS OF OUR LADY OF THE SACRED HEART. Monthly bulletin of the
Archconfraternity of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart, published with the
approbation of Rt. Rev. Edgar P. Wadhams, Bishop of Ogdensburg.
Printed for the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart, by Chas. E.
Holbrook, Watertown, N. Y.
We have received the first number of this little publication, the object
of which is best set forth in the words of the dedication “to the
clergy, religious communities, colleges, institutions of learning, and
Catholic societies of America.” “The Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of
Jesus established at Watertown earnestly recommend to the zeal of
Catholics the monthly publication entitled _Annals of Our Lady of the
Sacred Heart_. Its object is to make known and to propagate in America,
and in the English possessions, the admirable devotion to Our Lady of
the Sacred Heart, and, through Mary, to lead souls to the Sacred Heart
of Jesus.” The publication begins with the June number.
THE CATHOLIC PARENTS’ FRIEND. Devoted to the cause of Catholic
education. Edited monthly by M. Wallrath, pastor of the Church of the
Immaculate Conception, Colusa, California. Numbers for May, June, and
July, 1877.
We think this little publication may do great good to the cause of
Catholic education. We trust it may have an extensive patronage. A
little more timeliness and brevity in the articles, and a more pointed
and direct application of them to matters moving around us here at home,
would add greatly to the value and interest of so excellently conceived
a work.
* * * * *
We have received from the Catholic Publication Society Co. advance
sheets of Cardinal Manning’s latest volume, reprinted from the English
plates, which were specially furnished to this house by the English
publishers. It is impossible at so short a notice to deal fitly with a
work by so eminent an author, and touching on a variety of subjects,
each one of which is timely and important. Some indication of the value
of the volume may be gathered from the titles of the various papers:
“The Work and Wants of the Catholic Church in England”; “Cardinal
Wiseman”; “French Infidelity”; “Ireland”; “On Progress”; “The Dignity
and Rights of Labor”; “The Church of Rome”; “Cæsarism and
Ultramontanism”; “Ultramontanism and Christianity”; “The Pope and Magna
Charta”; “Philosophy without Assumptions,” etc., etc.
BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS RECEIVED.
SAINT ELIZABETH, QUEEN OF HUNGARY. By the author of _Life in a
Cloister_, etc.
HORTENSE: an Historical Romance. Translated from the French. By R. J.
Halm. Kelly, Piet & Co., Baltimore.
THE CROWN OF HEAVEN, THE SUPREME OBJECT OF CHRISTIAN HOPE. From the
German of Rev. John N. Stöger, S.J. By Rev. M. Nash, S.J. P. O’Shea,
New York.
SELECTIONS from the _Imitation of Christ_. SELECTIONS from the _Thoughts
of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus_. Roberts Bros., Boston.
STRENGTH AND CALCULATION OF DIMENSIONS OF IRON AND STEEL CONSTRUCTIONS,
WITH REFERENCE TO THE LATEST EXPERIMENTS. Translated from the German
of J. J. Weyrauch, Ph.D., Prof. Polytechnic School of Stuttgart. D.
Van Nostrand, New York.
TEN YEARS OF MY LIFE. By the Princess Felix Salm-Salm. R. Worthington,
New York.
_The Forty-seventh Annual Report of the Inspectors of the State
Penitentiary for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, for the year
1876_. Sherman & Co., Philadelphia.
SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE WOMAN’S BAPTIST MISSIONARY SOCIETIES. With
the Proceedings of the Annual Meetings. Rand, Avery & Co., Boston.
NINTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE CLARKE INSTITUTION FOR DEAF MUTES AT
NORTHAMPTON, MASS., FOR THE YEAR ENDING SEPTEMBER 1, 1876.
ON THE VALUE AND CULTURE OF ROOTS FOR STOCK FEEDING. By David Landreth &
Sons. McCalla & Stavely, Philadelphia.
FINAL ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE WOODRUFF SCIENTIFIC EXPEDITION AROUND THE
WORLD. Indianapolis _Journal_ Co., Indianapolis.
ANNALS OF THE CATHOLIC INDIAN MISSIONS OF AMERICA. Bureau of Catholic
Indian Missions, Washington, D. C.
INDULGENCES APOSTOLIQUES, OU INDULGENCES APPLICABLES AUX VIVANTS ET AUX
DEFUNTS. Que le Saint Père Pie IX. attache aux Rosaires, Chapelets,
Croix, etc., qui en ont obtenu le pouvoir approuvé par l’autorité
compétente. Rome: Libreria di Roma.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
---------------------
VOL. XXVI., No. 152.—NOVEMBER, 1877.
---------------------
THE FREE-RELIGIONISTS.
I.—THE NEW-ENGLANDER.
This pamphlet[17] of ninety-five pages gives an account of the last
annual meeting in Boston of the “Free-Religious Association, its object
being to promote the practical interests of pure religion, to increase
fellowship in spirit, and to encourage the scientific study of man’s
religious nature and history.” Associations of this kind seem to be
necessary as safety-valves to a certain class of men and women, chiefly
found in New England, who, especially in matters of religion, are in a
state of effervescence, and feel the pressing need at times of publicly
delivering themselves of such thoughts as come uppermost in their minds
on this and kindred subjects. The phenomenon is a peculiar one, and
perhaps in no other country could such a variety of odd spirits as are
usually found in these assemblies be convoked. Their proceedings are
full of interest to the student of religion and the mental philosopher,
no less than to the observer of the phases of religious development of
some of the most active thinkers of this section of our country.
The American mind at bottom is serious, clings with deathless tenacity
to a religion of some sort; and of none is this more characteristic than
of the descendants of the Puritan Fathers. The children of the Puritans
may be eccentric, at times fanatical, and inclined to thrust their
religious, social, political, and even dietetical notions upon others;
but they are men and women who think; they are restless until they have
gained a religious belief, and are marked with earnestness of some sort,
energy, and practical skill. The Puritan race is a thinking, religious,
and an aggressive race of men and women. Whatever he may be, there is
always in a genuine Puritan a great deal of positive human nature. Let
him be under error, and his teeming brain will breed countless
crotchets, any one of which he will maintain with the bitterest
fanaticism, and, if placed in power, will impose it upon others with a
ruthless intolerance.
Give him truth, and you have an enlightened faith, indomitable zeal, and
not a few of the elements which go to make up an apostle. The main
qualities which distinguish the typical New-Englander, though not
altogether the most attractive, are nevertheless not the meanest in
human nature, and we candidly confess, though not a drop of Puritan
blood runs in our veins, that we have but few dislikes, while we
entertain many feelings of sincere respect, for the New England type of
man. It is, therefore, with special interest that we read whatever
offers an insight into the workings of the minds of so large,
influential, and important a class of the American people.
Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1877.
II.—WHAT IS THE FREE-RELIGIONIST MOVEMENT.
The Unitarian Association did not go far enough and fast enough to suit
the temper of a class of its more radical and ardent members; hence the
existence of the separate organization of “The Free-Religious
Association.” The movement of the free-religionists may be said to
spring from a laudable desire to get rid in the speediest way possible
of the spurious Christianity which was imposed upon them by their
forefathers as genuine Christianity and pure religion.
Suppose they have accomplished this laborious task of purification, what
then? Have they found wherewith “to yield the religious sentiment
reasonable satisfaction,” which Mr. Tyndall says “is the problem of
problems at this hour”? By no means; this discovery is quite another
affair.
“Hic labor,
Hoc opus est.”
They have only reached its starting-point. Let them begin their search,
and investigate every form or scheme of religion that has existed among
men from the beginning of the human race; let them speculate on these to
their hearts’ content, and indulge in the fancy that they have a mission
to invent or construct a new religion—and what then? Why, they will
find, at the end of all their earnest efforts, that there are, and
especially for those who have been under the light and quickening
influences of Christianity, but two possible movements, one a continuous
curve and the other a tangent. One or the other of these lines they will
be inevitably forced to take. If they pursue the first and push their
premises to their logical consequences, they will, if intelligent and
consistent, be led at some point into the circle of the Catholic Church;
if they follow the latter, and have the courage of their opinions, they
will declare themselves first infidels and then atheists. The fact is
becoming daily more and more plain to intelligent and fearlessly honest
men that there is no logical standing ground, we do not say between
Catholicity and atheism—for atheism has no logical standing position
whatever—but that there is no logical standing ground at all outside of
Catholicity. For Catholicity professes to be, and has ever maintained
that it is, the most perfect manifestation to men of the supreme divine
Reason, and to reject the truths which it sets before human reason with
the convincing evidence of their divine origin necessarily involves the
denial of human reason itself; consequently, human reason inevitably
falls, in the end, with the rejection of Catholicity. A man may reject
Protestantism and claim human reason; nay, he is bound to repudiate
Protestantism, if he holds to human reason, for the doctrine of “total
depravity” taught by orthodox Protestant sects undermines altogether the
value of human reason.[18] But Catholicity appeals confidently to human
reason for its firm support, since its entire structure is based upon
the infallibility of human reason in its sphere, and the irrefragable
certitude of its great primary truths. The interdependent relations,
therefore, existing between reason and Catholicity are essential, and
they stand or fall together. The way that Dr. Holmes has put this
question is not, we beg his pardon, the right way; he says: “Rome or
Reason?” He should have said: Rome and Reason.
There can be no rational belief in God, in the immortality of the soul,
in human responsibility as against Christianity, as there can be no
rational belief in Christianity as against Catholicity. Outside of the
Catholic Church there is only nihilism.
III.—THE DRIFTS OF FREE-RELIGIONISM.
It would be difficult to predict the precise course of these
“come-outers” of the latest date, called free-religionists. Some will
probably stop after having repudiated Protestantism, rest upon the
truths of reason, and, without inquiring further, vainly try to satisfy,
with a species of theism, the great aspirations and deep needs of their
souls; eventually they may fall back on old Unitarianism. Others will
venture to examine, as some before them have done, the claims of the
Catholic Church, and finding that these are founded on human reason,
that her doctrines perfect the truths of human reason, and that she
alone is adequate to satisfy all the wants of the human heart, will
become in the course of time Catholics, and save their souls—that is,
reach their high destiny. Another section will, during, perhaps, their
whole lives, seriously amuse themselves with the study of Brahminism,
Buddhism, and every other kind of outlandish religion—not a vain
intellectual amusement, except when associated with the absurd idea of
concocting a new religion. While the larger section, we fear, will
follow the tangent and end in nihilism. For although the main drift of
the religious world outside of the Catholic Church, especially in the
United States, is towards naturalism; although the face of each
free-religionist looks in a somewhat different way, yet the actual
movement of the greatest number of these Unitarian dissenters is
apparently in the direction of zero.
Precisely where the president of the Free-Religious Association stands,
to what definite truths he assents as undeniable, and what convictions
he holds as settled, is not to be gathered from any of his sermons,
tracts, speeches, and several published books. He seems to be laboring
under the impression that he has a mission to bring forth a new
religion, but thus far he or his associates in this illusive idea have
given to the world no new word in religion, or in morals, or in
philosophy, or in politics, or in social life, or in art, or in science,
or in method, or in anything else _scibile_. Mr. William R. Alger has
ventured to predict to his free-religionist brethren in their last
annual gathering a new incarnation and its gospel, in which we fail to
see anything new or important, if true. “The spirit of science,” such
are the words of his prophecy, “enriched with the spirit of piety, is
the avatar of the new Messiah.”
Francis Ellswood Abbot, a conspicuous member of the Free-Religious
Association, as well as one of its active directors and the editor of
the _Index_, a weekly journal which is in some sort the organ of the
free-religious movement, has, among other notable things, come to the
front and publicly impeached Christianity. His indictment contains five
counts against the Christian religion: “human intelligence, human
virtue, the human heart, human freedom, and humanitarian religion.”[19]
Here are his charges: “Christianity,” he says, “no longer proclaims the
highest truths, inculcates the purest ethics, breathes the noblest
spirit, stimulates to the grandest life, holds up to the soul and to
society the loftiest ideal of that which ought to be.”[20] But this is
neither new nor original; for what is the Christianity which Mr. Abbot
so boldly impeaches? Why, in all its main features it is that
disfigurement of Christianity which he has inherited from his
Calvinistic progenitors, and which the Council of Trent impeached, and
for the most part on the very same grounds as he does, more than three
centuries ago; so that in each of his articles of impeachment every
Catholic to-day will heartily join, and to each of his charges say:
Amen; _Anathema sit!_
What is surprising to Catholics is that there should be intelligent and
educated men living in this enlightened nineteenth century who have
found out that Calvinism is false, and have not yet discovered in the
intellectual environment of Boston that Calvinism is not Christianity.
“They do not attack the Catholic Church,” said Daniel O’Connell, in
speaking of a similar class of men, “but a monster which they have
created and called the Catholic Church.”
But Mr. Abbot is not of the men who are content to rest in mere
negation. In a lecture delivered by him in a course under the auspices
of the Free-Religious Association, entitled _A Study of Religion_, after
much preliminary discourse, he gives with the heading, “The New
Conception of Religion,” the following definition of religion:
“Religion,” he says, “is the effort of man to perfect himself.”[21] Now,
what is the origin of “man’s effort to perfect himself”? “Religion,” he
affirms, “appears in its universal aspect as the _decree of Nature_ that
her own end shall be achieved. Religion is the inward impulsion of
Nature, seconded by the conscious effort of the individual to conform to
it,” etc.[22]
What Mr. Abbot calls “nature” and “ideal excellence in all directions”
is what the common sense of mankind has named God. Mr. Abbot has no
objection to the same name; only he insists that the idea of God, which
is very proper, should be submitted “to the educated intelligence of the
human race.”[23] “It is,” he says, “because I do believe in God that I
am willing to submit my belief in him to the sharpest and most searching
scrutiny of science.”[24]
Now, Mr. Abbot admits that if you once concede the Messianic claim of
Christ, “then it is true that Catholicism is itself Christianity in its
most perfect form.”[25] He therefore stops virtually in his analysis of
religion at the idea of God, and, if he believed in the Divinity of
Christ and did not eschew logic, he would have to embrace Catholicity.
Mr. Abbot, like many Unitarians, agrees on this point with P. J.
Proudhon, but with this difference: the Frenchman recedes a step, and
maintains that “outside of Christianity there is no God, no religion, no
faith, no theology.... The church believes in God, and believes in God
more faithfully and more perfectly than any sect. The church is the
purest, most perfect, and most enlightened revelation of the divine
Being, and none other understands what is worship. From a religious
stand-point the Catholicism of the Latin peoples is the best, the most
rational, and the most perfect. Rome, in spite of her repeated and
frightful falls, remains the only legitimate church.” Hence Proudhon and
those of his school lay it down as a _sine qua non_ that the elimination
of the idea of God, and of all obligation to any divine law, is the
condition of all true progress. From this we may draw the conclusion
that Francis E. Abbot is on the curve line, and, if he follows out his
definition of religion to its logical consequences, he will surely land,
whatever may be the sweep of his continuous curve, in the bosom of the
Catholic Church. There is no escape from this ultimate result, if reason
is to rule, except by hastily taking the back track, and starting on the
tangent, and eventually plunging with Proudhon into the dark abyss of
nihilism. Hence every sagacious straight-line radical cannot but look
upon the platform of the editor of the _Index_ as the jumping-off place
into popery for all consistent theists. That this is not meant as
pleasantry, but is written in downright earnestness, we quote the
conclusion of his lecture on _A Study of Religion_, and preface it by
saying that the language with which he urges his definition of religion
on his hearers finds in every word an echo in the hearts of all sincere
and instructed Catholics, and receives their full endorsement.
“I speak now,” he says, “as one who _believes_ in religion, thus
conceived, from the sole of the foot to the crown of the head,
without apology either for the name or the thing, and without
the smallest concession to the prejudice that assails either the
one or the other. To-day I speak only to the large in heart and
broad in mind—to those who must accept science and would fain
accept religion too. To these I say that science itself would
lose its fearless love of truth, were it not that religion fed
its secret springs; that social reform would lose its motive and
inspiration, literature and art their beauty, and all human life
its sweetest and tenderest grace, did not religion evermore
create the insatiable hunger after perfection in the soul of
man. Bright, cheerful, ennobling, stimulating, emancipating,
religion is the greatest friend of humanity, ever guiding it
upward and onward to the right and the true; ay, and to all we
yearn for, if, as we believe, the right and the true are indeed
the pathway to God.”
But not all free-religionists are gifted with so deep, intelligent, and
healthy an appreciation of the essence of religion as Francis E. Abbot,
who leaves nothing at present to be desired but the courage of his
convictions—_proficiat!_
There is, however, in the _Christian Inquirer_ a revelation made by
William Ellery Channing, a distinguished nephew of the celebrated Dr.
Channing, which tells quite another story. It appears by this article
that the president of the Free Religious Association, O. B. Frothingham,
had attributed to Mr. Channing, one of the speakers in the tenth annual
assembly, a “poetic Christianity,” a “religion in the air,” an
“up-in-a-balloon” religion, and in reply to this accusation he draws
from nature the following unattractive personal portraits:
“Let me,” says Mr. Channing, “make a clean breast of it to you
before all onlookers. What you mean by the ‘rumors’ that I had
become ‘ecclesiastical in tastes and opinions’ I can but
conjecture. But the simple facts are in brief these: You
remember how seven years ago, on the public platform, and in the
reunions of the Free-Religionists in dear John Sargent’s
hospitable rooms, and in private ‘confabs’ with yourself, and W.
J. Potter, and S. Longfellow, and S. Johnson, and J. Weiss, and
T. W. Higginson, and D. A. Wasson, and F. E. Abbot, etc., I
tried to preach my gospel, that the _vital centre_ of free
religious union is the _life of God in man_ as made gloriously
manifest in Jesus the Christ. And you remember, too, how around
that centre I illustrated the historic fact that the great
religions of our race arranged themselves in orderly groups.
For nearly a year I opened my heart and mind to the
free-religionists and liberal Christians, without a veil to hide
my inmost holy of holies. But shall I tell you, my friend, that
when I bade you all farewell, in the summer of 1870, it was with
sad forebodings? And why? The story, too long to tell in full,
ran thus: One, in his wish to be bathed in the sense of
ever-present Deity, had ceased to commune with the Spirit of
spirits in prayer. Another, in his repulsion from imprisoning
anthropomorphism, had abandoned all conceptions of a personal
God, and so lost the Father. A third, in his historic purpose to
lead a heavenly-human life, here and now, gave up the hope of
immortal existence, as a sailor might turn from contemplating
the cloud-palaces of sunset to pull the tarry cordage and spread
the coarse canvas of his ship. And, saddest of all, a fourth, in
his bold purpose to be spontaneous in every impulse and emotion,
spurned the motherly monitions of duty so sternly that
conscience even seemed driven to return to heaven, like ‘Astræa
Redux.’ In brief, one felt as if the liberal college of all
religions in council with pantheism, agnosticism, and atheistic
materialism was destined to fall flat to dust in a confused
chaos of most commonplace _spiritual ‘know-nothingism.’_ Such
was my disheartening vision of the near future for dearly-loved
compeers. And a darker valley of ‘devastation,’ as our
Swedenborgian friends say, than I was driven into I have never
traversed.”
But Mr. Channing goes further; he shows that he has studied the
religious philosophers of antiquity to some purpose, seized their true
meaning and real drift, and in touching language takes his readers into
his confidence, offering to them an insight into his present relations
to Christianity.
The following remarkable paragraph possesses a thrilling interest for
Catholics; and if it affects others as it has the present writer on
reading it, they will not fail to offer up an aspiration to Him who has
given such graces to the soul of the man who penned it—and doubtless to
others among the free-religionists—that he will render their faith
explicit and perfect it.
“Once again,” he says, “I sought comfort with the blessed
company of sages and saints of the Orient and Hellas—with
Lao-Tsee and Kung Fu-Tsee; with the writers of the Bhagava-Geeta
and the Dhamma-Bada; of the hymns of ancient Avesta and the
modern sayings and songs of the Sufis; with radiant Plato and
heroic Epictetus, etc., etc. Once more they refreshed and
reinspirited me as of old. But they did something better: hand
in hand they brought me up to the white marble steps, and the
crystal baptismal font, and the bread and wine-crowned
communion-table—ay, to the cross in the chancel of the Christian
temple—and, as they laid their hands in benediction on my head,
they whispered: ‘Here is your real _home_. We have been but your
guides in the desert to lead you to fellowship with the Father
and his Son in the spirit of holy humanity. Peace be with you.’
And so, my brother, once again, and with a purer, profounder,
tenderer love than ever, like a little child, I kissed the
blood-stained feet and hands and side of the Hero of Calvary,
and laid my hand on the knees of the gentlest of martyrs, and
was uplifted by the embracing arms of the gracious elder
Brother, and in his kiss of mingled pity and pardon found the
peace I sought, and became a Christian in _experience_, as
through a long life I had hoped and prayed to be. Depend upon
it, dear Frothingham, there is on this small earth-ball no
_reality_ more _real_ than this central communion with God in
Christ, of which the saints of all ages in the church universal
bear witness.”
IV.—THE MEETING.
But we have wandered off somewhat from our present point, which is the
proceedings of “the tenth annual meeting” of the free-religionists in
Boston. What is singularly remarkable among so intellectual and
cultivated a class of men as assemble at these gatherings, and
especially among its select speakers and essayists, is that they should
display so great a lack of true knowledge of the Catholic Church. If the
Catholic Church is not worthy of serious study, then why make it a
subject for speeches and essays in so important an assembly? But if it
be worthy of so much attention, why not give it that investigation which
its significance demands? We dare not say that the leaders among the
free-religionists are not intelligent men, that they have not read
considerably. But when they charge the Catholic Church with heresies
which she has condemned; when they attribute to her doctrine which she
always has detested and does detest; and when they blacken her with
stale and oft-refuted calumnies, and recklessly traduce her dearest and
best, her holiest children, we dare not trust ourselves to give
expression to what comes uppermost in our thoughts. Shakspeare gives
good advice in this matter:
“Though honesty be no Puritan,
Yet it will do no hurt.”
We recommend this to the consideration of our free-religionists. It will
do them “no hurt” to show more of this virtue when speaking of the
Catholic Church. It becomes those who talk so much about science to talk
a little less about it, and, when the Catholic religion is concerned, to
give more evidence of scientific study. Especially does this course
become men who claim to be public teachers belonging to a body whose
object is “to encourage the scientific study of man’s religious nature
and history.”
The first essay, delivered by William R. Alger, entitled _Steps towards
Religious Emancipation in Christendom_, and published in their tenth
annual report, will serve to illustrate our meaning. Mr. Alger is a
scholar of repute, a man who has travelled abroad, written and published
several books displaying extensive reading, refined tastes, and high
literary culture. He is, moreover, a distinguished minister of the
Unitarian denomination. His essay, we have reason to believe, was
prepared with the usual care bestowed upon such papers; for the
president of the association, in introducing the author, said: “The
discussion will be opened by an essay by Mr. William R. Alger, of New
York, who has made this matter in its historical aspects the study of
years, and is carefully prepared to present the result of his deepest
thought and investigation.”[26]
In its fourth paragraph the essay proposes to give a rough sketch of the
“doctrinal thought” on which in mediæval times the “intellectual unity”
of the church rested. Our limits will not allow us to quote it entire,
but it is enough for our purpose to say—and we weigh our words before
putting them on paper—that scarcely any one sentence of this paragraph
contains a correct statement of the “doctrinal thought” of the Catholic
Church either in the middle ages or in any other age.
Here are some of the statements: “The whole human race, descended from
Adam, who lived _five thousand years before_,” etc. Mr. Alger would
convey new information to the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD, if he would
give his authorities for this assertion. Thus far, if our authorities do
not deceive us, the Catholic Church has, in her wisdom, left the
question of the date of man’s appearance upon this earth to the
discussion of chronologists and to the disputes among scientists.
Again: “The Bible, a mysterious book dictated by the Spirit of God,
containing an infallible record of what is most important in this scheme
of salvation, _is withheld from the laity_.” It would also increase the
knowledge of our readers if the author had given his authorities to
prove the above charge. The testimony of Catholics, if we be a judge, is
precisely the contrary to this accusation. They entertain the conviction
that it was the most earnest desire of the church in the period of which
Mr. Alger is speaking to render the Bible accessible to all classes of
men. Her monks devoted themselves to the severe manual labor of copying
the Bible, and engaged in the noble toil of translating it into the
vulgar tongues of various nations, that the people might become readers
of the Bible. She exposed the Bible publicly in her libraries, and
chained it to their walls by the windows, and to desks in her churches,
in order that it might be read by everybody and not stolen. The charge
is simply an old and oft-repeated calumny quite unworthy a man of
reputed intelligence.
“The actual power or seal of salvation is made available to believers
only through the sacraments of the church—confession, baptism, Mass, and
penance—legally administered by her accredited representatives.” There
is such an inextricable confusion pervading this statement that it is
difficult to discern its meaning. No one, we venture to say, who had
mastered the “doctrinal thought” of the church would have ever penned so
distracted a sentence on so important a point. One would suppose that,
according to Mr. Alger, there were two sacraments, one “confession” and
the other “penance”; whereas every Catholic who has learned the little
catechism knows that “confession,” the popular term, means, in the
language of the church, the Sacrament of Penance. Then what is meant by
“baptism legally administered by her accredited representatives”? This
is not clear; but the whole statement is so confused in thought and
tangled in expression that the only hope of understanding the author’s
meaning is to give him an opportunity of trying again. It would be,
among ourselves, interesting to read from non-Catholic authors the
“doctrinal thought” of the church on what is essential to salvation and
what is ordinarily necessary to salvation. It would also, we are
inclined to think, clear up many of their misconceptions and do them no
little good to have correct ideas on so important a matter.
“Those,” says Mr. Alger, “who humbly believe and observe these doctrines
shall be saved; _all others lost for ever_.”
This sentence follows the preceding one, and the same confusion and
error underlie both. When the ingenuous author of this essay has
corrected the former sentence by reading up on the point involved, he
will, as a matter of course, correct the error contained in the latter.
Passing now over several paragraphs containing many charges, we regret
to say, in unusually bitter words, we come to the following: “The
revival of the Greek learning, the study of the works of Plato,
Aristotle, the classic poets, orators, and historians, with their
beautiful and surprising revelations of genius, virtue, and piety,
_entirely independent and outside of the church and Bible_, exerted an
immense force in liberalizing and refining the narrow, dogmatic mind of
the Christian world, refuting its _arrogant pretensions to an exclusive
communion with God and heritage in Providence_.” If the cultivated
writer of this essay had qualified the phrase “outside of the church”
_as I understand it_, “exclusive communion” _as I view it_, this
sentence might pass; but, as it stands, the position in which the
Catholic Church is placed is entirely false, and we refer our readers to
what is said on these points under the heading of “The Mission of the
Latin Race,” commencing on page 5, in the last number of this magazine.
“Now the Pope,” says Mr. Alger, “excommunicates the emperor, sets up a
rival, foments a rebellion among his subjects, or launches the terrible
interdict on a whole nation, shutting the churches, muffling the bells,
forbidding confession to the penitent, unction to the dying, burial to
the dead.”[27] Either the author has been imposed upon by his
authorities, or perhaps he has not weighed sufficiently his words. The
effect of an interdict of the Pope is inaccurately stated. These are
“terrible” matters, and one who is reciting history should be careful
and exact in his specifications. Here, as before, he is bound to give
his authorities, and learned and credible ones, or change his language.
“The repeated gross contradictions of bishops, councils, and popes,
their inconsistent decrees reversing or neutralizing each other,
_infallibility clashing with infallibility_, begat irrepressible
doubts.”[28] This sentence may pass for a rhetorical flourish, but it
involves a grave, a very grave, a most grave charge, and is backed up by
no example, or proof, or relation of authorities! These cutting and
slashing assertions where conscientious accuracy is required and sound
scholarship ought to be displayed, place the intelligence and education
of his Boston audience in no enviable light. Let us have some specimens
of “infallibility clashing with infallibility” by all means:
“Luther sprang forth with one-third of Christendom in revolt at his
back.... But _the fundamental doctrines_ of the church scheme otherwise
remained _essentially_ as they had been, unchallenged.”[29] What a pity
that the theologians of the sixteenth century had not known that “the
fundamental doctrines of the church scheme remained essentially” the
same! The Council of Trent, if it had only understood this, might have
saved its anathemas.
“After Luther, then, we see Christendom, with _fundamental agreement of
belief_, differing, for the most part, only in affairs of polity and
ritual, split into two bodies—those who rest their belief on the
_inspired_ authority of the church, and those who rest it on the
inspired authority of the Bible.”[30] Here again we have another
_fundamental_ erroneous idea of the church. “Inspired” authority is not
what Catholics believe. This language shows poor theological training or
a loose way of handling delicate and important points. But on this point
we shall have more to say.
“Third,” says Mr. Alger, “a revolt of common sense against
_errors with which the teachings of church and Scripture were
identified_, but which, by the simple lapse of time, had been
demonstrated to be false. For example, in the twentieth chapter
of the Book of Revelations it is recorded: ‘And he laid hold of
the dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, and cast him
into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him
that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand
years should be fulfilled; after that he must be loosed a little
season.’ This passage was thought to fix the date of the Day of
Judgment. And as the time drew near the terror was profound.
Throughout the generation preceding the year one thousand _the
pulpits of the Christian world rang with this frightful text and
with awful descriptions of what it implied. The fear was as
intense as the belief was general._”
Has not the author of this essay taken some romancer of history or some
idle tale for his authority in the above charge? When and where did the
church identify her teachings with this error? We grow uneasy in asking
for authorities and examples; and when we are given an example of things
which are said to have taken place eight hundred years or more ago, no
authority is cited to authenticate the fact. The author may have given
his hearers “the result of his deepest thought,” but he is too chary of
the authorities for his “historical study of years.”
“The priests,” he tells us, “from the first hour scented this enemy from
afar, and declared war against it [physical science], as the meaner
portion of them still do everywhere. In the twelfth century the Council
of Tours, in the thirteenth century the Council of Paris, interdicted to
monks the reading of works on physical science _as sinful_.”[31] We
retract having said that Mr. Alger cites no authorities; he does in the
above accusation, but fails to quote the decrees or give their language,
or tell what kind of councils these were and what their weight. We feel
suspicious, and have grounds for this feeling, and we demand more
definite proofs. The charge is precise; let the proofs be equally so.
Let us have the authentic decrees and _ipsissima verba_. This is asking
only fair play. It would not be pleasant to find this accusation, on
serious investigation, a misconception, or a misinterpretation, or
perhaps an invented calumny, but not by our author. We take real
pleasure in finding a point in which we agree with him. Here is one:
they are the “meaner portion,” if there be such “priests,” who “war
against” the study of “the physical sciences.” We know of priests who
are devoted to the study of the physical sciences, and some who are
distinguished in these studies; but we have no acquaintance with the
“meaner portion” who have “declared war against physical science.”
Perhaps Mr. Alger has, and, if so, he will inform us who they are.
“Ethnology,” he asserts, “multiplies the actors in its drama [that of
history], and takes _the keystone from the arch of the church theology
by disproving the inheritance of total depravity from one progenitor of
all men_.”[32] Here the author shares the error in common with almost
all, if not all, Unitarians and free-religionists. They seem not to be
able to grasp the idea that the Catholic Church, in the œcumenical
Council of Trent, condemned the doctrines of Protestantism concerning
original sin; and, whatever may be said to the contrary, the Catholic
Church never goes back on her authoritative decisions. Mr. Alger well
says that the doctrine of original sin is “the keystone of the arch of
theology”; so much the more reason, therefore, that there should be no
mistake on a point which shapes theology almost entirely. And if he and
his brethren, free-religionists and Unitarians, could be got to
understand and acknowledge that the Catholic Church has condemned the
doctrines of Protestantism on original sin, as well as “the five points
of Calvinism”—for they go together—then there would be some hope that
the gross error of identifying Catholicity and Protestantism as
“fundamentally and essentially the same” on this most important subject
would be corrected. The error is an egregious one, which is constantly
appearing in their addresses, sermons, tracts, essays, books, weekly
papers, and journals, and with that error a thousand dependent errors
would disappear. But, alas! we fear that we shall have to regard this as
hopeless, and resign ourselves, for the present generation at least, to
placing this, with other radical errors, among the points of “invincible
ignorance”! May we just here be allowed, without being stigmatized as
one of the “meaner portion” of the priesthood, to put in a humble
demurrer to the unsustained assertion that “ethnology” has “disproven”
“one progenitor of all men”?
If the reader is weary of following up with us this labyrinth of error
in this not very long essay, he will pity the present writer; for he has
not touched upon one-tenth of the errors which the same short essay
holds. We have been careful, too, to be silent on language which might
have come from Exeter Hall ranters or from the late Dr. Brownlee, a
notorious anti-popery lecturer of former days. Indeed, we can scarcely
allow ourselves the freedom of expressing our feelings of indignation at
reading such language coming from men who have a reputation for polite
culture. “Men,” we say; for at the close of its delivery Mr. Alger’s
essay was endorsed by the president of the association as “the admirable
essay by Mr. Alger, at once a history and an argument, a summary of
facts and also a summary of apprehensions and suggestions, etc.”[33]
Another speaker pronounced it a “most magnificent and masterly
essay.”[34] We are not over-sensitive in matters of this kind, and
before concluding our remarks we give a specimen of the language and
spirit of the “most magnificent and masterly essay.”
V. FREE-RELIGIONISTS AND THE MONKS.
“Few men,” says our estimable writer, “duly feel what a debt the
nineteenth century owes to the illustrious founders and
cultivators of science, Aristotle, Archimedes, Kepler, Newton,
and the hundreds of lesser lights in many departments. What a
beneficent and herculean task they have accomplished in breaking
the chains of _false_ authority, opening the dungeons of
_superstition_, removing the _incubus_ of religious terror!
Their sunlit and open-air minds, in harmonious working
connection with nature and their race, have done much to dispel
the _baneful_ power of a _celibate_ church, the cloistered and
_mephitic minds of monks and hermits, introspective dreamers,
tyrannical theorizers_, who, set apart from the living interests
of men, had woven over Christianity _a horrid web of diseased
logic spun out of the entrails of their own morbid brains_.”
Let free-religionists honor Aristotle, Archimedes, Kepler, Newton, and
other great masters in natural science; they are worthy, and we also pay
them honor. Let them be grateful to those “cultivators of science” for
all the hidden truths which, by their genius and toil, they have brought
to light, and in this we also sympathize. Let them join with this class
the men of our own day distinguished in this line of studies: the
Herschels, the Faradays, the Agassiz, the Quatrefages, the Darwins, the
Secchis, the Huxleys, the Tyndalls, the Drapers, etc.; they are all
worthy of honor and gratitude for every new truth which they have
discovered and made known to the world. Not to love all truth
unreservedly is to renounce the light of reason and to repudiate God;
for he was God who said, “I am the truth.” But this grateful
acknowledgment for the labors of cultivators of the sciences by no
manner of means implies the acceptance of every hypothesis or theory,
put forth by some of them, which for the most part are based upon
insufficient data or spun out of misconceptions of religion with secret
hostility to Christianity. For there are men who pass for scientists who
seem to be actuated more by a spirit of opposition to religion than a
sincere desire for the discovery of the secrets of nature. Hence genuine
science has to suffer no less than true religion from bigots and
hypocrites, who erect their untenable opinions into final decisions of
scientific investigation, and cloak themselves with the honorable livery
of science to put forth the ignoble doctrines of materialism.
Speculations, however brilliant, ought not to pass for science, and one
must be on his guard in our days, lest he allow the authority of great
names to impose upon his credulity the romance of science for real
science.
But could not the author of this essay honor the really great men of
science and be content, without dishonoring another class of men who
devoted their gifts and gave their toil as enthusiastically at least,
and with an equal self-sacrificing spirit, to the contemplation and
discovery of another, and even, in degree, a higher, class of truths?
Could he not pay Paul without robbing Peter?
Then, again, why this bitterness of expression towards the monks? Have
these monks no aspirations that are holy? no convictions that are
sacred? no rights worthy of respect? Why could not the monks with equal
liberty lead such lives as the highest feelings in their souls called
them to do as well as a Bronson Alcott, a Ralph Waldo Emerson, a Henry
Thoreau, or William R. Alger? What or who has given to these Americans
the liberty to lead such lives as they chose, and deprived men of other
climes of this same personal privilege? Is it a commendable thing for a
Sir Isaac Newton to lead a celibate life out of devotion to mathematics,
and a sin for a St. Benedict to lead a single life out of as pure a
devotion, at least, to the religion of Christ? If Reverend Ralph Waldo
Emerson throws up his pastorate over a respectable Unitarian
congregation, and retires to a remote country village to devote himself
to the cultivation of literature and whatever he may please to think a
more useful calling, in fidelity to his best aspirations, why may not a
Bernadotti of Assisi retire from the business of a silk merchant,
renounce his gay companions, and, in obedience to the voice of God in
his soul, practise poverty and turn a religious reformer under the name
of Francis? If Henry Thoreau repudiates the calling to be a clergyman
not to be false to his highest convictions, devotes his leisure hours to
the study of nature and the Greek poets, and, living for the most part
on bread and water, takes up the manual labor of making lead-pencils to
meet the cost of his scanty support, and in so doing not lose cast among
the literary brahmins of Boston, why not let, with equal freedom,
Anthony retire to the deserts of Egypt and give himself to divine
contemplation and the making of baskets and mats for his innocent way of
life, without being loaded with a heap of most abusive epithets? Was it
heroic in Mr. Bronson Alcott to make an attempt to realize his ideal of
a pure and holy life with a few choice spirits at Fruitlands, in the
State of Massachusetts, while it was only the “mephitic” action of a
“morbid brain” in a saintly Bernard actually to realize the ideal at
Clairvaux, in the province of Burgundy in France? Are we to praise and
never be weary of praising the Pilgrim Fathers for abandoning their
country, their homes, their friends, and their relations to come to the
wilds of inhospitable New England, in order that they might worship God
according to the dictates of their consciences, and must we condemn the
first pioneers in the wilderness who plunged into the solitudes of Egypt
for precisely the same reason, in order to fulfil the great aspiration
of their souls to God—the pilgrim saints of the desert? Who can read the
riddle why the aspiration or effort of the soul to perfect itself is the
result of “mephitic minds” in a Hebrew, or an Egyptian, or a Latin, or a
Celt, and the same aspiration is religious, sacred, holy, when found in
the soul of a New-Englander?
Did it not suggest itself to the mind of the author of this essay, when
he perused the passage quoted against the monks, that he exposed himself
to a flank movement? For where could you find better specimens and more
plentifully of “introspective dreamers” and “tyrannical theorizers” than
in the State, in the very city, nay, in the actual audience which
assembled at the time to listen to Mr. Alger’s essay?
“O wad some power the giftie gie us,
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
And foolish notion.”
Why is it that a certain number of New England authors, whenever they
can find an occasion or make an opportunity, are sure to cast a fling at
monks and nuns and a celibate priesthood? Even the genial author, Dr.
Oliver Wendell Holmes, not to mention Whittier and others, from some yet
unexplained cause, will turn bitter and his temper grow ruffled when he
encounters in his literary excursions a monk or speaks of the celibate
clergy of the church. There is no difficulty in acquitting such authors
of intentional malice, but men so well bred and of such broad experience
ought and do know better, and should not blot their otherwise pleasant
pages with foul abuse.
But whence does this acrimony spring? Does it spring from the bully who
strikes a victim, knowing himself safe from a return blow? or is it that
the intellectual faculty of insight is lacking in these highly-gifted
authors? Is this rancor to be attributed to their environment? or,
finally, is it to be classified by some future clerical Darwin as an
instance of Puritanical “inherited habit”? Be that as it may, Catholics
ask no favors from the opponents of the church, but they have good
reason to look for, and the right to demand, fair play, sound
scholarship where scholarship is needed and claimed, and at least an
average amount of intelligence.
These monks—and let us add also nuns, for their aim is identical—who
have as a distinctive principle of life the resolve always to tend
towards perfection, are not perfect and make no pretension to being
saints, for although human nature is immanently good, there is
notwithstanding much evil in the world, and no class of men or women,
whoever they may be, is wholly free from the possibility of deviating
from the path which leads to their true destiny. That there have been
among monks and nuns hypocrites, fanatics, and those who have forgotten
the sacredness of their calling and given public scandal everybody
knows: “Canker vice the sweetest buds doth love.” Had these incurred the
severe animadversion of the author of this essay, his abusive language
might have passed unnoticed; but no qualification is made between
innocent and guilty—the exemplary and scandalous, one and all, are
passed upon as the same by a most unsparing and unjust sentence.
But not all free-religionists have read the history of the church and of
the influence of monks upon civilization in the light of the author of
this essay. We cannot forego the gratification of quoting a passage
written many years ago by one, a speaker in this tenth annual meeting
too, in which he gives a different estimate of the church and the monks
in the precise period of which Mr. Alger has attempted to draw a rough
sketch, it is true, but still his intention must have been to give a
correct picture.
“Truly,” says the Rev. William Ellery Channing, “the church has
been a quickening centre of modern civilization, a fountain of
law and art, of manners and policy. It would not be easy to
estimate how much of our actual freedom and humanity, of our
cultivation and prosperity, we owe to her foresight and just
acknowledgment of rights and duties. It is easy to ascribe to
the cunning and love of power of priests the wonderful
sovereignty which this spiritual dictator has exerted; but it is
proof of surprising superficiality that these critics do not
recognize that only sincere enthusiasm and truth, however
adulterated by errors, can give such a hold upon human will. The
Christian Church has been unquestionably the most dignified
institution which the earth has seen.... Beautiful have been its
abbeys in lonely solitudes, clearing the forests, smoothing the
mountains, nurseries of agricultural skill amidst the desolating
wars of barbarous ages, sanctuaries for the suffering. Beautiful
its learned cloisters, with students’ lamps shining late in the
dark night as a beacon to wandering pilgrims, to merchants with
loaded trains, to homeless exiles—their silent bands of
high-browed, pallid scholars watching the form of Science in the
tomb of Ignorance, where she lay entranced. Beautiful its
peaceful armies of charity, subduing evil with works of love in
the crowded alleys and dens of cities, amid the pestilences of
disease and the fouler pestilence of crime, and carrying the
sign of sacrifice through nations more barren of virtues than
the deserts which have bordered them.”
VI.—THE FREE-RELIGIONISTS AND THE MYSTICS.
Mr. Alger must have seen that his canvas up to this moment was
overcharged with sombre colors, and to give it a _vraisemblance_ he put
in the following words:
“There has been another marked class of persons, in the extreme
opposite sphere of life to those just described—a class
nourished in the inmost bosom of the church itself—whose very
important influence has acted in harmony with that of science,
which seems so wholly contrary to it—acted to melt away
dogmatism, free men from hatred and force and fraud, and join
them in a heavenly enthusiasm of accord. I allude to the
mystics, who cultivated the sinless peace and raptures of the
inner life of devotion, absorption in divine contemplation,
ecstatic union with God. Boundless is the charm exerted,
incalculable the good done, in impregnating the finest strata of
humanity with paradisal germs by _Victor_, Bonaventura, Suso,
Tauler, Teresa, Behmen, Fénelon, Guyon, John of the Cross, and
the rest of these breathing minds, hearts of seraphic passion,
souls of immortal flame. This class of believers, devoted to the
nurture of exalted virtue and piety, were the choicest
depositaries of the grace of religion.”
The general reader would suppose that this “marked class of persons, in
the extreme opposite sphere of life to those just described,” were not,
of course, “monks.” But such is the fact, with the exception of two he
mentions. Let us examine this list. Here is the first mystic, Victor.
Victor! Who is he? Whom does the essayist mean? There was St. Victor of
Marseilles, who suffered martyrdom under Diocletian, July 21, A.D. 303.
He surely does not mean this Victor? Then there was the celebrated Abbey
of St. Victor, near Paris, named after St. Victor of Marseilles, founded
in the first year of the twelfth century; he cannot mean that? There is
no telling, though. Then there was Hugh, born in Flanders, and Richard,
a Scotchman, the latter a disciple of the former, both inmates of the
monastery of St. Victor, both illustrious by their writings on mystical
theology, and saintly men. Perhaps he means one of these, or both?
Perhaps that is not his meaning. If it be, then his sentence should have
run thus: Hugh of St. Victor, or Richard of St. Victor. Let us proceed;
both of these were “monks.” St. Bonaventure, disciple of St. Francis,
was a “monk.” John Tauler, a disciple of St. Dominic, another monk. St.
Teresa, a nun, a “cloistered” nun, consequently as bad, at least, as a
“monk.” Behmen? Behmen? _Jacob Boehme_. Oh! yes; a German, a
shoemaker—not to his discredit—a Protestant, and mystical writer. O
blessed saints in Paradise! do not, we beg, lay it to our charge of
making you “acquainted with so strange a bed-fellow!” Then comes Fénelon
the saintly archbishop, the friend, be it known, of monks and nuns. Now
Mme. Guyon; it is singular that there is always a strange hankering
among a class of Protestants after Catholic writers of suspected
orthodoxy. St. John of the Cross is next, and the last, though not
least, the Aquinas of mystical theology, a Carmelite, a “monk.” Now let
us count up. But we have forgotten our beloved Swabian, Henry Suso, the
Minnesinger of divine love; and he too was a Dominican, a “monk.” In
sum—excluding, of course, the Protestant; for of him it cannot be said
that he was “nourished in the inmost bosom of the church”—we have six
“monks,” if you include both Hugh and Richard of St. Victor in the
number, and one “cloistered” nun, all, without exception, “celibates,”
of the eight examples selected by our author as “devoted to the nurture
of exalted virtue and piety,” and “the choicest depositaries of the
graces of religion!” Six out of eight—not a bad showing for monks and
nuns “as the choicest depositaries of the graces of religion,” where a
learned author has his pick, running over many centuries.
VII.—THE FREE-RELIGIONISTS AND CHRISTIANITY, OR THE FINAL ISSUE.
It is time to draw these remarks to a close, and that, too, without even
casting a glance at the speeches that followed the essay which has been
under review.
We did not offer, as our readers will have remarked, a refutation of the
misconceptions, misinterpretations, and errors which have been pointed
out in the essay of Mr. Alger. We intentionally abstained from doing so
until its author brings forth his authorities and proves his assertions,
in obedience to a commonly-received maxim rightly followed in
discussion, which says, _Quod gratis affirmatur, gratis negatur_.
Besides, the Catholic Church is in possession, and therefore the burden
of proof rests not on her defenders, but on the part of her assailants.
Our refutations will come soon enough when we have learned that there is
something to refute. But, that our purpose might not be ambiguous, we
have italicized, in most instances, the words which contain the special
errors to which we wished to call attention.
The opponents of the church have not changed their mode of attack, but
only their weapons. They no longer charge her with atheism, as the early
pagans did, or of worshipping the head of an ass, or drinking the blood
of an infant, but absurdities and idle tales of the “dark ages” are
trumped up and laid at her door.
Just now, as if by a general conspiracy, an attempt is made to place the
church in a false position, as hostile to reason, science, education,
civilization, liberty, and the state. These are the popular charges of
the day, and these show at least that the “gall” of her enemies is
active and “coins slanders as a mint.” Counterfeits, however, may pass
current for a limited period, but in the long run they are detected and
bring upon their authors’ heads grief and shame. Only truth and justice
are enduring and immortal.
The true position of the Catholic Church is now, as it ever has been,
not against but for reason and God, science and revelation, for
education and Christianity, for civilization and progress, for liberty
and law, for the state and the church; as against atheism, naturalism,
infidelity, barbarism, license, and anarchy.
Let us have in this free country, where all religions to an uncommon
degree are placed on an equal footing, a fair and honest discussion,
avoiding unsupported assertions, refuted charges, and all bigotry.
Whichever religion is worsted in such an encounter by fair and honest
blows, why, let it die. If the free-religionists can clear the whole
field from Christianity, as they appear to think, and invent instead a
better religion, as some fancy, let them do so and come on with their
new religion. Give it a fair chance, and, if their new religion proves
to be a better one, let it have a joyful greeting.
Until then the Catholic Church is in possession of the field, and in the
congress of intelligent men holds its high place; for all
thoroughly-instructed minds see clearly the impossibility of
entertaining honorable ideas of God without being Christians, and of
being Christians and not becoming Catholics. The real issue, if the
free-religionists can be induced to look at it, is between Catholicity
and nihilism.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SMOKE-BOUND.
O cool east wind! so moist of breath,
With strength blow from the sea,
Loosen the smoky chains that curb
Our proud hills’ sovereignty;
Wake in the silent mountain glens,
Where streams grow dumb with drought,
The clamor of your lowland home—
The sea-waves’ battle-shout.
Sweep onward with your pennon clouds,
Marshal your spears of rain,
Sound in the pines your bugle-call—
Set free our hills again!
Hide them for days, if so you will,
In cloudy depths of storm;
Wrestle, as human soul should win
Its strong, immortal form.
We shall not grieve in such dark veil
To lose our valley’s crown,
That gaineth so from your pure breath
But mightier renown.
Our hearts shall greet the slanting rain,
Like blessèd water flung;
Your voice shall the _Asperges_ sing
The cross-boughed firs among.
Like sin unshriven these earth-fires
Hold heart and mountain fast,
Each day a stronger link is forged,
A drearier light is cast.
All day the smoky shadow flings
Its dream of heaven’s blue,
Its mockery of summer’s smile,
Its vision all untrue,—
Winning, at eve, the sun to spin
Dull shadow into gold—
Bright meshes of enchanter’s web
O’er hill and valley rolled;
Hiding our far-off sunset peaks
That longest keep day’s light—
The temple’s porch called Beautiful,
Steps to a holier height.
Broad steps whose strength our valley lacks
To lift our thoughts on high.
Blow, eastern wind! give our dim eyes
Our peaks that mount the sky.
O moist of breath! with cloudy lips,
Quench these dread earthly fires
That turn our mountain altars all
To beauty’s funeral pyres.
Upon this stifling chain drop dew,
Its glamour exorcise,
That, pure as pardoned soul, our hills
In Heaven-sent strength may rise.
Give us anew their morning grace,
Their midday depths of blue;
Open the sunset gates where light
Of Paradise shines through.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ST. JAMES OF COMPOSTELLA.
Although most have heard the name of Santiago in Galicia, yet it is now
a place that is scarcely known. In the days of our infancy there were
still such beings heard of as the pilgrims of Compostella, but the
silence of the present day is well-nigh oblivion: and of this famous
sanctuary, which still exists, there only remains an almost forgotten
and far-distant renown. France has unlearnt the very roads which led to
the apostle’s tomb; and the Spaniards themselves, who will speak to you
freely of _Nuestra Señora del Pilar_, scarcely guess that the Madonna of
Saragossa placed her origin under the patronage of St. James, whose
shrine all Christendom in former days bestirred itself to go and visit.
The apostle venerated at Compostella is St. James the Great, whose
vocation to the apostolate is related in the fourth chapter of St.
Matthew, immediately after that of Peter and Andrew, and where we are
told that at the call of Jesus the brothers forthwith “left the ship and
their father and followed him.” According to the most probable opinion,
Zebedee and his family dwelt at the little town of Saffa, now called by
the Arabs Deir, about three miles distant from Nazareth. Andrichomius,
in his _Theatrum Terræ Sanctæ_, mentions a church there, which some
years later no longer existed. Their prompt obedience indicates the
generous character which rendered the brothers particularly dear to
their divine Master, and caused them to be, with St. Peter, the chosen
witnesses of scenes and miracles at which the other disciples were not
present. The last mention made of St. James in the Gospel is in the
narrative of the miraculous draught of fishes after the Resurrection.
The next is in the Acts of the Apostles, which briefly recounts his
martyrdom: “Herod ... killed James, the brother of John, with the
sword.”
This took place in the year 42. Of the nine years which intervened
between the Ascension of our Lord and this event the Holy Scriptures say
nothing, and tradition is our only source of information. According to
this, St. James departed early from Jerusalem, and, directing his course
towards the western countries of Europe, arrived in Spain, where he
preached the Gospel and appointed some of the first bishops. Here also,
according to an ancient and constant tradition, he caused to be built at
Saragossa a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, known as “Our Lady
of the Pillar,” and, on the termination of his sojourn in the west,
returned to Jerusalem, where, a few days after his arrival, about the
time of the Jewish Passover, Herod caused him to be seized and
slain.[35]
It is certain that the apostles delayed not in obeying the divine
command to “go and teach the nations”; neither can one explain in any
other manner how the light emanating from Syria so rapidly illumined (as
even the infidel critic, Renan, confesses) the three great peninsulas of
Asia Minor, Greece, and Italy, and soon afterwards the whole coast of
the Mediterranean, so that in a short space of time the Christian world
was co-extensive with the Roman—_Orbis Romanus, orbis Christianus_. St.
Jerome and Theodoret both affirm that Spain was evangelized by some of
the apostles. The Gothic liturgy, which is considerably anterior to the
Mozarabic, and which dates from the fifth century, is the most ancient
interpreter of this tradition. “The illustrious Sons of Thunder,” it
says, “have both obtained that which their mother requested for them.
John rules Asia, and, on the left, his brother possesses Spain.” The
great doctor St. Isidore, who lived in the first half of the seventh
century, writes: “James the son of Zebedee ... preached the Gospel to
the peoples of Spain and the countries of the west.” The Bollandists
furnish a number of additional witnesses.[36] The breviary of St. Pius
V. and the enactments of Urban VIII. corroborate their testimony, the
Roman Breviary saying also that St. Braulio not only compared St.
Isidore to St. Gregory the Great, but declared that he had been given by
Heaven to Spain as her teacher in the place of St. James.[37]
Whatever opinion may be adopted with regard to the mission of St. James,
it does not affect the facts relating to the translation of his body to
the Iberian peninsula. The following account of this event is given in
the curious _History of Compostella_, written previous to the twelfth
century by two canons of that church, and confirmed by a letter of Leo
III. which is quoted in the Breviary of Evreux. The facts as there given
appear to be free from the legendary embellishments, more or less
probable, with which, in certain other manuscripts, they have been
adorned.
At the time when the apostle was put to death at Jerusalem the
persecution was so bitter, and the hatred against the Christians so
extreme, that the Jews would not suffer his body to be buried, but cast
it ignominiously outside the walls of the city, that it might be
devoured by dogs and birds of prey. The disciples of the saint watched
for the moment when they might carry away his remains, and, having
secured them, they could not venture to re-enter Jerusalem with their
precious burden, but turned their steps toward the sea, and, on arriving
at Joppa, found a ship on the point of sailing for Spain. They embarked,
and in due time reached the northwest coast of that country, and landed
at the port of Iria, whence they proceeded some distance inland, and
buried the body of the apostle at a place called _Liberum Donum_,
afterwards Compostella. His sepulchre was made in a marble grotto which
already existed, and which in all probability had been formerly
dedicated to Bacchus, as its name seemed to indicate. Thus the spot
received the highest Christian consecration, and the people of Galicia,
among whom were numerous converts, held in great veneration the tomb of
their apostle. The pagan persecution became, however, so violent in this
province that Christianity entirely disappeared from it, and was not
planted there again until after the first victory of the Goths.
The invasion of these barbarians, instead of being a misfortune, was of
the greatest benefit to the country, and resulted in prosperity which
continued through several centuries. The favor shown to Arianism by some
of the earlier kings for a time imperilled the truth, but it was not
long before Spain saw the faith of her first apostle flourishing in all
its purity; and her sons would doubtless have flocked to the tomb of him
who was declared in the Gothic liturgy to be the patron of Spain, if the
same thing had not happened with regard to the tomb of the second martyr
of our Lord as had before happened to that of the first. When the faith
had disappeared from Galicia the place of the apostle’s tomb was
forgotten; it is, moreover, possible that the last Christians had buried
the grotto which contained it, that it might be hidden from pagan
profanation. The spot was overgrown with underwood and brambles. Tall
forest trees rose around it, and there was no trace left of anything
which could indicate the sanctity of the spot. Thus, in the early and
bright days of the faith in Spain, the night of oblivion rested on the
remains of her great patron; but when evil times came upon the land
God’s hour was come for pointing out the tomb of his apostle. The Gothic
kings were about to disappear, and their sceptres to be wielded by the
followers of Mahomet.
Invited to fight against King Roderic, by a competitor to the throne of
the country to which he thus proved himself so great a traitor, the
Arabs thronged into Spain, which in less than ten years they entirely
conquered. Their domination was not always violent and persecuting; a
certain toleration was at times accorded to the Christians; but, thanks
to the proud courage of Pelayo and a handful of brave men who would not
despair of their country, and who could not be driven from the mountains
of the Asturias, war had set her foot on the soil of Spain, to quit it
no more until the utter expulsion of the Moors had been effected.
Galicia, with Leon and the Asturias, had the honor of being the centre
of the national resistance, and consequently suffered from frequent and
sanguinary devastation while the long struggle lasted.
It was in these troubled times that the apostle’s tomb was brought to
light.
Already several kings had established themselves in the northern and
western parts of Spain. Miron, King of the Suevi, had regulated the
limits of each diocese; Alfonso the Chaste was then king of Leon and
Galicia; and Theodomir, a holy and faithful prelate, was Bishop of Iria.
Certain trustworthy persons one day came to inform Theodomir that every
night lights of great brilliancy were seen shining above a wood on the
summit of a hill at a little distance from the town, and that all the
neighborhood was illuminated by them. The bishop, fearing lest there
might be some deception or illusion, resolved to see for himself, and
repaired to the place indicated. The prodigy was evident to all, the
lights throwing a marvellous splendor; and as this continued night after
night, the bishop caused the trees to be cut down on that spot and the
brushwood cleared away, after which an excavation was commenced on the
top of the hill. The workers had not dug far before they came to a
marble grotto, within which was found the apostle’s tomb.
Theodomir lost no time in repairing to the court of Alfonso to announce
the discovery, which caused great joy to the pious monarch, who saw in
it a sign of God’s protection and a presage of the triumph of the
Christian arms. He hastened to the spot and assured himself by personal
observation of the reality of the facts related to him by the bishop.
Mariana, the Spanish historian, says: “After having examined all that
has been written by learned authors for and against the matter, I am
convinced that there are not in all Europe any relics more certain and
authentic than those of St. James at Compostella.”
The first care of King Alfonso was to raise a sanctuary on the spot
where the tomb had just been miraculously discovered. Built in haste,
and at a time when, owing to the unsettled state of the kingdom, the
royal resources were very limited, the edifice was of a very humble
character as regarded both size and materials: “Petra et luto opus
parvum” is the description given of it in the Act of Erection of the
second church, built later by Alfonso III. The king was nevertheless
able to endow it with a certain revenue, and to secure a permanent
provision to its ministers. The archives of Compostella long preserved a
privilege granted by Alfonso the Chaste, in virtue of which all the
lands with their villages, for three miles round, were made over to the
church.
Spain was speedily made aware of the discovery; the neighboring nations,
and in particular the Gauls, heard of it also, and the faithful from
both countries flocked in great numbers to the tomb, drawn by the fame
of the miracles which immediately began to be wrought there, and of
which Valafrid Strabo, who died in the year 849, makes mention: _Plurima
hic præsul patravit signa stupenda_.
The relations of Gaul with Christian Spain were at that time very
frequent. The infidels were the common enemy. Charles Martel had driven
them from Gaul, but the struggle that still went on south of the Gallic
frontiers had an intense interest for all Christendom. Charlemagne was
allied in friendship with Alfonso the Chaste, though it is doubtful
whether he ever made the pilgrimage of Compostella, as some have said.
It is, however, certain that he joined his entreaties to those of the
king of Leon to obtain from Pope Leo III. the transfer of the bishopric
of Iria to Compostella. This was the name already borne by the town
which had rapidly risen round the apostle’s tomb, and which was given in
remembrance of the starlike lights which had revealed its
locality—_Campus Stellæ_.
The pope granted the request of the two monarchs. Compostella replaced
the bishopric of Iria and remained suffragan to the archbishop of Braga
until the town of St. James should be raised to the metropolitan
dignity. King Alfonso, who had no children, offered to bequeath his
throne to Charlemagne, on condition that that monarch would drive the
Moors out of Spain. Charlemagne accepted the terms and crossed the
Pyrenees; but the Spanish princes, disapproving of Alfonso’s proposal,
leagued together against the emperor, and some of them, later on, allied
themselves with the Moorish king of Saragossa, and destroyed at
Roncesvaux the rearguard of Charlemagne’s army, in which perished
Roland, the hero _par excellence_ of the lays and chronicles of the
time.
Some time afterwards, when Ramira had succeeded Alfonso the Chaste, and
Abderahman II. was King of Cordova, the latter, inflated by his
successes, sent to demand of the Spanish king an annual tribute of a
hundred young maidens. Ramira indignantly drove away the ambassadors,
assembled his troops, and declared war. He was defeated in the battle of
Alaveda, and forced to withdraw with the remnant of his army to a
neighboring elevation, where the Moor could not fail to attack him. The
Christian monarchy in Spain seemed on the very brink of ruin. That night
the king had a dream, in which the apostle St. James appeared to him,
grand and majestic, bidding him be of good courage, for that on the
morrow he should be victorious. The king related his vision to the
prelates and leaders of his army, and made it known to the soldiers
also. Immediately every heart kindled with fresh enthusiasm; the little
band threw itself upon the infidel host, while on all sides arose the
shout, Sant’ Iago! Sant’ Iago! which has ever since been the war-cry of
Spain.
The Moors were thrown into confusion and completely routed, leaving
60,000 of their number on the field of battle. It was averred that
during the whole engagement the apostle St. James, mounted on a white
charger, and bearing in his hand a white banner with a red cross, was
seen at the head of the Christian battalions, scattering terror and
death among the ranks of the enemy. Thus was fought, in 846, the famous
battle of Clavijo, all the glory of which is due to the patron of Spain.
After a solemn act of thanksgiving to God the army made a public vow,
obligatory on all the kingdom, to pay yearly to the church at
Compostella one measure of corn and one of wine from every acre of land.
Immense riches were found in the Moorish camp, and these were
consecrated to the erection of two magnificent churches—one at Oviedo,
in honor of the Blessed Virgin, and another under the invocation of St.
Michael.
From this time the devotion to the apostle who had shown himself the
protector and deliverer of the country spread far and wide. Pilgrims
thronged from every quarter to his tomb, which became the great
pilgrimage of the west, the pendant to Jerusalem, with Rome between the
two.
The humble church erected by Alfonso the Chaste was by no means suitable
to the dignity of the deliverer of Spain, nor sufficient for the
ever-increasing number of pilgrims. In the year 868 Alfonso III.,
together with Sisenand, then Bishop of Compostella, undertook to replace
it by a cathedral. “We, Alfonso,” it is written in the Act of Erection,
“have resolved, together with the bishop aforesaid, to build the house
of the Lord and to restore the temple and tomb of the apostle which
aforetime had been raised to his august memory by the Lord Alfonso, and
which was only a small construction of stone and clay. Urged by the
inspiration of God, we are come with our subjects, our family, into this
holy place. Traversing Spain through the battalions of the Moors, we
have brought from the city of Ebeca blocks of marble which we have
selected, and which our forefathers had carried thither by sea, and with
which they built superb habitations, which the enemy has destroyed.”
All the materials for the new building were thus gathered together, the
slabs and columns of marble being of great beauty, but we have little
information as to its architectural style or merit. The arts were at
that time in a state of temporary decay. The edifices of the Roman
period had for the most part perished in the invasions of the Goths, the
Suevi, and the Alani. These nations, after having embraced the faith,
were speedily civilized, and under its inspiration had raised numerous
religious buildings which were not without a certain grandeur, when the
Moorish conquest of Spain brought again an almost universal ruin over
the land. The influence of the climate, the beauty of the Andalusian
skies, softened the fierce character of the victors, and their minds
speedily received a wonderful intellectual development. Never did any
people make so much progress in so short a time, in art, in science, in
culture of ideas, and also in a certain elevation of sentiment.
Architecture of great magnificence and originality made rapid advances
among them, of which the richness always bore the stamp of a peculiar
tastefulness and delicacy.
The vanquished were unable to make the same progress, nor were they to
attain to great results until after having received the contact of the
works of their conquerors. These results were arrived at later on,
thanks to a certain courtesy which, outside the war as it were, and in
times of truce, established between the two peoples mutual relations and
currents of influence which left their impress on all the creations of
genius.
When King Alfonso commenced the cathedral of Compostella, the conquest
was still too recent and the animosity too great between the Spaniards
and their subduers to allow of any amicable intercourse or interchange
of ideas on matters connected with the arts of peace. The architecture
of the close of the ninth century was heavy and the forms massive; not
without grandeur, though for the most part devoid of grace. Such,
doubtless, in its general features, was the ancient cathedral of
Compostella, which was completed about the year 874. Mariana, following
the statement of Sandoval, says that there was held there in 876 a
council of fourteen bishops, who consecrated the new edifice. The high
altar was dedicated to our Lord under the title of St. Saviour, that on
the right to St. Peter, and that on the left to St. Paul, while the
ancient altar over the apostle’s tomb, which reached back to a remote
antiquity, received no consecration, it being regarded as certain that
this had received it from the first disciples of St. James.
The erection of the cathedral gave a new impetus to the pilgrimage, to
facilitate which roads were made in the south of France and the north of
Spain. Monasteries and houses of refuge were built along the wild and
lonely defiles of the Pyrenees, and bridges thrown across the streams
and rivers. The roads were thronged by the multitudes, who came, some
from simple devotion, others to do penance and seek pardon of their
sins, and many also to obtain some particular favor—the cure of a
sickness or the success of an undertaking. Great was the renown of
Monsignor St. James, the power of whose intercession and the splendor of
whose miracles were held in high esteem at Rome. Pope John X., at the
commencement of the tenth century, sent to his tomb a priest named
Zanelus to obtain correct information respecting the number of pilgrims
and the authenticity of the numerous miracles; he was also charged to
examine the liturgical books of the Goths, respecting which it had been
stated that they were full of errors. The bishop, Sisenand, received him
with all honor, supplied him with every means of faithfully acquitting
himself of his mission, and convinced him of the purity of the ancient
liturgy of Spain. All the books which Zanelus took from thence received
the Supreme Pontiff’s approval, the only alteration he required being
that in the words of consecration the Spanish rite should conform itself
exactly to that of Rome.
Compostella, daily enriched by travellers too numerous for her to
entertain, became a town of ever-increasing importance. The church
especially, to which very costly offerings were continually being made,
which had immense revenues and possessed superb domains, was in richness
and magnificence one of the first in the world. Her prelates, however,
did not always make good use of their riches. The church was then
passing through deplorable times, and corruption, which was invading all
besides, made inroads also in the sanctuary. The bishops of Compostella
were usually chosen from among the noble and illustrious families of the
kingdom, brought up amid luxury, pleasure, and the tumult of arms, and,
carrying their worldly predilections with them to the episcopal throne,
they might be seen constantly in the chase or at the war, sometimes
driven from their see, and, attempting to return by force, dying a
violent death. One of these, Sisenand, unlike his worthy predecessor of
the same name, was in 979 killed at the head of a squadron while
charging the Normans, who had invaded Galicia. He would have been a good
captain; why was he made a bishop? Compostella owed to him the solid
walls and strong towers with which he fortified the town. His successor,
Pelayo, being equally unfitted for his office, was deposed, and replaced
by a pious priest named Pedro Mansorio, upon whom the misdoings of his
predecessors were visited. He had the grief of seeing the city taken by
the Moors, who profaned and devastated the cathedral. His immediate
successors failed to profit by this chastisement, and, after three
unworthy prelates had occupied the see, the enemy advanced from the
direction of Portugal (which they had invaded and ravaged) in greater
numbers than before; again they besieged and took the city, which they
set on fire and razed the walls. Alman-Zour fed his horse from the
porphyry urn in the cathedral which was used for the baptismal font, and
which still exists; gave up the sanctuary to pillage and destruction,
throwing down many of the pillars, as well as a portion of the walls;
and, taking down the bells, caused them to be dragged by Christian
captives to the great mosque at Toledo, where they were turned upside
down and made to serve as lamps. He was proceeding to make havoc also of
the apostle’s tomb, when a bright light, suddenly emanating from and
enveloping it, so terrified the infidels that they stopped short in
their sacrilege, fearing lest they should be stricken by the “apostle of
_Isa_” (Jesus). An aged monk sat by the tomb, alone, and doubtless
hoping for martyrdom in that spot at the hand of the spoilers.
Alman-Zour asked why he stayed there, and, on his answering that he was
“the friend of Santiago,” commanded that no one should lay hands upon
him, and the Mussulmans respected the fakir. It is the Moorish annals
nearly contemporary with the events we are noticing which mention this
incident, and which appreciate in a very curious manner the pilgrimage
of St. James, describing as follows _Shant Jakoh_, the sacred city of
_Kalikija_ (Galicia): “Their Kabah is a colossal idol in the centre of
the church; they swear by it, and come on pilgrimage to it from the most
distant lands, from Rome as well as from other countries, pretending
that the tomb which may there be seen is that of Jakoh, one of the best
beloved of the twelve apostles of Isa. May happiness and the benediction
of Allah be upon him and upon our Prophet!”
The army of Alman-Zour did not reap any benefit from its sacrilegious
plunder: a contagious malady made such terrible ravages in its ranks
that there were scarcely any soldiers left; he therefore hastened his
departure from Galicia, but was himself also stricken by death upon the
way.
It was not possible immediately to raise the cathedral from its ruins,
but the confluence of pilgrims never ceased, and the offerings of
Christendom were such as to render the hope almost a certainty that it
would at no distant period be worthily rebuilt.
Towards the year 1038 Ferdinand, having been made king of Castile and
Leon, fought the Moors in several engagements, defeated them in
Portugal, and, having dispossessed them of numerous strongholds and
fortified places, desired to testify his gratitude to the God of armies
by repairing to Compostella. There he prayed long at the apostle’s tomb,
and took the resolution never to lay down his arms until he had broken
the power of the enemy.
After taking the powerful city of Coimbra, the capture of which he
attributed to the protection of St. James, the king returned to
Compostella laden with booty, which, in gratitude for his victory, he
presented to the church.
Compostella had now bishops worthy of their sacred dignity. In 1056
Cresconius, who then ruled the diocese, presided, at a council held
there, in his quality of bishop of the Apostolic See. Rome thus
exercised her influence, and this influence was so salutary that Pelago,
a near successor of Cresconius, desired to give it a larger place in his
church. He laid aside the Mozarabic Rite and adopted the Roman in the
celebration of Mass and the recitation of the Canonical Hours, accepting
at the same time all the Roman rules on important matters of sacerdotal
discipline. And Compostella had not long to wait before receiving the
recompense of her submission and good-will. In 1075, the same year in
which Ferdinand took Toledo, the see of Santiago (for this had become
the name of the town), which had hitherto been suffragan to Merida, was
raised to the metropolitan dignity.
We have now reached the period in which, thanks to the liberality of the
faithful, the cathedral of Compostella was not only raised from its
ruins, but entirely rebuilt on a larger scale and with much greater
splendor. Gemirez, the first archbishop of Santiago, was one of its
greatest prelates.
The work of reconstruction, which had been commenced about the year
1082, he not only actively continued, but also proposed to the chapter
to build cloisters and offices, as well as commodious lodgings for those
who came on pilgrimage from distant lands, engaging for his part to pay
a hundred marks of pure silver towards the expense.
The sole aim of this prelate was the glory of God and the honor of St.
James, never his own worldly advantage; the people knew this, and that
the use made of their offerings was always in conformity with their
intentions. The times, however, were troubled, and the archbishop had
his share of their disquiet.
Queen Urraca, the sister of Alfonso VI. of Castile and Leon, and widow
of Raymond of Burgundy, claimed as her right, until her son should be
old enough to reign, the government of Castile and the countries
dependent on it, while her second husband, Alfonso of Aragon, repudiated
these pretensions. Gemirez, whose influence was so great that he might
be regarded as the real sovereign of the country, took the part of
Urraca, and her cause prospered for a time, owing to the weight of his
support; but she ruined her own case by her haughtiness and ambition; a
rebellion broke out, and the prelate narrowly escaped falling a victim
to the fury of the populace, who set fire to the cathedral. Happily, the
solidity of its structure was such as to resist the flames, the interior
wood-work and fittings, etc., only being destroyed, so that not many
years afterwards, in 1117, we find the archbishop, in an address to his
canons, able to speak of it as one of the richest and most beautiful as
well as one of the most illustrious churches in the world.
In 1130 Gemirez ended his career, but not until he had lived to see the
work far advanced towards its completion. We hear no more of its
progress for forty years afterwards. The crosses of the consecration,
which are still to be seen, are floriated at their extremities, and
between the arms are the sun and moon above, and the letters [Greek: A
Ô] below, some of them bearing also a date which appears to be that of
1154.
The pilgrims, who came in continuous multitudes, had innumerable perils
to encounter on their way. The roads were bad; the countries through
which they passed often so barren and thinly peopled that they were in
danger of dying of hunger; the highways so infested with brigands that
in those days they were avoided as those in the East had been in the
time of Deborah, every one seeking rather the by-ways, which were also
beset with obstacles of all kinds. St. Dominic of Calzada had done well
to make roads and build bridges, but something was still wanting to his
work, and that was the safety of those who travelled by them, and who
were constantly liable to be attacked and despoiled by the infidels, to
be taken captive, and condemned to slavery or death.
This state of things could not be allowed to continue. The Moors had
their _rabitos_, or armed fakirs—a sort of warrior-monk—to protect their
pilgrims and defend their frontiers; the religious and military orders
of the Templars and Knights of St. John were covering themselves with
glory in the East, and Spain could not fail to profit by these examples.
The canons of St. Eloi had recently founded a chain of hospices,
reaching from the frontiers of France to Compostella, specially destined
for the reception of pilgrims, the most considerable being that of St.
Mark, on the borders of Leon. These places of refuge, which were
productive of the greatest good, were richly endowed by various princes;
but even this was not enough: some brave noblemen of Castile resolved to
devote their whole life to the defence and protection of the pilgrims.
They placed their possessions in one common stock, and, joining the
canons of St. Eloi, dwelt with them in a convent not far from
Compostella. Being advised by Cardinal Jacinthus to go to Rome and
obtain from the Pope the confirmation of their institute according to
the rule of St. Augustine, they charged Don Pedro Fernandez de la Puente
with this embassy, and obtained a bull, dated July 5, 1175, which
regulated their manner of life, their duties, and their privileges, and
created, under the title of Knights of St. James, a military order, of
which Don Pedro was the first grand master. They wore a white tunic,
with a red cross in the form of a sword on the breast. Their principal
house was at first the hospice of St. Mark; but the castles and domains
which were made over to them from time to time were so numerous that
their riches became almost incalculable, and their influence and
importance increased in proportion. They established themselves at
Uclès, the better to carry on the warfare against the infidel, whose
terror they had become. We soon find them a power in the state, the
grand master taking rank with kings, and at times appearing to rule
them. Even the simple knights had great privileges. It was not until the
reign of Ferdinand that, owing to the skilful management of Isabella,
the power and influence of the order began to decrease.
Our notice would be incomplete without a few words on the subject of the
miracles which took place at the tomb or by the intercession of the
apostle. The countless favors which have rendered many a chosen
sanctuary justly illustrious will never be known; indeed, their absence
would make the continual faith of the people—always asking and never
receiving; always believing, and yet to be ever disappointed and
deceived—not only inexplicable but impossible, whereas it was absolute
and complete; but exaggeration, which, even in the world of ordinary
facts, so frequently goes hand in hand with truth, plays still more
freely with facts which are beyond and above the events of daily life,
and, not being satisfied with the simple beauty of miraculous
deliverances, it must fain make marvels still more marvellous—quit the
domain of faith for that of myths and chimera. A MS. of the monastery of
La Marcha is full of the recital of prodigies which a faith the most
robust would nowadays find it difficult to accept; and Cæsar of
Heisterbach tells us that a young man of Maestricht having been
condemned and hung on a false accusation, commending himself to St.
James, was preserved alive a whole month hanging from the gibbet, where
his father found him safe and sound at the end of that time. Whereupon
the people of Toulouse, jealous of the glory which the renown of this
announcement gave to St. James of Compostella, attributed to _their_ St.
James a miracle exactly similar.
In numerous instances the accounts of the dead restored to life have
nothing impossible or exaggerated about them, and often in their pathos
and simplicity remind one of those mentioned in the Gospel narrative;
for instance, a poor woman, by the intercession of St. James, obtained a
son, who became not only her greatest comfort, but in time her only
support. He fell ill and died. With a breaking heart the mother hastens
to the apostle’s tomb, and in her agony of desolation mingles reproaches
with her prayers and tears, asking the saint why he had won for her the
blessing she had desired, only to let her lose it when her need was
greatest, and herself a thousand times more sorrowful than before; and
then, full of faith, entreated him to obtain from God the life of her
son. Her prayer was granted, and, returning home, she found the youth
restored. But of a very different character is the extraordinary legend
related by Guibert, Abbot of Nogent, and which we quote as a curiosity.
A certain pilgrim was on his way to Compostella to perform penance and
obtain the pardon of a crime he had committed. On the road the enemy of
mankind appeared to him under the form of St. James, and, telling him
that his sin was far too great to be remitted by a simple pilgrimage,
insisted that there was only one means of obtaining mercy, and that was
by the sacrifice of his life; he must kill himself, and then all would
be forgiven him. The pilgrim, who believed that he was listening to St.
James in person and was bound to obey him, stabbed himself and died, a
victim to the fraud of the demon. He appears before the tribunal of God,
and there Satan claims him as his prey by a double title: first, because
of the old crime, which had not been remitted; and, secondly, because of
the new one of which he had been guilty in committing suicide. In vain
the poor man pleads that he had acted in good faith and in the
simplicity of his heart; he was in great danger of being condemned. But
St. James hears what is going on and hastens to the scene. He does not
intend that the evil one should take his form and name to deceive his
pilgrims and then have all the profits, and pleads that the only way to
do perfect justice in the affair is to put everything exactly as it was
before Satan had so odiously meddled in the matter, and to send back the
soul of the unfortunate man into his body again. This representation,
being just, was acceded to, and the resuscitated pilgrim continued on
his way to Compostella, where he confessed with great contrition and was
absolved of all the sins of his past life.
We must, however, leave the realm of legend and return to historical
facts. The anchoretic life was at an early period introduced into Europe
from the East, and Spain appears to have been a land where hermits
especially abounded. We often find them mentioned as coming on
pilgrimage to Compostella, as St. Simeon and St. Theobald in the twelfth
century, St. William somewhat later, and St. John the Hermit, who built
near the cathedral a place of shelter for pilgrims, where he himself
received them, rendering them all the offices of Christian hospitality.
Another William also came hither on pilgrimage, who was an illustrious
personage, though not a hermit; this was the Count of Poitou and Duke of
Aquitaine, whose past life had been anything but exemplary. In Normandy
and elsewhere he had been guilty of grievous misdemeanors, for which he
desired to do penance before his death; and, more than this, he did his
utmost, by good and upright administration, to repair the evil he had
done before. For this reason Hildebert, Bishop of Mans, was not well
pleased at his setting out for Spain, and wrote to him as follows: “We
are told, most noble count, that you have undertaken a pilgrimage in
honor of Blessed James. We do not desire to deny the excellence of this,
but whosoever is at the head of an administration is bound to obedience,
nor can he free himself therefrom without deserting his post, unless, at
least, he be called to one of greater usefulness. Wherefore, very dear
son, it is an inexcusable fault in you to have preferred that which is
not necessary before that which is—repose rather than labor, and,
instead of duty, your own will.” But the great prelate would probably
have been less severe could he have foreseen the holy death of Count
William, who, on Good Friday, after having received the Blessed
Sacrament, peacefully rendered up his soul to God before the altar of
St. James.
About the same time a young maiden of Pisa, afterwards St. Bona, came to
Compostella, and there received singular favors and graces. Sophia,
Countess of Holland,[38] journeying thither also, fell into the hands of
robbers, and through one whole night found that she had nothing to
expect but spoliation and death. In the morning their resolution was
changed; they threw themselves at her feet and entreated her pardon,
allowing her to proceed unharmed on her way. After visiting the tomb of
St. James the princess went to Jerusalem, there to spend the remainder
of her life.
At the beginning of the thirteenth century pilgrims from all lands had
become so numerous that it was frequently impossible, especially on the
feast of the patron saint, for all to find even standing-room in the
cathedral. The tumult was indescribable, and did not always end outside
the doors. On some occasions there were not only blows but bloodshed, so
that Pope Innocent III. wrote to the archbishop, saying that his church
had need of reconciliation, and the ceremony was performed with water,
wine, and blessed ashes.[39]
Alman-Zour, as we have previously mentioned, had caused the bells of
Compostella to be carried to Cordova on the backs of Christian captives.
In 1229 Ferdinand, who had united under his sway the kingdoms of Castile
and Leon, made the conquest of Cordova, and, finding the bells in the
great mosque, he inflicted retaliation on the infidels by compelling
them to carry them, on their shoulders, back to the place whence they
had been taken two hundred and sixty years before.
After Louis VII. of France had been on pilgrimage to Compostella, we
hear of several other sovereigns from time to time who did the same,
among whom was St. Elizabeth, Queen of Portugal. The Frieslanders, who
had a great devotion to St. James, and attributed to his aid a victory
they had gained over the Saracens, visited his tomb in immense numbers;
the English did the same, and from the time of Edward I.’s marriage with
Eleanor of Castile, having stipulated for the safe-conduct of their
pilgrims, they arrived in such multitudes that the kings of France
became uneasy at so great a concourse, and made an agreement with the
king of England that his subjects should obtain permission of them
before proceeding to Compostella. In 1434 this leave was granted to
about two thousand five hundred persons.
These were the palmy days of pilgrims, who were not only well received
at Santiago, whither they brought activity, riches, and life, but they
were everywhere sheltered and protected. No cottager was too poor to
offer them a resting-place or to share his loaf of hospitality with
them. A pilgrim was not only a brother come from perhaps some far
distant land to do honor to Monseigneur St. James, but he was also, in
those days when postage was unknown, the walking gazette, who brought
the news of other countries, and enlivened with his narratives and
conversation the hearth of the poor as of the rich.
From the time of the Reformation pilgrimages began to decrease. England
and Germany were the first to discontinue them. France showed herself
less fervent as soon as the spirit of rationalistic philosophy had
infected the upper classes of her people, after which the Revolution
carried down the lower ranks into the gulf of irreligion. The wars of
the empire, the spoliations of which Napoleon’s generals were guilty,
and consequently the deadly hatred which they evoked against their
nation in the heart of every Spaniard, struck the last blow at these
pious journeyings. Only the inhabitants of the country continued to
visit the shrine of their apostle, and even they by degrees lost the
habit. Pilgrims are nowadays but few, excepting only on the feast of the
patron, and they have ceased to be popular at Santiago. If they chance
to be poor, the townspeople turn a deaf ear when they ask an alms “for
the love of St. James”; or, should they be rich, seek only to turn them
to account and to lighten their purses.
Although greatly fallen from its ancient splendor, Santiago, formerly
the capital of Galicia, and now the simple chief town of a judicial
circuit, still has importance in the ecclesiastical order. Her
archbishop is, by right, the first chaplain of the crown, and her
cathedral still subsists in its integrity. She has two collegiate and
fifteen parochial churches, though her numerous convents, pillaged in
1807, and subsequently despoiled and suppressed, are at the present time
inhabited dwelling-houses, destined to inevitable ruin, and throwing an
additional shadow into the general air of melancholy which now hangs
over this old city.
There are but few public buildings of antiquity or interest. The
streets, with their dark and narrow archways, all start, like the
threads of a spider’s web, from the one centre occupied by the
cathedral. Everything wears an aspect that is sombre, damp, and cold,
augmented by the hue that the granite, of which most of the edifices are
built, takes under a climate of such humidity that it has given rise to
the disrespectful saying that this city is the sink of Spain. And yet
the site is picturesque. Seen from the neighboring heights, Santiago,
itself also built upon an elevation, with its ancient buildings, walls,
and towers, presents a very striking appearance, and to any one who
mounts the towers of the cathedral the grand girdle of mountains
encircling the horizon affords a spectacle that well repays the trouble
of the ascent.
We are in the great square, and facing the western front, containing the
principal entrance of the building, which occupies the middle of a long
architectural line, having at its left the episcopal palace, melancholy
enough and not in any way remarkable, and at its right the cloister,
with its turrets and pyramidal roofs, and its long row of arched
windows. This is not the cloister of Gemirez, of which nothing remains,
but was built in the sixteenth century by Archbishop Fonseca, who
furnished it with a fine library, and also added the chapter-house and
other dependencies of the cathedral. The cloister is one of the largest
in Spain, half Gothic in style, and half Renaissance.
This western entrance, between the cloister and the palace, is called
_El Mayor_ or _El Real_—the great or royal entrance; not that it merits
the title from any particular artistic beauty, but rather from a certain
effective arrangement. The four flights of steps, two large and two
small, ascend very picturesquely from the square to the doors of the
cathedral, allowing a procession to spread into four lines, while above
rise the lofty towers, curiously adorned with columns, vases,
balustrades, and little cupolas. You see at once that you are not
beholding a work which dates from the construction of the building,
although the towers are ancient up to the height of the church walls,
but the upper portion is much more recent, and the same is evident of
the façade, which occupies the space between the towers.
Proceeding onwards to the left, we follow a vaulted passage of the
twelfth century, bearing the stamp of ancient simplicity, until we reach
the Plaza San Martino, the north side of which is formed by the vast
convent of St. Martin, where, on the centre of the front, are placed,
mounted on their chargers, the two warrior saints of France and Spain.
Here is the market-place, whither those should come who wish to study
favorably the picturesque costumes of the peasants of Galicia, and, it
might be added, to hear cries more shrill and louder vociferations than
it would be supposed possible for ordinary human lungs to send forth.
Before appearing at market the sellers of fruit and vegetables make an
elaborate toilette, which must be not only neat but effective, those who
are unable to comply with its requirements remaining at home. Side by
side with the splendid fruits of Galicia, and fish from river and sea,
rosaries, medals, and the scallop-shells of St. James are offered for
sale.
The building forms a beautiful cross, of which the arms are nearly equal
to the upright, the transepts having a great development. The
arrangement follows that of most of the churches in Spain, the choir
being in the nave and ending where the transept begins. The aspect of
the latter is particularly grand, being less interrupted than the view
along the nave, as the eye easily penetrates the light trellis-work
which makes a passage across it from the choir to the _Capilla Mayor_.
The rounded arches of the three roofs are evidently of the close of the
eleventh or the commencement of the twelfth century. The pillars of the
aisles, with their capitals sculptured in foliage, are light and
graceful, contrasting pleasingly with the heavy mass of the edifice. The
triforium, which runs round the nave, is composed of semi-circular
arches, each containing two smaller ones which spring from a slender
column in the centre. The east end remains as it was, with the chapels
radiating from it, but the pillars and arches of the choir have
undergone great alterations. The _Silleria_, or enclosure of the choir,
is ornamented by a series of religious subjects carved by Gregorio
Español in 1606. Many of the windows of the cathedral are very fine.
Beneath the Capilla Mayor is situated the great object of the
pilgrimage—the subterranean chapel containing the tomb of St. James and
those of two of his first disciples. The famous statue of the apostle is
in the Capilla itself, above the great altar, which remains as it was in
the time of Alman-Zour. This is a monumental altar of richly-wrought
marble, ornamented with incrustations of silver, the working of which
occupied no less than twenty years. It is surrounded by an enclosure of
open metal-work, gilt, adorned with vine-branches and surmounted by an
immense _hojarasco_, or canopy, which has little to recommend it in an
artistic point of view, being carved and gilt in the height of the style
_churrigueresque_. This serves as a dais to the statue, and is supported
by four angels, about whose ponderous forms no remnant of celestial
lightness lingers. Even the statue itself, before which kings and
princes have knelt, is not free from the faults of style inevitable to
the period. The apostle is seated, and holds in his right-hand the
pilgrim’s staff, with a gilded gourd and wallet (_cum baculo perâque_),
and in his left a scroll inscribed with the words, _Hic est corpus Divi
Jacobi Apostoli et Hispaniarum Patroni_. He wears on his shoulders the
_pelerine_, or pilgrim’s mantle, embroidered with gold and precious
stones. This cape has the form of those worn by cardinals, and has
replaced the ancient one of gold, which was carried off by Marshal Ney.
It is a high honor to be allowed to say Mass at the altar of the great
patron. Bishops and canons only have the right. On grand occasions it is
splendidly adorned; the four statues of kings which stand behind that of
St. James then support another small image of the apostle of exceeding
richness, having a nimbus of emeralds and rubies, and which is placed in
a shrine of wrought gold and silver of wonderful delicacy. This
beautiful _custodia_, which is nearly six feet high, was finished in
1544 by Antonio d’Arphe, and is in the style designated by the Spaniards
_Plateresque_.
Pilgrims are admitted to pay their homage to St. James by mounting some
steps behind the altar to kiss the cape or mantle of the apostle, as at
Rome one kisses the foot of St. Peter. There is another resemblance also
to St. Peter’s at Rome in the long range of confessionals, dedicated to
different saints, and served by priests speaking different languages;
for it is not until after confession and communion that the pilgrim can
be allowed any right to the title, or receive his brevet or
_Compostella_, which is a declaration written in Latin, and signed by
the canon-administrator of the cathedral, that he has fulfilled all his
duties. These documents are frequently found among family papers, and in
certain cases constitute a title without which such or such possessions
could not be claimed.
The treasures of St. James of Compostella were formerly renowned
throughout the world; but there seems to have been some exaggeration
respecting their immensity, as, from all the objects of which the French
plundered the cathedral in 1809, they obtained no more than 300,000
francs. There still remain various rare and curious things—reliquaries,
statues, sacred vessels, etc.—some of which are of great value and
antiquity; amongst others a crucifix containing a fragment of the true
cross, and which is of exquisite workmanship, being also one of the most
ancient specimens of chasing known. The cross is wrought in gold
filagree, enriched with jewels, and resembles that of Oviedo, which is
said to be the work of angels. It bears the inscription: “Hoc opus
perfectum est erâ LXOO. et duodecimâ. Hoc signo vincitur inimicus. Hoc
signo tuetur pius. Hoc offerunt famuli Dei Adefonsus princeps et
conjux.”
Among the chapels must be noticed the _Capilla del Pilar_, dedicated to
Our Lady in memory of her apparition to St. James. This, which is behind
the high altar, and rich in precious marbles and jasper, was founded by
Arthur Monroy, a rich Mexican prelate, whose kneeling statue on his tomb
has a fine and attractive expression. Many of the other chapels are also
remarkable; that of the kings of France, of the Conception, of the
Relics, etc.
Let us add to these riches of the old cathedral a large concourse of
worshippers at all the services, a people profoundly religious, a
magnificent ceremonial, the officiating archbishop surrounded by his
clergy, grand and solemn music swelled by the multitudinous voices of
the faithful; let us imagine a vast procession beneath these vaulted
roofs, and the trembling light of the tapers illuminating the sombre
walls as the seemingly interminable train of choristers, clergy, and
people pass along, and we shall have evoked a scene which, though its
like may be witnessed in other lands, still bears in Spain a peculiar
stamp of gravity and fervor, and possesses the earnest features and the
vigorous relief of which the Spanish artists knew the secret, and which
they have reproduced on their canvas in warm shadows and golden lights.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A SWEET REVENGE.
I.
Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte is a dull little town, situated in Cotentin,
that long eastern strip of the coast of Normandy which extends directly
in front of the lovely isles of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark.
Cherbourg lies to the north of it, but we only mention that fact _en
passant_; for the incident related in these pages occurred long before
the Second Empire, long before Cherbourg attracted visitors to admire
its naval displays, long before railways had shortened distances and
brought the Cotentinians within daily hearing of their “ne plus ultra”
of cities—inimitable Paris. The little towns then slumbered peaceably
amidst their corn-fields and apple-orchards; and none slept sounder than
Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, whose very existence was scarcely known beyond
the limits of its native district. It was remarkable, indeed, for
nothing; its church was old and fine, as most French provincial churches
are; the open space around it formed the market-place, deserted and
silent except on market-days; and the Grande Rue contained the one
hostelry of the town—the Hôtel Royale—and various stores.
But there were also a few cross-streets, interspersed with flowery,
bowery gardens, and it is in a house situated in one of these that our
scene is laid. It was a plain, unpretending dwelling, but large and
exquisitely neat. It had the widest local reputation of being the
snuggest in winter, the coolest in summer, and the most hospitable at
all seasons of any in Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte—nay, in the whole stretch
of Cotentin! The garden behind it, too, was famous; the owners, M. and
Mme. Dupuis, cultivated it themselves with rare enthusiasm and taste.
Alphonse Karr’s world-celebrated flowers would have been considered pale
and scentless beside Mme. Dupuis’—at least, by the Cotentinians. And the
fruits—the peaches and green-gages, the pears and grapes—it was not
believed possible that the like could be found even in Paris. Let us add
that, when in their first flush of ripeness and bloom, the greater
portion of these carefully-tended flowers and fruits were culled by Mme.
Dupuis’ own hands, and sent forth to carry light and beauty, perfume and
freshness, into every sick-room of the little town.
The Dupuis were a thoroughly worthy couple; they had married young, for
love, and had been blessed with an only child, a daughter, good and
pretty as her mother, and, like her mother, wedded early and happily.
When the episode in their lives which is the subject of this little
story took place, they had passed together thirty years of tranquil,
uneventful felicity. M. Dupuis had shortly before sold his business—he
was a notary—and was now enjoying a well-earned rest. He was a man of
sixty, well-educated, intelligent, and still strong, active, and
enthusiastic. His plump little wife had just completed her fifty-fifth
year—she did not appear to be forty-five. She was of a deeper, more
thoughtful nature than her husband, but nevertheless her sympathy with
him was unbounded—she loved all he loved, the same people and the same
things. She was the type of a true wife and of a true Christian.
Too modest and timid to have any personal pretensions, Mme. Dupuis’
great pride lay in her well-ordered home, her exquisitely clean house,
her nicely-arranged kitchen, and, though last, certainly not least, in
her cook and housemaid, whom she considered absolutely unparalleled in
their several vocations. And it must be allowed that Jeannette and
Marianne had, during twenty years, fully justified their mistress’ good
opinion of them. During all this time the two women had constantly
studied her every wish, and the result was the perfection of domestic
economy.
The family party was completed by a large white Angora cat, promoted
since the marriage of Mlle. Dupuis to the enviable position of “pet of
the household,” and universally considered in Cotentin to be the most
remarkable animal of its species.
II.
One winter’s evening, when the snow lay deep in the streets and the
north wind whistled fiercely around the eaves, M. Dupuis’ dining-room
looked particularly cheerful. The heavy tapestry curtains were drawn
close before the windows, and a flaming wood fire showered sparkles of
reflected light on the crystal and silver placed on the round
dining-table, and lighted up the portraits of some sober-looking
personages in powdered wigs which adorned the walls. The handsome
tortoise-shell and copper clock, a masterpiece of the style Louis
Quinze, standing on a hanging shelf above the sofa, was, perhaps, the
best article of furniture in the room; the chimney-piece was too
encumbered with porcelain shepherds and shepherdesses, and china jars
filled with artificial flowers and covered with great glass globes,
for the taste of the present day. Fashion had slumbered in
Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte for many a long year. But there was light and
warmth, and a pervading feeling of comfort, worth all the gilded,
satin-covered chairs and lounges that Parisian taste can devise, all
the Venetian mirrors and Sevres vases that luxury can afford. Mme.
Dupuis’ dining-room was certainly rococo and provincial, incongruous
in some respects, deficient in harmony, but what sincere, cordial
hospitality those four walls had witnessed! what pleasant repasts!
what real good, wholesome eating! what merry toasts had been drunk
there in claret, in sherry, and champagne—wines as bright as Mme.
Dupuis’ eyes, and as pure and unadulterated as her heart!
A second clock, a very ugly one it must be confessed, a representative
of the bad taste of the First Empire, which stood in the centre of the
already too encumbered mantel-shelf, marked five minutes past six, and
Mme. Dupuis was seated at the head of her dining-table. She was neatly
dressed in black silk; her dark brown hair, streaked here and there with
silver threads, was arranged in simple bandeaux on each side of her
temples, and a small lace cap trimmed with a few knots of pink ribbon
concealed the paucity of the “back hair”; for Mme. Dupuis was behind her
time. She had not “marched with her age,” and had not yet learned to
wear a “switch.”
M. Dupuis, somewhat old-fashioned in his attire, but scrupulously neat,
sat opposite to her. At an equal distance from each was placed a
gentleman as old apparently as the ex-notary, but infinitely more
pretentious in his style both of dress and manner. His coat and trowsers
were of Parisian cut; his beard in the latest mode; his voice
dictatorial—a man of the world evidently, and evidently also accustomed
to think more of himself than of any one else. The little party was
busily engaged in the agreeable duty of eating sundry “plats” which
diffused a most appetizing odor. Marianne, madame’s right hand and
faithful aid during many long years, waited at table, while the
beautiful Angora sought its fortune around and under.
“Well, it happened just as I tell you,” said Mme. Dupuis, as she handed
her guest a delicious-looking chop—“it happened just as I tell you, M.
Rouvière. I believed that he had gone crazy—completely crazy; get down,
puss! He came rushing up-stairs, four steps at a time, crying at the top
of his voice, ‘It’s Tom! it’s Tom Rouvière, that fellow Tom!’ Excuse me,
M. Rouvière, but that’s his word, you know. As for me, I followed,
stumbling as I went along, killing myself trying to make him hear that
it was much more likely to be M. du Luc in his new carriage; for I knew
through Mme. le Rendu that M. du Luc was to dine to-day at Semonville,
and, as he never passes through Saint-Sauveur without stopping to wish
us good-day, I had every reason to believe....”
“O my dear Reine!” interrupted M. Dupuis, “what necessity is there for
telling all that to Rouvière? He knows nothing about M. du Luc and Mme.
le Rendu; how can all that interest him? Besides, you know that M. du
Luc never has post-horses to his carriage, so it could not be he.”
“But I believed it was,” replied madame.
“Allons! never mind now, dear,” returned her husband, “but do keep your
cat off; she is teasing Rouvière.”
“Puss! puss!” cried Mme. Dupuis, “come here and behave yourself, do.
Now, George,” she continued, “you must acknowledge that it was much more
natural that I should expect to see M. du Luc, our country neighbor,
than M. Rouvière, whom I did not know, and from whom you had never heard
for more than thirty years—really, now. What do _you_ say, M. Rouvière?
You shall be judge.”
M. Rouvière, who during this dialogue had been silently eating and
drinking with evident appetite, looked up from his plate with an
expression of impatience anything but flattering to the lady.
“Of course you are right, madame,” replied he sharply; “of course you
are right. But, God bless me, madame, I really believe that your chops
are fried with crumbs!”
Poor Mme. Dupuis started at this abrupt interpellation; her
good-tempered smile vanished; one might have fancied there was a tear in
her eye as she answered gently: “I am so sorry! It was I who made
Jeannette crumb them. I thought they would be more delicate.”
“What heresy!” exclaimed Rouvière. “My dear lady, nobody now fries chops
in crumbs, just as nobody now wears leg-of-mutton sleeves! Gracious
heavens! Providence has granted you one of the very best articles of
food that the culinary art is acquainted with—real, genuine, _pré-salé_
mutton, pure Miels mutton—and you fry it in crumbs—you actually _dare_
to fry it in crumbs! _Parbleu!_ I have sailed round the world, but I had
to come to Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte to see Miels mutton fried in
crumbs.”
“How sorry I am!” cried poor Mme. Dupuis humbly. “Let me help you to
some sole, M. Rouvière. We have a market for fish only once a week, but,
as M. Dupuis is very fond of fish, I have made an arrangement with a
fisherman from Porthail, so that we have a little extra ‘plat’ every
Wednesday, and as, most fortunately, to-day happens to be Wednesday....”
“Oh! come, Reine,” interrupted M. Dupuis, who had been listening with a
very vexed expression of countenance to what was passing between his
wife and his friend, “don’t go on with all these details; what interest
can they have for Rouvière? Well, Tom, tell me, now, where were you
eight days ago at this very hour?”
“Eight days’ ago, George,” said Rouvière, and he stopped eating to
reflect—“eight days ago I was in Dublin.”
“In Dublin!” exclaimed Dupuis admiringly. “What a fellow!”
“From Dublin,” continued M. Rouvière, “I went to London, and from London
to Jersey, and from Jersey—here!”
“And was it when you got to Jersey that the happy thought occurred to
you to come and stir up your old friend?” asked Dupuis; and his bright,
soft eyes rested affectionately on Rouvière’s face.
“Yesterday morning, my dear boy,” replied Rouvière. “There was a map of
Normandy hanging up in the hall of the hotel where I was staying, and I
was looking at it almost mechanically, when suddenly I came across the
name of Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte. ‘Saint Sauveur-le-Vicomte!’ I repeated
two or three times to myself. ‘Isn’t that the name of the little town
where George Dupuis used to live—my friend George? I’ve a mind to go and
dine with him, if he be still alive.’”
M. Rouvière seemed to be looking for something on the table as he
finished these words. Mme. Dupuis, watching every feature, anxiously
inquired what he wanted.
“Some lemon, madame, for this sole,” replied he. “Marianne—I think I
heard you call her Marianne,” he added, turning towards his
hostess—“Marianne, haven’t you a lemon?”
“Here is one,” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis, rising hastily and running to the
sideboard. “Now tell me, M. Rouvière,” she said with her pleasant smile,
as she laid the lemon by his plate, “have you really been going up and
down the highways and by-ways of the world during thirty long years,
just like the Wandering Jew?”
“I have indeed, madame,” replied her guest, squeezing the lemon-juice
out over his sole.
“You must have eaten some strange things in your travels,” continued the
lady.
“I rather think so,” replied Rouvière, with his mouth full of fish;
“things _you_ never heard of! Marianne, my good girl, I smell coffee
roasting in your kitchen. Now, nearly every one, especially here in the
provinces, roasts it too much—all the aroma is driven off; run quick,
that’s a good lass, and tell the cook—Jeannette, isn’t it?—that the
coffee must only be toasted—just scorched. Do you understand, eh?”
“Yes, yes, I understand well enough,” muttered Marianne as she went out;
“that fellow seems to like nothing!”
“My dear lady,” went on Rouvière, turning to Mme. Dupuis, “the very
accident I feared for your coffee has happened to your chicken—it is
cooked too much, or rather it has been cooked too fast. It is a great
pity, for it was an excellent fowl!”
“Oh! dear, oh! dear,” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis, who was beginning to feel a
kind of despair thus far unknown to her. All her dinners hitherto had
been subjects of compliment; _this_ was quite a new experience. “Oh!
dear, oh! dear, how many misfortunes at one time. Pray excuse me, M.
Rouvière; you came so unexpectedly, you know. We had no time to do
things well. But do, pray, stay a few days with us, and you shall see. I
promise you that everything shall be better.”
“Impossible, madame,” replied the guest, as he accepted a fine snipe
done to a turn; “you are very kind, but at nine o’clock this evening I
must be on the road again. Yes, madame, you may well say that I have
eaten strange things,” he continued, raising his voice. “I’ve eaten
kouskoussou under the Arab’s tent; curry—that incendiary curry—on the
shores of the Ganges; I’ve dined off the frightful tripang in Java; and
in China on swallows’ nests stewed in castor-oil!”
“Good gracious!” ejaculated Mme. Dupuis.
“What a wonderful fellow!” exclaimed M. Dupuis enthusiastically.
M. Dupuis was unwontedly silent; he was evidently exceedingly annoyed,
and it was pitiful to see the deprecating glances his little wife
directed towards him from time to time. He, however, kept his eyes fixed
steadily on his plate.
“In Panama,” went on Rouvière, “I’ve eaten roasted monkey. But what need
to enumerate? There’s nothing edible in creation that I have not
swallowed. So that I believe I may say,” here he bowed thanks for a
second snipe, “there does not exist a man under the firmament of heaven
easier to satisfy than myself. The Rocky Mountain Indians—those Indians
are most extraordinarily sagacious—the Rocky Mountain Indians, I say,
gave me a surname while I was among them—‘Choc-ugh-tou-saw,’ which
signifies good-humored stomach, because I was always satisfied with my
dinner!”
“What a wonderful fellow!” reiterated Dupuis. “Come, Tom, try this
Burgundy; your throat must be dry. What a wonderful fellow, to be sure!”
“Do let me prevail on you to take another snipe,” said Mme. Dupuis,
holding up to the guest’s acceptance a third fine, fat bird; “I’m so
glad to find that you like them!”
“No, madame, no, a thousand thanks. Yes, I don’t deny that I am fond of
snipes, but, I’m sorry—I can’t deceive you—these are not just what they
ought to be. In the first place, they have not been killed long enough;
and, secondly, you have forgotten to pepper them—a process absolutely
necessary with game. But, excuse me, for the last half-hour I’ve been
looking at that covered dish, wondering what there is in it. I really
don’t believe that I have ever felt more curiosity in the whole course
of my life; excuse me, I must look into it.”
He raised the cover as he spoke, peering in with eyes and nose.
“In the name of all the saints, what is it?” he exclaimed, as he
contemplated the contents and sniffed up the steam.
“My dear friend,” answered Dupuis, a little nervously, “it is something
I had concocted on purpose for you—it is macaroni.”
“Macaroni! _That_ macaroni!” shouted Rouvière, as if never more
surprised in his life.
“Yes, M. Rouvière,” explained Mme. Dupuis, no longer smiling, poor
little woman! “This dish was inspired by George’s friendship. He
remembered that you were very fond of Italy, so I sent in haste to the
grocer’s; he fortunately had still a small quantity of macaroni on hand,
and then, with the help of my cookery-book—for Jeannette couldn’t manage
it—I made you a _plat à l’italienne_.”
“_A l’italienne!_” repeated George’s old friend with a sneering laugh.
“My dear, good lady, that’s not macaroni _à l’italienne_! Oh! no, no.
However, who knows?—it may be good to eat all the same. Let us try!” So
saying, M. Rouvière helped himself to a spoonful, while his hosts looked
on anxiously.
“Well, how do you like it?” asked George, when the taster, after many
grimaces, had got down a mouthful.
“Like it!” replied Rouvière, “why, not at all; you might as well try to
masticate organ-pipes! It really is something remarkable; it’s fossil
macaroni, petrified macaroni! The grocer who sold it to you deserves the
jail; _I_ shouldn’t wonder if he belonged to some secret society!”
“Marianne, quick! change M. Rouvière’s plate,” said Dupuis sharply—for
the old servant was gazing at her master’s friend with a very
unmistakable expression of disgust on her honest face. “My dear Tom,” he
continued, “what a bad dinner you have made!”
“You are jesting,” replied Rouvière carelessly; “at all events, your
wine is capital.”
“I don’t know what to say,” sighed poor Mme. Dupuis. “I feel ready to
die with vexation. But, dear M. Rouvière,” with a pretty supplicatory
gesture, “do, I beg and pray of you, do taste my rice-pudding.”
“Very willingly, my dear lady,” answered the terrible guest—“very
willingly; only let me first finish eating these green peas, which have
been very well preserved, and would be really perfect had the cook
spared her butter a little!”
At this moment the church bells began to ring the _Angelus_, and Mme.
Dupuis rose precipitately from the table.
“You will pardon my leaving you to finish dinner with George,” said she
to Rouvière; “I shall be back long before you go.”
“Surely you are not going out such an evening as this!” exclaimed
Rouvière. “Why, there’s a foot deep of snow in the streets!”
“My wife goes to church every evening, winter and summer, at the
_Angelus_, no matter what the weather,” remarked George. “She has done
so for nearly fifty years, and nothing will break her of the habit now.”
“Ah! very well,” returned Rouvière. “I hope you like your pastor, Mme.
Dupuis?”
“Oh! yes, indeed I do,” replied the good little woman enthusiastically;
“he is a most worthy man. Do stay twenty-four hours longer with us, M.
Rouvière, and I will ask him to dine with us; you will be glad to know
him, I am quite sure.”
“So am I,” returned her husband’s old chum, with the little sneering
laugh which seemed to be natural to him; “but I must wait for another
opportunity.”
“Now, George,” said Mme. Dupuis, as she tied her wadded hood and slipped
on the cloak and india-rubber shoes which had been placed ready for her
on a chair, “do beg your friend to taste the rice-pudding; and, M.
Rouvière, do try my preserves. I make them myself, and I really believe
that they are excellent. Good-by for the present!”
“Good-by, madame.”
“Hem! hem!” ejaculated Rouvière as the door closed behind the lady, “so!
so! Now let us look at this rice. Your wife’s given to piety, eh,
George?”
“Yes, she is a religious woman,” replied George slowly; then added, with
some slight eagerness in his manner, “but she never imposes her opinions
upon any one. She never teases me, I can assure you, although I do
happen to be somewhat lukewarm about church matters. But tell me,
Tom”—here M. Dupuis hesitated and appeared embarrassed—“don’t you find
her very provincial, very rustic?”
“Oh! no, not at all,” answered Rouvière in a tone which seemed to imply
the contrary of his words.
“Yes, you do—I know you do!” cried George passionately. “But what _can_
you expect? It’s not her fault! She has lived in this hole all her life.
And your unexpected visit has excited her—upset her. She really talked
as if she did not know what she was saying—such nonsense, such silly
gossip!”
“Oh! no, not at all,” repeated Rouvière, as he steadily devoured the
rice-pudding.
“_Parbleu!_ yes; don’t deny it!” cried Dupuis peevishly. “It made you
nervous—I saw it did. It irritated me, I know: it really seemed as if
she was trying to show you her defects. It vexed me more, too, because
she really has many good qualities—admirable qualities, poor little
woman!”
“My dear George,” returned Rouvière, pushing away his plate and coolly
wiping his mouth with his napkin, “I don’t doubt it in the least; her
rice-pudding is certainly delicious.”
Dupuis at this moment caught sight of the pretty Angora with one soft
white paw laid in silent petition on his friend’s knee. His irritation,
with difficulty kept under so far, instantly boiled over on the head of
the innocent cat. “Get down!” he roared, “get down, you brute! I’ll
drown that beast one of these days! Take that animal away,” he
continued, turning angrily towards Marianne, who had just brought in the
coffee; “if she comes into this room again, I’ll throw her out of the
window!”
“Come to me, pussy,” said Marianne in an extra-gentle tone of voice,
taking the cat in her arms and kissing it; “these Parisian gentlemen
don’t like you, it seems. A regular Turk he is, too, turning the house
topsy-turvy,” she muttered as she went out of the room, scowling over
her shoulder at the visitor.
Rouvière had risen from the table during this episode, and, tongs in
hand, was busy with the bright wood fire. He smiled maliciously when the
cat was carried away, and, as if in very lightness of heart, broke forth
in song:
“‘_O bell’ alma innamorata! O bell’ alma innamorata!_’ Tell me, George,”
he interrupted himself to say, “have you a good theatre here in
Saint-Sauveur?”
“A theatre? That’s an idea! Well, yes, we have a theatre once a year, on
the fair-day at mid-Lent!”
“That’s too bad!” laughed Rouvière. “How on earth do you contrive to get
through your evenings?”
“Well, in winter,” answered George, “we chat by the side of the fire, or
my wife and I play at piquet; sometimes two or three neighbors come in,
and then we have a game of whist!”
“Phew!” whistled the man of the world. “With the _curé_, I’ll swear,”
said he presently with his customary mocking smile, as he planted
himself comfortably with his back to the blaze and his coattails
gathered up under his arms.
“Yes,” went on George simply, apparently unconscious of his friend’s
sneer; “sometimes with the _curé_. And then in summer I water my garden,
and Reine and I take a walk on the highroad up to the top of the hill,
or in the wood by the river’s side; and then—well, everybody goes to bed
early here.”
“Very moral, indeed!” sneered Rouvière again, picking his teeth.
By this time Marianne had cleared away the dinner things, and, after
placing a provision of glasses and a bottle of brandy, another of rum,
and a case of liqueurs on the table, had finally departed to dine in her
turn with Jeannette, and to confide her observations on the obnoxious
Parisian to her companion’s sympathizing ear.
III.
“So at last we are alone!” exclaimed Dupuis with a sigh of satisfaction,
as the maid closed the door behind her. “Now, Tom, sit down and let us
drink. Come and tell me what you think of this brandy. Here’s to your
health, old friend!” filling himself a glass of old Cognac and tossing
it off excitedly. “Do you know how many years it is since we last met,
Tom? Five-and-thirty, Tom—five-and-thirty years!”
“Yes, _parbleu_!” said Rouvière, helping himself to the brandy. “I
suppose it must be some thirty-five years since we parted in the
diligence yard, Rue Montmartre. I remember that we swore eternal
friendship and constant correspondence. The correspondence did not last
long—less than two years, it seems to me—but our friendship, George, it
smouldered under its ashes, but it kept alive, my boy!”
The two friends clasped each other’s hands for a moment silently.
“Your brandy is first-rate,” remarked Rouvière presently, as he finished
his _petit-verre_.
“You like it? Bravo! Well, there are still some pleasant hours in
life—aren’t there now, Tom?”
“I believe you,” answered the guest meditatively.
“Who should know it better than you, fortunate fellow as you are! But I
say, Tom, how does it happen that you have not changed in the least? Not
in the least, by Jove! You’ve remained young and handsome.... ‘I was
young and handsome!’—do you remember how magnificently Talma used to say
that? Your beard and moustaches might belong to an African lion! You
make me think of Henri Quatre! But drink, Tom; you don’t drink!”
“My dear old George,” said Rouvière in a quiet, confidential tone of
voice, and resting his two arms on the table, while he fixed his eyes on
his friend’s flushed face—“my dear old George, what _was_ your reason
for burying yourself alive in Cotentin? Tell me.”
“Why do you ask me that, Tom?” cried Dupuis, who suddenly became
serious. “You find me rusty, then?”
“No, no; but _what_ was your reason? Tell me in confidence, you know.”
“Yes, I am rusty; I feel it!” said poor Dupuis mournfully. “I tell you
what, Tom, the provinces of France deserve all that is said against
them. They are like those springs of mineral waters which turn to stone
every living creature you throw into them! What reason had I, do you
ask? Gracious heavens! What is life, Tom, but a series of chances; some
fatality gets you into a groove, and you are pushed on and on until you
reach your grave. Try this rum, Tom.”
“Do you indulge in such prolonged libations every evening?” asked
Rouvière.
“No, never. These are in honor of you.”
“So I suspected. This is the rum, isn’t it? Come, go on, George; I want
to hear the rest of your _Odyssey_.”
“Well, Tom,” resumed his friend, taking a sip at his glass of rum and
breathing at the same time a sigh which was almost a groan, “you
remember that my prospects were pretty bright in Paris. I fully intended
to buy that solicitor’s office where I was working—it had been offered
to me on good conditions; but some family affairs called me home here,
and here I stayed. I don’t know how it happened, but it is certain that
I found a charm in this provincial life—in its futile comfort, its
indolent habits, its tame monotony.”
Here poor Dupuis stopped, that he might give vent to an angry gust of
self-reproach by punching the fire with the tongs; after a sip of rum he
continued: “All these got possession of me, wound themselves around me
like a net, and I remained their captive.”
His head bowed itself forward, and he sat gazing regretfully on the ugly
clock in the middle of the chimney-piece.
“All right, George!” laughed Rouvière; “you don’t say it, but I suspect
that Madame Dupuis had a good deal to do with this final catastrophe!”
“It is true, Tom,” replied the other, his countenance lighting up for a
moment; “and you may believe it or not, as you like, but I swear that
she was a charming girl! Moreover, my dear old mother was living then,
and it was a great pleasure to her to have me settle here where we were
all born. The long and the short of it was that I married, bought my
father-in-law’s office, and all was over—the die was cast! Take some of
the Kirschwasser, Tom,” he added hurriedly, as if his remembrances were
too painful to be dwelt on.
“Presently,” said Rouvière, a smile flickering over his worldly-wise
face; “but tell me, first, you’ve not stayed walled up in Saint-Sauveur,
I hope, all these thirty-five years? You take a run to Paris every once
in a while, don’t you?”
“Don’t mention it,” groaned Dupuis. “I’ve not seen Paris since I said
good-by to you in the Rue Montmartre!”
“Phew!” whistled Rouvière, helping himself to the Kirschwasser. The
friends remained silent for a time, gazing at the fire.
“But you used to like to travel,” exclaimed Rouvière, at last.
“And so I do still, my dear Tom; my taste has not changed in that
respect, I can assure you. But what could I do? When I married, my idea
was to work steadily for fifteen years, and then sell my business and
live on what I had saved. I intended then to take a trip to Paris with
my wife, after that to the Pyrenees—I always wished so much to see the
Pyrenees! But it was not to be; as the old women say, Man proposes and
God disposes. We had been married just five years when our daughter was
born....”
“What’s that you say—you have a daughter?” interrupted his friend.
“A daughter and a granddaughter, Tom,” replied George, with an
inflection in his voice that sounded very like pride, and a soft look in
his eyes; “so you understand that I had to stick to my business for ten
years more, that I might get her a dowry; and then, when at last I did
sell out—well, I was old ... and I couldn’t think of anything pleasanter
than just to stay quietly in my arm-chair! Didn’t I tell you that my
life has been nothing but a chapter of accidents from beginning to end?
Come, shall we have some punch, Tom? I’ll make it.”
“If you will. So you have a daughter! And she is married! Well married,
I hope?”
“Well, yes; her husband is a sub-prefect.”
George’s voice again took a tone of gratified pride, which elicited a
smile from his observant friend.
“A sub-prefect! Bravo, bravissimo! But you’re putting too much lemon
into that punch.”
“Do you think so? And now, Tom, that I’ve made a clean breast of it—told
you all—you must explain something to me that I never could comprehend:
how _have_ you contrived to make your modest fortune suffice for nearly
half a century’s constant travel?”
“It is easy enough to explain,” said Rouvière, sitting up straight in
his chair and becoming very animated and somewhat loud as he proceeded.
“I began life with ten thousand francs a year in land; my first
operation was to change my patrimony into bank-notes, by which means I
doubled my income; then I invested it in the sinking funds, which
trebled it. And then, freed from every narrow calculation, from every
family tie, from every social trammel, I took my flight into space!
Here’s to your health, my old friend George! Hip! hip! hurrah!”
“What a wonderful fellow!” cried George in a paroxysm of admiration,
excited, very probably, much more by the brandy and the rum and the
punch than by Rouvière’s comprehension of life and happiness. “What
energy! what grandeur!”
“I consecrated my youth,” continued Tom in a declamatory style, “to
distant adventures, reserving Europe for the autumn of life. My
foot—this foot, this very foot, George, which now touches yours on this
carpet—has left its print among those of the tiger and the elephant on
the sands of India! Nay, it has even followed those terrible prowlers
into their forests of bamboo, lofty and solemn as our cathedrals!”
“Ah! that was something like living!” ejaculated Dupuis, who listened
with almost breathless interest.
“Two years later I arrived in Canton. What an arrival, ye gods! Never
shall I forget the scene. It was a lovely summer night. The accession of
the emperor of the Celestials to his ancestral throne was being
celebrated. Our canoe could scarcely force its way among the junks and
flower-boats, all of them decorated with innumerable paper lanterns.
Fireworks of a thousand different hues were reflected, mingled with the
stars, in the flowing river, and we could watch their rainbow tints
playing on the porcelain temples that rise on its banks!”
“What a fairy-like sight! Happy, happy Tom!” murmured Dupuis.
“From China,” pursued Rouvière, after quaffing off his glass of punch,
“I sailed for the Americas. I travelled about there for several years,
going to and fro, from north to south, from the savannas to the pampas,
from the great austere Canadian woods to the smiling Brazilian forests;
sometimes on foot, sometimes on horseback, oftenest in a _pirogue_. My
longest stay was in Peru. I could not tear myself away from that
coquettish city of Lima!”
“Ha! ha! _traître_, gay deceiver! O Tom, Tom!” laughed Dupuis, shaking
his head in ecstasy.
“I turned gamester, too. It is impossible for you, George, to conceive
the immense attraction a gaming-table possesses in that land of gold and
silver and jewels. One might almost fancy that one of those fabulous
trees we read of in Oriental tales had been shaken over the green cloth!
There is little or no regular coined money to be seen on it, but dull
yellow ingots, bright golden spangles, fiery diamonds, and milk-white,
lustrous pearls are heaped up there pell-mell! All the treasures of
earth and ocean seem to be brought together on that table, tumbled and
jostled in dazzling confusion! You can stay whole nights by that
board—nights that fly like minutes—your eyes fascinated, your brain on
fire! Twenty times in twenty-four hours you are raised to the throne of
Rothschild—as often precipitated down, down to Job’s dunghill. You
become bald, you may become mad, but you feel what life is—you live!”
“It is true, it is true!” cried Dupuis in a state of intense excitement;
“you are right, Tom, there is no doubt of that. And to think that I have
never played at anything but that blackguard whist at a sou the counter!
But go on, Tom, go on; you really electrify me!”
“Everything has its end,” continued Rouvière, highly flattered by the
effect he was producing; “there came a day of sadness and
discouragement, and I took passage on board an American whaler bound for
the south pole. Yes, my hand has touched the frozen limits of our globe;
I have contemplated, with feelings akin to awe, those creatures with
human-like faces, the morse, on their pedestals of ice, recumbent and
dreamy as the sphinx of Thebes. And in the midst of those silent spaces,
so strangely different from all I had hitherto seen, I experienced
sensations that seemed to belong to another world. A kind of
_posthumous_ illusion of being in another planet took possession of me.
Certainly I am much deceived if the days and nights I saw in those
regions of ice do not resemble those in our pale satellite. What more
shall I tell you, my dear friend? Three years after this I found myself
in Rio Janeiro, whence I returned to Europe, after having literally
described the whole circumference of our globe with the end of my
walkingstick! And thus passed away my youth!”
M. Rouvière here threw himself back in his arm-chair, and stroked his
beard with a sigh.
“Every king living might envy you, Tom!” cried Dupuis. “But tell me
more. What have you been doing since then?”
“Since then, George,” said Rouvière with nonchalance, “I have not
travelled; I have merely made excursions. First upon the
Mediterranean—but, pshaw! it was like sailing on the basin in the
Tuileries’ garden! I have visited all the countries on its shore. And by
degrees, as I grew older, my circle became smaller, so that now I live
entirely in Europe, going from city to city, according to the attraction
of the moment. Indeed, I may say, my dear fellow, that Europe is my
property, my domain!” Here the speaker began to wax warmer and louder.
“Every festival given by nature or man in Europe is given to amuse me.
For me Naples displays her bay and her volcano, and keeps open her grand
theatre, San Carlos; for my recreation Paris adorns her boulevards and
builds her opera-house; to amuse me Madrid has a Prado and bull-fights.
All the great exhibitions were made for me, beginning with that of
London. _Evviva la libertà!_ Let’s drink!” So saying, he filled for
himself a brimming bumper of punch, and tossed it off with a very
self-satisfied smile.
“Tom!” cried Dupuis delightedly, “you are a genius! But you have said
nothing about the great monuments—the Alhambra, the Coliseum, the
Parthenon.”
“Pshaw! those are your friends!” retorted Tom with his peculiar sneer.
“I’ve said nothing about them because they are dragged about everywhere.
Who hasn’t seen _them_?”
There was a minute of silence, broken by an emphatic “Ah!” breathed not
loudly but deeply by the excited listener. Starting from his seat, and
thrusting his hands into his pockets, he began hurriedly to pace up and
down the room. His friend glanced at him uneasily.
“What’s the matter? What annoys you?” he asked.
“O Tom, Tom!” cried George, still continuing his agitated walk, “I blush
when I compare your life with mine. While your heart has counted each
pulsation by some noble or beautiful emotion, mine has stupidly gone on
ticking off the hours and days and years as calmly as a kitchen clock!
Have I really lived, tell me?” He stopped in front of his friend,
gesticulating violently. “I was born, and I have slept, and I have
eaten; but what else? And what has been the result? My intelligence is
extinguished; I have dried up; I have descended in the scale of being,
until I have come to be on a level with the idiot of the Alps, with a
shellfish, with an oyster!”
“Come, come, George, you’re going too far!” said Rouvière soothingly.
“Even supposing that you no longer possess as much freshness of
imagination, as much vivacity of wit, as you used to have....”
“I thought so! I knew it!” interrupted Dupuis, resuming his hurried walk
backwards and forwards; “you acknowledge that you find me rusty!”
M. Rouvière rose slowly from his seat, and, after lighting a cigar,
remained standing with his back against the chimney-piece, his eyes
fixed on his friend, who paused in front of him at his first word.
“Listen to me, George,” said he seriously, caressing his moustache with
his fingers as he spoke; “I will be frank with you. You know that I
always used to be frank with you. The impression your house made on me
when I first entered it was, I must confess, a sinister one. I seemed to
breathe the air of a cemetery in it. I could have fancied that I was in
one of those long-buried dwellings which the patient labor of
enthusiastic antiquaries has restored to light and life. While the
servant went to call you I could not prevent myself from examining, with
a kind of wondering, stupid curiosity, the old-fashioned furniture, and
the pictures, and those dismal tapestries worthy of figuring in a
museum! I remembered the delicacy of your character, the elegance of
your manners, your intelligent taste, your love of art; and positively I
could not reconcile the bright memories I retained of you with the dull,
insipid existence of which I had the evidence before my eyes. You came
to me; I looked at you; you spoke. What was it? Was my sight affected,
or my judgment biassed by the thoughts which were literally _preying_ on
me at that moment? I can’t tell what it was—I can’t explain—but your
language astonished me! Your forehead actually seemed to me to have
grown narrower! I wiped away a secret tear, and I sighed as I should
have sighed had I been standing by your grave! I even half spoke the
words, ‘This, then, is all that remains of my friend!’ You’re not
offended, George?” added M. Rouvière, stopping short and looking
inquiringly into his victim’s anxious, attentive face.
“Not a bit, Tom; not a bit,” replied George. “I tell you I felt that I
had sunk; at least, I suspected it, and the suspicion was intolerable. I
prefer the certainty.” He turned away with an attempt at a smile, and
resumed his agitated walk up and down the room.
Rouvière applied himself to the fire, put on a new log of wood,
shovelled up the glowing embers and ashes and threw them with much care
and skill to the back, gazed on his work for a minute, and, finally
assuming again his favorite _pose_, with his back leaning against the
chimney-piece, started the conversation afresh in a lively, chatty tone.
“Let us change the subject,” said he. “You have sold your business; what
do you think of doing now?”
“What do you expect me to do?” cried Dupuis vehemently. “I shall finish
by dying!”
“_Morbleu!_ you had better resuscitate. Let us talk seriously, George.
When you married you created for yourself new duties, which you have
fulfilled to the utmost, honestly and generously. You have provided
amply for the future of your wife and daughter. What is there, then, to
prevent you now from plunging yourself for two or three years into the
vortex of life, and so awaken and reinvigorate your benumbed faculties?
The facilities of travel nowadays are wonderful. In the space of two
years you can run over the whole of Europe, and even explore a part of
Asia and Africa. All the freshness and vivacity of thought you once
possessed will return to you when you find yourself in contact with the
most glorious creations of art and nature. In the course of two
years—two years, mark you!—you can lay at rest for ever every one of
those regretful feelings which are now eating out your heart and
shortening your life! Choose now: suicide or travel? Remember that you
are free in your choice—you are free to do as you like!”
“Pish!” cried George, turning on his heel and pursuing his walk. “Is it
probable that at my time of life I shall set out alone to scour the
highways of Europe?”
“But who wants you to go alone?” said Rouvière, going up to him and
laying a hand on his shoulder. “Am not I ready to go with you? My
experience, my post-chaise, my servant—everything I have is at your
service, George!”
“Is it possible, Tom? Are you really in earnest?” exclaimed Dupuis,
gratified beyond expression at this proof of his friend’s affection.
“You really will accompany me?”
“I will lead you by the hand, my boy!” answered Rouvière gaily; and,
falling into step with George, the two friends paced the room together.
“I will spare you the torment of guides and ciceroni, and all that
species of vermin which besets the tourist. No, don’t thank me,” he
continued, when Dupuis began to express his gratitude. “The thought
delights me as much as it does you. Your new impressions will revive
mine of past days. And won’t it be delicious, George, to end our lives
as we began them—participating in the same adventures, in the same
pleasures, and even sharing our purses? Come, now, is it settled?”
“My dear friend,” replied Dupuis, with a slight hesitation in his voice,
“I will confess to you that no project was ever more agreeable to me,
but....”
“No buts! no buts!” cried Rouvière imperatively; “it _is_ settled! We
will go direct from this to Paris and wait there until the spring. The
museums and theatres will help us to while away the time. I will take
you behind the scenes; you shall hear Ristori and Patti! You used to
love music!”
“I love it still,” said George, smiling; “I play the flute!”
“So much the better!” cried Tom with increasing animation, as they
continued to pace the room side by side; “so much the better! You shall
bring your flute with you. What was I saying? Oh! yes; well, the winter
in Paris—that’s settled; but at the very beginning of spring we’ll cross
the Pyrenees and spend three glorious months in Spain. Then we’ll take
advantage of the summer to visit all the principal cities of Germany;
and after that we’ll get down into Italy by Trieste and Venice. What do
you say to this programme?”
“I say,” replied Dupuis, stopping in his walk and speaking in a strong,
decisive tone—“I say that it opens Paradise to me. Give me a cigar, Tom.
I say that you are right. I _have_ lived long enough for others. I
_have_ offered up a sufficiently large portion of my life as a
sacrifice. Bah! a man has duties towards himself.” He lighted his cigar
and puffed vigorously for a minute or two. “Providence has conferred
gifts on us,” he resumed, “for which we have to render an account.
Intellect, imagination, the feeling of the beautiful—these are gifts
which bind us. Savages only ought to be capable of such a crime as to
allow these sacred flames to die out for want of nourishment!”
“Well said!” exclaimed Rouvière exultingly; “that’s my old George again!
Now let us strike while the iron’s hot. Marianne!” He went towards the
door to open it as he spoke.
“Hush! hush!” cried Dupuis, stopping him and speaking under his breath;
“what do you want with her?”
“I want to tell her that you are going away to-night, and that she must
look after your portmanteau. Marianne!” he called again.
“Hush, I beg of you!” repeated poor George earnestly. “Surely we are not
going to start to-night?”
“At nine o’clock to-night,” answered Rouvière decisively; “you know very
well that I ordered horses for nine o’clock.”
“Yes, I know,” said Dupuis, hesitating and embarrassed; “but the night
is going to be deucedly cold—Siberian. I think we should do better to
wait until to-morrow morning.”
“Now, just let me tell you this, George,” cried the other impatiently:
“if you’re afraid of frosted fingers or toes, and of a night in a
post-chaise, you’d better pull your night-cap over your ears at once and
go to bed, and never talk again about travelling!”
“I’m afraid of nothing and of nobody,” replied poor Dupuis, driven to
his wits’ end; “but the truth is this haste rather puts me out. I had
reckoned upon two or three days to look about me and to make my
preparations.”
“Preparations! What preparations?” cried Tom in a tone of indignant
surprise. “You need a portmanteau and a few shirts and stockings, and
you have an hour before you to get them together, and that’s more than
time enough. Come, now, George, no childishness; if you defer your
departure for two or three days, you know just as well as I do that you
won’t go at all. I’ve no need to tell you what influences will be
brought to bear on you, what obstacles will rise up before you, to unman
you and break down your resolution. Believe me, my dear fellow, in such
cases as this, however you yourself may suffer and _make_ suffer, you
_must_ cut down to the quick or give up....”
“Once more you are right, Tom,” said Dupuis after a moment’s silent
thought. “I’m your man; there’s my hand on it.”
“Marianne!” shouted Rouvière, shaking his friend’s hand with a will.
“No, no, don’t call Marianne,” cried Dupuis hurriedly, and getting
between Rouvière and the door. “I know better than she does what I shall
need. I shall pack my portmanteau myself as soon as my wife comes in.
It’s just eight now,” looking at the clock; “she’ll not be long. Well,”
he continued with some agitation, “I shall have to pass a few
minutes—sad ones they will be, I know—but my conscience reproaches me
with nothing; ... and after all, if my cup be filled with generous wine,
what does it matter though the edge be a little bitter?... O Tom!” he
continued after a moment’s pause, during which he seemed to have roused
his courage, “what a perspective you have opened out before me—what a
horizon! Granada! Venice! Naples! It is a dream!” He glanced at the
clock and his voice fell. “Five minutes past eight! I would willingly
give twenty-five louis to be a quarter of an hour older—a quarter of an
hour! I know that I am very weak, but....”
“Shall I tell your wife for you?” interrupted Rouvière, who was watching
him anxiously.
“Well, frankly, Tom, you would do me a service,” cried Dupuis eagerly.
“Go and pack your trunk, then, and I’ll settle the business.”
“There’s no danger of a scene,” said George, stopping short near the
door; “you would be quite mistaken in your estimate of her character if
you feared that.”
“I shall see,” returned his friend laconically.
“Tell her that I entreat her to keep calm. Tears might unman me, but
could change nothing in my plans.”
“I’ll tell her. Go to your trunk.”
“I’m going, Tom.”
He opened the door, hesitated, then closed it again and came back to the
fireplace, near which Rouvière was still standing.
“My dear friend,” said he softly, laying his hand on Tom’s arm, “you
will be very gentle with her, will you not?”
A kind smile gleamed in the usually cold, sharp eyes of the traveller,
as he looked in his friend’s anxious, agitated face.
“Don’t be afraid,” he replied; “but you—don’t you desert me when I’ve
gone to the front.”
“Desert during the battle! You don’t know me, Tom!”
“Why, you see,” said Tom, “I should look wondrous silly if you did!”
“Tom Rouvière,” cried Dupuis solemnly, “permit me to assure you that my
mind is made up, and that this evening at nine o’clock, come what will,
I go with you. I pledge you my word of honor. Are you satisfied?”
“Go and pack your trunk!” laughed Rouvière, taking him by the shoulders
and pushing him out of the room.
Left to himself, M. Rouvière returned to the chimney-piece and stood
over the fire, rubbing his hands meditatively, and from time to time
breaking out into words.
“Now then, Mme. Dupuis, it’s between you and me,” said he, half-aloud,
with a kind of chuckle. “It’s very certain that my principal object is
to make poor George something like himself again, but I really sha’n’t
be sorry to try the effect of a thunder-bolt on that serene-looking
lady!” Here M. Rouvière rubbed his hands gleefully and laughed heartily;
picturing to himself, probably, the poor wife’s consternation and
despair when he should announce the fatal news.
“I’m not a Turk,” he muttered presently—“far from it, I’m sure; until
now I always believed, like every true Christian, that polygamy deserved
the gallows; but, hang it! only think of a decent man condemned to
perpetual communion with such a disagreeable creature as that old
village sauce-pan! Such a life is clearly impossible!” A minute’s silent
thought followed, and then M. Rouvière roused himself, and sat down
before the fire to warm the soles of his feet. But not for long.
“I understood that woman,” he suddenly exclaimed, starting up from his
seat and beginning to pace rapidly up and down the floor—“I understood
her and judged her before I saw her! I knew her to be exactly what she
is, from her cap to her shoes! She was always odious to me! Just see
with what stupid symmetry all this furniture is arranged: two chairs
here and two chairs there, everything square with its neighbor, all at
equal distances—how wearisome! That old barometer, too, and these absurd
curiosities”—he stopped, as he spoke, in front of the chimney: “a
stuffed bird, a shell-box, spun-glass, and horrid cocoanut cups carved
by galley-slaves! They absolutely give one the height and the breadth
and the weight of the woman, both physically and morally. Poor George!
an intelligent man, too. I was sorry for him,” he continued, taking a
seat in front of the fire, “but I couldn’t help it. How I pegged into
her all dinnertime! Ha, ha, ha! I was as disgusting as a Kalmuck! I
really _was_ ashamed of myself! but, the deuce take it! every one’s
nerves are not made of bronze. M. du Luc! Mme. le Rendu! and her fish
... and her cat ... and her _curé_ ... hang it! I _couldn’t_ stand it.”
Here M. Rouvière interrupted his monologue for a minute to examine the
toe of his boot; satisfied that it was intact, he resumed his train of
thought.
“No, I really don’t believe that it would be possible to meet with a
more perfect type of the humdrum existence, the narrow-minded ideas, and
flat conversation prevalent in these provincial mole-hills than this
dowdy female presents! That good fellow—how much he must have suffered
before he learnt to bow his intellect beneath her imbecile yoke! God
bless me! I know the whole story. He probably struggled hard at first,
and then, little by little, he was bowed and bent and broken, as so many
others have been, by the continued pressure of a feminine will! Thirty
years’ martyrdom. But, ha! ha! Mme. Dupuis, _your_ hour has come; he
shall be avenged.”
Here M. Rouvière drew himself up straight in his chair and laughed
merrily. “It reminds me,” continued he half-aloud, “of my battle with
that old Indian woman when I stole her idol while she was asleep. What a
good-for-nothing hussy she was! Extraordinary how much old women
resemble one another all the world over.”
[TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A GLANCE AT THE INDIAN QUESTION.[40]
Let us begin by considering the Indian himself. As soon as he is able to
stand alone he commences that practice with the bow and arrow which
makes him a good marksman before he is well in his teens. He is tied in
his saddle before he can walk, and a horse becomes as much a part of his
nature as if he were a Centaur. While yet a child he learns the
subterfuges of the chase: the quiet, patient, breathless watchfulness,
the stealthy, snake-like advance, which enable him in adult life to
crawl, unseen and unheard, upon his unsuspecting victim, to take him at
a disadvantage, surprise and kill him without the risk of a wound. From
his earliest years he hears the warriors of his tribe relate their acts
of treachery and blood, of rapine and violence, and boast of them as
brave and glorious deeds. He is taught to consider treachery courage,
robbery and murder honorable warfare, and the most renowned warrior the
one who despatches his foe with the least possibility of danger to
himself. For him revenge is a sacred duty. He hears shouts of savage
laughter and applause greet the warrior who devises the worst tortures
for the miserable captive. His initiation to the order of warriors is a
terrible ordeal of physical suffering, which must be borne without
flinching or murmuring to ensure the success of the candidate. The
grossest sensuality is practised openly under his childish eyes. He
learns to regard cunning and falsehood as virtues, and to look upon the
warrior most skilled in the arts of deceit as the greatest hero of his
tribe. Until he has committed some signal act of murder, treachery, or
robbery, he is without influence among the braves or attractions for the
squaws.
All is fair in the wars of Indians, either with the white man or foes of
their own color. The Sioux kills the Crow—man, woman, or papoose at the
breast—at sight. The Crow will brain the sleeping Sioux equally without
regard to age or sex. A small party of Minneconjon Sioux went to the
Tongue River Cantonment, last December, to surrender. They carried a
flag of truce. Unfortunately, they rode into the camp of some Crow
scouts which was situated within a few hundred yards of the cantonment.
The Crows received them in a friendly manner, shook hands with them, and
while with one hand they gave the pledge of amity, with the other they
poured the contents of their revolvers into the breasts of the bearers
of the white flag. The Crows could not understand the indignation of the
officers and soldiers at such an act of treachery and cowardice (we
regret to say that it was not without apologists and applauders among
white frontiersmen), but they feared it enough to run away to their
agency, where the leader in the bloody deed was the recipient of high
honors. There he was the hero of the time.
HOW THE INDIAN IS CIRCUMSTANCED.
Next let us consider the circumstances in which this creature, so
savagely nurtured and developed, is placed.
We find him in a district of country which he believes to be his by
immemorial right of possession. It is the land of his fathers. The white
man formally recognizes his claim by making solemn treaties for the
transfer of portions of the Indian’s heritage. The land being his, the
game is his. The Great Spirit created the buffalo for the sustentation
of his red children. The buffalo-hunter enters the Indian’s domain, and
slaughters the buffalo by tens of thousands for the robes, leaving the
flesh to rot upon the plain. Thousands are wantonly destroyed by wealthy
idlers who call themselves sportsmen. The buffalo supplies the Indian
not only with food, but with raiment and shelter. It furnishes him the
article of exchange which enables him to obtain the necessaries of his
savage life. The diminution of the buffalo means privation, suffering,
nakedness, starvation to the Indian and his family.
The white man by formal compact purchases from the Indian some certain
district, and solemnly binds himself to respect the Indian’s remaining
rights within certain prescribed limits, to keep trespassers from
entering the now diminished territory, and to ensure it to him and his
tribe for ever. But this does not stop the insatiate adventurer, who
again crosses the newly-defined limit.[41] The government seems
powerless to compel its citizens to respect its treaty obligations or to
punish their infraction. The exasperated Indian kills some of the
trespassers. Would it be astonishing that he should do so, even if he
had been reared under the influences of Christianity instead of those of
barbarism? Troops are now sent against the Indians. After the sacrifice
of a greater or less number of brave soldiers the hostile tribe is
subjected, compelled to return to a quasi-peaceful condition, and to
consent to a further reduction of its territorial limits. Before the ink
is dry with which the so-called treaty is written the adventurer again
crosses the newly-designated boundary. Thus the process goes on _ad
infinitum_, or until the Indian, driven from the last foot of his
ancestral earth, starving, naked, the cries of his suffering women and
children ringing in his ears, is compelled to accept any terms which
will give him food and covering.
THE INDIANS ON THE RESERVATIONS.
The Indian is now taken to a reservation. Even his removal may be a
transportation job by which some politicaster in New York or Boston or
friendly Philadelphia, who never saw a hostile Indian, and who invests
no money in the enterprise, makes a fortune. From this time on he is a
means of money-making for a crowd of sharpers. A scanty supply of bad
beef at a high price, a little coffee and sugar of the lowest grade,
with sometimes indifferent flour, compose his ration. If he happens to
be where he can occasionally kill a buffalo, a deer, or a wolf, his
squaw dresses the skin, and he takes it to the trader’s store, where he
barters it for a little sugar, coffee, or pemican to add to his meagre
ration. He gets in exchange for his peltries what the trader chooses to
give him. For a calf-robe or a wolf-skin he may get a few cupfuls of the
coarsest sugar, or a tin cup worth about ten cents in New York. For a
fair calf-robe the trader will ask _three dollars_! “We make every white
man rich who comes to our country,” said Sitting Bull to Gen. Miles in
the council which preceded the fight on Cedar Creek, in Montana, last
October. The remark was not without truth, so far as Indian traders and
reservation rings are concerned.
It is alleged that Indians on reservations have been compelled to kill
some of their ponies to feed their families. We do not personally know
this to be so, but we can well believe it. We do know that not three
years ago the Kiowas and Comanches were without flour for months; that
the beef issued to them was miserable. We have seen it stated and have
been told time and again that rations have been drawn for numbers
greatly exceeding those actually at the agencies; and, with the
developments made through the honesty and courage of Professor Marsh
still fresh in our memory, we can well believe it also. Is it a subject
of special wonder that, being the victim of such a system, in addition
to his peculiar training, the Indian should look upon deceit and robbery
as not only justifiable but laudable?
WHAT WE ASK OF THE INDIAN.
All men are naturally tenacious of their rights of property; the more
civilized the community the more sacred those rights. The Indian has the
instinct of property very strongly developed. After we have subdued,
swindled, and reduced him to the verge of starvation we say to him: “You
must now surrender your horses and your arms.” The earliest ambition of
an Indian is to possess a fire-arm. He will pay thirty to forty ponies
for a good rifle. Ponies are his currency. If the government sells this
rifle by auction, it will bring perhaps five to ten dollars. It is hard
for the Indian to see his rifle carried off and his horse ridden away by
some white hunter, “wolfer,” or trapper. He is very fond of his ponies.
No consideration of value will induce him to part with a favorite horse.
A friend of the writer saw a squaw, with tears in her eyes, cut a lock
from the mane of her favorite pony before surrendering the animal to the
representative of the government. Thus, we starve the Indian; we deprive
him of his arms, with which he might kill game to eke out a subsistence;
we take away his ponies, which furnish him food when he is reduced to
extremity through our fault or failure. What Christian people would be
content under such treatment? Can we be surprised that an untutored
savage, who cannot understand our clashing of bureaus, our shifting of
responsibility, or our red-tape refinements of official morality, should
look upon the white man as the liar of liars and the thief of thieves,
and, when he is on the war-path, should execute the wild justice of
revenge on any of the race who happens to come within reach of his
rifle? Can we be surprised if he leaves his reservation and chooses to
fight to the last rather than be the patient victim of such a system of
injustice and spoliation? It is not astonishing that the Indian should
surrender only his poorest animals, should hide his magazine guns and
rifles and give up only rusty old smooth-bores or arms for which he
cannot procure fitting ammunition. In our every transaction with him we
strengthen by example the lessons of deception he was taught in his
childhood.
INDIAN LIFE AT AN AGENCY.
An Indian agency is not usually a school of morality. Interpreters,
traders’ clerks, “squaw-men,” have what are euphemistically termed
“Indian wives.” It is scarcely necessary to say that these are nothing
more than concubines. These poor red slaves are usually purchased from
their savage sires for a blanket, a cheap trinket, a pony, or a few
cartridges. Sometimes they are presents given for the purpose of making
interest with influential underlings. Agency life has no tendency to
elevate the Indian. He lives in idleness and inaction. He has nothing to
do and nothing to hope for. He has no future. He must occupy his time in
some way, and he becomes a slave to gambling and sexual indulgence.
Occasionally the young men, wearied by the monotony of such a life and
ambitious of distinction, seize upon the first real or fancied wrong as
a pretext for revolt, fly the agency, and go upon the war-path.
OUR INDIANS IN CANADA.
Why is it that the Indians who give us so much trouble become peaceable,
and remain so, when they settle on the Canadian side of the border?
There they receive no governmental aid, and are able to procure their
own subsistence. We read of no outrages or robberies there. It is simply
because the Indian’s rights are respected. He has been protected in his
rights even against the greedy nephews of English statesmen who cast
covetous eyes upon his lands. If he is guilty of offence, he is promptly
and sternly punished. The arm of the military is not held back when
offending Indians are within reach of punishment because a million or so
has been appropriated to be expended for their benefit as soon as they
can be reported peaceable, and because the vultures of the ring are
a-hungering for the spoil.
THE FRONTIERSMAN AND THE INDIAN.
It is difficult for the honest frontiersman—the hardy pioneer who, with
an axe in one hand and a rifle in the other, hews himself a farm out of
the wilderness—to be just toward the Indian. The memory of massacre of
his neighbors or relatives, of outrage on defenceless women, stirs up,
even in gentle breasts, a hatred of the red man which prompts an undying
vendetta, which begets a feeling that a remorseless shedding of Indian
blood to the very last drop would not be an adequate punishment for such
atrocities. There is many a worthy and otherwise humane and law-abiding
pioneer who believes that dead Indians are the only good ones; and such
a feeling seizes even the strongest advocate of a humane policy when he
sees the scalp of a white woman dangling from the girdle of a filthy
savage. There are men on the frontier, otherwise brave and
gentle-hearted, who would have no more scruple to shoot an Indian at
sight than to kill a prairie-wolf. Peace is difficult to keep between
two opposing elements imbued with corresponding sentiments toward each
other. For this state of things the rapacious Indian rings, the
violators of treaty stipulations, the ruthless adventurers, the
horse-thieves, the murderers, fugitives from justice, respecting no
laws, human or divine, who infest the Indian country, are mainly
responsible. An American gentleman who spent two years recently in
Manitoba told the writer that he found many of the Sioux who were
engaged in the Minnesota massacre living there peaceful and contented.
“Wearing a red coat,” said he, “I can travel alone from one end of the
Territory to the other without danger of molestation.”
THE QUAKERS AND THE INDIANS.
The failure of the Quaker specific does not need to be dwelt upon. We
have had under the Quaker management the most serious and bloody Indian
wars that have afflicted the frontier for many years. Besides, there is
scarcely a wild tribe of which some portion has not been in a state of
hostility to a greater or less extent. There are itching palms among the
Quakers as well as among the other religious denominations. What was
needed was not men who made professions of peace—or “made-up Quakers,”
who put on the Friendly drab for the occasion—but men who practised
honesty and fair-dealing.
THE ARMY AND THE INDIANS.
The worst elements of society on the frontier—“wolfers,”
buffalo-hunters, trappers, guides, scouts, contractors, venders of
poisonous whiskey, and keepers of frontier gambling-saloons—may and
generally do desire Indian wars; for to them they are a source of
employment and profit. Territorial officials, their friends and clients,
may desire a state of hostility, on account of the money it causes to be
expended in their districts, especially if authority can be obtained to
raise special forces. This, in addition to opportunities of profit,
offers a means of augmenting and strengthening what is delicately termed
“political” influence by a judicious distribution of patronage. It is
not very long since a force was raised, in a certain frontier State,
which, during an Indian war then raging, did not kill or capture an
Indian, inflict or receive a scratch, or fire a shot. This force, which
was in service only for a few months, cost the country at large nearly
two hundred thousand dollars. This was very pleasant for the force, very
profitable to the State. No doubt a repetition of the experience would
be agreeable at any time. It was not very economical or beneficial to
the country at large. But to suppose that the regular army desires wars
with the Indian tribes is a very great mistake. Why should it? To the
army Indian wars are neither sources of honor nor of profit. To it they
only mean hard work, no glory, increased personal expenditures without
additional pay. For our hard-worked little army receives no field
allowances. A member of the non-combatant branches of the military
establishment can effect more toward his advancement in one campaign in
Washington than can the live, the real soldiers, the fighting men, in
five lustres of laborious and dangerous field-service in the Indian
country. Operations against hostile tribes, though attended by exposure,
hardship, suffering, and dangers to which civilized warfare presents no
parallel, with the possibility of death by indescribable tortures in the
event of capture, are not considered “war” by certain gentlemen who sit
at home at ease and enjoy, if they do not improve, each shining hour.
Hundreds of brave men in blue may fall in Indian battle, crushed by the
mere power of numbers; but this, forsooth, is not “war.” It is only
wounds, or maiming for life without hope of recognition or reward, or
death upon a battle-field to which glory is denied.
THE TRANSFER OF THE INDIANS TO THE WAR DEPARTMENT.
The transfer of the Indians to the War Department would be advantageous,
for a time, both to the government and the Indian, but it would be
ruinous to the army. The Indian Ring would eventually either effect the
abolition of the army altogether—which would be bad enough—or fill it
with the material of which Indian traders and reservation sharks are
made—which would be still worse. The country cannot afford to risk the
deterioration or destruction of a class of officials admitted on all
hands to be among the most honorable and trustworthy servants of the
government.
CAUSES OF INDIAN WARS.
The usual cause of Indian wars is want of good faith in carrying out the
obligations of treaties. It is scarcely too much to say that we rarely,
if ever, carry out treaty stipulations with Indians. The great majority
of the people of the United States wish to treat the Indian not only
fairly, but kindly, generously, magnanimously. Money enough is
appropriated, if it were judiciously and honestly expended. But the sums
appropriated seem to become small by degrees and wonderfully less before
they reach the Indian. It is not the interest of the Indian Ring to have
the Indian question settled.
The transgression of limits solemnly agreed upon has been already
mentioned. The lawless classes enumerated above steal Indian ponies and
do not scruple to kill an unoffending Indian occasionally. The Indian
does not understand individual responsibility for crime. He holds the
whole race or tribe accountable for the actions of one of its members,
and avenges the killing of his brother on the first victim presented to
him.
Indian wars have doubtless been caused by more than usually grasping
traders whose rapacity has made the Indians discontented and driven them
from the reservations. We have read, at least, of cases in which numbers
have been fed on paper in excess of the actual number present on the
reservation. We are told that in such cases, when an impending
investigation has made discovery possible, the tribe is reported hostile
and large numbers said to have left the agency. The Indians who have
lived quietly on the reservation, utterly unable to comprehend the
forcible measures about to be adopted, suspicious as Indians always are,
and supposing they are all to be killed, leave the reservation and go
upon the war-path.
THE FIRST STEP TOWARD PEACE.
The first step toward bringing the Indian to a permanently peaceful
condition is to place in his country a military force strong enough to
show him the utter madness of keeping up the war. In general, a show of
sufficient force is all that is necessary to bring the Indian to
subjection. No one understands the lesson of force better or applies it
more readily than he. It is the only thing he respects or fears. Instead
of doing this, however, we place in the Indian country meagre garrisons,
barely able to protect themselves, and powerless for offensive
operations. The Indian does not believe our statements of the numbers we
could put in the field if we would. He thinks we are boasting, or—as he
plainly calls saying anything that is not exact truth—lying. With the
directness of mind of a child of nature, he takes a plain, logical view
of the situation, and cannot imagine that we have strength and do not
use it, or, at least, exhibit it. After the annihilation of Custer on
the Little Horn in 1876, and the retirement of all forces from the
country between the Yellowstone and the Missouri, except four or five
hundred infantry, the Indians at certain agencies, who sympathized and
held constant communication with the hostiles, thought they had
succeeded in killing nearly all the white soldiers, and boasted that at
length the Great Father in Washington would have to accede to their
terms. There should be to-day 10,000 men in the Sioux country—6,000
infantry, 2,500 thoroughly drilled and disciplined light cavalry (not
raw boys from the great cities who can neither ride nor shoot, mounted
on untrained horses), and 1,500 light artillery with light steel guns
easily transportable over rough country, but possessing considerable
comparative length of range. Such a force would thoroughly complete the
work done by the infantry amid the snow and ice of the past winter. It
would be the most humane and least expensive mode of laying the
indispensable foundation for further work toward the elevation and
amelioration of the Indian’s condition. Such a force would drive all the
Indians between the Yellowstone and the British line to their agencies,
with little, if any, loss of life. If the humanitarians would end the
war with the least possible shedding of blood, this is the way to do it.
When such a display of force is made as makes resistance hopeless—and
the Indian will be quick to see it—there will be an end of Indian wars
and we may begin the work of civilization in earnest.
THE MODE AND EXTENT OF INDIAN CIVILIZATION.
We must not try to push the Indian forward too fast. There is no use in
trying to make the adult Indian of to-day an agriculturist, or to take
him far out of the sphere in which he was brought up. Once the writer
happened to be in company with a gentleman who has given some thought to
the Indian question, and has had some experience of the Indian
character, when a feathered and beaded warrior made his appearance. He
was richly dressed—scarlet cloth, eagle’s feathers, profusely-beaded
moccasins. “It is nonsense to expect such a creature as that to dig in
mud and dirt,” said our friend. “He would spoil his fine clothes and
ruin his dainty moccasins.” And there was much wisdom in the remark. The
best you can do with the adult Indian is to make him a stock-raiser.
Give him good brood mares. Introduce good blood among his herds of
ponies. Then find a market for his horses. Buy them for the cavalry. Let
him raise a certain proportion of mules, and let the government buy them
for the Quartermaster’s Department. Encourage him to raise beef-cattle
enough at least for his own consumption; and if you can induce him to
raise a surplus, buy the surplus for the Subsistence Department. Give
the Indian a fair price for his produce. Dash down the monopoly of
Indian trading. Allow any merchant of good standing to trade with the
Indian, under proper restrictions as to exclusion of ammunition and
spirituous liquors. Let the red man have the benefit of free-trade and
competition. Ammunition should be furnished, when necessary, only by the
Ordnance Department.
Let the red man also have the same liberty of conscience which is
accorded to the white, the black, and even the yellow. Let there be no
more parcelling out of Indians among jarring sects. Let them have
missionaries of their choice.
Compel all children now under fourteen years to attend schools. Vary
school exercises with the use of tools in the workshop or agricultural
training in the field. Thus you may make some mechanics and some
agriculturists out of the generation now rising. You will have more out
of the next generation. But you cannot make an agriculturist out of the
grown-up Indian, nor a mechanic. It is folly to attempt it. You cannot
reconcile to our nineteenth-century civilization those who have grown up
to maturity with the ideas, manners, and morals of the heroic ages. You
can no more expect Crazy Horse to use the shovel and the hoe than you
could Achilles and Tydides Diomed to plant melons or beans.
THE ONE GREAT REMEDY, AND THE HOPELESSNESS OF ITS APPLICATION.
The remedy of remedies is common honesty in our dealings with the
Indian, backed by a force strong enough and always ready to promptly
crush any attempt at revolt, and punish speedily and severely every act
of lawlessness committed by an Indian. But too many are interested in
keeping up the present system to warrant even the slenderest hope of any
radical change. To put it in crude frontier terms: “There is too much
money in it.” Politicasters, capitalists, contractors, sub-contractors,
agents, traders, agency employés, “squaw-men”—or degraded whites who
live in a state of concubinage with Indian women, and who are generally
tools and touters for the traders—hosts of sinecurists and their
friends, find “money in it.” The links of the ring are legion. It is too
strong. It can shelve or crush any man with honesty and boldness enough
to attack the system. It is too strong for the commissioner or the
secretary. It is to be feared that it may prove too strong for the
country.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHARLES LEVER AT HOME.
The man whose rollicking pen has made more dragoons than all the
recruiting-sergeants in her Britannic Majesty’s service; who has
“promoted” the “Connaught Rangers” and _Faugh a ballaghs_ into _corps
d’élite_; who has broken more bones across country than the six-foot
stone walls of Connemara; whose pictures of that land “which smiles
through her tears like a sunbeam in showers” are as racy of the soil as
her own emerald shamrock; who has painted Irish girls pure as angels’
whispers, bright as saucy streamlets, and the “boys” a bewildering
compound of fun, fight, frolic, and “divarshin”; whose career was as
stainless as his success was merited, and whose memory is an
heirloom—was born in the city of Dublin in the year of grace 1806.
Graduating at Cambridge University, and subsequently at the
_U_-niversity of Göttingen, his student-life betrayed no symptoms of the
mental _élan_ which was to distinguish him later on, and, save for its
Bohemianism, was absolutely colorless, and even dull. The boy was not
father to the man. Selecting the medical profession as much by chance as
predilection, he succeeded, during the visitation of cholera in 1832, in
obtaining an appointment as medical superintendent in the northwest of
Ireland, in the districts of Londonderry and Coleraine, and for a time
continued to “guess at prescriptions, invent ingredients,” and generally
administer to the requirements of afflicted humanity. But the task was
uncongenial, the life a dead-level, flavored with no spice of variety,
uncheckered in its monotonous routine. It was a “bad billet, an’ no
Christian man cud live in it, barrin’ a say-gull or a dispinsiry
docthor.” Doctor Lever!—pshaw! Charley Lever; who ever thinks of the
author of _Harry Lorrequer_ as Doctor Lever? Nevertheless, his
experiences at this period bore him rich fruit in the after-time, and in
Billy Traynor, “poet, peddler, and physician” (_The Fortunes of
Glencore_), we have a type of the medical men with whom he was then
associated. “I am the nearest thing to a doctor going,” says Billy. “I
can breathe a vein against any man in the barony. I can’t say that for
any articular congestion of the aortis valve, or for a seropulmonic
diathesis, d’ye mind, that there isn’t as good as me; but for the ould
school of physic, the humoral diagnostic touch, who can beat me?” The
hedge-doctor and hedge-schoolmaster, pedants both, are now an
institution of the past.
Charles Lever, however, was not destined to blush unseen or waste his
sweetness on a country practice. Appointed to the Legation at Brussels,
he bounded from the dreary drudgery of a dispensary to the glittering
gayety of an embassy, from the hideous squalor of the fever-reeking
cabin to the coquettish gravity of the palatial sick-room. In “Belgium’s
capital” the _cacoethes scribendi_ seized him, and the result was _Harry
Lorrequer_. He awoke, and, like Lord Byron, found himself famous. The
distinct portraiture, the brilliant style, the thoroughly Hibernian
_ensemble_, claimed a well-merited success for the book, and, written at
the right moment—how many good works have perished by being floated on
an ebb tide!—the public, who had hitherto accepted Ireland through the
clever but trashy effusions of Lady Morgan, and the more genuine metal
of Maria Edgeworth and Samuel Lover, joyously turned towards the rising
sun, and, seizing upon this genuine bit of shillelah, clamorously
demanded a fresh sprig from the same tree. The wild dash, as
exhilarating as “mountain dew,” the breezy freshness, the gay _abandon_
of society and soldiering, the “moving accidents by flood and field,”
acted upon the jaded palates of the British public like a tonic, and
_Harry Lorrequer_, instead of being treated as an _entrée_, became
respected as the _pièce de résistance_. Harry’s appearance on parade
with the Othello blacking still upon his face; Miss Betty O’Dowd’s visit
to Callonby on the “low-backed car”; her desire of disowning the
nondescript vehicle, and its being announced by her shock-headed
retainer as “the thing _you know_ is at the doore”; the description of
boarding-house life in Dublin sixty years ago; Mrs. Clanfrizzle’s, in
Molesworth Street—the establishment is still in existence, and may be
recognized in Lisle House; the “amateur hotel,” so graphically described
by Mr. Lever; the picture of “dear, dirty Dublin” itself:
“Oh! Dublin, sure there is no doubtin’,
Beats every city upon the say;
’Tis there you’ll see O’Connell spoutin’
And Lady Morgan making tay”;
a night at Howth; the Knight of Kerry and Billy McCabe—form a succession
of sketches teeming with vivacity, humor, and wit, and dashed off with a
pen which almost makes a steeplechaser of the reader, so exciting and so
rapid is the pace.
To Lever’s official career at Brussels we are indebted for several
diplomatic portraits, notably those of Sir Horace Upton (_The Fortunes
of Glencore_) and Sir Shally Doubleton (_A Day’s Ride_); the former of
“a very composite order of human architecture, chivalrous in sentiment
and cunning in action, noble in aspiration and utterly sceptical as
regards motives, deep enough for a ministerial dinner and fast enough
for a party of young guardsmen at Greenwich,” and the latter who could
receive a Foreign Office “swell” thus: “Possibly your name may not be
Paynter, sir; but you are evidently before me for the first time, or you
would know that, like my great colleague and friend, Prince Metternich,
I have made it a rule through life never to burden my memory with what
can be spared it, and of these are the patronymics of all subordinate
people; for this reason, sir, and to this end, every cook in my
establishment answers to the name of Honoré, my valet is always Pierre,
my coachman Jacob, and all Foreign Office messengers I call Paynter.”
Upon the small-fry of diplomacy Mr. Lever is occasionally very severe,
and his pictures of life at Hesse Kalbbratonstadt and similar
unpronounceable principalities are as amusing as they are possibly
realistic.
The success of _Harry Lorrequer_ set its author at quill-driving in the
same direction, and _Charles O’Malley, or The Irish Dragoon_, was given
to the world. The very name sounds “boot and saddle”—rings of the spur
and clanks of the sabre. What a romance: the high-spirited lad who leads
his rival to the jaws of the grave in the hunting-field, and follows him
in a ride of death against the unbroken front of Cambronne’s battalions
on the blood-stained field of Waterloo! What a picture of the old
Peninsular days! What portraits of _Le petit Caporal_, as the French
army loved to call Napoleon, of the “Iron Duke,” the gallant Picton, and
the great captains of that eventful period! What glimpses of dark-eyed
señoritas and haughty hidalgos; of lion-hearted sons of Erin charging to
the cry of _Faugh a ballagh_, and leading forlorn hopes with saucy jokes
upon their laughing lips; of “Connaught Robbers,” as the Connaught
Rangers were jocosely called, on account of the number of prisoners
which they invariably made, and for the most part single-handed; of
Brussels the night before Waterloo; and of the Duchess of Richmond’s
celebrated ball:
“There was a sound of revelry by night,
And Belgium’s capital had gathered then
Her beauty and her chivalry, and bright
The lamps shone o’er fair women and brave men.”
What pictures of old Ireland—of Daly’s Club-House, the resort of the
Irish members in College Green, still standing, but now converted into
insurance offices. “I never pass the old club,” said Sir Thomas Staples,
the last surviving member of the Irish House of Commons, to the writer,
“without picturing it as I remember it, when Grattan, and Curran, and
Ireland’s best blood strolled in after a fiery debate, or rushed out on
the whisper of that awful word, ‘division.’ Very little would restore
Daly’s to its original shape; and who knows but it may yet be revived,
if repeal of the Union be carried?” Sir Thomas Staples is dead some
years, and the Home-Rule question had not come to the front whilst he
was yet numbered amongst the living. Shall we behold an Irish Parliament
sitting once again in College Green? Shall Daly’s club be restored to
its former splendor? Shall we see Mr. Butt, Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Mitchell
Henry, with many other earnest sons of Ireland, enrolled amongst its
members?
Who can forget the account of Godfrey O’Malley’s election, when, in
order to avoid arrest for debt, he announced his own death in the
papers, and, having travelled in the hearse to Connemara, reached his
stronghold in the west, where bailiffs and process-servers foolhardy
enough to cross the Shannon were compelled to eat their own writs under
penalty of tar and feathers, and from whence he triumphantly addressed
his constituents, appealing to their sympathies and support on the very
powerful plea of _having died for them_? There is a story extant of
Jackey Barrett which has not travelled far, if at all, beyond the walls
of Trinity. Upon one occasion the vice-provost was dining off roast
turkey in the glorious old Commons Hall, and next to him sat his nephew,
the heir expectant to his enormous wealth. The turkey was somewhat
underdone, and the nephew sent the drumsticks to be devilled. Some
little delay occurred, which caused the vice-provost to observe to his
kinsman with a malicious grin: “That devil is keeping you a long time
waiting.” “Not half as long as _you_ are keeping the devil waiting,” was
the retort. Jackey never forgave him. What a creation is Mickey Free,
that devoted, warm-hearted, rollicking Irish follower, that son of song
and story, who, by his own account, sang duets with the
commander-in-chief in the Peninsula, and wore a masterpiece of Murillo
for a seat to his trousers! Mickey was quoted recently, during a debate
in the British House of Commons on the Eastern question by Major
O’Gorman, the jester-in-chief, _vice_ Mr. Bernal Osborne, the rejected
of Irish constituencies:
“For I haven’t a janius for work—
It was never a gift of the Bradies;
But I’d make a most illigant Turk,
For I’m fond of tobacco and ladies.”
The House roared, and even Mr. Disraeli, that was, allowed his parchment
visage to snap into smiling. Charles Lever informed the writer that he
originally intended Mickey Free for a mere stage servant, who comes on
with a tray or exits with a chair or a table; but upon discovering that
Mr. Free had made his mark he wrote him up. “I never could give a
publisher a complete novel all at once,” said Mr. Lever, “although I
have been offered very large sums of money for one; I always wait to see
how my public like me, and write from month to month, trimming my sails
to suit the popular breeze.”
_Charles O’Malley_ was a brilliant success. A spirit of martial
enthusiasm inflated the minds of the rising generation, until to be a
dragoon became the day-dream of existence, and many an embryo warrior
who failed in obtaining a commission compromised with a cruel destiny by
accepting the queen’s shilling. The charm of the book is complete; and
for break-neck, dashing narrative, for wit, sparkle, and genuine Irish
drollery, interspersed here and there with tender touches of pathos and
soft gray tones of sorrow, _Charles O’Malley_ stands unrivalled, and
will hold its own when hundreds of so-called Irish romances shall have
returned to the dust out of which they should never have emerged, even
into a spasmodic vitality.
Perhaps the only smart thing ever uttered by King George III. was when
he taxed Sheridan with being afraid of the author of the _School for
Scandal_; and perhaps Lever was afraid of the author of _Charles
O’Malley_, as he published _Con Cregan_, _Maurice Tiernay_, _Sir Jasper
Carew_, and one or two other novels anonymously; but a quickwitted
public, detecting the ring of the true metal, compelled “Harry
Lorrequer” to stand revealed. Novel followed novel in quick succession,
Ireland providing the mine from which he dug his golden ore; and
although he carries his readers to fairer climes and sunnier skies,
somehow or other he contrives to land them safely and soundly in the
“ould counthry” at last. We have not space, nor is it our province, to
deal with Lever’s works in detail. No modern productions of fiction have
gained a greater or more popular reputation for their writer. By no
Irish author is he equalled in Irish humor, by no author is he surpassed
in unwearying narrative. The foreign tone infused into some of his later
productions is due to his residence in Italy. “You wish to have nothing
to do, Lever? There is eight hundred a year; go and do it,” said the
late Lord Derby, bestowing the vice-consulship of Spezzia upon him.
Later on he was promoted to Trieste.
For a time Charles Lever edited the _Dublin University Magazine_, then a
coruscation of all that was brilliant in literature. He resided at the
village of Templeogue, situated in the lap of the Dublin mountains, with
Sugar Loaf at one extremity, and Mount Pelier, with its ruined castle
renowned for the orgies of the infamously-celebrated “Hell-fire Club,”
at the other. Templeogue Lodge was the Mecca towards which all “choice
spirits” devoutly turned, and the wit, repartee, song, jest, and story
circulated within its walls made the _Noctes Ambrosianæ_ but dull
affairs in comparison. “One little room rises to recollection, with its
quaint old sideboard of carved oak, its dark-brown cabinets, curiously
sculptured, its heavy old brocade curtains, and all its queer devices of
knick-knackery, where such meetings were once held, and where, throwing
off the cares of life—shut out from them, as it were, by the massive
folds of the heavy drapery across the door—we talked in all the fearless
freedom of old friendship.” There are a few still surviving who will
recognize that room, and recall with a throb of painful pleasure the
nights at the little lodge at Templeogue.
Lever was fond of portraying banished heroes, misanthropes—men who had
dug their own graves, or, overtaken by some whirlwind of misfortune,
“gave signs that all was lost.” The character of Lord Glencore is
admirably drawn, and his life of torture in his mad cry for vengeance
fearfully vivid. _Luttrell of Arran_ is the story of a disappointed
life, from out of which springs a bright flower of maidenhood—Kate, one
of Lever’s most charming creations. Again, we have the _Knight of
Gwynne_, over whose gentle head wave after wave of hard fortune
pitilessly breaks, and, driven from the lordly home of his ancestors to
a sheeling by the sad sea-wave, he is as cheerful in adversity as he was
noble in prosperity. The portrait of the fire-eating Bagenal Daly is not
overdrawn, and the introduction of Freeny the robber, although highly
melodramatic, is not only possible but probable. Freeny’s “character”
stood remarkably high. He would rob a rich miser to save a poor family
from starvation, and his word was as good as his bond; ‘98 turned many a
man upon the king’s highway who, but for being “out,” would have lived
respecting and respected. The _Martins of Cro’ Martin_ is another
ghastly narrative of the wreck and ruin of a proud old Irish race. It is
“an owre true” story. A few miles outside of the town of Galway, on the
road to Oughterard, stand two gaunt pillars surmounted by granite
globes. The gates have disappeared, as also the armorial bearings; but
this was formerly the entrance to Ballinahinch, the seat of the “ould,
anshint” Martins, and from that gate to Ballinahinch Castle was a drive
of forty Irish miles. The castle, situated in one of the loneliest and
loveliest valleys in Connemara, was maintained in a style of regal
magnificence, the stables, marble-stalled, affording accommodation for
sixty hunters. On an island, in the centre of a small lake opposite the
castle, stands a desolate, half-ruined keep, within the four walls of
which such of his retainers or neighbors as proved refractory were
imprisoned by “The Martin” of the period. Recklessness and improvidence
scattered the broad acres, mortgage overlapped mortgage, and every inch
of the grand old estate became the property of the London Law Life
Assurance Society. Notably the last of the family was Richard Martin,
commonly known as “Humanity Dick,” in reference to a bill introduced by
him into the British House of Commons for the repression of cruelty to
animals. Upon the occasion of its introduction the English members
essayed to cough him down. “I perceive,” said Mr. Martin, “that many of
you seem troubled with severe coughs; now, if any _one_ gentleman will
cough distinctly, so that I may be able to recognize him, I can give him
a pill which may, perhaps, effectually prevent his ever being again
troubled with a cough on this side of the grave.” Mr. Martin’s
prescription was at once effectual.
With “Humanity Dick’s” granddaughter perished the race; and her name is
still breathed in Connemara as a prayer, as one “who never opened a
cabin-door without a blessing, nor closed it but to shut hope within.”
The farm-house where she was nursed is still fondly pointed out, and
“Miss Martin’s lep”—she was a superb horsewoman—is proudly shown to
every “spalpeen” of an Englishman who travels that wild, bleak, and
desolate road between Oughterard and Clifden. Mr. Lever, with that magic
all his own, has told the sad story. _His_ Mary Martin is but the
portrait of that fair young Irish girl who dearly loved “her people”
unto the last, and who, in the bright blossom of her life, died an exile
from that western home which was at once her idol and her pride. Where
but in Ireland could this sad and solemn gathering around the bedside of
a dying girl take place?
“And yet there was a vast multitude of people there. The whole
surface of the lawn that sloped from the cottage to the river
was densely crowded with every age, from the oldest to the very
infancy; with all conditions, from the well-clad peasant to the
humblest ‘tramper’ of the highroads. Weariness, exhaustion, and
even hunger were depicted on many of their faces. Some had
passed the night there, others had come long distances, faint
and foot-sore; but, as they sat, stood, or lay in groups around,
not a murmur, not a whisper, escaped them. With aching eyes they
looked towards an open window where the muslin curtains were
gently stirred in the faint air. The tidings of Mary Martin’s
illness had spread rapidly; far-away glens down the coast,
lonely cabins on the bleak mountains, wild, remote spots out of
human intercourse, had heard the news, and their dwellers had
travelled many a mile to satisfy their aching hearts.”
This is Ireland. This is the undying affection of the people for the
“rale ould stock.” This is the imperishable sentiment, as fresh at this
hour as the emerald verdure upon the summit of Croagh Patrick.
In _A Day’s Ride: a Life’s Romance_, Mr. Lever has given us Algernon
Sydney Potts—one of those romantic visionaries who believe in destiny,
bow to their _Kismet_, and, going with the tide, clothe the meanest
accidents of life in dreamy panoply. The adventures which befall the
Dublin apothecary’s son, from his ride in Wicklow to his imprisonment in
an Austrian fortress, are as varied as they are exciting, and we are
strongly inclined to believe that Lever, “letting off” a good deal of
Bohemia, is at his best in the wild vagaries of this reckless
day-dreamer. _Tom Burke of Ours_ is a dashing military story, as is also
_Jack Hinton, the Guardsman_. _The O’Donoghue_ is charmingly written and
is thoroughly Irish. _That Boy of Norcott’s_ is unsatisfactory.
Commencing in Ireland, it wanders from the old country with the evident
intention of returning to it; but a change came o’er the spirit of the
author’s dream, and it bears all the imprint of having been hastily
written, a changed venue, and of being “hurried up” at its conclusion.
_Sir Brook Fosbrooke_, on the other hand, bears traces of the utmost
care, the details of character being worked out with microscopic
minuteness. The old lord chief-justice is supposed to have been meant
for Lord Chief-Justice Lefroy, of the Court of Queen’s Bench in Ireland,
who died at a very advanced age a few years since, in full possession of
the astounding legal acumen which marked his extended career at the bar,
and subsequently upon the bench.
The writer spent a long-to-be-remembered day with Charles Lever in the
April before his death. He was stopping in Dublin at Morrison’s Hotel,
Dawson Street. We found him seated at an open window, a bottle of claret
at his right hand and the proof-sheets of _Lord Kilgobbin_ before him.
It was a beautiful morning borrowed from the month of May; the hawthorns
in the college park were just beginning to bloom, and nature was young
and warm and lovely.
At the date of our visit he looked a hale, hearty, laughter-loving man
of sixty. There was mirth in his gray eye, joviality, in the wink that
twittered on his eyelid, saucy humor in his smile, and bon mot, wit,
repartee, and rejoinder in every movement of his lips. His hair very
thin, but of a silky brown, fell across his forehead, and when it
curtained his eyes he would jerk back his head—this, too, at some
telling crisis in a narrative when the particular action was just the
exact finish required to make the story perfect. Mr. Lever’s teeth were
all his own, and very brilliant, and, whether from habit or accident, he
flashed them upon us in company with his wonderful eyes—a battery at
once both powerful and irresistible. He spoke slowly at first, but
warming to his work, and candying an idea in a short, contagious,
musical laugh, his story told itself all too rapidly, and the light
burned out with such a glare as to intensify the succeeding darkness.
Like all good _raconteurs_, he addressed himself deferentially to his
auditor in the beginning, and as soon as the fish was hooked, the
attention enthralled, he would speak as if thinking aloud. Mr. Lever
made great use of his hands, which were small and white and delicate as
those of a woman. He made play with them—threw them up in ecstasy or
wrung them in mournfulness, just as the action of the moment demanded.
He did not require eyes or teeth with such a voice and such hands; they
could tell and illustrate the workings of his brain. He was somewhat
careless in his dress, but clung to the traditional high shirt-collar,
merely compromising the unswerving stock of the Brummel period. “I stick
to my Irish shoes,” he said, thrusting upwards about as uncompromising a
“bit of leather” as we have ever set eyes on right under our nose, “and
until a few years ago I got them from a descendant of the celebrated
Count Lally, who cobbled at Letterkenny. There is no shoe in the world
equal to the Irish brogue.”
“You are ‘taking time by the forelock,’ as we say in the play,” said the
writer, pointing to the rough copy of the _Cornhill Magazine_, in which
the story was running.
“Always at the heel of the hunt,” he replied. “This is the May number,
and not corrected yet.”
“I consider _Lord Kilgobbin_ as good as, if not better than, anything
you have written.”
There was unutterable sadness in his tone and gesture as he said, with a
weary sigh:
“Ah! I have been tilting the cask so long that the lees are coming out
very muddy.”
“Which of your novels do you like best?” was asked.
“Well, my most careful work is _Sir Brook Fosbrooke_, but I prefer the
_Dodd Family Abroad_, and all for the sake of Carry Dodd, who is my
ideal of a pure, bright, charming Irish girl.”
Further on:
“You are the same reckless, rollicking, warm-hearted, improvident people
as when I left you, and the lower orders entertain the same hatred of
Saxon supremacy. I was walking down College Green yesterday, and as I
stood opposite the old Parliament House, a troop of dragoons, in all
their panoply of glancing helmets, blood-red coats, and prancing steeds,
trotted past. A ragged, tatterdemalion carman was feeding a horse only
fit for the knacker’s yard, attached to an outside car, with a wisp of
hay.
“‘What regiment is that?’ I asked, partly from curiosity, partly for the
sake of a conversation.
“‘Sorra a know I know,’ was the gruff response.
“‘Where are they going to?’
“Without raising his head, and giving a vicious chuck to the hay:
“‘To h—l, I hope.’
“I will give you another illustration,” continued Mr. Lever, “of how
determinedly the lower order of my countrymen disparage anything and
everything English. I was invited to spend some days with the late Lord
Carlisle, twice your Lord Lieutenant, at Castle Howard, in Yorkshire. I
had at that time an Irish servant, a son of Corny Delany, to whom
grumbling was chronic. As we drove through the magnificent avenue
beneath the extending branches of giant oaks and lordly elms, I observed
to my follower: ‘What do you think of those trees?’
“‘I see thim.’
“‘Are they not splendid?’
“‘Och! threes is threes anywhere.’
“‘But the Howards are proud of these trees; they are the finest in
England. Lord Carlisle sets great store by them.’
“‘Arrah, thin, why wudn’t he have the hoighth av fine threes? Shure
hadn’t he the _pick av the Phaynix Park_?’
“I was dining with Judge —— on Sunday, who, as you know, is a very
diminutive, shrivelled-up-looking little man,” continued Mr. Lever, “and
he told me an amusing story. When attorney-general, he purchased an
estate in Tipperary near Clonmel. Shortly after the purchase he resolved
upon paying the place a visit to take a look at his recent acquisition.
As he was proceeding with his agent through a _boreen_ which led to
mearings of his property, he overheard the following conversation
between two old women:
“‘Wisha, thin, d’ye tell me that’s the new landlord, Missis Mulligan?’
“‘Sorra a lie in it, ma’am.’
“‘That dawny little bit av a crayture?’
“‘A leprechaun, no less.’
“‘_Why, begorra, the boys might as well be shootin’ at a jacksnipe._’”
Mr. Lever’s conversational powers were simply marvellous; his anecdotes
fell like ripe fruit from an overladen tree. In London his great delight
was a night at the Cosmopolitan Club, Berkeley Square. This club is only
open upon Wednesday and Sunday nights during the Parliamentary session.
The members stroll in from eleven o’clock at night to about three
o’clock A.M. Cabinet ministers, ambassadors of all nations, members of
the legislature, eminent _littérateurs_, Royal Academicians, repair
thither for a gossip; and here, amidst the best talkers in the world,
Charles Lever stood pre-eminent. As the wits and _raconteurs_ at Will’s
Coffee House were silent whilst Joseph Addison talked _Spectator_, so
the members of the Cosmopolitan maintained a breathless attention when
Charles Lever talked _Cornelius O’Dowd_; and many a man has “dined out
considerably” upon a _mot_, and has, perhaps, established a reputation,
by the retailing of an anecdote recounted within the _salons_ of the
club by the inimitable and fascinating “Harry Lorrequer.” When the
writer parted with Lever upon that evening, he felt justifiably elated
at being enabled to amuse, if not astonish, the most brilliant man of
the day, but, upon a rigid self-examination, was somewhat disappointed
upon discovering that, instead of his having been engaged in
entertaining Lever, Lever had been entertaining _him_, and that he had
not uttered a single sentence out of the veriest commonplace. Such was
the charm of Lever’s manner that he took you, as it were, from out
yourself, and for the time infused his own groove of thought, causing
your ideas to mingle with his and float joyously onward upon the
glittering current of his conversation. Lever was a devoted worshipper
of the “sad solemnities of whist,” playing rubber after rubber up to any
and all hours. It is related that an eminent wearer of the ermine, a
fellow of Trinity College, a gallant field officer, and Lever met, dined
early, and played whist until the hour at which the train departed for
Kingston by which “Harry Lorrequer” was to leave _en route_ for London.
“Come on to Kingston,” said Lever, “sleep at the Anglesea Arms Hotel,
and I will not go until the morning boat.” They played all night and
until one o’clock next day. _Si non e vero e ben trovato_, but the
writer has the story from unimpeachable authority.
Charles Lever’s _last_ novel, concluded shortly before his death, is
_Lord Kilgobbin_. Let its unutterably sad preface speak for itself:
“To the memory of one whose companionship made the happiness of a long
life, and whose loss has made me helpless, I dedicate this book, written
in breaking health and broken spirits. The task that once was my joy and
my pride I have lived to find associated with my sorrow. It is not,
then, without a cause I say, I hope this effort may be my last.—TRIESTE,
January 20, 1872.”
It is with a pang of regret that we peruse the _Cornelius O’Dowd_
papers. They are tinged with that abominable spirit which is sending
Italy at the present hour to perdition, and we greatly fear that Mr.
Lever wrote them for the London market. He was no bigot, however; on the
contrary, his life was passed amongst Catholics, and his dearest and
best friends were of the true church; consequently, the pain is
intensified when we come to stand face to face with the fact that these
papers were, if not the outcome of a pecuniary necessity, at least the
result of a craving for money, and the hollow effusions of a
hirelingpen. His Italian sojourn led him gradually away from the more
kindly tone towards Catholics which pervaded his earlier Irish novels.
Lever and Griffin have been compared as writers of Irish fiction. We
would rather have been the author of _The Collegians_ than of any work
of Mr. Lever’s. There is a virgin simplicity in Gerald Griffin’s style
that “Harry Lorrequer” could not touch; an atmosphere which he could not
breathe; a purity which, while the _morale_ of Lever’s writings is
unimpeachable, is of that order that is so rarely attained by the most
chaste and most elevated amongst our writers of fiction. Griffin’s Irish
is not stagy—it is real; so, too, is Lever’s. But while the former
paints the portrait, leaving the imagination of the reader to put in the
finishing touches, the latter rubs in a laugh here or a keen thrust
there, so as to dramatize the picture; and, while it is more vivid
during perusal, the mind falls back upon the other for less exciting
_pabulum_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORDER.
FROM A POEM BY ST. FRANCIS D’ASSISI.
_Our Lord Speaks_:
And though I fill thy heart with warmest love,
Yet in true order must thy heart love me;
For without order can no virtue be.
By thine own virtue, then, I from above
Stand in thy soul; and so, most earnestly,
Must love from turmoil be kept wholly free.
The life of fruitful trees, the seasons of
The circling year, move gently as a dove.
I measured all the things upon the earth;
Love ordered them, and order kept them fair,
And love to order must be truly wed.
O soul! why all this heat of little worth?
Why cast out order with no thought or care?
For by love’s warmth must love be governèd.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LITTLE CHAPEL AT MONAMULLIN.
Situated in the wildest portion of the county of Mayo, Monamullin, at
the date upon which this story opens, mustered about forty mud-cabins
erected here and there, and in such positions as were deemed most
suitable, having regard to the cruel winds from the ocean, and the “bit
o’ ground” for the cultivation of the potatoes.
A cottage covered with a crisp amber thatch, and whitewashed to the
color of the driven snow, held the post of honor in the village. It
boasted a flower-garden in front and a vegetable patch in the rear.
Moreover, it was guarded by a neatly-cropped privet hedge, while a
little green gate admitted to a red-bricked pathway leading to a rustic
porch adorned with roses that seemingly bloomed the whole year round,
and a Virginia creeper whose leaves were now the hue of blood.
In the front garden, his head bared, the rays of the setting sun
surrounding it as with an aureole, stalked a man attired in the black
flowing soutane of a Catholic clergyman.
Father Maurice O’Donnell, the parish priest, was engaged in reading his
office from a tattered and dog’s-eared breviary. Tall and thin almost to
emaciation, there was yet a wiry swing in his gaunt frame that spoke of
unfaded vigor, whilst the glowing fire in the dark blue eye told its own
tale.
“Father Maurice” was loved and cherished by his little flock. His every
want—and his wants were few enough—was anxiously anticipated. His patch
of oats was tilled, weeded, cut, and stacked, his cottage thatched and
whitewashed, his potatoes planted, his pony treated as common property
in so far as fodder was concerned, while upon fast-days the “finest lump
av a salmin” or the “illigantest” turbot, ever found its way to the back
door of “The House,” as his humble abode was somewhat grandiloquently
styled.
Maurice O’Donnell was wrapped up in his flock. In good sooth he was
their shepherd. Night, noon, and morning found him ever watchful at “the
gate in the vineyard wall.” He was the depositary of all their griefs,
the sharer in all their joys—their guide, philosopher, and friend. In
worldly matters he was simple as a child. Living, as he did, out of the
world, he was perfectly contented to learn what was whirling round
within it from the pages of the _Nation_, from the columns of which it
was his practice to read aloud on Sunday afternoon to a very large
muster, if not to the entire adult population, of Monamullin—in summer
time seated in a coign of vantage by the sad sea-wave, in winter
opposite a rousing turf fire laid on especially for the important
occasion, and with a great display of ceremony by his housekeeper, “an
ould widdy wumman” rejoicing in the name of Clancy, whose husband had
been lost at sea in the night of “the great storm.”
Father Maurice never asked for money—he had no occasion for it. His
solitary extravagance was snuff, and the most sedulous care was taken by
the “boys” returning from Castlebar or Westport to fetch back a supply
of “high toast,” in order that his “riverince’s box” might stand
constantly replenished.
Upon this particular August evening Father Maurice was hurrying through
his office with as much rapidity as the solemn nature of the duty would
permit, as a drive of no less than seven honest Irish miles lay between
him and his dinner.
The even tenor of his life had been broken in upon by an invitation to
dine and sleep at the palatial residence of Mr. Jocelyn Jyvecote, a
Yorkshire squire, who had purchased the old acres of the Blakes of
Ballinacor, and who had recently expended a fabulous sum in erecting a
castle upon the edge of a gloomy lake in the desolate valley of
Glendhanarrahsheen. In his letter of invitation Mr. Jyvecote had said:
“I am extremely desirous of introducing my youngest daughter to you, as
she has taken it into her head to go over to your church; and, since you
are so devoted to _her_ interests, I beg of you to accept this
invitation as you would undertake a little extra duty.”
To decline would be worse than ungracious, especially under the peculiar
circumstances of the case, and it was with a heavy heart, and not
without a keen debate with Mr. Lawrence Muldoon, the “warm” man of the
village, in which the _pros_ and _cons_ were duly and gravely weighed,
that the worthy priest replied in the affirmative. While Father Maurice
was engaged in pacing his little garden, Mrs. Clancy, his housekeeper,
was calmly preparing for a steady but copious enjoyment of her evening
meal in the kitchen, which from floor to ceiling, from fireplace to
dresser—shining again with crockery of the willow pattern—was, to use
her own expression, “as nate as a new-biled egg.” A large brown
earthenware teapot had just been promoted from the hob to a table
“convaynient” to the window. A huge platter of stirabout, with a lump of
butter oiling itself in the middle, stood within easy reach of her right
hand, while a square of griddle-bread occupied a like position upon her
left, and a wooden bowl full of jacket-bursted potatoes formed the near
background.
Mrs. Clancy was strong upon tea, and in the village her opinion upon
this as upon most other subjects was unwritten law. She was particularly
fond of a dash of green through a full-flavored Pekoe, preparing the
mixture with her own fair hands with a solemn gravity befitting so
serious an undertaking. She was now about to try a sample of Souchong
which had just arrived from Westport, and her condition of mind was akin
to that of an analytical chemist upon the eve of some exceedingly
important result.
Mrs. Clancy had seated herself in that cosy attitude peculiar to elderly
females about to enjoy, to them, that most inviting of all meals, and
had already ascertained, upon anxious reference to the teapot, that its
contents had been sufficiently drawn, when the door was thrust somewhat
violently open, and Murty Mulligan, the “priest’s boy,” unceremoniously
entered the _sanctum_.
Murty was handy-man and _factotum_. He “swep out” the chapel, rang the
bell, attended Mass, groomed the pony, dug the potatoes, landed the
cabbage, and made himself generally useful.
Although designated a “boy,” he had allowed—not that he could claim any
particular option in the matter—some forty-five summers to roll over his
head, every one of which, in addition to their attendant winters, had
been passed in the peaceful little village of Monamullin. His travels
had never extended further than Westport, which he regarded as a vast
commercial seaport—a Liverpool, in fact—and it was his habit to place it
in comparison with any city of note that might come upon the _tapis_,
extolling its dimensions and dilating upon its unlimited importance.
Murty’s appearance savored much of the stage Irishman’s. His eyes
sparkled comically, his nose was tip-tilted—Mr. Tennyson will excuse the
application of the simile—while his mouth was large and always open. His
forehead was rather low, and his ears stood out upon either side of his
head like the orifices of air-shafts. He was now arrayed in his bravest
attire, as he had been told off to drive his reverence to Moynalty
Castle. His brogues were as highly greased as his hair, and his
Sunday—last Mass—clothes, consisting of a gray frieze body-coat with
brass buttons, a flowered silk waistcoat, corduroy knee-breeches, and
blue worsted stockings, looked as fresh as if they had been donned for
the first time.
Not a little vain of the importance of his office, combined with the
general effect of his appearance, he swaggered into the kitchen in a
manner totally at variance with his usual custom, as Mrs. Clancy was
every inch queen of this realm, and a potentate who exercised her
prerogative with right royal despotism.
The “consait” was considerably taken out of Murty by being met with an
angry, contemptuous stare and “What ails ye, Murty Mulligan?”
“It’s time for to bring round the yoke, ma’am,” replied Murty in an
abashed and respectful tone, eyeing the teapot with a wistful glance, as
he was particularly partial to a cup of the beverage it distilled,
especially when brewed by Mrs. Clancy.
“Well, av it is, bring it round,” was the tart rejoinder.
“I dunna how far he’s upon his office,” said Murty.
“Ye’d betther ax, Murty Mulligan.”
“I dar’n’t disturb him, Mrs. Clancy, an’ ye know that as well as I do
meself, ma’am.”
“Well, don’t bother me, anyhow,” observed the lady, proceeding to pour
out a cup of tea.
“Is that the tay I brought ye from Westport, ma’am?” demanded Murty,
upon whom the sight of the rich brown fluid and its pungent aroma were
producing longing effects.
Mrs. Clancy took a preliminary sip with the sound of a person
endeavoring to suck a coy oyster from a clinging shell.
“Sorra worse tay I ever wetted,” she retorted. “There’s no more
substance in it nor in chopped sthraw. I’ll never take a grain o’ tay
out o’ Westport agin—sorra a wan.”
“I done me best for ye, anyhow, ma’am. I axed Misther Foley himself for
the shupariorest tay in the town, an’ he gim me what’s in that pot; an’,
faix, it smells rosy an’ well.” And Murty sniffed, as if he would drive
the aroma up through his nostrils out to the top of his head.
Mrs. Clancy turned to Murty with a frowning and ominous aspect, the
glare of an intense irritation blazing in her face.
“Do ye know what I think ye done, Murty Mulligan? It’s me belief ye done
it, an’ if ye tuk the buke to the conthrairy I wudn’t credit ye,”
placing her arms akimbo and fixing him with her eye.
“What is it I done, Mrs. Clancy?” demanded Murty boldly, flinging his
caubeen upon the floor and assuming a defiant attitude. “What is it I
done, ma’am?”
The housekeeper regarded him steadily, while she said in a slow and
solemn tone of impeachment:
“Ye got me infayrior tay, an’ ye tuk a pint out av the change.”
It was Murty’s turn to become indignant now.
“I’d scorn for to do the likes of so mane an action, Mrs. Clancy.
There’s them that wud do the like, but I’d have ye know, ma’am, that me
father’s son wud rather be as dhry as a cuckoo, ma’am, nor demane
himself in that way. Yer sentiments, ma’am, is very hurtful to me
feelin’s, an’ I’d as lieve ye’d call me a thief at wanst, ma’am, as for
to run down me karakter in that a-way.”
“I don’t want for to call ye nothin’, but I repate that—”
“Don’t repate nothin’, ma’am. Av ye wur a man I’d give ye a crack in the
gob for daarin’ to asperge me karakter, more betokin all for the sake av
the filthy lucre av a pint of porther. Porther, indeed!” added Murty.
“I’m goin’ to-day, ma’am, where I’ll get me fill av port wine, an’
sherry wine, and Madayrial wine, ma’am; an’ dickins resave the word I’ll
tell ye av the goin’s-on at the castle beyant for yer thratemint av me
this blessed evenin’, Mrs. Clancy.”
This threat upon the part of Murty threw the housekeeper into the
uttermost consternation. The proceedings at Moynalty Castle were fraught
with the deepest interest to her; for in addition to her personal
curiosity, which was rampant, it was necessary that she should become
acquainted with everything that took place, in order to retail her
special knowledge to her cronies in the village, who awaited the
housekeeper’s report in eager and hopeful expectation.
Had she burnt her boats? Had she cut down the bridge behind her?
Murty Mulligan’s tone was resolute.
“Murty, Murty avic! shure it’s only jokin’ I was—sorra a more,” she said
in a coaxing way.
Murty grunted.
“Shure yer welkim to yer pint av—”
Murty confronted her:
“I tell ye, Missis Clancy, that I tuk nothin’, nayther bit, bite, nor
sup, from the time I et me brekquest till I met Misther Fogarty’s own
boy, and he thrated me. Av I tuk a pint out av yer lucre, ma’am, I’d say
it at wanst, wudout batin’ about the bush.”
“That’s enough, Murty; say no more about the tay. They gev ye a bad
matarial, Murty, an’ shure that’s none o’ you’re fault. Here,” she
added, pouring out a saucerful—the saucer being about the dimensions of
a large soup-plate—and presenting it to him; “put that to yer mouth an’
say is it worth three hapence an ounce?”
“Sorra a care I care,” growled Murty, but in a much softer tone.
“Thry it, anyhow,” urged the housekeeper.
“I don’t care a _thraneen_ for tay, Mrs. Clancy,” said Murty, throwing a
glance full of profound meaning towards a small press in which Mrs.
Clancy kept a supply of cordials.
“Ah!” exclaimed that lady, “I see be the twist in yer eye that ye want
somethin’ to put betune yer shammy an’ the cowld. Ye have a long road to
thravel, Murty, so a little sup o’ ginger cordial will warm it for ye,
avic.” And while the now thoroughly pacified Murty gently remonstrated,
Mrs. Clancy proceeded to the cupboard, and, pouring a _golliogue_ of the
grateful compound into a tea-cup, handed it to Murty, who tossed it off
with a smack that would have started a coach and four.
“So ye’ll stop the night at the castle?” observed the housekeeper in a
careless tone.
“Yis, ma’am.”
“It’s a fine billet, Murty.”
“Sorra a finer. Shure it bates Lord Sligo’s an’ Mitchell Hinry’s beyant
at Kylemore; an’ as for atin’ an’ dhrinkin’, be me song they say that
lamb-chops is as plentiful as cabbages is here, an’ that there’s as much
sperrits in it as wud float ould Mickey Killeher’s lugger.”
“It’s a quare thing for Misther Jyvecote for to be axin’ Father Maurice
to a forrin’ cunthry like that, Murty.”
“Troth, thin, it is quare, ma’am; but, shure, mebbe he wants for to be
convarted.”
“That must be it; an’ he’d be bet intirely, av Father Maurice wasn’t
there for to back his tack. His sermon last Sunda’ was fit for the Pope
o’ Room.”
“I never heerd the like av it. It flogged Europe. Whisht!” suddenly
cried Murty, “who’s this comin’ up the shore?”
“It’s a forriner,” exclaimed the housekeeper, after a prolonged
scrutiny—meaning by the term foreigner that the person who was now
approaching the cottage was not an inhabitant of the village. “A fine,
souple boy,” she added admiringly.
“It’s a gintleman, an’ he has a lump av a stick in his hand,” said
Murty.
“Arrah! what wud bring a gintleman _here_, ye omadhawn?” observed Mrs.
Clancy with some asperity.
“A thraveller, thin,” suggested her companion. “He’s a bag on his back.”
“Troth, it’s badly off he’d be for thravellin’, if he come here for to
do the like.”
“He’s makin’ for the gate.”
“He’s riz the latch.”
“I’ll run out, Mrs. Clancy, and bring ye the hard word, while ye’d be
axin’ for the lind av a sack.”
“Ay, do, Murty avic; an’ I’ll have a cup av Dimpsy’s tay wet be the time
yer back.”
* * * * *
Father Maurice had just finished the perusal of his office, and was in
the act of returning to the house, when the stranger approached him.
“Father Morris?” said the new-comer, lifting his hat.
“Maurice O’Donnell, at your service, sir,” replied the priest.
“I should apologize for addressing you so familiarly, reverend sir, but
three or four persons of whom I asked my way told me that Father Morris
was Monamullin, and that Monamullin was Father Morris.”
“My people invariably address me by my Christian name, and I beg, sir,
as you are now within my bailiwick, that _you_ will continue to do so.”
“As I _am_ within your bailiwick, I must needs do your bidding, Father
Maurice.”
Such a genial, happy voice! Such frank, kind blue eyes! Such a well
knit, strong-built figure!
The priest gazed at a young man of about five-and-twenty, six feet high,
with crisp brown curly hair, beard _en Henri Quatre_, broad forehead,
and manly, sunburnt neck and face, attired in a suit of light homespun
tweed, a blue flannel shirt very open at the throat, a scarlet silk tie
knotted sailor fashion, and heavy shoes, broad-toed and thick-soled.
“My name is Brown,” he said. “I am an artist. I have walked over from
Castlebar. I am doing picturesque bits of this lovely country—not your
confounded beaten tracks, but the nooks which must be sought like the
violet. I have very little money, and needs must rough it. This stick
and knapsack constitute my _impedimenta_, and, like Cæsar, I have
carried my Commentaries before now in my teeth while bridging a river by
swimming it. I asked for the inn, and I was referred to Father Maurice.”
“I can answer for it, Mr. Brown, that you will find every house in
Monamullin willing to shelter you; and, further, that you will find this
to be possibly the best. I am unfortunately compelled to travel seven
miles along the coast to-night, but will be back, please God, to-morrow;
in the meantime my housekeeper will try what some broiled fish and a
dish of ham and eggs can do towards appeasing what ought to be a giant’s
appetite. And I can answer for the sheets being well aired, having
pulled the lavender myself in which they are periodically enshrined.”
Father Maurice ushered his guest into the cottage with a welcome so
genuine that Mr. Brown felt at his ease almost ere the greeting had died
upon the priest’s lips, and proceeded to hang up his hat and knapsack
with the air of a man who was completely at home.
The neat little parlor was cosily furnished. A genuine bit of Domingo
mahogany stood in the centre of the room, and round it half a dozen
plump horse-haired, brass-nailed chairs, with a “Come and sit on us, we
are not for show” air about them peculiarly inviting. A venerable
bureau, black as ebony from age, and brass-mounted, ornamented one
corner, and opposite to it a plaster-of-paris bust of Pius IX. upon a
fluted pedestal, while the recesses at either side of the fireplace were
furnished with antique book-cases containing a well-thumbed library of
ecclesiastical literature, the works of St. Augustine being prominently
conspicuous. Over the mantel-piece hung a portrait of Daniel O’Connell,
with the autograph of the Liberator in a small frame beneath, and at his
right and left engravings, and of no mean order either, of Henry Grattan
and John Philpot Curran. The walls were adorned with copies of the
cartoons of Raphael, a view of Croagh Patrick from Clew Bay, a
bird’s-eye glance at St. Peter’s, and an illuminated address from the
inhabitants of Monamullin to their beloved pastor upon the completion of
his thirtieth year on the mission—an address the composition of which
conferred undying renown upon Tim Rafferty, the schoolmaster, and begat
for the boy who wrote it a fame only second to that of the erudite
pedagogue.
“You are delightfully snug here, Father Maurice,” observed his guest,
seating himself and glancing admiringly round the apartment. “What a
treasure of an antique bureau! Why, the brokers in London are giving any
amount of money for such articles; we are all running mad over them. If
you could get it whispered that Dean Swift or Joe Addison worked at that
desk, it would be worth its weight in gold. It’s Queen Anne now or
nothing.”
“You are an Englishman?”
“A base, bloody, and brutal Saxon!”
“We have one of your countrymen residing in this part of the country—a
Mr. Jyvecote.”
The stranger started. “Any of the Jyvecotes of Marston Moor, in
Yorkshire?”
“_The_ Jyvecote, I believe. He came over here about ten years ago to
shoot, taking poor Mr. Bodkin Blake’s Lodge in the valley of
Glendhanarrahsheen, and—”
“Oh! do say that word again, it is so delightfully soft—a cross between
Italian and Japanese,” burst in the artist.
“Glendhanarrahsheen,” repeated Father Maurice. “We have some softer than
that. What think you of Tharramacornigaun? But, as I was saying, Mr.
Jyvecote liked the valley so much that he brought his family over in the
following year. Mr. Jyvecote was delighted with the place, and he bought
the Lodge, extended it, and at length determined upon building a castle.
This castle—Moynalty Castle he calls it—was completed about three years
ago, the bare walls alone costing seventy thousand pounds. Except the
Viceregal Lodge in Dublin,” added the priest, “there is nothing so grand
in all Ireland.”
“I must walk over there some day. Which way does it lie?”
“It’s between us and Westport, along the coast, almost out upon a rock.”
“What a strange idea to put such a lot of money into such a corner!”
“Is it not? It’s completely out of the world. The nearest railway
station is fifty miles.”
“Then I forgive Mr. Jyvecote. I take off my hat to him. I congratulate
him. O my dear Father Maurice!” exclaimed the artist enthusiastically,
“you who live in such tender tranquillity, with the moan of the sea for
a lullaby, can know nothing of the ecstatic feeling attendant upon
leaving steam fifty miles behind one. It is simply a new, a beatific
existence! And so Jocelyn Jyvecote is within ten miles,” he added, more
in the tone of a person engaged in thinking aloud than by way of
observation.
“Are you acquainted with him?” asked the priest.
“Oh! yes—that is, very slightly.” There was a decided shade of
embarrassment in his manner that would have struck an ordinary observer,
but the simple-minded clergyman failed to notice it.
“The yoke’s at the doore, yer riverince, an’ if we don’t start at wanst
we’ll be bet be the hill beyant Thronig na Coppagh,” shouted Murty
Mulligan, thrusting his shock head into the apartment.
“How unfortunately this happens!” exclaimed the priest. “I have not
slept out of this cottage for nearly thirty years, and the very night I
could have wished to be here I am compelled to go elsewhere. However,
Mr. Brown, I shall leave you in good hands, and before I start I must
make you acquainted with my housekeeper.”
Murty had returned to the kitchen considerably baffled.
“He’s goin’ for to stop the night, Mrs. Clancy,” he reported to the
expectant housekeeper.
“Who’s goin’ for to stop the night?”
“The strange gintleman above.”
“Where is he goin’ for to stop, I’d like for to know? Mrs. Dooly’s
childre is down wud maysles. The gauger is billeted at Mooney’s—”
“He’s goin’ to stop here in this house. I heerd his riverince axin’
him.”
“Arrah, _baithershin_!” exclaimed Mrs. Clancy incredulously.
“It’s truth I’m tellin’ ye, ma’am.”
“Well, may—”
At this moment the voice of Father Maurice was heard calling, “Mrs.
Clancy.”
“Yer wanted, ma’am,” cried Murty.
“I’m not fit for to be seen. Slip up an’ discoorse him, Murty avic, till
I put on a clane cap an’ apron.”
“Mrs. Clancy, you will take good care of this gentleman, Mr. Brown, till
I come back. Show your skill in frying eggs and bacon, and in turning
out a platter of stirabout. Don’t let the hens cheat him of his fresh
egg in the morning, and see that his bed is as comfortable as my own.”
And seating himself upon one side of the low-backed jaunting-car, with
Murty Mulligan upon the other, and with a courteous farewell to his
guest, Father Maurice rapidly disappeared in the direction of the valley
of Glendhanarrahsheen.
Mr. Brown stood in the middle of the road gazing after the car, his
hands plunged into his breeches pockets, and a sweet little bit of
meerschaum stuck in his handsome mouth.
“What a turn of the wheel is this?” he said to himself. “I wander here
into the most out-of-the-way place in out-of-the-way Ireland, and I find
myself treading on the kibes of the very man whom of all others I would
least care to meet. I always thought that Jyvecote was in Kerry, near
Valentia, where the wire dives for America. However, seven miles mean
utter isolation here, and, by Jove! I’m too much charmed with this
genial old clergyman and his genuine hospitality to think of shifting my
quarters; besides I’ll paint him a holy picture, perhaps a Virgin and
Child, which will in some small measure repay him. Nowhere in the world
would one meet with such a reception, save in Ireland. Here I am taken
upon trust, and believed to be an honest fellow until I am found out,
completely reversing the social code. He places his house, his all, at
my disposal, believing me to be a poor devil of an artist on tramp and
ready to paint anything for bread and butter. Hang it all! it makes me
feel low and mean to sail under the false colors of an assumed name, and
yet it is better as it is—much better. Suppose I meet Mr. Jyvecote? He’d
scarcely recognize me. I’ve not seen him since our stormy interview at
Marseilles. Had I my beard then? No; it was on my way out to Egypt, and
that’s exactly three years ago this very month. He had a lot of
womankind with him. _Per Bacco!_ I suppose he was making for this
place.”
Mr. Brown strolled over to the beach, and, seating himself upon a
granite boulder, smoked on and on, buried in thought. The sea was as
still as a sea in a dream, and gray, and mystic, and silent. The hush
that Eve whispers as Night lets fall her mantle was coming upon the
earth, and the twinkling stars began to throb in the blue-black sky; not
a speck was visible on the billowy plain save a solitary fishing-boat,
which now loomed out of the darkness like a weird and spectral bark.
In such scenes, and in the awful quiet of such hours, images and
thoughts that dare not die are deposited upon the silent shore of
memory. The man who sat gazing out to sea with his hands clasping his
knees was Sir Everard Noel, the fourth baronet of a good old Yorkshire
family, and owner of a fine estate between Otley and Ilkley, in the
North Riding of that noble county. He was five-and-twenty, and had been
his own master ever since he attained his majority, until which
momentous event he had been the victim of a peripatetic guardian and the
Court of Chancery, his father having died while he was yet an infant,
and his mother when he had reached the age of nineteen. Freed from the
yoke of his guardian, who led him a tour of the world, and placed in
possession of ninety thousand pounds, the accumulation of his minority,
and with an income of ten thousand a year, he plunged into the giddy
whirl of London fast life, and for a brief season became the centre of a
set composed of the _crème de la crème_, the _aurati juvenes_ of that
modern Babylon. He was liberal to lavishness, was fascinated with
Clubland and _écarté_, losing his money with a superb tranquillity, and
addicted to turning night into day. He flattered the fair sex with the
“homage of a devotee,” and broke hearts as he would nutshells.
Intriguing dowagers fished for him for their “penniless lasses wi’ long
pedigrees,” but somehow or other, after four seasons, during which he
had had several hairbreadth escapes, he still was single, still healthy
and heart-whole, but _minus_ his ninety thousand pounds.
During his minority he had wooed Art, wisely and well, and even while
the daze of deviltry was upon him he never totally neglected her. He
painted with more than the skill of a mere amateur, and had even the
best of it in a tussle with the art critic of the _Times_ upon the
genuineness of a Rembrandt which had burst upon the market, to the
intense excitement of the _cognoscenti_. There was a good deal of the
artist in his nature, and he was an immense favorite with the bearded
Bohemians, knights of the brush, who voted him a good fellow, with the
solitary drawback of being unavoidably a “howling swell.”
Four years of wasted life brought on satiety, and he turned from the
past with a shudder, from the present with loathing. He wanted to do
something, to be interested in something, and to shake off the sickening
aimlessness of his every-day life that clung to him like a
winding-sheet.
There came a day when the men in the smoking-room of the club asked each
other, “Where the doose is Noel?” when wily matrons found their gushing
notes of invitation unanswered; when toadies, hangers-on, and sycophants
found his apartments in Half-Moon Street, Piccadilly, closed. There came
a day when club and matron and toady thought of him no more. The wave of
oblivion had passed over him and he was forgotten. _Sic itur ad astra._
Away from the fatal influences that had, maelstrom-like, sucked him into
their whirl, new thoughts, new impulses, new aspirations burst into
blossom, and his old love—Art—turned to him with the radiant smile of
the bygone time.
There is red red blood in the veins at twenty-five, and white-winged
Hope ever beckons onwards with soul-seductive gesture. He determined to
seek change of scene and of thought. As Sir Everard Noel, the president
of the Four-in-Hand Club; the owner of Katinka, the winner of the
Chester Cup; the skipper of the _Griselda_, that won the queen’s prize
at Cowes; the best rider with the Pytchley hounds, every hotel on the
Continent, every village in Merrie England, would recognize him, and the
old toadying recommence; but as plain Mr. Brown, an obscure artist, with
a knapsack on his back, he would be free, free as a bird, and the summer
morning this idea flashed across his mind found him once again a bright,
happy, and joyous man.
Sir Everard Noel was a gentleman of warm temper and great energy, prone
to sudden impulses and unconsidered actions. No sooner had he made up
his mind to go upon the tramp than he started; and, considering that he
would be less liable to recognition in Connemara than in Wales, made
Galway the base of his supplies, and, knapsack on back, containing
sketching materials and a change of flannel, a few days’ walking brought
him to Monamullin in glorious health, splendid spirits, and prepared to
enjoy everybody and everything.
“How much more delightful all this is,” he thought, “than the horrors I
have passed through—horrors labelled pleasures! Faugh! I shudder when I
think of them. Let me see, it’s ten o’clock; at this hour I would be
about half-way through a miserably unwholesome dinner, spiced up in
order to meet the requirements of a demoralized appetite, or yawning in
an opera-box, with six or seven long, dreary hours before me to kill at
any price, especially with brandy and soda. How delicious all _this_ is!
How fresh, how pure! What a dinner I ate of those rashers and eggs! And
such tea! By Jove! that old lady must have a chest entirely for her own
consumption. If my bed is as comfortable as it looks, I shall not awaken
till the _padre_ returns from Jyvecote’s. How disagreeable to meet
Jyvecote or any of the lot! I never knew any of them but Jasper and the
father. What a glorious old gentleman is Father Maurice—simple as a
child, with the dignity of a saint. I had better get to bed now, as I
shall begin on a Virgin and Child for him to-morrow; or, if his Stations
are daubs, I can do him a set, though it will take me a deuce of a time.
I must visit the chapel to-morrow; I suppose it’s very dingy.” And with
a good stout yawn Mr. Brown—for we shall continue to call him by this
name until the proper time comes—turned towards the cottage.
Mrs. Clancy met him at the door.
“I was afraid ye wor lost, sir,” she said as he entered the hall.
“Not lost, my good lady, but found. I suppose you lock the doors here
earlier than this.”
“Lock!” she exclaimed almost indignantly—“lock indeed! There’s not a
bowlt nor a bar nor a lock on the whole house. Arrah! who wud rob Father
Maurice but th’ ould boy?—an’ he’d be afeard. He daren’t lay a hand on
anything here, an’ well he knows it, God be good to us!”
“I suppose you’ve been a long time with Father Maurice, Mrs. Clancy.”
“Only sence me man—the Lord rest his sowl, amin!—was lost in the night
av the great storm, nigh fifteen year ago—fifteen year come the
fourteenth av next month, on a Frida’ night. He was a good man, an’ a
fine provider, an’ wud have left me warm an’ comfortable but for the
hard times that cum on the cunthry be raison av the famine. Ye might
have heard tell of it, sir.”
“Oh! indeed I did.”
“Och! wirra, wirra! but it was an awful time, glory be to God! whin the
poor craythurs was dyin’ by the roadsides and aitin’ grass to keep the
sowles in their bodies, like bastes.”
“I was far away then, in China,” said Brown.
“That’s where the tay cums from; an’ very infayrior tay we’re gettin’
now, sir, compared wud what we used to get. I can’t rise more nor a cup
out av two spoonfuls, an’ well I remimber whin wan wud give me layves
enough for to fill a noggin. Are ye thinkin’ av Maynewth, sir?” asked
Mrs. Clancy, exceedingly desirous of some clue as to the identity,
habits, and occupation of her guest, as it would not do to face
Monamullin with her finger in her mouth.
“Maynewth?” he replied. “What is Maynewth?”
“The collidge.”
“What college?”
“The collidge where the young priests is med.”
“Oh! dear, no, Mrs. Clancy,” he replied, laughing heartily. “I am a
painter.”
“A painther!” she said in considerable astonishment.
“Yes, a poor painter.”
“Musha, now, but that flogs. An’ what are ye goin’ for to paint?”
“Anything that turns up.”
She thought for a moment, hesitated a little, scrutinized his apparel,
hesitated again, and at length, “Wud ye be afther doin’ his riverince a
good turn?”
“I should be only too delighted.”
“Thin ye might give the back doore a cupple o’ coats o’ paint afore ye
go.”
The artist burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, long, loud,
joyous, and rippling as that of a schoolboy’s, again and again renewed
as the irritated puzzle written in the housekeeper’s face met his
glance. At length he burst out after a tremendous guffaw:
“I am not exactly that sort of a painter, Mrs. Clancy, but I dare say I
could do it if I tried; and I will try. I am more in that line,”
pointing to the picture of Daniel O’Connell suspended over the
mantel-piece.
The cloud of anger rapidly disappeared from Mrs. Clancy’s brow upon this
explanation, and in a voice of considerable blandishment she
half-whispered:
“Arrah, thin, mebbe ye’d do me a little wan o’ Dan for the kitchen,
honey.”
After another hearty peal of laughter Mr. Brown most cordially assented,
and, taking his chamber candle—a flaring dip—retired to his bedroom.
“_Ma foi_,” he gaily laughed, “this _is_ homely. Do I miss my valet? Do
I miss my brandy and soda? Do I miss my Aubusson carpet, my theatrical
pictures, my Venetian mirror, or my villanous French novel? Not a bit of
it. This is glorious; and what a tub I shall have in the morning in the
wild Atlantic!”
* * * * *
Father Maurice’s guest was up, if not with the lark, at least not far
behind that early-rising bird, and out in the gently-gliding wavelets,
buffeting them with the vigorous stroke of a skilful swimmer. The ocean
on this still, clear morning was beautiful enough to attract wistful
glances from eyes the most _blasé_. The cloudless sky was intensely dark
in its blue, as though the unseen sun was overhead and shining
vertically down. The light did not seem of sea or land, but it shone
dazzlingly on the low line of verdure-clad hills, on the cornfields in
stubble, causing every blade to glisten like a golden spear, on the
whitewashed cottages, on the bright green hedges, on the line of dark
rock, and enveloping the mountains of Carrig na Copple in the dim
distance in blue and silver glory. The colors of the sea were magical,
in luminous green, purple, and blue; and out across the billowy plain
great bands of purple stretched away to the sky line, as a passing cloud
flung its shadows in its onward fleecy progress. The artist felt all
this beauty, drinking it in like life-wine, till it tingled and throbbed
in every vein.
After partaking of a breakfast the consumption of which would have
considerably astonished some of his quondam London set, and having
lighted his meerschaum, Mr. Brown set out for a stroll through the
village, accompanied by half a dozen cabin curs, who, having scented the
stranger, most courteously made up their minds to act as his escort. The
inhabitants of the cabins _en route_ turned out to look respectfully at
him. Children timorously approached, curtsied, and, when spoken to,
retreated in laughing terror. Matrons gazed and gossiped. A cripple or
two touched their caps to him, and on every side he was wished
“good-luck.” He was Father Maurice’s guest, and, as a consequence, the
guest of Monamullin. Whitewash abounded everywhere; amber thatch covered
the roofs; scarlet geraniums bloomed vigorously, their crimson blossoms
resembling gouts of blood spurted against marble slabs. A shebeen or
public-house was not to be seen; order and peace and happiness reigned
triumphant.
“A few trees planted down this street—if I may call it so—would make
this an Arcadian village. I must ask Father Maurice to let me have them
planted. A fountain, too, would look well just opposite that
unpretending shop. I wonder where the church can be?”
A man with a reaping-hook bound in a hay rope happened to be passing, to
whom he addressed himself.
“Can you tell me where the church is?”
“Yis, yer honor; troth, thin, I can.”
“Where is it, please?”
“Av it’s Mass ye want, Father Maurice is beyant at Moynalty Castle.”
“I merely want to see it.”
“An’ shure ye can, sir; it’s open day an’ night.”
“But where is it, my man?”
“Where is it? Right foreninst ye, thin. Don’t ye see the holy and
blessed crass over the doore?”
The chapel was a small, low, cruciform building, very dingy despite its
whitewash, and very tumble-down-looking. It was surrounded by a small
grass-plat and a few stunted pines. A rude cross with a real crown of
thorns stood in one corner, at the foot of which knelt an old man,
bare-headed, engaged in repeating the rosary aloud, and two women, who
were rocking themselves to and fro in a fervor of prayer. Within the
church the fittings were of the most primitive description. The floor
was unboarded, save close to the altar-rails; a few forms were scattered
here and there, and one row of backed seats occupied a space to the
right. The altar, approached by a single step, was of wood, a golden
cross ornamenting the front panel, and a series of gilded Gothic arches
forming its background, while the tabernacle consisted of a rudely-cut
imitation of a dome-covered mosque. A picture of the Crucifixion hung
over the altar suspended from the ceiling, and, as this was regarded as
a masterpiece of art by the inhabitants of Monamullin from time
immemorial, we will not discuss their æstheticism here. The Stations of
the Cross were represented by small colored engravings in mahogany
frames, and the holy-water font consisted of a huge boulder of granite
which had a large hole scooped out of it.
“This will never do,” said Mr. Brown, gazing ruefully at the several
works of art. “What a splendid chance for me! I shall paint, as the old
masters did, under direct inspiration. What a sublime sensation, when my
picture shall have been completed, to witness the reverential admiration
of the poor devout people here! I shall be regarded as a benefactor.
Fancy _my_ being a benefactor to anybody or anything! Heigh-ho!” he
sighed, “what a glorious little Gothic church, a prayer in stone, a
portion of the money I so murderously squandered would have built
here!—that four thousand I flung last March into the mire in Paris.
Faugh!” And, dragged back over the waves of Time, he sat down upon one
of the wooden benches, overwhelmed by the rush of his own thoughts.
Of the length of time he remained thus absorbed he made no count. The
dead leaves of the misspent past rustled drearily round his heart,
weighing him down with a load of inexpressible sadness—a sadness almost
amounting to anguish—and two hours had come and gone ere his reverie was
broken.
Happening to raise his eyes towards the altar, he was startled by
perceiving a female form kneeling at the railings, lithe, _svelte_, and
attired in costly and fashionable raiment. As he gazed, the young girl
finished her prayers, and, with a deep, reverential inclination in front
of the altar, swept past him with that graceful, undulatory motion which
would seem to be the birthright of the daughters of sunny Spain. She was
tall, elegantly formed, and possessed that air of high breeding which
makes itself felt like a perfume. Her bright chestnut hair was brushed
tightly back from an oval face, and hung in massive plaits at the back
of her head. Her eyes were soft brown, her complexion milk-white.
“What a vision, and in this place, too! That is the best of the Catholic
religion. The churches are always open, inviting one to come in and
pray. I wonder who she can be? Some tourist. Pshaw! your tourist doesn’t
trouble this quarter of the globe. To see, to be seen, to dress, and
wrangle over the bills at palatial hotels, means touring nowadays. Some
county lady, over to do a little shopping; but there are no shops,
except that miserable little box opposite, and they apparently sell
nothing there but marbles, tobacco-pipes, kites, and corduroy. Ah! I
have it: some inlander coming for a plunge in the Atlantic. I suppose I
shall meet her pony phaeton as I pass up through the village. I
seriously hope I shall. There is something very fetching about her, and
it purifies a fellow to see a girl like that at prayer.”
Such were the cogitations of Mr. Brown as he emerged from the dingy
little chapel. Brown was not a Catholic. He had been educated at Eton,
and, although intended for Cambridge, his guardian took him to Japan
when he should have been cramming for his degree. Of the religion as by
law established in England, he paid but little attention to the forms
and merely went to church during the season to hear some “swell”
preacher, or because Lady Clara Vere de Vere gave him a _rendezvous_.
But, with all his faults and follies, he was never irreverent, and his
respect for the things that belong unto God was ever honest, open, and
sincere.
He was doomed to be disappointed. No pony phaeton disturbed the
stillness of the village street. The curs, which had patiently waited
for him whilst he remained in the church, received him with noiseless
but cheery tail-wagging as he came out, and marched at his heels as
though he had been their lord and master. The children rushed from
cabins and dropped their quaint little curtsies. The cripples doffed
their caps, the matrons gazed at him and gossiped; and, although he
lingered to say a few words to a passing fisherman, and somewhat eagerly
scanned the surrounding country, no sign could he obtain of the fair
young girl who had flashed upon him like a “vision of the night.”
“I shall never see her again,” he thought; “and yet I could draw that
face. Such a mouth! such _contour_! I must ask the _padre_ if he knows
her, though that is scarcely probable; and yet she is one of his
flock—at least, she is a Catholic, so there is some hope.”
He returned to the cottage, and encountered Father Maurice in the
garden.
“I did not like to disturb you at your devotions, Mr. Brown,” he said,
“but I was only going to give you five minutes longer, as the salmon
grill will be ready by that time.”
“How did you ascertain I was in the church?” asked Brown, entering the
hall and hanging up his hat.
“A beautiful young lady told me.”
“I saw her; who is she?” exclaimed the artist eagerly.
“I shall present you to her. Here she is. Mr. Brown, Miss Julia
Jyvecote.”
[TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE TWO PROPHETS OF MORMONISM.
MR. T. B. H. STENHOUSE, one of the Scottish converts to Mormonism, was
for a quarter of a century an elder and missionary of the church of the
Latter-Day Saints. He is the author of the most complete and careful
history of the Mormons in the English language. Although he has
“outgrown” the faith of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith, and disbelieves
the doctrines which he once preached, he writes of his former associates
in a tone of moderation and good sense, and gives them more credit for
sincerity than the rest of the world will be likely to concede them. In
the introduction to his _Rocky Mountain Saints_ he says:
“Whatever judgment may be passed upon the faith and personal
lives of the Mormon Prophet and his successor, there will be a
general recognition of a divine purpose in their history. Under
their leadership the Mormon people have aided to conquer the
western desert, and to transform a barren and desolate region of
a hitherto ‘unknown country’ into a land that seems destined at
no distant day to teem with millions of human beings, and which
promises to stand pre-eminent among the conquests of the
republic. It is doubtful whether any collective body of other
citizens, unmoved by religious impulses, would ever have
traversed the sandy desert and sage-plains, and have lived an
age of martyrdom in reclaiming them, as the Mormons have in
Utah. But this has been accomplished, and it was accomplished by
faith. That was the Providence of the saints, and it must be
conceded that, as a means subservient to an end, the Mormon
element has been used in the Rocky Mountain region by the
Almighty Ruler for developing the best interests of the nation,
and for the benefit of the world at large.”
The fallacies hidden in these reflections will not escape the notice of
any thoughtful Catholic reader. Mr. Stenhouse has got a feeble hold of a
great truth, but, embarrassed by the materialistic ideas which form so
important a part of the Mormon philosophy, he does not know how to apply
it. We quote the passage as a striking illustration of the spirit in
which too many of our countrymen are inclined to judge the history and
character of the saints of the Great Salt Lake. Americans have a
profound veneration for material prosperity, and hardly find it in their
hearts to condemn a community which has built cities in the remote
wilderness, planted gardens in the midst of the desert, taught brooks to
run across the arid plains, and “developed the resources” of one of the
least promising territories in our national domain. Any man, according
to the popular theories of the emancipation of conscience, has a right
to make a religion to suit himself; and whatever he may profess—unless,
indeed, he should chance to concur with about 160,000,000 other persons
in professing the doctrines of the holy Catholic Church, in which case
there would be a fair presumption that he was dangerous to society—his
fellow-citizens are bound to treat his creed respectfully and admit the
purity of his motives.[42] Hence the world honors the founder of a new
state, even though he may be also the founder of a false religion. There
are 80,000 Mormons in Utah, and as a community they are rich and
thrifty. It is not surprising that we have heard of late so much
admiring comment upon the genius of Brigham Young, so many predictions
that he will be reckoned hereafter among the great men in American
history.
It may be worth while to clear our minds by a brief sketch of the rise
and development of Mormonism. It is a phenomenon too important to be
passed over, and it has a closer connection with the moral and
intellectual tendencies of the time than most of us suspect. The general
direction of Protestant theology has always been towards rationalism and
materialism. Founded upon the denial of everything that man cannot
perceive by his unaided natural powers, it leads irresistibly to the
rejection of divine interposition in worldly affairs and of all manner
of heavenly revelation. But the human mind can no more rest without
belief in the supernatural than the human body can rest upon air.
Superstition is consequently the offspring of infidelity. The extremes
of negation produce a reaction of credulity; the worship of Baal
alternates with the worship of God; we see Protestantism swaying
perpetually to and fro between a cold philosophical scepticism and the
wildest extravagances of fanaticism and imposture. A time of general
negation and intellectual pride is followed by an epidemic of rhapsodies
and convulsions. Prophets arise; spirits are seen in clouds of light;
conventicles resound with the ravings of frenzied sinners and the
shouting of excited saints; Swedenborg makes excursions in the body into
heaven and into hell; the Shakers place Mother Ann on the throne of the
Almighty; the Peculiar People look for the direct interference of God in
the pettiest affairs of life, and demand a miracle every hour of the
day. Mormonism was the product of such a season of spiritual riot. Fifty
years ago animal magnetism and clairvoyance were at their height. The
pride which refused to worship God stooped to amuse itself with ghosts
and witches. The soul, emancipated from religion, became the slave of
magic; and superstition, rejecting the revelations of a loving Creator,
was almost ripe for the instructions of dancing tables and flying
tambourines. Mesmer had excited the learned world with his mystic tubs;
throngs of prophetic somnambulists had prepared the way for the oracles
of Andrew Jackson Davis. In England there was even a more chaotic
disturbance of minds than here. Multitudes on the one hand, disbelieving
in a personal deity altogether, took refuge in pure scepticism.
Multitudes on the other looked for the advent of the Lord in power and
glory, to establish on earth in visible form the kingdom foretold by the
inspired writers. The study of the prophecies became an absorbing
passion of sectaries and enthusiasts. They muddled their brains with
much reading of Isaias and the Apocalypse. They made it their mission to
explain dark sayings; and having placed their own interpretation upon
the divine predictions, they watched the sky for signs of their
immediate fulfilment, and found in contemporary events a thousand
confirmations of their crazy fancies, a thousand portents of the speedy
coming of the Lord. There was no conceivable theological vagary for
which they did not seek authority among the prophets. There was a
wide-spread revival of the ancient belief in a terrestrial millennium,
with a faith that it was close at hand. Edward Irving was setting
England and Scotland aflame with fiery announcements of the Second
Advent; fashionable society left its bed at five o’clock in the morning
to hear him preach, for three hours at a stretch, on the impending
accomplishment of what had been foretold; and although it was not until
a few years later that William Miller organized in this country the
first regular congregations of those who expected the speedy end of the
world, and who sat in white robes listening for the judgment trump,
there is no doubt that the general religious ferment which preceded this
particular hallucination was felt simultaneously on both sides of the
ocean, and presented on both sides the same essential characteristics.
Naturally this exciting period was also a season of powerful Methodistic
revivals. These sensational experiences belong, like spiritualism and
the other delusions which we have mentioned, to what has been called
“inspirational” as distinguished from rationalistic Protestantism, and
they are apt to run their course together. Between 1825 and 1830 the
revival movement was carried to great lengths, and its excesses seem to
have been most marked in Central and Western New York just at the time
when Mormonism arose there. We speak of the revivals as Methodistic only
by way of defining their character; they were by no means restricted to
the Methodist denomination. The most famous revival preacher of the day
was the Rev. Charles G. Finney, a Presbyterian; and any one who is
curious about the spiritual uproar which he carried through the State
with him is referred to the chapter on “Fanaticism in Revivals” in the
_Personal Reminiscences_ of Dr. Gardiner Spring, of the Brick
(Presbyterian) Church in New York City.[43]
It was in such a time, equally favorable to delusions and impostures,
that Joseph Smith, the inventor of Mormonism, made his appearance. The
accounts of his early life are not satisfactory. His origin was obscure.
His neighbors were ignorant. Little is on record except his
_Autobiography_ and a sketch by his mother, neither of which productions
is entitled to much credit. It is evident, however, that he was caught
up by the religious excitement which raged all around him. We are
assured that on at least two special occasions during his boyhood he was
“powerfully awakened” by Methodist revivalists. His writings abound with
revival phraseology; his pretended revelations are full of the
cant-terms of the camp-meeting; his code of doctrines bears traces of
the denominational controversies which were most active in Western New
York when he emerged upon the stage of history. In 1827 he was an
illiterate and idle rustic of twenty-two years, living at Palmyra, in
Wayne County, New York. His parents were shiftless and visionary people,
who got drunk, and used the divining-rod, and dug for hidden treasures,
and, according to their neighbors, stole sheep. Joseph was no better
than the rest of the family. By natural disposition he was a dreamer and
an adventurer. According to his own account, he began to see miraculous
appearances in the air and to hear the voices of spiritual messengers as
early as his fifteenth year. It was in one of his seasons of
“awakening,” when, perplexed by the contradictions of rival sects, he
went into a grove and asked the Lord which he should follow, in the firm
persuasion that his question would be answered by some physical
manifestation. We give the Mormon account of the result of his
experiment:
“At first he was severely tempted by the powers of darkness,
which endeavored to overcome him; but he continued to seek for
deliverance, until darkness gave way from his mind. He at length
saw a very bright and glorious light in the heavens above, which
at first seemed to be at a considerable distance. He continued
praying, while the light appeared to be gradually descending
towards him; and as it drew nearer it increased in brightness
and magnitude, so that by the time that it reached the tops of
the trees the whole wilderness for some distance around was
illuminated in the most glorious and brilliant manner. He
expected to have seen the leaves and boughs of the trees
consumed as soon as the light came in contact with them; but
perceiving that it did not produce that effect, he was
encouraged with the hopes of being able to endure its presence.
It continued descending slowly, until it rested upon the earth
and he was enveloped in the midst of it. When it first came upon
him it produced a peculiar sensation throughout his whole
system; and immediately his mind was caught away from the
natural objects with which he was surrounded, and he was
enwrapped in a heavenly vision, and saw two glorious personages,
who exactly resembled each other in their features or likeness.
He was informed that his sins were forgiven. He was also
informed upon the subjects which had for some time previously
agitated his mind—namely, that all the religious denominations
were believing in incorrect doctrines, and consequently that
none of them was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom.
And he was expressly commanded to go not after them; and he
received a promise that the true doctrine, the fulness of the
gospel, should at some future time be made known to him; after
which the vision withdrew.”[44]
Joseph, upon whose word alone this narrative rests, relates that when he
came to himself he was lying on his back looking up into the clouds. He
seems to have accepted cheerfully the condemnation of all existing
religions, but the vision had no other practical effect upon him; as
Orson Pratt confesses, his life continued to be unedifying, and his
story of the celestial apparition was received with stubborn incredulity
by those who knew his character and habits. It was three years before he
professed to be favored with a second visit. Then, he says, a white and
lustrous angel came into his room while he was at prayer, and told him
that Heaven designed him for a great work. There was hidden in a certain
place, to be revealed hereafter, a book written upon gold plates, which
contained “the fulness of the everlasting gospel as delivered by the
Saviour to the ancient inhabitants” of the American continent. This was
the Mormon Bible, commonly known now as the Book of Mormon from the
title of one of its divisions. In his _Autobiography_ Joseph Smith
states that the angel was Nephi, author of the First and Second Books of
Nephi, which stand at the head of the Mormon scriptures; but in his
_Doctrine and Covenants_ he speaks of his visitant as Moroni, who wrote
the last book in the collection and placed the gold plates where they
were afterwards to be found. We do not know what explanation the Mormons
offer of this singular discrepancy. The vision was repeated during the
night, and Joseph was directed to search for the buried treasure in a
hill near Manchester, a village about four miles from Palmyra, in the
adjoining county of Ontario. He saw, as if in a dream, the exact spot in
which he was to dig. He went to Manchester and found the plates,
enclosed in a sort of box formed of stones set in cement. With them
“there were two stones in silver bows (and these stones, fastened to a
breastplate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim), and the
possession and use of these stones was what constituted seers in ancient
or former times, and God had prepared them for the purpose of
translating the book”—an idea which Joseph borrowed, of course, from the
Jewish high-priest’s “rational of judgment,” described in Exodus, chap.
xxviii. Moroni (or was it Nephi?) would not allow the plates to be
removed yet; but he gave Joseph a great many interesting and
comfortable, though rather vague, instructions. He opened the heavens
and caused him to see the glory of the Lord. He made the devil and his
hosts pass by in procession, so that Smith might know them when he met
them. Once a year Joseph was to return to the same spot and receive a
new revelation. On the fourth anniversary of the discovery—that is, in
September, 1827—the angel placed the plates and the Urim and Thummim in
his hands, with a caution that he should let nobody see them. But he
seems to have talked freely about his experiences; for, according to his
own story, the whole country-side was up in arms to get the plates away
from him. He was waylaid and chased by ruffians with clubs. He was shot
at. His house was repeatedly mobbed; and when at last he removed to
Pennsylvania in search of peace, carrying the plates in a barrel of
beans, he was twice overtaken by a constable armed with a
search-warrant, who failed, however, to find what he was looking for.
Possibly the plates and the constable were equally fictions of Joseph
Smith’s imagination.
Incredulous historians of Mormonism offer various explanations of the
story which we have thus far recounted. They detect in Joseph Smith’s
alleged visions a close resemblance to the trance state sometimes
brought on by spiritual excitement among the Methodists and other sects
who make strong appeals to the emotional nature; or they refer his
supernatural exaltation to mesmeric clairvoyance; or they see in him
merely a “spiritual medium,” a precursor of the rappers and
table-tippers who became so common a few years later. Others, again,
account for the whole case upon the theory of demoniac possession; while
still others suppose that, having really discovered some sort of
metallic tablets, the dreams of a disordered mind supplied him with the
interpretation and the _dramatis personæ_.[45] It seems to us hardly
necessary to discuss these various explanations, for there is no proof
of the alleged facts. The whole narrative rests upon nothing but Joseph
Smith’s word. It is the story told by him in after-years to account for
the new gospel. There is none who shared with him the privilege of
angelic visitations. There is none who saw the great light, who heard
the mysterious voices, who even beheld Joseph himself at the moment of
the alleged revelations. No one knows what became of the golden plates.
The angel, said Joseph, came and took them away again. While they
remained in the prophet’s hands they were kept from curious eyes.
Prefixed to the Book of Mormon in the current editions is the “Testimony
of Three Witnesses”—Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin
Harris—that they were permitted to see the plates, and that a heavenly
voice assured them of the faithfulness of Smith’s translation; but all
these three witnesses afterwards confessed that their testimony was a
lie. To their certificate is appended the testimony of eight other
witnesses—namely, Joseph’s father and two brothers, four of the Whitmer
family, and a disciple named Page—who also profess to have seen the
plates; but their connection with the beginnings of the Mormon Church
makes it impossible to put confidence in their statement. We do not know
the circumstances under which the sight may have been vouchsafed to
them, and we certainly have no sufficient reason to believe their
word.[46]
Thus far, then, Mormonism is a mere legend. In 1828 it becomes
historical fact; and whatever may be thought of the prophet’s good faith
in the matter of his early dreams and visions, we find it impossible to
resist the conviction that henceforth he was only a conscious and daring
impostor. From this time to the day of his death, in his acts and his
writings, in his shrewdness, his ambition, and his reckless
courage—planning new settlements, fabricating new Bibles, uttering
forged revelations, nominating himself for President of the United
States, assuming to command armies, running a wild-cat bank, debauching
women—we can see nothing but a career of vulgar fraud. There was wild
fanaticism in the foundation of the Mormon Church; but it was not on the
part of Joseph Smith.
There is proof that about fifteen years before this pretended revelation
an ex-preacher, named Solomon Spalding, a graduate of Dartmouth College,
and a resident of Crawford County, Pennsylvania, offered for publication
at a Pittsburgh printing-office a book called the _Manuscript Found_, in
which he attempted to account for the peopling of America by deriving
the Indians from the lost tribes of Israel. It was a sort of Scriptural
romance, written in clumsy imitation of the historical books of the Old
Testament, and it contained, among its other divisions, a Book of
Mormon. Although announced for publication, it never appeared. The
manuscript remained in the printing-office for a number of years.
Spalding died in 1816. The bookseller died in 1826. Sidney Rigdon, one
of the first disciples of Mormonism, was a compositor in the
printing-office, and it seems to be pretty well established that he made
a copy of the book and afterwards gave it to Smith. At any rate the Book
of Mormon, when it came from the press in 1830, was immediately
recognized as an adaptation of Solomon Spalding’s romance. A great many
people had read parts of it during Spalding’s lifetime, and remembered
not only the principal incidents which it narrated, but the names of the
leading characters—Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, Mormon, and the rest—which Smith
boldly appropriated. Spalding’s only object was literary amusement, with
perhaps a little harmless mystification. The theological teachings
incorporated with his pretended history were the additions of Smith and
Rigdon. As it now stands the Mormon Bible purports to relate the
wanderings of a Hebrew named Lehi, who went out from Jerusalem six
hundred years before Christ, and, after travelling eastward eight years
“through a wilderness,” came to the sea-coast, built a ship, got a
mariner’s compass somewhere, set sail with his wife Sariah, his sons
Laman, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi, Joseph, and Jacob, the wives of the four
elder sons, and six other persons, and in due time reached America.
After the death of Lehi the Lord appointed Nephi to rule over the
settlers, but Laman and Lemuel, heading a revolt, were cursed, and
became the ancestors of the Indians. We shall not waste much time over
this absurd and wearisome farrago, a mixture of Scriptural parodies,
stupid inventions, and bold thefts from Shakspeare and King James’
Bible. It is intolerably verbose, dragging through fifteen books,
stuffed with gross faults of grammar, anachronisms, and solecisms of
every kind, and comprising as much matter as four hundred and fifty of
these pages, or more than three entire numbers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
There are wonderful miracles and tremendous battles. Vast cities are
created in North and South America. Nations wander to and fro across the
continents. Priests, prophets, judges, and Antichrists, with names
curiously constructed out of those in the Jewish Scriptures, appear and
disappear like travesties of the persons in sacred history. The Nephites
and the Lamanites hack and slay each other. A republican form of
government is instituted, and is assailed by monarchical conspiracies.
Nephi, Jarom, Omni, Mosaiah, Mormon, Moroni, Alma, Ether, and other
leaders of the Nephites write the records of the people upon golden
plates, and save them for Joseph Smith to find in due season. Seers give
long-winded explanations of the divine purposes, and predict the
incidents of the beginning of Mormonism, which had already taken place
when Joseph Smith brought these predictions to light. The history of the
Nephites is supposed to be contemporaneous with the history of the Jews,
but entirely independent of it; their Scriptures are intended to
supplement, not contradict, the holy Bible. The crucifixion of our Lord
was announced to these American Jews by portents and prophecies, and
afterwards the Saviour came to the chief city of the Nephites, showed
his wounded hands and feet, healed the sick, blessed little children,
and remained here forty days teaching Christianity. Gradually the
Lamanites, or Indians, overcame the Nephites. In the year 384 a final
battle was fought on the hill Cumorah (Ontario County, New York), where
320,000 Nephites were slain. This was the end of the pre-Columbian
civilization of America, little or nothing being left of the Nephites
except Mormon and his son Moroni, who completed the records on the gold
plates and “hid them up” in the hill. Such, in brief outline, is the
Mormon Bible. With the narrative of the descendants of Lehi, however, it
contains an account of two other emigrations from Asia to
America—namely, that of the Jaredites, who came here direct from the
tower of Babel, and perished after they had stripped the continent of
timber, and that of a party of Jews who followed Lehi at the period of
the Babylonian captivity. The Jaredites came in eight small air-tight
barges, shaped like a covered dish, loaded with all manner of beasts,
birds, and _fishes_, and driven by a furious wind. The voyage lasted
three hundred and forty-four days, so that, in spite of the miraculous
gale astern, it was probably the slowest on record.
It would be an endless task to point out even a tithe of the huge
blunders in this fraudulent volume. We read of Christians a century
before Christ, of the Gospel and the churches six centuries before
Christ, of three oceans lying between Asia and America, of pious Hebrews
eating pork, of Jews long before the name of Jew was invented, of
horses, asses, swine, etc., running wild all over the face of this
continent in the time of the Jaredites, although it is certain that they
were first introduced by the Spaniards. Nephi, in giving an account of
the emigration of his father Lehi, says: “And it came to pass that the
Lord spake unto me, saying, Thou shalt construct a ship after the manner
which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these
waters. And I said, Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore _to
molten_, that I may make tools?... And it came to pass that I did make
tools of the ore which I _did molten_ out of the rock.” Nephi, like St.
John, was unable to write down all the things that Jesus taught:
“Behold, I _were_ about to write them all, but the Lord _forbid_ it.”
Alma declares: “And it came to pass that whosoever did mingle his seed
with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his seed;
therefore _whomsoever_ suffered himself to be led away by the Lamanites
_were called that head_, and there was a mark set upon _him_.” Mormon is
one of the most eccentric in syntax of all the scribes: “And Ammaron
said unto me, I perceive that thou art a sober child, and art quick to
observe; therefore when _ye_ are about twenty-and-four years old I would
that _ye_ should remember,” etc. Nephi “_saw_ wars and _rumors_ of
wars.” Alma writes: “And when Moroni had said these words, he went forth
among the people, waving the rent of his garment in the air, that all
might see _the writing which he had wrote upon the rent_”! The language
of the precious records is described as “reformed Egyptian,” and Nephi
explains that it “consists of the learning of the Jews and the language
of the Egyptians,” though upon what principle they are combined we are
left to imagine. Pressed to exhibit a specimen of the mysterious
characters, Joseph Smith gave what purported to be a fac-simile of a few
lines to one of his disciples, who came to New York and submitted it to
Prof. Anthon. “It consisted,” says Prof. Anthon, “of all kinds of
crooked characters disposed in columns, and had evidently been prepared
by some person who had before him at the time a book containing various
alphabets, Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes; Roman
letters inverted or placed sideways were arranged and placed in
perpendicular columns; and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a
circle, divided into various compartments, decked with various strange
marks, and evidently copied after the Mexican calendar given by
Humboldt, but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence it
was derived.” Mormon says he would have written in Hebrew, if the plates
had been large enough.
In giving the translation of the mysterious books to the world Joseph
Smith, whose education had been sadly neglected, made use of an
amanuensis. This at first was a farmer named Martin Harris. The prophet
sat behind a blanket stretched across the room, and, thus screened from
profane eyes, read aloud from the gold plates, by the miraculous aid of
the Urim and Thummim, the sacred text, which the confiding Harris
reduced to writing. The sceptical, of course, believe that what Smith
held before him was no pile of metallic tablets, but merely the
manuscript of Solomon Spalding, into which he emptied from time to time
a great deal of rubbish of his own make. No one, however, succeeded in
penetrating behind the blanket. The work had gone on for a year and a
half, when Harris, tempted by his wife, embezzled the manuscript. This
was a serious loss. Joseph could not reproduce it in the same words, and
it would not do to risk discrepancies. “Revelation” came to his aid in
this dilemma, and informed him that Harris had “altered the words” of
the manuscript “in order to catch him” in the translation. The stolen
pages were from the Book of Mormon; he must not attempt to replace them;
he should let them go, for a narrative of the same events would be found
in the Book of Nephi:
“And now verily I say unto you that an account of those things
that you have written, which have gone out of your hands, are
engraven upon the plates of Nephi; yea, and you remember it was
said in those writings that a more particular account was given
of these things upon the plates of Nephi. Behold they have only
got a part or an abridgment of the account of Nephi. Behold,
there are many things engraven on the plates of Nephi which do
throw greater views upon my gospel; therefore it is wisdom in me
that you should translate this first part of the engravings of
Nephi, and send forth in this work.”[47]
Oliver Cowdery now became scribe, and the task was finished without
further accidents, the Books of Nephi standing at the head of the
volume, and the remnant of the Book of Mormon, which gives its title to
the whole collection, coming near the end of the table of contents.
Still, the wretched Harris was not altogether cut off for his sin. He
owned a farm. When the translation was finished Heaven uttered, by the
mouth of Smith, “a commandment of God, and not of man, to Martin
Harris”: “I command thee that thou shalt not covet thine own property,
but impart it freely to the printing of the Book of Mormon. And misery
thou shalt receive if thou wilt slight these counsels—yea, even the
destruction of thyself and property.” So Harris mortgaged his farm to
pay the printer, and in 1830 appeared at Palmyra, New York, _The Book of
Mormon: an Account Written by the Hand of Mormon upon Plates taken from
the Plates of Nephi_. By Joseph Smith, Jr., author and proprietor.[48]
Instructed by John the Baptist, Smith and Cowdery now went into the
river and baptized each other by immersion. Joseph then ordained Oliver
to the Aaronic priesthood, and Oliver ordained Joseph. In April, 1830,
the “Church of Christ” was organized at the house of Peter Whitmer in
Fayette, Seneca County, New York, the company of the faithful consisting
only of the prophet, his two brothers, his scribe, and two Whitmers; but
in the course of the summer several other converts appeared, and Joseph
became associated with three men of some ability and education, who gave
the Mormon creed a doctrinal development which the founder himself was
quite incapable of devising. These three were Sidney Rigdon, Orson
Pratt, and Parley P. Pratt. They were devotees of the sensational and
inspirational school, ready for any new form of spiritual extravagance,
believers in visions, crack-brained students of the prophecies. Rigdon
had been a preacher among the Campbellites—a sect whose fundamental
doctrine it is that no precise doctrines are necessary. Read your Bible,
say they, select your opinions from it, don’t allow infant baptism, but
get yourselves baptized by immersion as often as you commit sin. Upon
this broad foundation they can erect as many different systems of
theology as they have congregations. Rigdon had outgrown the
latitudinarianism and bibliolatry of the Campbellites, and at the time
of Joseph Smith’s appearance he was preaching a religion of his own,
rousing his little Ohio congregation with apocalyptic dreams and
interpretations, and bidding them look for the instant coming of the
Lord. Although his name does not appear in the roll of the first
converts and apostles, it is certain that he was intimately associated
with Smith from the beginning; it is certain that he embodied his
peculiar views in the Mormon creed; it is suspected that he had more
than a half-share in arranging the original machinery of imposture.
Parley P. Pratt was likewise a Campbellite preacher, a man of ardent and
passionate temperament, restless, eloquent, a brilliant albeit somewhat
rude orator. Orson Pratt, inclining rather towards metaphysical
speculations than prophecy and spiritual excitement, became the Mormon
philosopher and controversialist, and to him are attributable the
extraordinary materialistic doctrines which form so important a part of
the new system.[49] When Smith and his companions began to preach it
does not appear that they had any scheme of theology ready at hand.
Moroni and the golden plates made up the sum of their first teachings.
There was comparatively little doctrine of any kind in the Book of
Mormon; but, as Joseph’s prophetic pretensions found acceptance, it
became necessary for the prophet to announce some positive creed. In
setting it forth, point after point, he appealed neither to history nor
to reason; “revelation” taught him from day to day all that he wished to
know; and so, little by little, he built up a mass of dogma in which it
is impossible to discover any regular plan. The authoritative handbook
of Mormon theology as it existed in Smith’s time is a small volume first
published in 1835, entitled _The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, carefully selected from the
revelations of God_, by Joseph Smith, President of said Church. It
comprises two parts. The first consists of seven Lectures on Faith,[50]
which need not detain us; the second and more important contains about
one hundred “revelations,” addressed sometimes to Smith, sometimes to
one or another of the disciples, sometimes to the church, and
occasionally to sceptical Mormons who showed signs of becoming
troublesome. They embrace counsels and instructions of all kinds, for
the organization of the hierarchy, the preaching of the new gospel, the
regulation of private business affairs, and the management of
congregations. Here is a sample of a “revelation given in Kirtland,
August, 1831”: “Let my servant Newel K. Whitney retain his store—or, in
other words, the store yet for a little season. Nevertheless, let him
impart all the money which he can impart, to be sent up unto the land of
Sion.” A few days later the voice of heaven spoke through Joseph Smith
again:
“And now verily I say that it is expedient in me that my servant
Sidney Gilbert, after a few weeks, should return upon his
business, and to his agency in the land of Sion; and that which
he hath seen and heard may be made known unto my disciples, that
they perish not. And for this cause have I spoken these things.
And again, I say unto you, that my servant Isaac Morley may not
be tempted above that which he is able to bear, and counsel
wrongfully to your hurt, I gave commandment that his farm should
be sold. I willeth not that my servant Frederick G. Williams
should sell his farm, for I the Lord willeth to retain a
stronghold in the land of Kirtland for the space of five years,
in the which I will not overthrow the wicked, that thereby I may
save some.”
There was a special revelation to the prophet’s wife, Emma, who never
quite relished Joseph’s proceedings:
“Hearken unto the voice of the Lord your God while I speak unto
you, Emma Smith, my daughter; for verily I say unto you all
those who receive my gospel are sons and daughters in my
kingdom. A revelation I give unto you concerning my will, and if
thou art faithful and walk in the paths of virtue before me, I
will preserve thy life and thou shalt receive an inheritance in
Sion. Behold, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou art an elect
lady whom I have called. Murmur not because of the things which
thou hast not seen, for they are withheld from thee and from the
world, which is wisdom in me in a time to come. And the office
of thy calling shall be for a comfort unto my servant, Joseph
Smith, Jr., thy husband, in his afflictions, with consoling
words in the spirit of meekness.”
She was afterwards styled by the saints the Elect Lady, or “Cyria
Electa,” and was “ordained” by Joseph as his scribe in the place of
Oliver Cowdery. The dogmas to be found in this book are few and simple.
The saints were taught to believe in “God the Eternal Father, and in his
Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost”; to believe that men will not
be punished for original sin; that the four saving ordinances of the
Gospel are faith, repentance, baptism, and the laying-on of hands for
the Holy Ghost; that the church enjoys still, as it did in primitive
times, “the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing,
interpretation of tongues, etc.”; that the Bible, “as far as it is
translated correctly,” and the Book of Mormon are both the word of God;
that “the organization of the primitive church—viz., apostles, prophets,
pastors, teachers, evangelists, etc.”—ought to be revived; and that
Israel will be literally gathered and the ten tribes restored, Sion
built on this continent, the personal reign of Christ established on
earth, and the earth renewed in paradisaic glory. Finally, the book
contains elaborate instructions for the establishment of a double
priesthood; that of Melchisedech is the higher, and embraces the offices
of apostle, Seventy, patriarch, high-priest, and elder; the other is
that of Aaron, and includes bishop, priest, teacher, and deacon; it can
only be held by the lineal descendants of Aaron, who are designated by
revelation.
It will be seen how artfully this plan of a church was adapted to the
purposes of Smith and Rigdon, supposing them to have been, as we have no
doubt they were, arrant and conscious cheats. There was novelty and
mystery enough in it to attract the fanatical, and there was not so very
much after all to shock their common sense; while the doctrine of
continuous revelation and the prophetic office left a door wide open for
the introduction of other inventions as fast as they were found
desirable. We shall see, further on, what monstrous blasphemies and
absurdities were in reality adopted as the saints became strong enough
to bear them.
Noyes, in his _History of American Socialisms_, speaks of Western New
York as “the volcanic region” of spiritual and intellectual disturbance.
Here sprang up Mormonism; here were first heard the ghostly rappers;
here raged Millerism and Second-Adventism; here John Collins founded the
Skaneateles community on the basis of “no God, no government, no
marriage, no money, no meat”; here arose the “inspired” Ebenezer colony,
since removed to Iowa; here flourished all manner of Fourierite
phalanxes, wild social experiments, and extravagant beliefs; here at the
present day are found the Brocton community, with their doctrine of
“divine respiration,” and the Perfectionists of Oneida, perhaps the
worst of all the professors of free-love. In this region of satanic
activity the Mormon preachers made disciples so fast that Smith was soon
encouraged to undertake the “gathering of the tribes.” He had visited
Sidney Rigdon at Kirtland, Ohio, early in 1831, and had a revelation
commanding the saints in New York to follow him. But in June the town of
Independence, in Jackson County, Missouri, was revealed as the site of
the American Sion, and there some hundreds of the faithful, selling all
that they had in the East, assembled and laid the foundation of a
temple. With this event begins a phase of Mormonism—the political
separation of the Latter-Day Saints from the Gentiles—which at once
illustrates most forcibly its fanaticism and accounts for its temporal
success. Henceforth the leaders had only to give the word of command,
and the people went wherever the finger of the prophet pointed,
sacrificed their lands and houses, broke off domestic ties, and marched
through pain, starvation, and death into the parched wilderness. The
settlement at Kirtland, however, was retained; a revelation even
commanded the saints to build there a house for Joseph Smith “to live
and translate in,” and another great temple for the Lord. This was
fortunate, because the Mormons were soon expelled from Independence by a
mob; and when Joseph, in obedience to revelation, raised an army of two
hundred men, and, with the title of “commander-in-chief of the armies of
Israel,” marched twelve hundred miles on foot to reinstate them, his
expedition was dispersed by cholera and thunder-storms as soon as it
reached the scene of action. The saints were never restored to the homes
from which they had been driven out; yet to this day they look for a
restoration. They refused all offers to sell their estates; they hold
the Missouri title-deeds as the most precious of their inheritances; the
city of the Great Salt Lake is only the temporary home of their exile;
and Brigham Young, in his will, which was published the other day, after
giving instructions for his funeral, says: “But if I should live to get
back to the church in Jackson County, Missouri, I wish to be buried
there.”
It is not our purpose to follow the persecuted fanatics in all their
early migrations. Driven from place to place, they came, in 1840, to
Hancock County, Illinois, where the owner of a large tract of wild land
gave Smith a portion of it, in order to create a market for the rest.
The prophet sold it in lots to his followers, at high prices, and there,
on the bank of the Mississippi, the Mormons built the city of Nauvoo. It
was revealed to them that they should build a goodly and holy
“boarding-house,” and give Joseph Smith and his posterity a place in it
for ever, and those who had money were commanded by name to put it into
the enterprise (“Revelation given to Joseph Smith, Jan. 19, 1841”). They
were to build a magnificent temple also; they were to organize a
military force, known as the Nauvoo Legion; they were to create, in
short, within the limits of Illinois, a theocratic state, with Joseph
Smith at its head as mayor, general, prophet, church president, and
inspired mouthpiece of the divine will. The city grew as if by magic.
The legislature of Illinois granted it a charter of such extraordinary
liberality that its officers became practically independent of all other
authority. The apostles, sent all over America and England, preached
with such zeal that in the course of six years no fewer than fifteen
thousand believers were numbered in the Nauvoo community. Arrested
several times for treason, for instigating an attempt at murder, and for
other crimes, Joseph Smith was released by Mormon courts and set all
“Gentile” laws at defiance. He was absolute in everything, organizing
the government upon the most despotic principles, yet copying in some
things the system and the phraseology of the Hebrew nation. His aides
and counsellors received names and titles imitated from the Bible.
Brigham Young was “the Lion of the Lord,” Parley P. Pratt was “the
Archer of Paradise,” Orson Pratt was “the Gauge of Philosophy,” John
Taylor was “the Champion of Right,” Lyman Wight was “the Wild Ram of the
Mountains.” No one could deal in land or liquor except Joseph Smith. No
one could aspire to political office or to church preferment without his
permission. No one could travel abroad or remain quiet at home except by
his consent. In Kirtland, with the assistance of Rigdon, he had started
a bank and flooded the country with notes that were never redeemed. In
Nauvoo he amassed what was, for that time and that region, the great
fortune of $1,000,000. From the first gathering of the saints into
communities he had made it a practice to use them in politics. He had
given their votes to one party or another as interest dictated, and in
1844 he went so far as to offer himself for the Presidency of the United
States, and sent two or three thousand elders through the States to
electioneer for him.
As he grew in pride and prosperity the revelations multiplied, the faith
became more and more extravagant, the ceremonies and ordinances of the
church more cumbrous and more mystical. Moroni and Raphael, Peter and
John, visited and conversed with him. He healed the possessed; he
wrestled with the devil. The brethren began to prophesy in the temple;
mysterious impulses stirred the congregations; “a mighty rushing wind
filled the place”; “many began to speak in tongues; others saw glorious
visions, and Joseph beheld that the temple was filled with angels, and
told the congregation so. The people of the neighborhood, hearing an
unusual sound within the temple, and seeing a bright light like a pillar
of fire resting upon it, came running together and were astonished at
what was transpiring.”[51] This diabolic manifestation, or alleged
manifestation, reminds us of the scenes in the Irvingite congregations
in London six years previously, when those brethren likewise prophesied
in an unknown language. But the specimens of the Mormon “gift of
tongues” which have been preserved for us are not calculated to inspire
awe. “Eli, ele, elo, ela—come, coma, como—reli, rele, rela, relo—sela,
selo, sele, selum—vavo, vava, vavum—sero, sera, seri, serum”—such was
the style of the rhapsodies which inflamed the zeal of the Mormon
saints.[52]
It was discovered that there was no salvation in the next world without
Mormon baptism, and, to provide for the generations which preceded
Joseph Smith, every saint was told to be immersed vicariously for his
dead ancestors. There was incessant dipping and sputtering; the whole
church for a season was in a chronic state of cold and dampness; and the
recorders worked their hardest, laying up in the temple the lists of the
regenerated for the information of the angels. The double hierarchy
became so complicated that long study was needed to comprehend it. The
church offices were multiplied. The authority of the president and the
apostles grew more and more despotic. A travelling showman visited the
West with some Egyptian mummies. Joseph Smith bought them, and, finding
in the wrappings a roll of papyrus, he produced a miraculous translation
of the hieroglyphics as the “Book of Abraham.” A fac-simile of the
papyrus was taken to Paris in 1855 by M. Rémy and submitted to the
Egyptologist Devéria, who found it to consist of a representation of the
resurrection of Osiris, together with a funerary manuscript of
comparatively recent date.
All who have studied the manufacture of American religions and social
philosophies are aware how characteristic of these moral and
intellectual rebellions is an attack upon the Christian law of
marriage.[53] The inventions of Joseph Smith soon took the usual course,
although it was probably not until near the end of his career that he
became bold enough to contemplate the general establishment of polygamy.
It appears that as early as 1838 he had a number of “spiritual wives”
who cohabited with him, and Mr. Stenhouse asserts that “many women” have
boasted to him that they sustained such relations with the prophet. This
sort of license, however, was an esoteric doctrine, for the advanced
believers only, not for the common people. Indeed, in 1842, although a
practical plurality had been for some time enjoined by the illuminated,
the doctrine was formally repudiated by a number of elders, apostles,
and women, who declared that they knew of no other marriage than that of
one wife to one husband. In 1845 an appendix on “Marriage” was added to
the book of _Doctrine and Covenants_, in which occurs the following
passage: “Inasmuch as this church of Christ has been reproached with the
crime of fornication and polygamy, we declare that we believe that one
man should have one wife, and one woman but one husband, except in case
of death, when either is at liberty to marry again.” Yet it is beyond
all question that Joseph long before this had been involved in serious
domestic difficulties on account of the jealousy of his true wife, Emma,
and he was obliged to resort to “revelation” to pacify her. The
“Revelation on Celestial Marriage,” which enjoins a plurality of wives
as a service especially acceptable to God, purports to have been given
at Nauvoo in 1843. It contains these sentences:
“And let mine handmaid Emma Smith receive all those that have
been given unto my servant Joseph, and who are virtuous and pure
before me. And I command mine handmaid Emma Smith to abide and
cleave unto my servant Joseph and to none else. And again verily
I say, let mine handmaid forgive my servant Joseph his
trespasses, and then shall she be forgiven her trespasses.”
The revelation, however, was kept secret until long after Joseph’s
death. Emma, if not satisfied, was quieted. The spiritual marriages went
on, and even the initiated continued to deny them. John Taylor, the
present head of the church, held a public discussion of Mormonism in the
English colony at Boulogne in 1850, and stoutly denied the doctrine of
polygamy, although he had at the time five wives in Utah.
It was polygamy that brought Joseph to his violent end. He had attempted
to take the wife of a disciple named Law. The husband rebelled, and with
one or two other malcontents established a paper called the _Nauvoo
Expositor_, for the purpose of exposing the secret corruptions of the
prophet and his chief associates. Only one number was printed. Joseph
ordered the press to be destroyed and the type scattered. Law and his
party appealed to the authorities of the county for redress. Writs of
arrest were issued, and set aside by the Mormon courts. The government
called out the militia to enforce the process. An armed conflict
appeared inevitable, when the Mormon leaders surrendered, and Joseph
Smith, Hyrum Smith, John Taylor, and Willard Richards were lodged in the
county jail at Carthage. There, on the 27th of June, 1844, they were
attacked by an armed mob. Hyrum was shot down at the first volley and
almost instantly expired. Joseph, after defending himself with a
revolver, attempted to escape by the window, and was killed by a
discharge of musketry from the yard below.
In his lifetime the prophet was often denounced and resisted by his own
followers; “revelation” repeatedly put down revolts; apostates in great
numbers, including the very founders of the church, were cut off and
given over to Satan for questioning the truth of Joseph’s inspired
utterances. But his death healed all such quarrels. He became in the
eyes of his fanatical followers the first of saints, the most glorious
of martyrs. To this day even those who do not believe in Mormonism argue
that Joseph must have believed in it, because for its sake he lived a
life of persecution and submitted to a cruel death. The narrative which
we have briefly sketched is enough to show the fallacy of this
reasoning. Mormonism gave Joseph Smith wealth, power, flattery, and
sensual delights. It found him a miserable, penniless country boy; it
made him the ruler of a state, the autocrat of a thriving community, the
head of a harem. There never was a time when the choice was offered him
between worldly advantage on the one hand and fidelity to his creed on
the other. To renounce his pretensions would have been the ruin of his
fortunes. Having once entered upon the career of imposture, he had every
temptation to persevere to the end. He was mobbed and exiled and
imprisoned, not because he believed in the Book of Mormon, but because
he warred upon existing social and political institutions; and there was
nothing to make his death more sacred than that of any other cheat and
libertine who is murdered by masked ruffians in a frontier settlement.
After his death the twelve apostles ruled the church, waiting for the
will of Heaven to designate by inspiration a new leader.[54] Sidney
Rigdon claimed the prophetic office, but was rejected and driven forth.
The prime mover in his excommunication was the senior apostle, to whom
the accident of rank gave a practical precedence in all the affairs of
the church. He taught the saints to be patient and expectant, to
reverence Joseph as their chief for all eternity, to be governed by
Joseph’s voice, to cease vexing themselves about Joseph’s successor.
This was Brigham Young.
At length the time was ripe and the minds of the people were prepared.
On the 24th of December, 1847, Brigham ascended the pulpit to preach.
The Gentiles assert that he arranged his face and dress, modulated his
voice, regulated his gestures, to imitate the departed prophet. The
effect was electrical. The people believed that Joseph stood before
them. Women screamed and fainted; men wept; cries resounded through the
temple. Here was the successor of Joseph at last, and Brigham Young was
made president of the church, and recognized as “prophet, seer, and
revelator.” He was a man greatly inferior in education to some of the
other leaders, and he had done little as yet to justify the preference
now shown him. He was a native of Vermont, and one of the early
converts. Before joining the church he had been a painter and glazier.
In the church he was noted as a stanch, shrewd, hard-working, useful
brother, not much troubled with visions or theological theories, rarely
caught up by those tempests of spiritual madness which used to sweep
through the congregations. He could not have devised the imposture which
Joseph and Rigdon created. He could not have built up the elaborate
system which they constructed out of Old-World religions and modern
politics. He was fierce, and perhaps fanatical, but he had little
imagination and little inventiveness. In the case of other early Mormons
it was sometimes doubtful whether they were not occasionally deceived by
their own impostures, hurried along by a spirit which they had raised
and knew not how to control; but Brigham offered no cause for such
suspicion. He left Mormonism a very different thing from what it was in
1840, yet he added nothing to it. A change had been going on insensibly
ever since the saints gathered at Nauvoo; a further change had been
begun by the preaching of Orson Pratt; and Joseph Smith had originated
two great movements—the introduction of polygamy and the removal into
the heart of the wilderness—which Brigham was to bring to their term. He
is the developer, therefore, of other men’s ideas.
The notion that the Mormons were a chosen and inspired people, blessed
with revelations not given to the rest of the world, and governed by the
direct and special commands of Heaven, necessarily implied the
establishment of an independent political community, and it was their
disloyalty to the state rather than their immoralities which roused
against them so often in the early times the anger of mobs and the
animosity of the civil authorities. The experiment of creating a state
within a state had failed, and Joseph Smith before his death had taken
the first steps towards beginning a new settlement in the far West, and
removing the whole body of his disciples to some remote and solitary
region where neither the United States nor any other government would be
likely to interfere with them. It was Brigham’s part to lead this
extraordinary exodus. It began more than a year before his formal
appointment as head of the church; it was hastened by the fact that
warrants had been issued in Illinois for the arrest of a large number of
prominent saints on a charge of manufacturing counterfeit money, and
that, partly on this account, partly by reason of the prevalence of
murders, thefts, arsons, and various other outrages in which the Mormons
and their opponents were about equally implicated, Nauvoo appeared
likely soon to be the theatre of a civil war. An exploring party had
been sent to the Pacific coast in 1844. Early in February, 1846, the
general migration began. Rarely has the world witnessed such a scene.
The great temple at Nauvoo had just been completed with extravagant
splendor. The city contained 17,000 inhabitants, and only a small
fraction of their valuable property could be disposed of at any price.
They abandoned all that they could not carry, sacrificed their lands and
houses, collected about twelve hundred wagons, and, under the command of
captains of fifties and captains of hundreds, crossed the Mississippi on
the ice and moved into the wintry wilderness. We shrink from repeating
the narrative of that horrible march. For more than two years they
toiled westward, strewing the path with their dead. In winter they
camped near Council Bluffs, and thence Brigham and a body of pioneers
made their way across the Rocky Mountains. The first detachment reached
the Great Salt Lake in July, 1847; the rest followed in the summer of
1848. It was a parched, desolate, rainless valley, but the wanderers
hailed it as a haven of rest; they encamped on the bank of a small
stream, rested their weary animals, and without loss of an hour began to
plough the ground, sow the autumn crops, and build a dam and a system of
irrigating canals. They had escaped from the United States, as they
fondly believed, and were on the soil of Mexico, where they had no doubt
they could maintain themselves against the feeble Mexican government.
But “manifest destiny” was pursuing them. The boundaries of the United
States were soon extended beyond this region by the treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo; the discovery of gold in California destroyed the isolation of
the new Sion; it was no longer a city hid in the desert, but a
resting-place on a great route of travel; and the irrepressible conflict
between the federal republic and the absolute theocracy has been
steadily growing sharper and sharper ever since. Of the great multitude
which set out from Nauvoo barely four thousand ever reached the Great
Salt Lake, the rest having deserted or dropped by the way; but thousands
of converts soon arrived from England, and in a very short time the
community was again strong and prosperous. In 1849, just a year after
the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the Mormons formally declared
themselves “free and independent,” and decreed the erection of the
“State of Deseret,” whose imaginary boundaries enclosed the whole of
Nevada and Utah, and large parts of New Mexico, Arizona, California,
Oregon, Idaho, Colorado, and Wyoming. To this political fiction they
have resolutely adhered; and even while recognizing, as a matter of
prudence, the _de facto_ organization of the United States Territory of
Utah, they have always maintained the _de jure_ existence of their free
and independent state.[55] Brigham, of course, was chosen governor of
Deseret, and he held that title to the day of his death, although, with
his usual worldly shrewdness, he also accepted from Presidents Fillmore
and Pierce the title of governor of Utah.
To understand, however, the opposition which soon developed into such
alarming hostility between Deseret and the United States, we must look
at the changes which had been taking place in Mormonism itself. Possibly
the early disciples of Joseph Smith were in the main ignorant,
peaceable, and well-meaning fanatics, but in twenty years their
character had undergone a transformation. They first became quarrelsome,
then dishonest, next licentious, and afterwards unspeakably cruel and
bloodthirsty. Joseph Smith lived long enough to see the beginning even
of this last stage of corruption, but it was Brigham Young who brought
the budding immoralities into full flower. The “Revelation on Celestial
Marriage” was brought forth at a public meeting in Salt Lake City on the
29th of August, 1852, and Brigham Young gave a history and explanation
of it. The original manuscript was burned up by Joseph’s real wife,
Emma; but Brigham had a copy.
“This revelation,” said he, “has been in my possession many
years, and who has known it? None but those who should know it.
I keep a patent lock on my desk, and there does not anything
leak out that should not.... The principle spoken of by Brother
Pratt this morning we believe in. Many others are of the same
mind. They are not ignorant of what we are doing in our social
capacity. They have cried out, Proclaim it; but it would not do
a few years ago; everything must come in its time, as there is a
time to all things. I am now ready to proclaim it.”
We do not read that any particular sensation was created by the
announcement. Indeed, the practice had already become so common that a
federal judge, a year before this date, had denounced it in a Mormon
assembly, and made a somewhat remarkable appeal to the women to put a
stop to the horrible practice:
“The women were excited; the most of them were in tears before
he had spoken many minutes. The men were astonished and enraged,
and one word of encouragement from their leader would have
brought on a collision. Brigham saw this, and was equal to the
occasion. When the judge sat down, he rose, and, by one of those
strong, nervous appeals for which he is so famous among the
brethren, restored the equilibrium of the audience. Those who
but a moment before were bathed in tears now responded to his
broad sarcasm and keen wit in screams of laughter; and having
fully restored the spirits of the audience he turned to the
judge and administered the following rebuke: ‘I will kick you,’
he said, ‘or any other Gentile judge from this stand, if you or
they again attempt to interfere with the affairs of our
Sion.’”[56]
Judge Brocchus, finding his life in danger, resigned his office and left
the Territory. Once avowed, a belief in the doctrine was pronounced
essential to salvation, and the practice of it was carried to a depth of
bestiality which would horrify a Turk. All degrees of relationship were
practically ignored. Incest and vicarious marriage became every-day
affairs. The saints were taught that “when our father Adam came into the
Garden of Eden he came into it with a celestial body and brought Eve,
_one of his wives_, with him”;[57] and such blasphemies were coupled
with the holiest of all names that the Christian shudders to think of
them.
The formal adoption of the doctrine of polygamy, no longer as the
personal peculiarity of a few leaders, but as the corner-stone of Mormon
society, had a result which Brigham doubtless anticipated when he
established it. The separation of the saints from the rest of
Christendom was made complete and final. Gentile civilization had forced
itself upon their mountain retreat, and in the daily contact with
Christianity and common sense the Mormon imposture was not likely long
to survive. But the institution of plural marriage placed between the
Gentile and the Latter-Day Saint a barrier more formidable than
snow-crowned sierras and alkali deserts. Social intercourse became
impossible between the followers of the two rival systems. Contempt and
horror on the one side bred hatred on the other. For the polygamous
saint, moreover, judging after the manner of men, there was no
repentance. He was tied for ever to the church, an outlaw from all
Christendom, liable to a long imprisonment if he re-entered the pale of
society, safe even in Utah only so long as he enabled the “Governor of
Deseret” to defy the authority of the United States. The polygamist
learned to place in the prophet all his hopes for this world and the
next, and to accept all his utterances with the docility of a child. So
Brigham became not only a more powerful man than Joseph Smith, but
beyond doubt the most absolute ruler in the entire world.
It was now that the Mormon theology began to assume its most repulsive
shape. Cut off from its early connection with a form of Christianity
which, however corrupt, contained at least a remnant of the ancient
faith, it sank with startling rapidity into the most dismal abysses of
polytheism. To the materialistic doctrines which constituted the
foundation and chief characteristic of the philosophy of Orson Pratt and
other primitive expounders of Mormonism, was added an immense mass of
crude and incongruous beliefs, not developed by any process of logic,
but simply heaped on by agglomeration. Daily “revelations” brought forth
daily inconsistencies and absurdities, under the weight of which the
truths once professed by Smith were gradually buried and forgotten.
Hence it is impossible to construct for Mormonism anything like a
theological system. We can only state the isolated and often
contradictory principles which are held by the saints at the present
day, premising that although many of them can be traced more or less
distinctly in the early literature of the sect, the most shocking of
them were little, if at all, known until under Brigham Young the
separation of the saints was completed. The most startling of Mormon
dogmas, relieved of extraneous complications, is that God is only a good
man, and that men advance by evolution until they become gods. There is
no Creator, there is no creature, there is no immaterial spirit. What we
call God, says one authority, is nothing but the truth abiding in man.
What we call God, says Orson Pratt, is “a material intelligent
personage, possessing both body and parts,” like an ordinary man. He has
legs, which he uses in walking, though he can move up and down in the
air without them. He cannot be in more than one place at a time. He
dwells in a planet called Kolob. He was formed by the union of certain
elementary particles of matter, self-moving, intelligent, and existing
from all eternity. All matter is eternal. All substances are material.
The souls of men were not created; they are from eternity, like God
himself. God eats, drinks, loves, hates; his relations with mankind are
purely human; he begets existences in the natural way.[58] Before he
became God he was an ordinary man. He differs from other men now only in
power. He is not omnipotent; he still increases and may continue to
increase infinitely. As God is only an improved man, so man may come by
gradual progress to know as much as God. _Indeed, there are already
innumerable gods._ The first verse of Genesis, “In the beginning God
created heaven and earth,” ought to read: “The Head God brought forth
the gods, with the heavens and the earth.”[59] Each god rules over a
world which he has peopled by generation, and the god of our world is
Adam, who is only another form of the archangel Michael; “he is our
father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do.” The
Mormons believe in a vague way in the Trinity—nay, in two Trinities, one
composed of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; the other, and older, of
“Elohim, Jehovah, and Adam.” The Father and Son have bodies of flesh and
blood; they occupy space; they require time to move from place to place;
but the Holy Spirit (which is the mind of the Father and the Son),
although his substance is material, has no flesh and blood and permeates
everything. After death the souls of the wicked will be imprisoned in
the brutes. The saints will inhabit the planets, where they will have
houses, farms, gardens, plantations of manna, and plenty of wives, and
they will go on marrying and multiplying for all eternity. When this
planetary system is filled up, new worlds will be called into existence,
and in them the faithful, gradually developing into gods, will revel in
the sensual delights of a Moslem paradise.
Surely no such mixture of pantheism, polytheism, and rank atheism was
ever devised before; but we have not yet reached the worst. It was in
1852 that Brigham proclaimed the doctrine that Adam is God, and to be
honored and revered as such. To this soon followed the announcement that
Joseph Smith was God. In a year or two more the doctrine was taught, at
first cautiously, but after 1856 publicly and officially, that the only
God to whom this generation is amenable is BRIGHAM YOUNG!
The declaration of this appalling impiety was made in the midst of a
tempestuous “Reformation” which historians will probably regard as the
culminating point of Mormon fanaticism. In the autumn of 1856 one
Jedediah Grant, who stood high in the Mormon priesthood, began to preach
a revival in which the most remarkable practices were public
“accusations of the brethren” and public “confessions of sin.” An
uncontrollable madness seized upon the whole community. Preachers and
penitents vied with one another in disgusting disclosures. The meetings
resounded with wails and curses and slanderous charges. Men, women, and
children, not satisfied with laying bare their hidden sins, accused
themselves of crimes they had never committed, and called upon the
church to punish and disgrace them. “Go to President Young,” was the cry
of the preachers. “Give up all that you have to President Young—your
money, your lands, your wives, your children, your blood.” “Brigham
Young,” exclaimed Heber Kimball, “is my God, is your God, is the only
God we shall ever see, if we do not obey him. Joseph Smith was our God
when he was amongst us; Brigham Young is our God now.” The church
authorities fanned the flame of excitement. They sent preachers into
every ward and every settlement. Thousands of the saints placed all
their property in Brigham’s hands.[60] Then they became inflamed with
persecuting zeal. They sacked the houses of offenders, whipped and
mutilated those who spoke evil of the church. From such outrages it was
but a step to murder. At Brigham’s instigation the step was taken. In a
discourse in the Tabernacle in February, 1857, he laid down a new law of
love. We must love our neighbors as ourselves. But if we love ourselves,
we must consent to the shedding of our own blood in order to atone for
our sins and exalt us among the gods; so also it is true love to shed
our neighbor’s blood for his eternal salvation. “I could refer you to a
plenty of instances where men have been righteously slain in order to
atone for their sins. The wickedness and ignorance of the nations forbid
this principle being in full force, and the time will come when the law
of God will be in full force. This is loving our neighbor as ourselves;
if he needs help, help him; if he wants salvation, and it is necessary
to spill his blood on the earth in order that he may be saved, _spill
it_!” “There are sins,” said he on another occasion while the
“Reformation” was at its height, “that must be atoned for by the blood
of the man. That is the reason why men talk to you as they do from this
stand; they understand the doctrine and throw out a few words about it.
You have been taught that doctrine, but you do not understand it.” Alas!
understanding came soon enough. The Springville murders in March, 1857,
were followed that summer by the appalling massacre at the Mountain
Meadows of one hundred and twenty peaceable emigrants, men, women, and
children, on their way to California. The midnight assassin went his
rounds. The church executioners were despatched upon their awful
missions. Sinners were sent on errands from which they never returned.
Apostasy was punished by the knife or the bullet. A Welshman named
Morris set up as a rival prophet, and was shot down in cold blood with a
number of his deluded followers. Gentiles were put to death for
presuming to dispute with Mormons over the title to property. A husband
took his wife upon his knee and calmly cut her throat to atone for her
sins.
“Men are murdered here,” said a federal judge to the grand
jury—“coolly, deliberately, premeditatedly murdered. Their
murder is deliberated and determined upon by church-council
meetings, and that, too, for no other reason than that they had
apostatized from your church and were striving to leave the
Territory. You are the tools, the dupes, the instruments of a
tyrannical church despotism. The heads of your church order and
direct you. You are taught to obey their orders and commit these
horrid murders. Deprived of your liberty, you have lost your
manhood and become the willing instruments of bad men.”
Close upon the reign of terror established by the “Reformation” came the
great Mormon rebellion, and the march of an army to Utah to install the
territorial officers appointed by President Buchanan. Brigham thundered
defiance from the pulpit; but on the approach of the troops he ordered
the whole community to leave their homes and once more move out into the
wilderness to build a new Sion. It is a wonderful illustration of the
fanaticism and abject submission to which he had brought the people that
this order was promptly obeyed. Before the “war” was settled by
negotiation no fewer than 30,000 poor creatures took flight, and many of
them, being utterly destitute, were never able to return. The frenzy of
the Reformation era died out; the rebellion was quelled; but the
doctrine of blood-atonement has not been abandoned, and to this day the
soil of Utah is red with human sacrifices.
With such a savage and brutal paganism as the Mormon religion thus
became under Brigham Young’s influence it is impossible that Christian
civilization should ever be at peace. The steady resistance which it has
offered to the authority of the United States needs no further
explanation than we find in the constitution of the Mormon Church and
the fundamental doctrines of the Mormon creed. There are chapters in the
history of the Latter-Day Saints upon which we have not thought it
necessary to linger. The organization of the Danites, and the long list
of murders and other outrages preceding the open inculcation of human
sacrifices, are among the most important of the events which we have
thus passed over. They might be considered excrescences which time would
perhaps remove. We have confined ourselves to the natural and logical
consequences of the preaching of the two prophets; to the circumstances
which throw light upon their personal characters; to the facts which may
enable people to place a juster valuation than now seems to be current
upon the elements which they have introduced into American society and
the work which they have accomplished in the Rocky Mountain desert.
Accepting even the most extravagant estimates of the material prosperity
of the Mormon settlements, we think it must be admitted that their
thrift is a curse to the world. And as for Brigham himself, cold,
calculating, avaricious, sensual, violent, cruel, rolling in luxury,
stretching out his hands on every side to grasp the property of his
dupes, and pushing them on from crime to crime, from horror to horror,
that he might the better amass money, he will take his place in history
not only as a worse man than Joseph Smith, but as one of the most
dangerous monsters ever let loose upon the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO THE WOOD-THRUSH.
How shall I put in words that song of thine?
How tell it in this struggling phrase of mine?
That strange, sweet wonder of full-throated bliss,
The wild-wood freedom of its perfectness,
Faint scent of flowers frail, strong breath of pine,
The west wind’s music, and the still sunshine.
Could I weave sunshine into words, hold fast
Day’s sunset glow that it might ever last,
That clothes as with immortal robe each height,
Rugged and stern ‘mid glare of noonday light,
Softened beneath eve’s gracious glory cast—
Like soul released, from strife to sweetness passed—
Were such power mine, so might I hope, perchance,
In fitting speech to rhyme thy song’s romance,
To sing its sweetness with a note as sweet
As thine that makes this sunset hour complete—
As voice beloved doth richest joy enhance,
As swelling organ yearning soul doth trance.
There is no sorrow set in thy pure song;
Thy notes to realms where all is joy belong.
Thou callest—woods grow greener through thy voice,
The stainless skies in deeper peace rejoice,
All their best glories through thy singing throng—
Voice of a life that ne’er knew thought of wrong!
No martyr life of conquered grief is thine,
Whose happiness but through old tears can shine;
So, sure, didst thou in Eden sing ere Eve,
Our eldest mother, learned for life to grieve,
When thought was fresh, and knowledge still divine,
And in love’s light no shade of death did twine.
Our songs to-day grow sweetest through our pain;
Our Eden lost, we find it not again.
Even our truest, most enduring joy
Earth’s twilight darkens with its dusk alloy.
Soft, soft the shadow of thy heaven-dropt strain
Only our weakness dims with sorrow’s stain.
Thou singst, O hermit bird! of Paradise,
Not as lamenting its lost harmonies,
Not as still fair through perfect penitence,
But as unconscious in first innocence—
Token of time thou art when sinless eyes
Were homes for cloudless thoughts divinely wise.
All things that God found good seem yet to fill
The few sweet notes that triumph in thy trill;
All things that yet are good and purely fair
Give unto thee their happy grace to wear.
Sweet speech art thou for sunset-lighted hill;
Yet day dies gladlier when thou art still.
And I, O rare brown thrush! that idly gaze
Far down the valley’s mountain-shadowed ways—
Where bears the stream light burden of the sky,
Where day, like quiet soul, in peace doth die,
Its calm gold broken by no storm-clouds’ blaze—
Hearken, joy-hushed, thy vesper song of praise
That from yon hillside drops, strong carolling,
A living echo thereto answering,
Doubling the sweetness with the glad reply
That drifts like argosy, joy-laden, by.
Light grows my soul as thy uplifted wing;
Heart knows no sorrow when it hears thee sing!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GOD OF “ADVANCED” SCIENCE.
“The fool hath said in his heart: There is no God.” None but fools
attempt to blind themselves to the irrefragable evidence which compels
the admission of a Supreme Being; and not even these can entirely
succeed in such an endeavor. For it is only in the frowardness of their
heart, not in the light of their reason, that they pronounce the
blasphemous phrase; their heart, not their intellect, is corrupted; so
that, notwithstanding the great number of avowed atheists who at
different times have disgraced the human family, one might be justified
in saying that a real atheist, a man _positively convinced_ of the
non-existence of God, has never existed.
What has led us to begin with this remark is an article in the _Popular
Science Monthly_ (July, 1877) entitled “The Accusation of Atheism,” in
which the able but unphilosophical editor undertakes to show that
although modern “advanced” science may not profess to recognize the God
of the Bible, yet we have no right to infer that this “advanced” science
is atheistical. The God of the Bible is to be suppressed altogether; but
“advanced” scientists, who have already invented so many wonderful
things, are confident that they have sufficient ability to invent even a
new God. Our good readers may find it a little strange; but we are not
trifling. The invention of a new God is just now the great _postulatum_
of the infidel pseudo-philosophers. The less they believe in the living
God who made them, the more would they be delighted to worship a
mock-god made by themselves, that they might not be accused of belonging
to that class of fools who have said in their heart: There is no God.
Prof. Youmans starts with the bright idea that if Dr. Draper had
entitled his book “a history of the conflict between ecclesiasticism and
science” instead of “between religion and science,” he would have
disarmed criticism and saved himself from a great deal of philosophical
abuse. We cannot see, however, how criticism could have been disarmed by
the mere adoption of such a change. The whole of Dr. Draper’s work
breathes infidelity; it falsifies the history of Christianity; it
denounces religion as the enemy of science; and from the first page to
the last it teems with slander and blasphemy; it is, therefore, a real
attack upon religion. On the other hand, we must assume that Dr. Draper
knew what he was about when he opposed “religion” to science; he said
just what he meant; and this is, perhaps, the only merit of his
production. If the title of the book were to be altered so as to “disarm
criticism,” we would suggest that it should be made to read: _A
malicious fabrication concerning a fabulous conflict between religion
and science_.
Then Prof. Youmans proceeds to say that religious people “are alarmed at
the advancement of science, and denounce it as subversive of faith.”
This is not the case. Religious people are not in the least alarmed at
the advancement of science, nor do they feel the least apprehension that
science may prove subversive of faith; quite the contrary. They love
science, do their best to promote it, accept thankfully its discoveries,
and expect that it will contribute to strengthen, not to subvert, the
revealed truths which form the object of theological faith. We admit, at
the same time, that there is a so-called “science” for which we have no
sympathy. Such a pretended “science” originated, if we do not mistake,
in the Masonic lodges of Germany, whence it gradually spread through
England and America by the efforts of the same secret organization. The
promoters of this neoteric science boast that their cosmogony, their
biology, their sociology, their physiology, etc., are “subversive” of
our faith; which would be true enough, if their theories were not at the
same time “subversive” of logic and common sense. But when we show that
their vaunted theories cannot bear examination, when we point out the
manifold absurdities and contradictions they fall into, when we lay open
the sophisms by which their objectionable assertions are supported, and
challenge them to make a reply, they invariably quail and dare not open
their mouths, or, if they venture to speak, they ignore criticism with a
convenient unconcern which is the best palliation of their defeat. As an
example of this we may remind Prof. Youmans that we ourselves have given
a refutation of Prof. Huxley’s lectures on evolution, and that we have
yet to see the first attempt at a reply. We have also refuted a defence
of Prof. Huxley written by Prof. Youmans himself in answer to Rev. Dr.
W. M. Taylor, and we have shown how his own “scientific” reasoning was
at fault in every point; but of course his scientific acuteness did not
allow him to utter a word of reply. No, we are not afraid of a “science”
which can be silenced with so little effort. Were it not that there is a
prevailing ignorance so easily imposed upon by the charlatanism of false
science, there would be no need whatever for denouncing it: it denounces
itself sufficiently to a logical mind.
Prof. Youmans pretends that the difficulty of religious people with
regard to advanced science is simply that of “narrowness or ignorance
inspired by a fanatical earnestness.” We are greatly obliged by the
compliment! Prof. Youmans is, indeed, a model of politeness, according
to the standard of modern progress; but it did not occur to him that,
before speaking of the “narrowness and ignorance” of his critics, he
should have endeavored to atone for his own blunders which we pointed
out in our number for April. To our mind, a man whose ignorance of logic
and of many other things has been demonstrated has no right to talk of
the ignorance of religious people. And as to “fanatical earnestness,” we
need hardly say that it is in the _Popular Science Monthly_ and in other
similar productions of “scientific” unbelievers that we find the best
instances of its convulsive exertions. But let us proceed.
“Atheism,” continues the professor, “has now come to be a familiar and
stereotyped charge against men of science, both on the part of the
pulpit and the religious press. Not that they accuse all scientific men
of atheism, but they allege this to be the tendency of scientific
thought and the outcome of scientific philosophy. It matters nothing
that this imputation is denied; it matters nothing that scientific men
claim that their studies lead them to higher and more worthy conceptions
of the divine power, manifested through the order of nature, than the
conceptions offered by theology. It is enough that they disagree with
current notions upon this subject, and any difference of view is here
held as atheism. In this, as we have said, the theologians may be
honest, but they are narrow and bigoted.”
Mr. Youmans does not perceive the tendency of “scientific” thought to
foster atheism. Not he! Darwin’s theory of development has for its
principal object to destroy, if possible, the history of creation and to
get rid of the Creator. This Mr. Youmans does not perceive. Tyndall, in
his Belfast lecture, professes atheism as the outcome of scientific
philosophy, and, though he has offered some explanations to screen
himself from the imputation, he stands convicted by his own words. Of
this Mr. Youmans takes no notice. Büchner ridicules the idea that there
is a God, and teaches that such an idea is obsolete, contrary to modern
science, and condemned by philosophy as a manifest impossibility. Mr.
Youmans seems to hold that this is not genuine atheism. Huxley, to avoid
creation, gives up all investigation of the origin of things as useless
and unscientific, and the advanced thinkers in general are everywhere at
work propagating the same view in their scientific lectures, books,
journals, and magazines. Yet Prof. Youmans wishes the world to believe
that the tendency of advanced scientific thought is not towards atheism!
Is he blind? The man who writes Nature with a capital letter, who denies
creation, who contributes to the best of his power to the diffusion of
infidel thought, can hardly be ignorant of the fact that what is now
called advanced science is, in the hands of its apostles and leaders, an
engine of war against God. But he knows also that to profess atheism is
bad policy, for the present at least. Science, as he laments in many of
his articles, has not yet advanced enough in the popular mind; people
are still “narrow” and “ignorant,” and even “fanatic”—that is, their
religious feelings and conscientious convictions do not yet permit a
direct and outspoken confession of the atheistic tendency of modern
“scientific” thought. Hence he is obliged to be cautious and to put on a
mask. Such are, and ever have been, the tactics of God’s enemies. Thus
Prof. Huxley, in his lectures on evolution, while attacking the Biblical
history of creation, pretends that he is only refuting the “Miltonian
hypothesis.” The same Prof. Huxley, with Herbert Spencer and many others
of less celebrity, endeavors to conceal his atheism, or at any rate to
make it appear less repulsive, by the convenient but absurd admission of
the Great Unknown or Unknowable, to which surely neither he nor any
other scientist will offer adoration, as it would be an utterly
superfluous, unscientific, and unphilosophical thing to worship what
they cannot know. And Prof. Youmans himself follows the same tactics, as
we shall see in the sequel. Hence we do not wonder that he considers Mr.
Draper’s words “a conflict between religion and science” as unfortunate,
and only calculated to provoke criticism and theological abuse. It would
have been so easy and so much better to say “between ecclesiasticism and
science.” This would have saved appearances, and might have furnished a
plausible ground for repelling the accusation of atheism.
But, says Prof. Youmans, “this imputation is denied.” We answer that the
imputation cannot be evaded by any such denial. If there were question
of the intimate convictions of private individuals, their denial might
have some weight in favor of their secret belief. Men very frequently do
not see clearly the ultimate consequences of their own principles; and
it is for this reason that an atheistic science does not always lead to
personal atheism. As there are honest Protestants who believe on
authority, though their Protestant principle sacrifices authority to
private judgment, so also there are many honest scientists who,
notwithstanding their admission of atheistic theories, believe in God.
This is mere inconsistency after all; and it can only furnish a ground
for judging of the views of individual scientists.
But our question regards the tendency of “advanced scientific thought”
irrespective of the inconsistency of sundry individuals. This question
is to be solved from the nature of the principles and of the conclusions
of “advanced” science; and if such principles and such conclusions are
shown to lead logically to atheism, it matters very little indeed that
“the imputation is denied.” This the editor of the _Popular Science
Monthly_ must admit. Now, that atheism is the logical outcome of
“advanced” science may be proved very easily. Dr. Büchner, in his _Force
and Matter_, gives a long scientific argumentation against the existence
of God. The science which led him to this profession of atheism is the
“advanced” science of which Prof. Youmans speaks. Has any among the
advanced scientists protested against Dr. Büchner’s conclusion? Have any
of them endeavored to show that this conclusion was not logically
deduced from the principles of their pretended science? Some of them may
have been pained at the imprudent sincerity of the German doctor; but
what he affirms with a coarse impudence they too insinuate every day in
a gentler tone and in a more guarded phraseology. Their doctrine is that
“whereas mankind formerly believed the phenomena of nature to be
expressions of the will of a personal God, modern science, by reducing
everything to laws, has given a sufficient explanation of these
phenomena, and made it quite unnecessary for man to seek any further
account of them.” Dr. Carpenter, from whom we have borrowed this
statement, adds: “This is precisely Dr. Büchner’s position; and it seems
to me a legitimate inference from the very prevalent assumption (which
is sanctioned by the language of some of our ablest writers) that the
so-called laws of nature ‘govern’ the phenomena of which they are only
generalized expressions. I have been protesting against this language
for the last quarter of a century.”[61]
Mr. Youmans himself implicitly admits that “advanced” science has given
up the old notion of God; and he only contends that scientists, while
disregarding the God of theology, fill up his place with something
better. “Scientific men claim that their studies lead them to higher and
more worthy conceptions of the divine power manifested through the order
of nature than the conceptions offered by theology.” Our readers need
hardly be told that this claim on the part of our advanced scientists is
preposterous and ridiculous. For if the order of nature could lead to a
conception of divine power higher or worthier than the conception
offered by theology, it would lead to a conception of divine power
greater and higher than omnipotence; for omnipotence is one of the
attributes of the God of theology. But can we believe that Mr. Youmans
entertains the hope of conceiving a power higher than omnipotence? How,
then, can he make good his assertion? On the other hand, the God of
theology is immense, eternal, and unchangeable, infinitely intelligent,
infinitely wise, infinitely good, infinitely perfect, as not only all
theologians but also all philosophers unquestionably admit. Must we
believe that our scientists will be able to conceive a higher intellect,
wisdom, or goodness than infinite intellect, infinite wisdom, or
infinite goodness? Will they imagine anything greater than immensity, or
than eternity? The editor of the _Popular Science Monthly_ has a very
poor opinion indeed of the intellectual power of his habitual readers,
if he thinks that they will not detect the absurdity of his claim.
But there is more than this. “Advanced” science has repeatedly confessed
its inability to form a conception of God. The ultimate conclusion of
“advanced” science is that the contemplation and study of nature afford
no indication of what a God may be; so much so that the leaders of this
“advanced” science, after suppressing the God of theology, could find
nothing to substitute in his place but what they call “the Great
Unknown” and “the Great Unknowable.” Now, surely, the unknowable cannot
be known. How, then, can these scientists claim that their studies lead
them “to higher and more worthy conceptions of the divine power”? Can
they conceive that which is unknown and unknowable? Have they any means
of ascertaining that a thing unknowable has power, or that its power is
divine?
Let them understand that if their “Unknowable” is not eternal, it is no
God; if it is not omniscient, it is no God; if it is not omnipotent, it
is no God. And, in like manner, if it is not self-existent, immutable,
immense, infinitely wise, infinitely good, infinitely perfect, it is no
God. And, again, if it is not our Creator, our Master, and our Judge, it
is no God, and we have no reason for worshipping it, or even for
respecting it. How can we know that these and similar attributes can and
must be predicated of the Unknowable, since the unknowable is not and
cannot be known? If, on the contrary, we know that such a being is
omnipotent, omniscient, eternal, immense, and infinitely perfect in all
manner of perfections, then it is obvious (even to Prof. Youmans, we
assume) that such a being is neither unknown nor unknowable. Thus the
unknowable can lay no claim to “divine power” or other divine
attributes; and therefore the pretended worshippers of the Unknowable
vainly attempt to palliate their atheism by claiming that their studies
have led them “to a higher and more worthy conception of the divine
power than the conception offered by theology.”
As to Prof. Youmans himself, he tells us that the divine nature is
“unspeakable and unthinkable.” This evidently amounts to saying that the
divine nature is unknowable, just as Herbert Spencer, Huxley, and others
of the same sect have maintained. The professor will not deny, we trust,
that what is unthinkable is also unknowable, unless he is ready to show
that he knows the square circle. Hence the remarks we have passed on the
doctrine of his leaders apply to him as well as to them. It is singular,
however, that neither he nor any of his sect has thought of examining
the question whether the “Unknowable” has any existence at all. For if
it has no existence, they must confess that they have not even an
unknown God, and therefore are absolute atheists; and if they assume
that it has a real existence, they are supremely illogical; for no one
has a right to proclaim the existence of a thing unknown and unknowable.
The existence of the unknowable cannot be affirmed unless it be known;
but it cannot be known unless the unknowable be known; and this implies
a manifest contradiction. To affirm existence is to affirm a fact; and
Mr. Youmans would certainly be embarrassed to show that science, however
“advanced,” can affirm a fact of which it has no knowledge whatever.
Hence atheism is the legitimate result of the doctrine which substitutes
the “Unknowable” in the place of the God of theology; and “it matters
nothing” that this consequence is _provisionally_ denied by Prof.
Youmans. Were it not that the horror inspired by the impious pretensions
of his fallacious science obliges him to keep within the measures of
prudence, it is very likely that Prof. Youmans would not only not deny
his “scientific” atheism, but even glory in its open profession. So long
as this cannot be safely done he must remain satisfied with writing
Nature with a capital N.
From these remarks we can further infer that Mr. Youmans’ complaint
about the narrowness and bigotry of theologians is utterly unfounded.
There is no narrowness in rejecting foolish conceptions, and no bigotry
in maintaining the rights of truth. Theology condemns your doctrines,
not because they “disagree with current notions,” but because they are
manifestly impious and absurd. The views you encourage are atheistical.
You admit only the Unknowable; and the Unknowable, as we have just
proved, is not God. Hence the theologians are not “narrow” nor
“bigoted,” but strictly logical and reasonable, when they condemn your
doctrines as atheistical.
And now Prof. Youmans makes the following curious argument:
“It is surprising that they (the theologians) cannot see that in
arraigning scientific thinkers for atheism they are simply doing
what stupid fanatics the world over are always doing when ideas
of the Deity different from their own are maintained. And it is
the more surprising that Christian teachers should indulge in
this intolerant practice when it is remembered that their own
faith was blackened with this opprobrium at its first
promulgation.”
Here a long passage is quoted from _The Contest of Heathenism with
Christianity_, by Prof. Zeller, of Berlin, in which we are reminded that
the primitive Christians were reproached with atheism because they “did
not agree with the prevailing conceptions of the Deity,” and that “Down
with the atheists” was the war-cry of the heathen mob against the
Christians. This suggests to Mr. Youmans the following remarks:
“It would be well if our theologians would remember these things
when tempted to deal out their maledictions upon scientific men
as propagators of atheism. For the history of their own faith
attests that religious ideas are a growth, and that they pass
from lower states to higher unfoldings through processes of
inevitable suffering. It was undoubtedly a great step of
progress from polytheism to monotheism, ... but this was neither
the final step in the advancement of the human mind toward the
highest conception of the Deity, nor the last experience of
disquiet and grief at sundering the ties of old religious
associations. But if this be a great normal process in the
development of the religious feeling and aspiration of humanity,
why should the Christians of to-day adopt the bigoted tactics of
heathenism, first applied to themselves, to use against those
who would still further ennoble and purify the ideal of the
Divinity?”
Thus, according to the professor, as the pagans were wrong and stupid in
denouncing the Christians as atheists, so are the Christians both wrong
and stupid in denouncing the atheistic tendency of “advanced” science;
and the reason alleged is that as the pagans did not recognize the
superiority of monotheism to polytheism, so the Christian theologians
fail to see the superiority of the “scientific” Unknowable to the God of
Christianity. Need we answer this? Why, if anything were wanting to
prove that Prof. Youmans is laboring for the cause of atheism, his very
manner of arguing may be regarded as a convincing proof of the fact.
For, if his reasoning has any meaning, it means that as the Christians
rejected the gods of the pagans, so Prof. Youmans rejects the God of the
Christians; and this is quite enough to show his atheism, as he neither
recognizes our God, nor has he found, nor will he ever find, another God
worthy of his recognition; for, surely, the “Unthinkable” of which he
speaks is not an object of recognition.
On the other hand, is it true that the history of Christianity “attests
that religious ideas are a growth, and that they pass from lower states
to higher unfoldings”? Does the history of Christianity attest, for
instance, that our conception of God has passed from a lower to a higher
state? But, waiving this, it requires great audacity to contend that the
theory of the “Unknowable” and of the “Unthinkable” is an unfolding of
the conception of God. We appeal to Prof. Youmans himself. A theory of
natural science which would lay down as the ultimate result of human
progress that what we call chemistry, geology, astronomy, mechanics,
electricity, optics, magnetism, is something “unknowable” and
“unthinkable,” would scarcely be considered by him an “unfolding” of
science. For how could he “unfold” his thoughts in the _Popular Science
Monthly_, if the subject of his thought were “unthinkable”? But, then,
how can he assume that his theory of the “unthinkable” is an “unfolding”
of the conception of God? God cannot be conceived, if he is unthinkable.
We conceive God as an eternal, immense, omnipotent, personal Being.
These and other attributes of Divinity, as conceived by us, constitute
our notion of God; and this notion is as unfolded as is consistent with
the limits of the human mind. But to “unfold” the conception of Divinity
by suppressing omnipotence, wisdom, eternity, goodness, and all other
perfections of the divine nature, so as to leave nothing “thinkable” in
it, is not to unfold our conception, but to suppress it altogether.
As to the flippant assertion that the Christian conception of Divinity
is not “the final step in the advancement of the human mind toward the
highest conception of the Deity,” we might say much. But what is the use
of refuting what every Christian child knows to be false? We conceive
God as the supreme truth, the supreme good, and the supreme Lord of
whatever exists; and he who pretends that there is or can be a “higher
conception of the Deity” has himself to thank if men call him a fool.
We shall say nothing of “intolerant practices,” “stupid fanaticism,” or
“bigoted tactics.” These are mere words. As to “the aspiration of
humanity,” it may be noticed that there is a secret society that
considers its aspirations as the aspirations of “humanity,” and, when it
speaks of “humanity,” it usually means nothing more and nothing better
than its “free and accepted” members. This “humanity” has doubtless some
curious aspirations; but mankind does not aspire to dethrone God or to
pervert the notion of Divinity.
Prof. Youmans accounts for “the aspiration of humanity” in the following
manner:
“It cannot be rationally questioned that the world has come to
another important stage in this line of its progression. The
knowledge of the universe, its action, its harmony, its unity,
its boundlessness and grandeur, is comparatively a recent thing;
and is it to be for a moment supposed that so vast a revolution
as this is to be without effect upon our conception of its
divine control?”
This manner of arguing is hardly creditable to a professor of science;
for, even admitting for the sake of argument that the knowledge of the
universe is comparatively “a recent thing,” it would not follow that
such a knowledge must alter the Christian conception of the divine
nature. Let the professor make the universe as great, as boundless, and
as harmonious as possible; what then? Will such a universe proclaim a
new God? By no means. It will still proclaim the same God, though in a
louder voice. For the harmony, beauty, and grandeur of the universe
reveal to us the infinite greatness, beauty, and wisdom of its Creator;
and the greater our knowledge of such a universe, the more forcible the
demonstration of the infinite perfection of its Creator. Now, this
Creator is our old God, the God of the Bible, the God to whom Mr.
Youmans owes his existence, and to whom he must one day give an account
of how he used or abused his intellectual powers. This is, however, the
God whom the professor would fain banish from the universe. Is there
anything more unphilosophic or more unscientific?
But the knowledge of the universe, from which we rise to the conception
of God, is not “a recent thing.” Infidels are apt to imagine that the
world owes to them the knowledge of natural science. We must remind them
that science has been built up by men who believed in God. “Advanced”
science is of course “a recent thing,” but it does not “constitute an
important stage” in the line of real progress; for it consists of
nothing but reckless assumptions, deceitful phraseology, and illogical
conclusions. Three thousand years ago King David averred that “the
heavens show forth the glory of God, and the firmament declareth the
work of his hands.” Has advanced science made any recent discovery in
the heavens or on earth which gives the lie to this highly philosophical
statement? Quite the contrary. It is, therefore, supremely ridiculous to
talk of a “vast revolution” whose effect must be “to purify the ideal of
Divinity.” This vast revolution is a dream of the professor.
But he says:
“Is it rational to expect that the man of developed intellect
whose life is spent in the all-absorbing study of that mighty
and ever-expanding system of truth that is embodied in the
method of Nature will form the same idea of God as the ignorant
blockhead who knows and cares nothing for these things, who is
incapable of reflection or insight, and who passively accepts
the narrow notions upon this subject that other people put into
his head? As regards the divine government of the world, two
such contrasted minds can hardly have anything in common.”
This is a fair sample of the logical processes of certain thinkers “of
developed intellect.” Our professor assumes, first, that Catholic
theologians are “ignorant blockheads,” that they “know and care nothing”
for natural truths, that they are “incapable of reflection or insight,”
and that they “passively accept” what others may put into their heads.
Would it not be more reasonable to assume that a “blockhead” is a man
who asserts what cannot be proved, as a certain professor is wont to do?
And would it be unfair to assume that the man who “knows and cares
nothing” for truth is one who beguiles his readers into error, and, when
convicted, makes no amends? We would not say that the professor is
“incapable of reflection or insight,” for we think that no human being
can be so degraded as to deserve this stigma; but we cannot help
thinking that Mr. Youmans “passively accepts” many absurd notions, for
which he cannot account, except by saying that they “have been put into
his head” by such “developed intellects” as Huxley’s, Darwin’s,
Spencer’s, and other notorious falsifiers of truth.
Professor Youmans assumes also that our intellects cannot be “developed”
enough to form a true conception of God, unless we apply to “the
all-absorbing study of the method of Nature,” by which he means the
conservation of energy, the indestructibility of matter, the evolution
of species, and other cognate theories. This assumption has no
foundation. To form a true conception of God it suffices to know that
the universe is subject to continual changes, and therefore contingent,
and consequently _created_. This leads us directly to the conception of
a Creator, or of a First Cause which is self-existent, independent, and
eternal. Modern science and “developed intellects” have nothing to say
against this. It is therefore a gross absurdity to assume that the study
of the method of nature interferes with the old conception of God.
A third assumption of the professor is that our notion of divine nature
is “narrow.” It is astonishing that Mr. Youmans could have allowed
himself to make so manifestly foolish a statement. Is there anything
“narrow” in immensity? in omnipotence? in eternity? in infinite wisdom?
or in any other attribute of the true God? And if our notion of God,
which involves all such attributes, is still “narrow,” what shall we say
of the professor’s notion which involves nothing but the
“unthinkable”—that is, nothing at all?
The professor proceeds to say that if a man is ignorant and stupid his
contemplation of divine things will reflect his own limitation. This is
a great truth; but he should have been loath to proclaim it in a place
where we find so many proofs of his own “limitation.” On the other hand,
it is not from the ignorant and the stupid that our philosophers and
theologians have derived their notion of God; and to confound the latter
with the former is, on the part of a “developed intellect,” a miserable
show of logic. The ignorant and the stupid, continues Mr. Youmans, “will
cling to a grovelling anthropomorphism,” and conceive of the Deity “as a
man like himself, only greater and more powerful, and as chiefly
interested in the things that he is interested in.” To which we answer
that the stupid and the ignorant of divine things are those who _do not
know_ God, and who maintain against the universal verdict of reason that
God is “unknowable.” We defy Mr. Youmans to point out a stupidity and an
ignorance of divine things which equals that of him who pretends to
think of the “unthinkable.” This is even worse than “to cling to a
grovelling anthropomorphism.” Of course our anthropomorphism is a poetic
invention of the “developed intellect,” and therefore we may dismiss it
without further comment.
“The profound student of science,” he adds, “will rise to a more
spiritualized and abstract ideal of the divine nature, or will
be so oppressed with a consciousness of the Infinity as to
reverently refrain from all attempts to grasp, and formulate,
and limit the nature of that which is past finding out, which is
unspeakable and unthinkable.”
To understand the real meaning of this sentence we must remember that he
who wrote it does not accept the God of theologians. Scientific men, as
he has told us, claim that their studies lead them “to higher and more
worthy conceptions” of the divine power than the conceptions offered by
theology. It is obvious, therefore, that the “spiritualized and abstract
ideal of the divine nature” to which the profound student of science is
expected to rise is not the ideal recognized by theology. This is very
strange; for if theology does not furnish the true ideal of divine
nature, much less can such an ideal be furnished by the science of
matter. Every science is best acquainted with its own specific object;
and since God is the object of theology, the ideal of the divine nature
is to be found in theology, not in natural science. Hence “the profound
student of science” may indeed determine the laws of physical and
chemical phenomena, speak of masses and densities, of solids and fluids,
and of other experimental subjects without much danger of error, but he
has no qualification for inventing a new ideal of divine nature. The
ideal of a thing exhibits the essence of the thing; and the study of
essences does not belong to the scientist, whose field is confined
within the phenomena and their laws. The best scientists confess that
they do not even know the essence of matter, though matter is the proper
and most familiar object of their study. Yet these are the men who,
according to Mr. Youmans, should know best the essence of God.
But we should like further to know how the “profound student” of
advanced science will be able to rise to a “spiritualized” ideal of
Divinity. The general drift of modern infidel science is towards
materialism. It teaches that thought is secreted by the brain as water
is by the kidneys, or, at least, that thought consists of molecular
movements, and that the admission of a spiritual substance in the
organism of man is quite unwarranted. How, then, can a science which
rejects spiritual substances lead its “profound student” to a
spiritualized ideal of Divinity? It is manifest, we think, that all this
talk is mere jugglery, and the professor himself seems to have felt that
it was; for he admits that the profound student of science may be “so
oppressed with a consciousness of the Infinite as to refrain from all
attempts to grasp and formulate and limit the nature of what is past
finding out.” This last expression shows that Mr. Youmans has no ground
for expecting that his profound student will rise to the ideal of the
divine nature, as what is “past finding out” will never be found, and is
not only “unspeakable,” as he declares, but also “unthinkable.” The
profound student of science is therefore doomed, so far as Mr. Youmans
may be relied on, to remain without any ideal of God. What is this but
genuine atheism?
Mr. Youmans will reply that his profound student will not be an atheist,
because he will feel “so oppressed with the consciousness of the
Infinite.” But we should like to know how the profound student can have
consciousness of what he cannot think of. And, in like manner, if the
Infinite is unthinkable, how can the profound student know that it is
infinite? These contradictions go far to prove that “ignorance” and
“stupidity,” far from being the characteristics of Christianity, find a
more congenial abode in the “developed intellects of the profound
students of advanced science.”
As all errors are misrepresentations of truth, we cannot dismiss this
point without saying a word about the truth here misrepresented. God is
incomprehensible; such is the truth. God is unthinkable; this is the
error. To argue that what is incomprehensible is also unthinkable, is a
manifest fallacy. There are a very great number even of finite things
which we know but cannot comprehend. For instance, we know gravitation,
electricity, and magnetism, but our knowledge of them is quite
inadequate. We know ancient history, though numberless facts have
remained inaccessible to our research. We know the operations of our own
faculties, but we are far from comprehending them. Comprehension is the
perfect and adequate knowledge of the object comprehended. If the
cognoscibility of the object is not exhausted, there is knowledge, but
not comprehension; and as our finite intellect has no power of
exhausting the cognoscibility of things, human knowledge is not
comprehension, though no one will deny that it is true and real
knowledge. In like manner, though we do not comprehend the infinite, yet
we conceive it, and we know how to distinguish it from the finite. We
know what we say when we affirm that the branches of the hyperbola
extend to infinity, that the decimal division of ten by three leads to
an infinite series of figures, that every line is infinitely divisible,
that every genus extends infinitely more than any of its subordinate
species, and the species infinitely more than the individual, etc. Thus
the notion of the infinite is a familiar one among men; and when Mr.
Youmans contends that the infinite is unthinkable, he commits a blunder,
and every one of his readers has the right to tell him that such a
blunder in inductive science is inexcusable.
Perhaps it may not be superfluous to point out, before we conclude,
another fallacy of the “developed intellect” of the professor. He
assumes that to form a conception of God is to limit the divine nature;
for he declares that the profound student of science oppressed with the
consciousness of Infinity ought reverently to refrain “from all attempts
to grasp, and formulate, and _limit_ the nature of that which is past
finding out.” We would inform Mr. Youmans that the notion of a thing
does not limit the thing, but simply expresses that the thing is what it
is, whether it be limited or unlimited. In all essential definitions
some notion is included, which expresses either perfection or
imperfection. When we say that a being is _irrational_, we point out an
imperfection, or a defect of further perfection; whereas when we say
that a being is _rational_, we express a perfection of the being. Now,
since all imperfection is a real limit, it follows that all denial of
imperfection is a denial of some limit, and therefore the affirmation of
every possible perfection is a total exclusion of limit. Thus
omnipotence excludes all limit of power, eternity all limit of duration,
omniscience all limit of knowledge, immensity all limit of space. We
need not add that all the other attributes of God exclude limitation, as
they are all infinite. It is evident, therefore, that we can “formulate”
our notion of God without “limiting” the divine nature; and that those
“profound students” of nature whose “developed intellect” is “oppressed
with the consciousness of Infinity” strive in vain to palliate their
atheism by “reverently (?) refraining from all attempts to grasp and
formulate” the nature of the Supreme Cause.
We may be told that Prof. Youmans, though he rejects the “God of
theology,” admits something equivalent—viz., Infinity, the consciousness
of which he feels so oppressive. He also admits that “religious feelings
may be awakened” in a mind so oppressed by the thought of Infinity, and
insists that “religious teachers ought in these days to have liberality
enough to recognize this serious fact, remembering that human nature is
religiously progressive as well as progressive in its other capacities.”
Would not this show that we cannot without injustice hold him up as a
professor of atheism? We reply that the accusation of atheism preferred
against the tendency of advanced science has been met by the professor
in such a manner as to give it only more weight, according to the old
proverb which says that
_Causa patrocinio non bona pejor erit_.
He does not believe in the God of theology. In what does he believe? In
the “unthinkable”! This is sheer mockery. But the unthinkable is said to
be infinite. This is sheer nonsense, as we have shown. Again, the
unthinkable is said to awaken religious feelings. This is written for
unthinkable persons. The professor, as we have already noticed, admires
the grandeur of nature, and holds it to be “boundless,” and therefore
infinite. This may lead one to suspect that the material universe—the
sun, the planets, the stars, heat, light, electricity, gravity, and
their laws—constitute the “Infinity” with the consciousness of which the
professor is oppressed. If this could be surmised, we might regard him
as a pantheist. This, of course, would not better his position, as
pantheism is, after all, only another form of atheism. But if nature (or
rather Nature, as he writes it) is his Deity, how can he affirm that
such a nature is “unspeakable” and “unthinkable”? If nature is
“unthinkable,” the science of nature is a dream; and if it is
“unspeakable,” all the talk of the _Popular Science Monthly_ is a fraud.
If Prof. Youmans wishes us to believe that “advanced” science does not
tend to foster atheism, and that its foremost champions are not
atheists, let him come forward like a man, and show that, after
rejecting the God of theology and of philosophy, another God has been
found, to whom “developed intellects” offer religious worship, and in
whom their religious feelings are rationally satisfied. Let him give us,
above all, his “scientific” reasons for abandoning the God of the Bible,
in whom we “ignorant blockheads” have not ceased to believe; and let him
state his “philosophic” reasons also, if he has any, that we may judge
of the case according to its full merit. We need not be instructed about
the “religious progressiveness” of mankind, or any other convenient
invention of unbelievers; we want only to know the new God of “advanced”
science, his nature and his claims. When Prof. Youmans shall have
honestly complied with this suggestion, we shall see what answer can
best meet his appeal to the “liberality” of religious teachers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A LEGEND OF DIEPPE.
A gloomy three days’ storm has prevailed all along the French coast.
Dull gray clouds hide the blue vault of heaven and frown upon the
tossing waters beneath. The fresh, invigorating air, remembered with
delight by all who have ever been in Normandy, has given place to a
damp, chilly heaviness, broken occasionally by fierce gusts of wind and
rain. The fisher-boats are all in port, the small ones drawn up high on
the beach, the larger securely anchored. But this is not due only to the
storm. Even if it were the fairest of weather, no Dieppe fisherman would
set sail to-day. It is All-Souls’ day—the feast of the dead, the
commemoration of the loved and lost; and who is there that has not loved
and lost? But among these simple Catholic souls one feels that the loved
are never lost. The dead live still in the tender remembrance of those
left behind. Tears shed in prayer for the departed have no bitterness.
But the heartless and ungrateful man who fishes to-day will be
everywhere followed by his double—a phantom fisher in a phantom boat.
All signs fail him, all fish escape his net. Again and again he draws it
in empty. If he persist, at length he thinks himself rewarded. His net
is so heavy he nearly swamps his boat in the endeavor to draw it in; and
horrible to say, his catch is only grinning skulls and disjointed human
bones.
At night, tossing on his sleepless pillow, he hears the ghostly “white
car” rolling through the silent street. He hears his name called in the
voice of the latest dead of his acquaintance, and dies himself before
the next All-Souls’ day.
Spite of the bleak and rainy weather, all the good people of Dieppe, or
rather of its fisher suburb, Le Pollet, are gathered together in church.
Rude as it is, weather-beaten, discolored, gray-green, like the unquiet
ocean it overlooks, Notre Dame du Pollet is still grand and picturesque.
It has suffered both from time and desecration, as is seen by its broken
carvings, empty niches, and ruined tombs. The altars are plain, the
ornaments few and simple. On the wall of the Lady chapel hang two rusty
chains—the votive offering, it is said, of a sailor of Le Pollet, once a
slave to pirates. Miraculously rescued by Our Lady, he returned to his
native place only to sing a _Te Deum_ in her chapel and hang up his
broken fetters therein; then, retiring to a neighboring monastery, he
took upon himself a voluntary bondage which love made sweet and light.
It is the solemn Mass of requiem, and almost noon, though the sombre
day, subdued yet more by stained-glass windows, seems like a winter
twilight. The church is all in deep shadow, except the sanctuary with
its softly-burning lamp, and its altar decked with starry wax-lights.
Black draperies hang about the altar, black robes are upon the
officiating priests. The slow, mournful chant of the _Dies Iræ_, sung by
a choir invisible in the darkness, resounds through the dim, lofty
aisles.
Motionless upon the uneven stone pavement kneel the people, a dark and
silent mass, only relieved here and there by the gleam of a snowy cap or
bright-colored kerchief; for the fisher-folk, and, indeed, all the
peasantry of thrifty Normandy, dress in serviceable garb, of sober
colors. There is one little group apart from the rest of the
congregation; not all one family, for they are too unlike. They seem to
be drawn together by some common calamity or dread. First is an old
woman perhaps seventy years of age, and looking, as these Norman
peasants usually do, even older than her years. The full glow of light
from the altar falls upon her white cap, with the bright blue kerchief
tied over it. A string of large beads hangs from her bony fingers. Her
eyes, singularly bright for one so aged, are raised to the black-veiled
crucifix, and tears glisten upon her brown and withered cheeks. Her arm
is drawn through that of a slender young woman, and near them is a
little girl, round and rosy. All three are dressed nearly alike, and all
say their beads, though not with the same tearful devotion. Anxiety and
weariness are in the young girl’s pale but pretty face; and the child
looks subdued, almost frightened, by the gloom around her.
Behind them kneels a comely matron, a little child clinging to her gown;
near her two fishermen, one old and gray-haired. The other, who is
young, has an arm in a sling; he kneels upon one knee, his elbow on the
other, and his face hidden in his hand.
They are two households over whom hangs the shadow of a calamity,
perhaps all the greater because of its uncertainty. Two months ago
Jacques Payen and his son sailed for the fishery. Jacques Suchet and his
cousin, Charles Rivaud, completed the crew; for Jean Suchet, disabled by
a broken arm, remained at home with his grandmother and sister. The
season proved unusually stormy. Two fishing-boats of Le Pollet narrowly
escaped the terrible rocks of the Norman coast; and one of these
reported seeing a vessel, resembling that of the Payens, drifting past
them in a fog, with broken mast and cordage dragging over the side. They
hailed the wreck, but heard no reply, and concluded that the crew had
been swept overboard, or possibly had escaped in their boat.
Weeks had passed since this vague but terrible intelligence had reached
the stricken families. Old Mère Suchet had at once received it as
conclusive. She wept and prayed for the bold young fishers, the hope and
comfort of her old age. Not so Manon Payen. No one dared condole with
her, not even her old father, Toutain. Life hitherto had gone so well
with her! Her husband loved her; her son was her pride and delight; her
rosy Marie and little toddling Pierre filled her cottage with laughter
and sunshine. Grief was so new and strange and frightful. What! her
husband and son taken from her at one blow? No, it could not be! It was
too dreadful! God _could_ not be so cruel! Besides, there were no better
sailors than the Payens, father and son; none who knew the coast so
well, with all its perils, its hidden rocks, and dangerous currents.
Their vessel was new and strong; why should they be lost; they _alone_?
Jean Pinsard was not positive it was their vessel he had seen; how could
he tell in a fog? No; she was sure they were safe. They had put in to
one of the islands. They would not risk a dangerous journey in stormy
weather just to tell her, what she knew already, that they were safe.
To Mère Suchet’s Mathilde, the betrothed of Jacques Payen, how much
better and clearer was this reasoning than the submissive grief of her
pious old grandmother! Young people cannot easily believe the worst when
it concerns themselves. Mathilde _could_ not pray for the repose of the
souls of lover, brother, and cousin. With the passionate, impatient
yearning of a heart new to affliction, she besought the Blessed Mother
for their safe return. Her brother Jean did not try to destroy her
hopes, though he would not say he shared them.
As time passed on and brought no news of the absent, the hearts of these
two poor women grew faint and sore; but they refused to acknowledge it
to one another, or even to themselves. Their days passed in feverish,
and often vain, endeavors to be cheerful and busy; their nights in
anguish all the more bitter because silent and unconfessed. On
All-Souls’ day old Toutain and Mère Suchet had wished to have a Requiem
Mass offered for the lost sailors, but Mathilde wept aloud at the
suggestion, and Manon forbade it instantly, positively, almost angrily.
Manon had borne up well through the sad funereal services of the church.
She smiled upon her little ones, and returned a serene and cheerful
greeting to the curious or pitying friends who accosted her. All day she
had carried the burden of domestic cares and duties, while her heart
ached within her bosom and cried out for solitude. Now, at night, alone
with her sleeping babes, the agony of fear and pain, so long repressed,
takes full possession of her sinking heart. Mingled with the roar of the
treacherous sea she hears the voices of husband and son, now calling
loudly for help, now borne away on the fitful wind. She sees their pale
faces, with unclosed eyes, floating below the cruel green water, their
strong limbs entangled in the twisted cordage. Now great, gleaming fish
swim around them. Oh! it is too fearful. From her knees she falls
forward upon her face and groans aloud. But on a sudden she hears a stir
without—a sound of repressed voices and many hurrying feet. Hope is not
dead within her yet; for she springs to the window with the wild thought
that it is her absent returned. No, ’tis but a group of fishermen on
their way to the pier; but Pinsard stops to tell her, with a strange
thrill in his rough voice, that there is a fishing-boat coming into
port!
Manon screams to her father to watch the little ones—she must go to the
pier—then flies out into the night. It is not raining, and she returns
to snatch her wakened and sobbing babe, and wrap him in his father’s
woollen blouse. She does not know when Mathilde joins her; she is
scarcely conscious of the warm, exultant clasp of her hand. Jean is
there, too, agitated but grave.
As they turn the angle of the village street, before them lies the open
bay. It is past midnight, but the pier is crowded. There, truly, coming
on with outspread canvas, white in the struggling rays of a watery moon,
is _the missing ship_! They know it well. Upon the broken, pebbly shore
the two women kneel to thank God; but they can only lift up their voices
and weep.
“They are not safe yet,” says Jean shortly. “The wind takes them
straight upon the pier. They will need all our help.”
The crowd make way instantly for the breathless women. The light-house
keeper stands ready with a coil of rope. The fishermen range themselves
in line, tighten their belts, and wait to draw the friendly hawser.
Great waves thunder against the long pier, sending showers of spray high
above the pale crucifix at the end against which the women lean. Now the
moon, emerging from a light cloud, sends a flood of pale radiance upon
the vessel’s deck. It is they! Jacques Payen is at the helm; young
Jacques stands upon the gunwale.
The light-house keeper throws his rope; the fishermen raise their
musical, long-drawn cry. Jacques catches the rope, but in silence; and
silently the crew make fast.
“It is their vow!” cries Manon, darting forward among the wondering men.
“They will not speak until they sing _Te Deum_ at Notre Dame for their
safe return.”
Reassured, the men pull in vigorously, but to no effect. Again, and yet
again, but the ship does not move. A moment since it came on swift as
the wind; now it seems anchored for ever not fifty yards away. They can
see plainly every object upon the deck, where the silent crew stand
gazing towards the pier. Even Manon and Mathilde have seized the rope,
and draw with the strength of terror. Breathless, unsteady, large drops
of sweat standing upon their faces, they pause irresolute. Stretching
her arms towards her husband, Manon holds out her babe.
A white mist rises out of the sea and hangs like a veil between them.
Sad, reproachful voices rise out of the waves, some near at hand, others
far out. An icy wind lifts the mist and carries it slowly away, clinging
for a moment like a shroud around the crucifix. The cable falls slack in
the strong hands that grasp it. The ship is gone—vanished without a
sound; but far away echoes a solemn chorus, “Have pity on me, have pity
on me, at least you, my friends, for the hand of the Lord hath touched
me.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ROMANCE AND REALITY OF THE DEATH OF FATHER JAMES MARQUETTE, AND THE
RECENT DISCOVERY OF HIS REMAINS.
The bold and energetic exploration by the Canadian Louis Jolliet and the
French Jesuit James Marquette, in which, embarking in a frail canoe,
they penetrated to the Mississippi by the Wisconsin, and followed the
course of the great river to the Arkansas, gives them and their
important achievement a place in American history. It was an expedition
carried out by two skilled hydrographers familiar with the extent and
limit of American exploration, trained by education and long observation
to map and describe the countries through which they passed. Their great
object was to determine the extent of the river, its chief affluents,
and the nature of the tribes upon it, as well as to decide whether it
emptied into the Gulf of Mexico or the Pacific.
In New Mexico, the advanced outpost of the Spanish colonies, some
definite knowledge of the interior structure of the continent prevailed;
but to the rest of the world the great watershed of the Rocky Mountains,
with the valley of the Mississippi and Missouri to the east and a series
of rivers on the west, was utterly unknown. Marquette and Jolliet lifted
the veil and gave the civilized world clear and definite ideas. The two
learned explorers floated alone down the mighty river, whose path had
not been traced for any distance since the shattered remnant of De
Soto’s army stole down its lower valley to the gulf.
Father Marquette was not a mere scholar or man of science. If he sought
new avenues for civilized man to thread the very heart of the continent,
it was with him a work of Christian love. It was to open the way for the
Gospel, that the cross might enlighten new and remote nations.
No missionary of that glorious band of Jesuits who in the seventeenth
century announced the faith from the Hudson Bay to the Lower
Mississippi, who hallowed by their labors and life-blood so many a wild
spot now occupied by the busy hives of men—none of them impresses us
more, in his whole life and career, with his piety, sanctity, and
absolute devotion to God, than Father Marquette. In life he seems to
have been looked up to with reverence by the wildest savage, by the rude
frontiersman, and by the polished officers of government. When he had
passed away his name and his fame remained in the great West, treasured
above that of his fellow-laborers, Ménard, Allouez, Nouvel, or
Druillettes. The tradition of his life and labors in a few generations,
while it lost none of its respect for his memory, gathered the moss of
incorrectness.
Father Charlevoix, travelling through the West in 1721, stopped on Lake
Michigan at the mouth of a stream which already bore the name of “River
of Father Marquette.” From Canadian voyagers and some missionary in the
West he learned the tradition which he thus embodies in his journal:
“Two years after the discovery (of the Mississippi), as he was going
from Chicagou, which is at the extremity of Lake Michigan, to
Michilimackinac, he entered the river in question on the 18th of May,
1675, its mouth being then at the extremity of the lowlands, which I
have noticed it leaves to the right as you enter. There he erected his
altar and said Mass. Then he withdrew a little distance to offer his
thanksgiving, and asked the two men who paddled his canoe to leave him
alone for half an hour. At the expiration of that time they returned for
him, and were greatly surprised to find him dead. They remembered,
nevertheless, that on entering the river he had inadvertently remarked
that he would end his journey there.
“As it was too far from the spot to Michilimackinac to convey his body
to that place, they buried him near the bank of the river, which since
that time has gradually withdrawn, as if through respect, to the bluff,
whose foot it now washes and where it has opened a new passage. The next
year one of the two men who had rendered the last tribute to the servant
of God returned to the spot where they had buried him, took up his
remains, and conveyed them to Michilimackinac. I could not learn, or
have forgotten, the name this river bore previously, but the Indians now
give it no name but ‘River of the Black-gown’; the French call it by the
name of Father Marquette, and never fail to invoke him when they are in
any peril on Lake Michigan. Many have declared that they believed
themselves indebted to his intercession for having escaped very great
dangers.”
Father Charlevoix’s fame as a historian gave this account the stamp of
authority and it was generally adopted. Bancroft drew from it the
poetical and touching account which he introduced into the first
editions of his _History of the United States_.
Yet this was but romance. The real, detailed account of the missionary’s
labors, the details which let us enter the sanctuary of his pious heart,
were all the time lying unused in Canada. They were in the college of
Quebec when Charlevoix was teaching in that institution as a young
scholastic; but if he then already projected his history of the colony,
no one of the old fathers seems to have opened to him the writings of
the early founders of the mission. It was the same when he returned to
make the tour through the country under the auspices of the government
and with a view to its development.
The papers lay unnoticed, and when Louis XV.’s neglect of his American
empire neutralized all the genius of Montcalm and the gallantry of his
French and Canadian soldiery, the mission of the Jesuit Fathers was
broken up. The precious archives were plundered; but some documents
reached pious hands, who laid them up with their own convent archives,
till the Society of Jesus returned to the land where it could boast of
so glorious a career.
Among these papers were accounts of the last labors and death of Father
Marquette and of the removal of his remains, prepared for publication by
Father Dablon; Marquette’s journal of his great expedition; the very map
he drew; and a letter left unfinished when the angel of death sheathed
his sword by the banks of the Michigan River.
Father Felix Martin, one of the earliest to revive the old Canadian
mission, received these treasures with joy, and has since gleaned far
and wide to add to our material for the wonderful mission labors of the
Jesuit pioneers. He has published many works, and aided in far more.
With a kindness not easy to repay he permitted the writer to use the
documents relating to Marquette in preparing a work on “The Discovery
and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley.”
From these authentic contemporary documents we learn the real story of
Father Marquette’s last labors. As he was returning from his voyage down
the Mississippi, he promised the Kaskaskia Indians, who then occupied
towns in the upper valley of the Illinois, that he would return to teach
them the faith which he announced. His health, broken by exposure and
mission labor on the St. Lawrence and the Upper Lakes, was very frail,
but he had no idea of rest. Devoted in an especial manner to the great
privilege of Mary—her Immaculate Conception—he named the great artery of
our continent The River of the Immaculate Conception, and in his heart
bestowed the same name on the mission which he hoped to found among the
Kaskaskias.
To enter upon that work, so dear to his piety, he needed permission from
his distant superior. When the permission came he took leave of the
Mackinac mission which he had founded, and pushed off his bark canoe
into Lake Michigan. The autumn was well advanced—for it was the 25th of
October, 1674—and the reddening forests swayed in the chill lake winds
as he glided along the western shore. Before he reached the southern
extremity winter was upon him with its cold and snows, and the disease
which had been checked, but not conquered, again claimed the frail
frame. It could not quench his courage, for he kept on in his open canoe
on the wintry lake till the 4th of December, when he reached Chicago.
There he had hoped to ascend the river and by a portage reach the
Illinois. It was too late. The ice had closed the stream, and a winter
march was beyond his strength. His two men, simple, faithful companions,
erected a log hut, home and chapel, the first dwelling and first church
of Chicago. Praying to Our Lady to enable him to reach his destination,
offering the Holy Sacrifice whenever his illness permitted, receiving
delegations from his flock, the Kaskaskias, the winter waned away in the
pious foundation of the white settlement at Chicago.
With the opening of spring Marquette set out, and his last letter notes
his progress till the 6th of April, 1675. Two days after he was among
the Kaskaskias, and, rearing his altar on the prairie which lies between
the present town of Utica and the Illinois river, he offered up the Mass
on Maundy Thursday, and began the instruction of the willing Indians who
gathered around him. A few days only were allotted to him, when, after
Easter, he was again stricken down. If he would die in the arms of his
brethren at Mackinac, he saw that he must depart at once; for he felt
that the days of his sojourning were rapidly closing. Escorted by the
Kaskaskias, who were deeply impressed by the zeal that could so battle
with death, the missionary reached Lake Michigan, on the eastern side.
Although that shore was as yet unknown, his faithful men launched his
canoe. “His strength, however, failed so much,” says Father Dablon,
whose words we shall now quote, “that his men despaired of being able to
convey him alive to their journey’s end; for, in fact, he became so weak
and so exhausted that he could no longer help himself, nor even stir,
and had to be handled and carried like a child. He nevertheless
maintained in this state an admirable resignation, joy, and gentleness,
consoling his beloved companions, and encouraging them to suffer
courageously all the hardships of this voyage, assuring them that our
Lord would not forsake them when he was gone. It was during this
navigation that he began to prepare more particularly for death, passing
his time in colloquies with our Lord, with his holy Mother, with his
angel guardian, or with all heaven. He was often heard pronouncing these
words: ‘I believe that my Redeemer liveth,’ or ‘Mary, Mother of grace,
Mother of God, remember me.’ Besides a spiritual reading made for him
every day, he toward the close asked them to read him his meditation on
the preparation for death, which he carried about him; he recited his
breviary every day; and although he was so low that both sight and
strength had greatly failed, he did not omit it till the last day of his
life, when his companions excited his scruples. A week before his death
he had the precaution to bless some holy-water to serve him during the
rest of his illness, in his agony, and at his burial, and he instructed
his companions how to use it.
“On the eve of his death, which was a Friday, he told them, all radiant
with joy, that it would take place on the morrow. During the whole day
he conversed with them about the manner of his burial, the way in which
he should be laid out, the place to be selected for his interment; how
they should arrange his hands, feet, and face, and how they should raise
a cross over his grave. He even went so far as to enjoin them, only
three hours before he expired, to take his chapel-bell, as soon as he
was dead, and ring it while they carried him to the grave. Of all this
he spoke so calmly and collectedly that you would have thought he spoke
of the death and burial of another, and not of his own.
“Thus did he speak to them as he sailed along the lake, till, perceiving
the mouth of a river, with an eminence on the bank which he thought
suited for his burial, he told them that it was the place of his last
repose. They wished, however, to pass on, as the weather permitted it
and the day was not far advanced; but God raised a contrary wind, which
obliged them to return and enter the river which the father had
designated.
“They then carried him ashore, kindled a little fire, and raised a
wretched bark cabin for his use, laying him in it with as little
discomfort as they could; but they were so depressed by sadness that, as
they afterwards said, they did not know what they were doing.
“The father being thus stretched on the shore like St. Francis Xavier,
as he had always so ardently desired, and left alone amid those
forests—for his companions were engaged in unloading—he had leisure to
repeat all the acts in which he had employed himself during the
preceding days.
“When his dear companions afterwards came up, all dejected, he consoled
them, and gave them hopes that God would take care of them after his
death in those new and unknown countries; he gave them his last
instructions, thanked them for all the charity they had shown him during
the voyage, begged their pardon for the trouble he had given them,
directed them also to ask pardon in his name of all our fathers and
brothers in the Ottawa country, and then disposed them to receive the
sacrament of penance, which he administered to them for the last time.
He also gave them a paper on which he had written all his faults since
his last confession, to be given to his superior, to oblige him to pray
to God more earnestly for him. In fine, he promised not to forget them
in heaven, and as he was very kind-hearted, and knew them to be worn out
with the toil of the preceding days, he bade them go and take a little
rest, assuring them that his hour was not yet so near, but that he would
wake them when it was time—as, in fact, he did two or three hours after,
calling them when about to enter into his agony.
“When they came near he embraced them again for the last time, while
they melted in tears at his feet. He then asked for the holy water and
his reliquary, and, taking off his crucifix, which he always wore
hanging from his neck, he placed it in the hands of one of his
companions, asking him to hold it constantly opposite him, raised before
his eyes. Feeling that he had but a little while to live, he made a last
effort, clasped his hands, and, with his eyes fixed sweetly on his
crucifix, he pronounced aloud his profession of faith, and thanked the
divine Majesty for the immense favor he bestowed upon him in allowing
him to die in the Society of Jesus, to die in it as a missionary of
Jesus Christ, and above all to die in it, as he had always asked, in a
wretched cabin, amid the forests, destitute of all human aid.
“On this he became silent, conversing inwardly with God; yet from time
to time words escaped him: ‘_Sistinuit anima mea in verbo ejus_,’ or
‘_Mater Dei, memento mei_,’ which were the last words he uttered before
entering into his agony, which was very calm and gentle.
“He had prayed his companions to remind him, when they saw him about to
expire, to pronounce frequently the names of Jesus and Mary, if he did
not do so himself; they did not neglect this; and when they thought him
about to pass away one cried aloud, ‘Jesus! Mary!’ which he several
times repeated distinctly, and then, as if at those sacred names
something had appeared to him, he suddenly raised his eyes above his
crucifix, fixing them apparently upon some object, which he seemed to
regard with pleasure; and thus, with a countenance all radiant with
smiles, he expired without a struggle, and so gently that it might be
called a quiet sleep.
“His two poor companions, after shedding many tears over his body, and
having laid it out as he had directed, carried it devoutly to the grave,
ringing the bell according to his injunction, and raised a large cross
near it to serve as a mark for all who passed....
“God did not permit so precious a deposit to remain unhonored and
forgotten amid the forests. The Indians, called Kiskakons, who have for
nearly ten years publicly professed Christianity, in which they were
first instructed by Father Marquette when stationed at La Pointe du St.
Esprit, at the extremity of Lake Superior, were hunting last winter not
far from Lake Illinois (Michigan), and, as they were returning early in
the spring, they resolved to pass by the tomb of their good father, whom
they tenderly loved; and God even gave them the thought of taking his
bones and conveying them to our church at the mission of St. Ignatius,
at Missilimakinac, where they reside.
“They accordingly repaired to the spot and deliberated together,
resolving to act with their father as they usually do with those whom
they respect. They accordingly opened the grave, unrolled the body, and,
though the flesh and intestines were all dried up, they found it entire,
without the skin being in any way injured. This did not prevent their
dissecting it according to custom. They washed the bones and dried them
in the sun; then, putting them neatly in a box of birch bark, they set
out to bear them to our house of St. Ignatius.
“The convoy consisted of nearly thirty canoes in excellent order,
including even a good number of Iroquois, who had joined our Algonquins
to honor the ceremony. As they approached our house, Father Nouvel, who
is superior, went to meet them with Father Pierson, accompanied by all
the French and Indians of the place, and, having caused the convoy to
stop, he made the ordinary interrogations to verify the fact that the
body which they bore was really Father Marquette’s. Then, before they
landed, he intoned the _De Profundis_ in sight of the thirty canoes
still on the water, and of all the people on the shore. After this the
body was carried to the church, observing all that the ritual prescribes
for such ceremonies. It remained exposed under his catafalque all that
day, which was Whitsun Monday, the 8th of June; and the next day, when
all the funeral honors had been paid it, it was deposited in a little
vault in the middle of the church, where he reposes as the
Guardian-Angel of our Ottawa missions. The Indians often come to pray on
his tomb.”
We are not writing his life, and will not enter upon the supernatural
favors ascribed to his intercession by French and Indians. His grave was
revered as a holy spot, and many a pilgrimage was made to it to invoke
his intercession.
The remains of the pious missionary lay in the chapel undoubtedly as
long as it subsisted. This, however, was not for many years. A new
French post was begun at Detroit in 1701 by La Motte Cadillac. The
Hurons and Ottawas at Michilimackinac immediately emigrated and planted
new villages near the rising town. Michilimackinac became deserted,
except by scattered bands of Indians or white bush-lopers, as savage as
the red men among whom they lived. The missionaries were in constant
peril and unable to produce any fruit. They could not follow their old
flocks to Detroit, as the commandant was strongly opposed to them and
had a Recollect father as chaplain of the post. There was no alternative
except to abandon Michilimackinac. The missionaries, not wishing the
church to be profaned or become a resort of the lawless, set fire to
their house and chapel in 1706 and returned to Quebec. The mission
ground became once more a wilderness.
In this disheartening departure what became of the remains of Father
Marquette? If the missionaries bore them to Quebec as a precious
deposit, some entry of their reinterment would appear on the Canadian
registers, which are extremely full and well preserved. Father Nouvel
and Father Pierson, who received and interred them at the mission, were
both dead, and their successors might not recall the facts. The silence
as to any removal, in Charlevoix and other writers, leads us to believe
that the bones remained interred beneath the ruined church. Charlevoix,
who notes, as we have seen, their removal to Mackinac, and is correct on
this point, was at Quebec College in 1706 when the missionaries came
down, and could scarcely have forgotten the ceremony of reinterring the
remains of Father Marquette, had it taken place at Quebec.
Taking this as a fact, that the bones of the venerable missionary,
buried in their bark box, were left there, the next question is: Where
did the church stand?
A doubt at once arises. Three spots have borne the name of
Michilimackinac: the island in the strait, Point St. Ignace on the shore
to the north, and the extremity of the peninsula at the south. The
Jesuit Relations as printed at the time, and those which remained in
manuscript till they were printed in our time, Marquette’s journal and
letter, do not speak in such positive terms that we can decide whether
it was on the island or the northern shore. Arguments have been deduced
from them on either side of the question. On the map annexed to the
Relations of 1671 the words Mission de St. Ignace are on the mainland
above, not on the island, and there is no cross or mark at the island to
make the name refer to it. On Marquette’s own map the “St. Ignace”
appears to refer to the northern shore, so that their testimony is in
favor of that position.
The next work that treats of Michilimackinac is the Recollect Father
Hennepin’s first volume, _Description de la Louisiane_, published in
1688. In this (p. 59) he distinctly says: “Missilimackinac is a point of
land at the entrance and north of the strait by which Lake Dauphin
[Michigan] empties into that of Orleans” (Huron). He mentions the Huron
village with its palisade on a great point of land opposite
Michilimackinac island, the Ottawas, and a chapel where he said Mass
August 26, 1678. The map in Le Clercq’s _Gaspesie_, dated 1691, shows
the Jesuit mission on the point north of the strait, and Father Membré,
in Le Clercq’s _Etablissement_, mentions it as in that position. In
Hennepin’s later work, the _Nouvel Découverte_, Utrecht, 1697, he says
(p. 134): “There are Indian villages in these two places. Those who are
established at the point of land of Missilimackinac are Hurons, and the
others, who are at five or six arpens beyond, are named the Outtaouatz.”
He then, as before, mentions saying Mass in the chapel at the Ottawas.
The Jesuit Relation of 1673–9 (pp. 58, 59) mentions the “house where we
make our abode ordinarily, and where is the church of St. Ignatius,
which serves for the Hurons,” and mentions a small bark chapel
three-quarters of a league distant and near the Ottawas. This latter
chapel was evidently the one where Father Hennepin officiated in 1678
or, as he says elsewhere, 1679.
The relative positions of the Indian villages and the church thus
indicated in Hennepin’s account are fortunately laid down still more
clearly on a small map of Michilimackinac found in the _Nouveaux
Voyages_ de M. le Baron de La Hontan, published at the Hague in 1703.
Many of the statements in this work are preposterously false, and his
map of his pretended Long River a pure invention, exciting caution as to
any of his unsupported statements. But the map of the country around
Michilimackinac agrees with the Jesuit Relation and with Father
Hennepin’s account, and has all the appearance of having been copied
from the work of some professed hydrographer, either one of the Jesuit
Fathers like Raffeix, whose maps are known, or Jolliet, who was royal
hydrographer of the colony. The whole map has a look of accuracy, the
various soundings from the point to the island being carefully given. On
this the French village, the house of the Jesuits, the Huron village,
that of the Ottawas, and the cultivated fields of the Indians are all
laid down on the northern shore. In the text, dated in 1688, he says:
“The Hurons and the Ottawas have each a village, separated from one
another by a simple palisade.... The Jesuits have a small house, besides
a kind of church, in an enclosure of palisades which separates them from
the Huron village.”
The publication a quarter of a century ago of the contemporaneous
account of the death and burial of Father Marquette, the humble
discoverer of a world, excited new interest as to his final
resting-place. The West owed him a monument, and, though America gave
his name to a city, and the Pope ennobled it by making it a bishop’s
see, this was not enough to satisfy the yearnings of pious hearts, who
grieved that his remains should lie forgotten and unknown. To some the
lack of maps laying down the famous spots in the early Catholic missions
has seemed strange: but the difficulty was very great. Every place
required special study, and the random guesses of some writers have only
created confusion, where truth is to be attained by close study of every
ancient record and personal exploration of the ground. Michilimackinac
is not the only one that has led to long discussion and
investigation.[62]
Where was the chapel on the point? A structure of wood consumed by fire
a hundred and seventy years ago could scarcely be traced or identified.
A forest had grown up around the spots which in Marquette’s time were
cleared and busy with human life. Twenty years ago this forest was in
part cleared away, but nothing appeared to justify any hope of
discovering the burial-place of him who bore the standard of Mary
conceived without sin down the Mississippi valley. One pioneer kept up
his hope, renewed his prayers, and pushed his inquiries. The Rev. Edward
Jacker, continuing in the nineteenth century the labors of
Marquette—missionary to the Catholic Indians and the pagan, a loving
gatherer of all that related to the early heralds of the faith, tracing
their footsteps, explaining much that was obscure, leading us to the
very spot where Ménard labored and died—was to be rewarded at last.
A local tradition pointed to one spot as the site of an old church and
the grave of a great priest, but nothing in the appearance of the ground
seemed to justify it. Yet, hidden in a growth of low trees and bushes
were preserved proofs that Indian tradition coincided with La Hontan’s
map and the Jesuit records.
On the 5th day of May, 1877, the clearing of a piece of rising ground at
a short distance from the beach, at the head of the little bay on the
farm of Mr. David Murray, near the main road running through the town,
laid bare the foundations of a church, in size about thirty-two by forty
feet, and of two adjacent buildings. The Rev. Mr. Jacker was summoned to
the spot. The limestone foundation walls of the building were evidently
those of a church, there being no chimney, and it had been destroyed by
fire, evidences of which existed on every side. The missionary’s heart
bounded with pious joy. Here was the spot where Father Marquette had so
often offered the Holy Sacrifice; here he offered to Mary Immaculate his
voyage to explore the river he named in her honor; here his remains were
received and, after a solemn requiem, interred.
But Father Jacker was a cautious antiquarian as well as a devoted
priest. He compared the site with La Hontan’s map. If these buildings
were the Jesuit church and house, the French village was at the right;
and there, in fact, could be traced the old cellars and small log-house
foundations. On the other side was the Huron village; the palisades can
even now be traced. Farther back the map shows Indian fields. Strike
into the fields and small timber, and you can even now see signs of rude
Indian cultivation years ago, and many a relic tells of their occupancy.
The report of the discovery spread and was noticed in the papers. Many
went to visit the spot, and ideas of great treasures began to prevail.
The owner positively refused to allow any excavation to be made; so
there for a time the matter rested. All this gave time for study, and
the conviction of scholars became positive that the old chapel site was
actually found.
The next step towards the discovery of the remains of the venerable
Father Marquette cannot be better told than by the Rev. Mr. Jacker
himself:
“Mr. David Murray, the owner of the ground in question, had for some
time relented so far as to declare that if the chief pastor of the
diocese, upon his arrival here, should wish to have a search made, he
would object no longer. Last Monday, then (September 3, 1877), Bishop
Mrak, upon our request, dug out the first spadeful of ground. On account
of some apparent depression near the centre of the ancient building, and
mindful of Father Dablon’s words, ‘_Il fut mis dans un petit caveau au
milieu de l’église_,’ we there began our search; but being soon
convinced that no digging had ever been done there before, we advanced
towards the nearest corner of the large, cellar-like hollow to the left,
throwing out, all along, two to three feet of ground. On that whole line
no trace of any former excavation could be discovered, the alternate
layers of sand and gravel which generally underlie the soil in this
neighborhood appearing undisturbed. Close to the ancient cellar-like
excavation a decayed piece of a post, planted deeply in the ground, came
to light. The bottom of that hollow itself furnished just the things
that you would expect to meet with in the cellar of a building destroyed
by fire, such as powdered charcoal mixed with the subsoil,[63] spikes,
nails, an iron hinge (perhaps of a trap-door), pieces of
timber—apparently of hewed planks and joists—partly burned and very much
decayed. Nothing, however, was found that would indicate the former
existence of a tomb, vaulted or otherwise. Our hopes began to sink (the
good bishop had already stolen away), when, at the foot of the western
slope of the ancient excavation fragments of mortar bearing the impress
of wood and partly blackened, and a small piece of birch-bark, came to
light. This was followed by numerous other, similar or larger, fragments
of the latter substance, most of them more or less scorched or crisped
by the heat, not by the immediate action of the fire; a few only were
just blackened, and on one side superficially burned. A case or box of
birch-bark (_une quaisse d’escorce de bouleau_), according to the
Relation, once enclosed the remains of the great missionary. No wonder
our hopes revived at the sight of that material. Next appeared a small
leaf of white paper, which, being quite moist, almost dissolved in my
hands. We continued the search, more with our hands than with the spade.
The sand in which those objects were embedded was considerably
blackened—more so, in fact, than what should be expected, unless some
digging was done here _after the fire_, and the hollow thus produced
filled up with the blackened ground from above. Here and there we found
small particles, generally globular, of a moist, friable substance,
resembling pure lime or plaster-of-paris. None of the details of our
search being unimportant, I should remark that the first pieces of
birch-bark were met with at a depth of about three and a half feet from
the present surface, and nearly on a level, I should judge, with the
floor of the ancient excavation. For about a foot deeper down more of it
was found, the pieces being scattered at different heights over an area
of about two feet square or more. Finally a larger and well-preserved
piece appeared, which once evidently formed part of the bottom of an
Indian ‘mawkawk’ (_wigwass-makak_—birch-bark box), and rested on clean
white gravel and sand. Some of our people, who are experts in this
matter, declared that the bark was of unusual thickness, and that the
box, or at least parts of it, had been double, such as the Indians
sometimes, for the sake of greater durability, use for interments. A
further examination disclosed the fact that it had been placed on three
or four wooden sills, decayed parts of which were extracted. All around
the space once occupied by the box the ground seemed to be little
disturbed, and the bottom piece lay considerably deeper than the other
objects (nails, fragments of timber, a piece of a glass jar or large
bottle, a chisel, screws, etc.) discovered on what I conceived to have
been the ancient bottom of the cellar. From these two circumstances it
seemed evident that the birch-bark box had not (as would have been the
case with an ordinary vessel containing corn, sugar, or the like) been
placed on the floor, but sunk into the ground, and perhaps covered with
a layer of mortar, many blackened fragments of which were turned out all
around the space once occupied by it. But it was equally evident that
this humble tomb—for such we took it to have been—had been disturbed,
and the box broken into and parts of it torn out, after the material had
been made brittle by the action of the fire. This would explain the
absence of its former contents, which—what else could we think?—were
nothing less than Father Marquette’s bones. We, indeed, found between
the pieces of bark two small fragments, one black and hard, the other
white and brittle, but of such a form that none of us could determine
whether they were of the human frame.[64]
“The evening being far advanced, we concluded that day’s search,
pondering over what may have become of the precious remains which, we
fondly believe, were once deposited in that modest tomb just in front of
what, according to custom, should have been the Blessed Virgin’s altar.
Had I been in Father Nouvel’s place, it is there I would have buried the
devout champion of Mary Immaculate. It is the same part of the church we
chose nine years ago for Bishop Baraga’s interment in the cathedral of
Marquette. The suggestion of one of our half-breeds that it would be a
matter of wonder if some pagan Indian had not, after the departure of
the missionaries, opened the grave and carried off the remains _pour en
faire de la medicine_—that is, to use the great black-gown’s bones for
superstitious purposes[65]—this suggestion appeared to me very probable.
Hence, giving up the hope of finding anything more valuable, and
awaiting the examination by an expert of the two doubtful fragments of
bone, I carried them home (together with numerous fragments of the bark
box) with a mixed feeling of joy and sadness. Shall this, then, be all
that is left us of the saintly missionary’s mortal part?
“I must not forget to mention a touching little incident. It so happened
that while we people of St. Ignace were at work, and just before the
first piece of bark was brought to light, two young American
travellers—apparently Protestants, and pilgrims, like hundreds of others
all through the summer, to this memorable spot—came on shore, and,
having learned the object of the gathering with joyful surprise,
congratulated themselves on having arrived at such a propitious moment.
They took the liveliest interest in the progress of the search, lending
their help, and being, in fact, to outward appearances, the most
reverential of all present. ‘Do you realize,’ would one address the
other with an air of religious awe, ‘where we are standing? This is
hallowed ground!’ Their bearing struck us all and greatly edified our
simple people. They begged for, and joyfully carried off, some little
memorials. Isn’t it a natural thing, that veneration of _relics_ we used
to be so much blamed for?
“Some hundred and fifty or two hundred of our people witnessed the
search, surrounding us in picturesque groups—many of them, though nearly
white, being lineal descendants of the very Ottawas among whom Father
Marquette labored in La Pointe du St. Esprit, and who witnessed his
interment in this place two hundred years ago. The pure Indian element
was represented only by one individual of the Ojibwa tribe.
“On Tuesday our children were confirmed, and in the afternoon I had to
escort the bishop over to Mackinac Island. Upon my return, yesterday
evening, a young man of this place entered my room, with some black dust
and other matters tied up in a handkerchief. He had taken the liberty to
search our excavation for some little keepsake, taking out a few
handfuls of ground at a little distance from where the box had lain, in
the direction of what I presume to have been the Blessed Virgin’s altar,
and at about the height of the ancient cellar-floor. The result of his
search was of such a character that he considered himself obliged to put
me in possession of it. What was my astonishment when he displayed on my
table a number of small fragments of bones, in size from an inch in
length down to a mere scale, being in all thirty-six, and, to all
appearances, human. Being alone, after nightfall, I washed the bones.
The scene of two hundred years ago, when the Kiskakons, at the mouth of
that distant river, were employed in the same work, rose up before my
imagination; and though the mists of doubt were not entirely dispelled,
I felt very much humbled that no more worthy hands should have to
perform this office. So long had I wished—and, I candidly confess it,
even prayed—for the discovery of Father Marquette’s grave; and now that
so many evidences concurred to establish the fact of its having been on
the spot where we hoped to find it, I felt reluctant to believe it. The
longer, however, I pondered over every circumstance connected with our
search, the more I became convinced that we have found what we, and so
many with us, were desirous to discover. Let me briefly resume the train
of evidence.
“The local tradition as to the site of the grave, near the head of our
little bay; the size and relative position of the ancient buildings,
both in the ‘French Village’ and the Jesuits’ establishment, plainly
traceable by little elevated ridges, stone foundations, cellars,
chimneys, and the traces of a stockade; all this exactly tallying with
La Hontan’s plan and description of 1688—so many concurring
circumstances could hardly leave any doubt as to the site of the chapel
in which Marquette’s remains were deposited.
“The unwillingness of the proprietor to have the grave of a saintly
priest disturbed proved very opportune, not to say providential. Within
the three or four months that elapsed since the first discovery many
hundreds of persons from all parts of the country had the opportunity to
examine the grounds, as yet untouched by the spade. We had time to weigh
every argument _pro_ and _con_. Among those visitors there were men of
intelligence and historical learning. I will only mention Judge Walker,
of Detroit, who has made the early history of our Northwest the subject
of his particular study, and who went over the grounds with the English
edition of La Hontan in his hand. He, as well as every one else whose
judgment was worth anything, pronounced in favor of our opinion. The
balance stood so that the smallest additional weight of evidence would
make it incline on the side of certainty as absolute as can be expected
in a case like this.
“The text of the _Relation_, it is true, would make us look for a vault,
or small cellar (_un petit caveau_), in the middle (_au milieu_) of the
church. But if anything indicating the existence of a tomb in the hollow
towards the left side and the rear part of the chapel were discovered,
could we not construe those words as meaning ‘_within_ the church’?
Besides, it must be remembered that Father Dablon, who left us the
account, was not an eye-witness at the interment; nor did he visit the
mission after that event, at least up to the time of his writing.
“We know, then, that Marquette’s remains were brought to this place in a
birch-bark box; and there is nothing to indicate that, previously to
being interred, they were transferred into any other kind of receptacle.
In that box they remained under the _catafalco_ (_sous sa
representation_) from Monday, June 8, to Tuesday, 9 (1677), and in it,
undoubtedly, they were deposited in a vault, or little cellar, which may
have previously been dug out for other purposes. The box was sunk into
the ground on that side of the excavation which was nearest to the
altar, or, at least, the statue of the Blessed Virgin, the most
appropriate spot for the interment of the champion of Mary Immaculate.
An inscription, on paper, indicating whose bones were contained in the
box, might have been placed within it; of this the piece of white paper
we found among the bark may be a fragment. The poor casket rested, after
the Indian fashion, on wooden supports. It may have been covered with
mortar or white lime, or else a little vault constructed of wood and
mortar may have been erected over it. When the building was fired,
twenty-nine years after the interment, the burning floor, together with
pieces of timber from above, fell on the tomb, broke the frail vault or
mortar cover of the box, burned its top, and crisped its sides. Some of
the pagan or apostate Indians remaining in that neighborhood after the
transmigration of the Hurons and Ottawas to Detroit, though filled with
veneration for the departed missionary (as their descendants remained
through four or five generations), or rather for the very reason of
their high regard for his priestly character and personal virtues, and
of his reputation as a _thaumaturgus_, coveted his bones as a powerful
‘medicine,’ and carried them off. In taking them out of the tomb they
tore the brittle bark and scattered its fragments. The bones being first
placed on the bottom of the cellar, behind the tomb, some small
fragments became mixed up with the sand, mortar, and lime, and were left
behind.
“Such seems to me the most natural explanation of the circumstances of
the discovery. Had the missionaries themselves, before setting fire to
the church, removed the remains of their saintly brother, they would
have been careful about the least fragment; none of them, at least,
would have been found scattered outside of the box. That robbing of the
grave by the Indians must have taken place within a few years after the
departure of the missionaries; for had those precious remains been there
when the mission was renewed (about 1708?), they would most certainly
have been transferred to the new church in ‘Old Mackinac’; and had this
been the case, Charlevoix, at his sojourn there in 1721, could hardly
have failed to be taken to see the tomb and to mention the fact of the
transfer in his journal or history.
“Our next object, if we were to be disappointed in finding the entire
remains of the great missionary traveller, was to ascertain the fact of
his having been interred on that particular spot; and in this, I think,
we have fully succeeded. Considering the high probability—_à priori_, so
to say—of the Indians’ taking possession of the bones, the finding of
those few fragments under the circumstances described seems to me, if
not as satisfactory to our wishes, at least as good evidence for the
fact in question as if we had found every bone that is in the human
body. Somebody—an adult person—was buried under the church; buried
before the building was destroyed by fire; and buried under exceptional
circumstances—the remains being placed in a birch-bark box of much
smaller size than an ordinary coffin—who else could it have been but the
one whose burial, with all its details of time, place, and manner, as
recorded in most trustworthy records, answers all the circumstances of
our discovery?
“_Sept. 7th._—Went again to the grave to-day, and, after searching a
little while near the spot where that young man had found the bones, I
was rewarded with another small fragment, apparently of the skull, like
two or three of those already found. Two Indian visitors who have called
in since declared others to be of the ribs, of the hand, and of the
thigh-bone. They also consider the robbing of the grave by their pagan
ancestors as extremely probable. To prevent profanation and the carrying
off of the loose ground in the empty grave, we covered the excavation
with a temporary floor, awaiting contributions from outside—we are too
poor ourselves—for the purpose of erecting some kind of a tomb or
mortuary chapel in which to preserve what remains of the perishable part
of the ‘Guardian-Angel of the Ottawa missions.’
“I shall not send you this letter before having shown some of the bones
to a physician, for which purpose I have to go outside.
“_Sheboygan, Mich., Sept. 11._—M. Pommier, a good French surgeon,
declared the fragments of bones to be undoubtedly human and bearing the
marks of fire.”
The result is consoling, though not unmixed with pain. It is sad to
think that the remains of so saintly a priest, so devoted a missionary,
so zealous an explorer should have been so heathenishly profaned by
Indian medicine-men; but the explanation has every appearance of
probability. Had the Jesuit missionaries removed the remains, they would
have taken up the birch box carefully, enclosing it, if necessary, in a
case of wood. They would never have torn the birch-bark box rudely open,
or taken the remains so carelessly as to leave fragments. All the
circumstances show the haste of profane robbery. The box was torn
asunder in haste, part of its contents secured, and the excavation
hastily filled up.
The detailed account of the final interment of Father Marquette, the
peculiarity of the bones being in a bark box, evidently of small size
for convenient transportation, the fact that no other priest died at the
mission who could have been similarly interred, leads irresistibly to
the conclusion that Father Jacker is justified in regarding the remains
found as portion of those committed to the earth two centuries ago.
It is now for the Catholics of the United States to rear a monument
there to enclose what time has spared us of the “Angel Guardian of the
Ottawa Missions.”
JOHN GILMARY SHEA.
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
MISCELLANIES. By Henry Edward, Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. First
American Edition. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co., 9
Barclay Street. 1877.
The various papers contained in this assortment of miscellaneous
articles from the pen of Cardinal Manning consist of addresses before
several _Academias_ or other societies, contributions to the _Dublin
Review_, and short essays, most of which, we believe, have been before
published in English magazines or newspapers, or in the form of
pamphlets. They are on current topics of immediate interest, well
adapted to the times, and written in a plain, popular style. One general
tone of defence and explanation of the Catholic cause in respect to
matters now of conflict and controversy between the Catholic Church and
her opposers runs through them all, giving a real unity of purpose and
objective aim to the collection, various and miscellaneous as are its
topics. The most important and interesting papers, in which the force of
the whole volume, of all the cardinal’s principal works, of the efforts
of his entire career as a prelate in the church, is concentrated and
brought to bear upon the central point of anti-Catholic revolution, are
the first and last. The first one is entitled “Roma Æterna: a Discourse
before the _Academia_ of the Quiriti in Rome on the 2615th anniversary
of this city, April 21, 1863.” The last one is entitled “The
Independence of the Holy See,” and we do not know whether or not it was
published before it appeared in the present collection. It has always
been characteristic of the cardinal’s mind, and of the doctrinal or
polemic expositions of Catholic truth put forth by him, to perceive and
seize the principle of unity. While he was still an Anglican archdeacon
he embraced and advocated general principles of Catholic unity, so far
as he then apprehended them, with remarkable clearness and precision.
These principles led him into the bosom of Catholic unity, and their
complete and consequent development in all their conclusions and
harmonious relations has been the one great aim and effort of his
luminous and vigorous mind since he became a Catholic ecclesiastic, both
as an orator and as a writer. This clear, direct view of the logical
order and sequence of constitutive, Catholic principles made him one of
the most thorough and firm advocates of the spiritual supremacy of the
Holy See, before and during the sessions of the Vatican Council. The
Papacy, as the very centre and foundation of Christianity, and therefore
the principal point of attack and defence in the war between the
Christian kingdom and the anti-Christian revolution, has been the
dominant idea in the mind of Cardinal Manning. The indissoluble union of
the papal supremacy with the Roman episcopate, and therefore the
dependence of Christendom on the Roman Church as its centre, its head,
the great source of its life, is the topic to which at present his
attention is more specially directed. The Roman Church, and, by reason
of its near and close connection, the Italian Church, as the permanent,
immovable seat of the sovereign pontificate, is identified with the
prosperity of Christendom. The head and heart of the Catholic Church are
there, whereas other members of the great, universal society of
Christians are only limbs, however great and powerful they may be. The
logical and juridical mind of Cardinal Manning grasps in its full import
the whole Roman and Italian question of present conflict as the vital
one for all Christendom. And, as we have said, the first and last papers
in his volume of _Miscellanies_ are of permanent value and importance,
on account of his clear and masterly exposition of this great
controversy. We will quote a few salient paragraphs in illustration and
confirmation of our opinion on this head:
“It is no wonder to me that Italians should believe in the primacy of
Italy. Italy has indeed a primacy, but not that of which some have
dreamed. The primacy of Italy is the presence of Rome; and the primacy
of Rome is in its apostleship to the whole human race, in the science of
God with which it has illuminated mankind, in its supreme and world-wide
jurisdiction over souls, in its high tribunal of appeal from all the
authorities on earth, in its inflexible exposition of the moral law, in
its sacred diplomacy, by which it binds the nations of Christendom into
a confederacy of order and of justice—these are its true, supreme, and,
because God has so willed, _its inalienable and incommunicable primacy
among the nations of the earth_.... The eternity of Rome, then, if it be
not an exact truth, is nevertheless no mere rhetorical exaggeration. It
denotes the fact that Rome has been chosen of God as the centre of his
kingdom, which is eternal, as the depository of his eternal truths, as
the fountain of his graces which lead men to a higher life, as the
witness and guardian of law and principles of which the sanctions and
the fruit are eternal.... I shall say little if I say that on you, under
God, we depend for the immutability not only of the faith in all the
radiance of its exposition and illustration, and of the divine love in
all its breadth and purity and perfection; you are also charged with the
custody of other truths which descend from this great sphere of
supernatural light, and with the application of these truths to the
turbulent and unstable elements of human society.... You are the heirs
of those who renewed the face of the world and created the Christian
civilization of Europe. You are the depositories of truths and
principles which are indestructible in their vitality. Though buried
like the ear of corn in the Pyramids of Egypt, they strike root and
spring into fruit when their hour is come. Truths and principles are
divine; they govern the world; to suffer for them is the greatest glory
of man. “Not death, but the cause of death, makes the martyr.” So long
as Rome is grafted upon the Incarnation it is the head of the world. If
it were possible to cut it out from its divine root, it would fall from
its primacy among mankind. But this cannot be. He who chose it for his
own has kept it to this hour. He who has kept it until now will keep it
unto the end. Be worthy of your high destiny for His sake who has called
you to it; for our sakes, who look up to you as, under God, our light
and our strength” (“Rom. Ætern.,” pp. 3–23). These words were spoken
fourteen years ago, but they are reaffirmed now by their new
republication, and the similar language of the closing paper of the
volume.
In this last paper, on “The Independence of the Holy See,” the cardinal
speaks more particularly and definitely of the temporal sovereignty of
the Holy See. As the spiritual supremacy of the Pope, in his office as
Vicar of Christ and successor of St. Peter, is closely bound to his
Roman episcopate, and the unity of the church depends on the Roman
Church, the “mother and mistress of churches,” so the peaceful and
uncontrolled exercise of the supremacy depends on the freedom of the
Pope in Rome. This freedom is secured only by complete independence,
which requires the possession of both personal and political sovereignty
as its condition. This citadel of all Catholic and Christian interests
being now the very object of the most resolute and uncompromising attack
and defence—the Plevna of the war between the Catholic religion and the
anti-Christian revolution—the cardinal, as a wise leader and strategist,
directs his principal efforts to sustain and advocate the right and
necessity of the Pope’s temporal sovereignty. The spoliation of this
temporal sovereignty has for its necessary effect, says the cardinal,
“the disintegration and the downfall of the Christian world” (p. 860).
Consequently, as the cardinal continually affirms, the redintegration
and reconstruction of the Christian world require the restitution of
that same sovereignty. “There is one hope for Italy. It is this: that
Italy should reconcile itself to the old traditions of the faith of its
fathers, and should return once more to the only principle of unity and
authority which created it” (p. 848). “If the Christian world is still
to continue, what is happening now is but one more of those manifold
transient perturbations which have come through these thousand years,
driving into exile or imprisoning the pontiffs, or even worse, and
usurping the rightful sovereignty of Rome. And as they have passed, so
will this, unless the political order of the Christian world itself has
passed away” (p. 804).
In these last words is presented an alternative of the utmost
consequence and interest. Is the perturbation and disintegration final
or transient? If final, the church goes back to the state of
persecution, the reign of Antichrist is at hand, and the end of the
world draws near. _When Rome falls, the world._ If the Roman and Italian
people, as such, have apostatized, or are about to apostatize, then the
Roman Church, the foundation, sinking in the undermined and caving soil
beneath it, will bring down the whole crumbling fabric of Christendom
and of the universal world. If, therefore, there is any ground to hope
that this evil day is not yet, but that there is a triumphant epoch for
the church to be awaited, it is of the utmost consequence not to
exaggerate the present revolution in Italy and Europe into a national
and international apostasy, but to show that it is a revolution of a
faction whose power is but apparent and temporary. This is the
cardinal’s conviction, and a large part of his argumentation is directed
to its proof and support. “Why, then, is this gagging law necessary in
Italy? Because a minority is in power who are conscious that they are
opposed by a great majority who disapprove their acts. They know, and
are afraid, that if men speak openly with their neighbors the public
opinion of Catholic Italy would become so strong and spread so wide as
to endanger their power. And this is called _disturbing the public
conscience_. The public conscience of Italy is not revolutionary, but
Catholic; the true disturbers of the _public conscience_ of Italy are
the authors of these Italian Falck laws.... I know of nothing which has
imposed upon the simplicity and the good-will of the English people more
than to suppose that the present state of Italy is the expression of the
will of the Italian people” (pp. 842–47).
We cannot exceed the limits of a notice by adding more extracts or
giving the cardinal’s proofs and reasons. We trust our readers will seek
for them in the book itself. As there is no one more intelligently and
consistently Catholic and Roman in all his ideas than the cardinal, so
there is no one who can so well explain and interpret the same to the
English-speaking world. He is not only a prince of the Roman Church by
his purple, but an intellectual and moral legate of the Holy See, by his
wisdom, eloquence, and gentleness of manner, to all men speaking the
English language, a sure teacher and guide to all Catholics, whose words
they will do well to read and ponder attentively.
Before closing we cannot omit indicating one paper quite different from
anything we have before seen from the cardinal’s pen. It is the one on
Kirkman’s _Philosophy without Assumptions_, in which the eminent writer
shows how much he has studied and how acutely he is able to discuss
metaphysical questions. We may remark that this volume has been
republished in a very handsome style and form, and we cannot too
emphatically recommend it to an extensive circulation. The appendix,
containing in Latin and English the late splendid allocution of Pius IX,
whose thunder has shaken Europe, adds much to its value. This great
document is one of the most sublime utterances which has ever proceeded
from the Holy See. St. Peter never had a more worthy successor than Pius
IX. He watches by the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, by God’s
command, as the angels watched by the sepulchre of Christ. What better
guarantee could we desire that the sovereignty and splendor of the
Papacy will come forth in glory from the tomb of St. Peter when the long
watch is ended?
BIBLIOTHECA SYMBOLICA ECCLESIÆ UNIVERSALIS. THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM.
With a History and Critical Notes. By Philip Schaff, D.D., LL.D.,
Professor of Biblical Literature in the Union Theological Seminary,
New York. In three volumes. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1877.
In respect to the literary and typographical style of execution, this is
a work worthy of commendation. Its intrinsic value for students of
theology is chiefly to be found in the contents of the second and third
volumes, where the author has collected the principal symbolical
documents of the Catholic Church, both ancient and modern, of the
Orthodox Orientals, and of the Protestant denominations classed under
the generic term “Evangelical.” The original text is given, with English
translations of documents from other languages. Among these documents,
those appertaining to the Eastern Christians have a special interest and
importance, because more rare and not so easily obtained as the others.
As a book of reference, therefore, the _Bibliotheca Symbolica_ deserves
a place in every Catholic theological library. The author is a scholar
of extensive erudition, and a very painstaking, accurate compiler, after
the manner of the Germans, and he has fulfilled a laborious and
serviceable task in gathering together and editing with so much
thoroughness and accuracy the collection of authentic documents
contained in these two bulky volumes, so well arranged and clearly
printed as to make them most convenient and easy for reading or
reference.
The first volume is not without some value as a historical account of
the origin and formation of the symbolical documents contained in the
other parts of the work, especially so far as relates to those emanating
from Orientals and Protestants. One important service his scholarly
accuracy has rendered to the cause of truth deserves to be particularly
noted—the distinct light in which he has placed the agreement of the
orthodox confessions of the East with the doctrine of the Catholic
Church, _exceptis excipiendis_, and their diversity from the specific
doctrines of Protestantism.
In his treatment of topics relating to the Catholic Church the partisan
polemic appears, as we might expect. The author professes to follow the
maxim that “honest and earnest controversy, conducted in a Christian and
catholic spirit, promotes true and lasting union. Polemics looks to
irenics—the aim of war is peace.” He expresses the wish to promote by
his work “a better understanding among the churches of Christ.” He
declares his opinion that “the divisions of Christendom bring to light
the various aspects and phases of revealed truth, and will be overruled
at last for a deeper and richer harmony of which Christ is the key-note”
(preface). This sounds very well in general terms; yet when the author
descends to particulars and practical questions, it is evident that
whatever meaning his terms have is only equivalent to the truism that
increase of knowledge is favorable to the cause of truth alone, and that
the prevalence of truth over error through genuine science, sincere
conviction, and conscientious obedience to known truth produces peace,
harmony, and charity by uniting the minds of men in one faith.
“Irenics,” in any proper sense, can refer only to parties who agree in
substantials, but, through mutual or one-sided misunderstanding, are not
aware of it, or to those who are in controversy about matters which do
not really break unity of essential doctrine between the contending
sides, but are carried on with too little moderation and candor by
vehement disputants. There is no “irenics” in matters essential and
obligatory between the right side and the wrong side, except the irenics
of combat, and no peace except that which follows the victory of the one
over the other. That an advocate of the truth of Christ should be honest
and candid in his argumentation against error, and charitable toward the
persons whose errors he attacks, is of course indisputable. Practically,
when Dr. Schaff finds himself in face of the Roman Church, he is obliged
to recognize that this view of the case is the only one possible. If the
Catholic hierarchy, and all the heads or representatives of the
different bodies of the so-called orthodox Christians, would consent to
meet together and adopt a confession in which all should agree as
embracing the essentials of Christianity, with a law and order which all
should likewise consent to establish, a visionary believer in progress
and the church of the future might with some plausibility argue that the
evolution of a higher form of Christianity would be the result. But Dr.
Schaff’s historical mind is too much accustomed to look at facts to be
deluded by such a chimera. “The exclusiveness and anti-Christian
pretensions of the Papacy, especially since it claims infallibility for
its visible head, make it impossible for any church to live with it on
terms of equality and sincere friendship.” We suppose that the view of
these pretensions which claims for them a divine origin and sanction,
and that which considers them “anti-Christian,” can hardly be called
“various aspects and phases of revealed truth.” The “exclusiveness” of
the claims is a point in which we both take the same view. The
ecclesiastical friendship to which the doctor alludes he justly regards
and proclaims an impossibility. While the Roman Church, and any other
church not in her obedience, co-exist, there must be polemics. Irenics
can succeed only when the Roman Church abdicates her supremacy, or any
other church or churches, refusing submission to it, yield to her
claims. The practical issue, therefore, is reduced to this: the old and
long-standing controversy between Rome and Protestantism. Dr. Schaff
comes forward as a champion of Protestantism and an assailant of what he
is too wary to call by its legitimate name of Catholicism, and therefore
nicknames after the manner of his predecessors in past ages, calling it
“Romanism” and “Vatican Romanism.”
We agree, then, on both sides, that the polemics and controversy must be
carried on. Yet, on the part of Dr. Schaff and those who fight with him,
it appears that a considerable part of the ground we have been
heretofore contending for is evacuated and given up to our possession.
“And yet we should never forget the difference between Popery and
Catholicism.” The issues, it appears, are a good deal narrowed, and that
will facilitate our coming to close quarters and to decisive, polemical
discussion, which we desire above all things. Dr. Schaff continues: “nor
between the system and its followers. It becomes Protestantism, as the
higher form of Christianity, to be liberal and tolerant even toward
intolerant Romanism” (p. 209). Probably the collective terms in this
clause are used distributively, as required to make it agree with the
preceding sentence. This is graceful and dignified in Dr. Schaff. Our
exclusiveness is indeed something hard to bear; we freely admit it. Our
apology for it is that we are acting under orders from above and have no
discretionary powers. Our own personal and human feelings would incline
us to open the doors of heaven to all mankind indiscriminately, and give
all those who die in the state of sin a purgatory of infallible efficacy
to make them holy and fit for everlasting beatitude. Yet as we have not
the keys of heaven, which were given to St. Peter with strict orders to
shut as well as to open its gates, we can do nothing for the salvation
of our dear friends and fellow-men, except to persuade them to take the
king’s highway to the gate of the celestial city, and not follow the
example of green-headed Ignorance in the _Pilgrim’s Progress_, who came
by a by-road to the gate, and, on being asked by the Shining Ones for
his certificate, “fumbled in his bosom and found none.”
We consider that we have not only the higher but the only genuine form
of Christianity. Dr. Schaff thinks Protestantism is the higher form
simply, and, therefore, that Protestants ought to be tolerant of our
intolerance. This is the most dignified attitude he could assume. On our
part, we agree with Ozanam that, in a certain sense, we ought to be
tolerant of error—_i.e._, in the concrete, subjective sense, equivalent
to tolerant of those who are in error, charitable, and, to those
especially who are themselves honorable and courteous in their warfare,
respectful.
Dr. Schaff himself evidently intends to act upon his own principles.
Toward individuals whom he mentions he is careful to observe the rules
of courtesy. In respect to his historical and polemical statements and
arguments on Catholic matters in his first volume, we presume he speaks
according to his opinion and belief; and if that were correct, his
strong expressions would be justifiable, even though they might
sometimes, on the score of rhetoric and good taste, lie open to
criticism. To call the Papacy “a colossal lie” is not very elegant or
even forcible, and is irreconcilable with the author’s own statements
regarding mediæval Catholicism, as well as with the views of history
presented by such men as Leo and other enlightened Protestants. All the
efforts of the Jesuits to bring back schismatics to their former
obedience to the Holy See are called “intrigues.” The author relies a
great deal on strong language, vehement assertion, and a vague style of
depreciation of the mental and moral attitude of Catholics, which is not
sustained by reasoning, and, in our view, indicates the presence of much
prejudice, as well as a want of adequate knowledge and consideration.
Men who have a great aptitude for history and what may be called
book-knowledge, among whom Dr. Döllinger is a notable instance,
frequently fail signally in treating of matters where logic, philosophy,
and accurate theology are required. Dr. Schaff seems out of his proper
line when he leaves his purely literary work and begins to reason. His
polemical argument against infallibility and the Immaculate Conception
is a pretty good _résumé_ of what has been said by others on that side,
and of what can be said. It is all to be found in Catholic theologies,
under the head of objections, and has all been answered many times over.
The author adds nothing to his own cause by his own reasoning, and
requires no special confutation. On the contrary, he weakens his cause
and detracts from its plausibility by the futility of his assertions. We
will cite one instance of this as an example. Speaking of the Immaculate
Conception, he says: “This extraordinary dogma lifts the Virgin Mary out
of the fallen and redeemed race of Adam, and _places her on a par with
the Saviour_. For, if she is really free from all hereditary as well as
actual sin and guilt, she is above the need of redemption. Repentance,
forgiveness, regeneration, conversion, sanctification are as
inapplicable to her as to Christ himself” (p. 111). This is one of the
most illogical sentences we have ever met with. Let it be given, though
not conceded as true, that the dogma places the Virgin Mary above the
need of redemption. The illusion that she is therefore placed _on a par
with the Saviour_ is illogical and false. Adam, before the fall, was
above the need of redemption, and the angels are above it. Are they _on
a par with the Saviour_? He is God, they are creatures. Whatever he
possesses, even in his humanity, he has by intrinsic, personal right;
they possess nothing except by a free gift. Moreover, it would not
follow that regeneration would be as inapplicable to her as to Christ
himself. By the hypostatic union the human nature of Christ shares with
the divine nature the relation of strict and proper filiation toward the
Father, for he is the natural and only-begotten Son of God. But angels
and men are only made sons by adoption, and by a supernatural grace
which in men is properly called regeneration, because the human
generation precedes, which merely gives them human nature. The Virgin
Mary received only her human nature by her natural generation, and
therefore needed to be born of God by spiritual grace to make her a
child of God, and a partaker with Christ in that special relation to the
Father which belonged to him as man by virtue of his divine personality.
Moreover, sanctification is not inapplicable even to Christ, whose soul
and body were made holy by the indwelling Spirit, and therefore, _à
fortiori_, not to Mary, on the hypothesis that she needed no redemption.
Repentance, forgiveness, conversion, are indeed inapplicable to her.
They are, likewise, inapplicable to the angels, were so to Adam and Eve
before the fall, and would have been so to their posterity, if the state
of original justice had continued, unless they sinned personally and
were capable of restoration to grace.
The freedom from original sin does not, however, imply that the Virgin
Mary was above the need of redemption. The covenant of the first Adam
was abolished, and therefore no right to grace could be transmitted from
him to his descendant, the Virgin Mary. The attainder by which he and
all his descendants were excluded from the privileges of children and
the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven was reversed only by the
redemption. If Christ had not redeemed mankind from the fall, the
kingdom of heaven could not have been open to Mary. She owes, therefore,
all her privileges as a child of God and an inheritor of the kingdom of
heaven to the redemption. Some of these are special and peculiar to
herself, and one of these special privileges is that she was prevented
from incurring the guilt of original sin by receiving sanctifying grace
simultaneously with her conception and the creation of her soul. She
was, therefore, redeemed in a more sublime mode than others, and is more
indebted to the cross and Passion of Christ and the free grace of God
than any other human being, and not at all on a par with Christ, who is
indebted to no one but himself. Let this suffice in respect to the
polemics of Dr. Schaff’s work. The reunion of all who profess
Christianity on a new basis is as far off as ever—as remote as the
discovery of a way of transit to the fixed stars. The learned doctor has
prepared a valuable collection of documents useful to the student, but
he has not proposed any substitute for the faith and law of the Catholic
Church which is likely to supplant them, or even to prove acceptable to
any large number of Christians under any name. Nevertheless, we regard
amicably both himself and his work, and we are confident that it will
have the good effect of promoting a wider and more catholic range of
investigation among Protestant students of theology.
THE STANDARD ARITHMETIC, FOR SCHOOLS OF ALL GRADES AND FOR BUSINESS
PURPOSES. No. 1. By James E. Ryan. New York: The Catholic Publication
Society Co.
Important changes have been made in arithmetical text-books within the
last twenty years. Each new series of books presented a special claim
for patronage. One contained several chapters previously omitted;
another divided the subject into mental and written arithmetic; others
followed the inductive to the exclusion of the analytic method. Each
series may have been an improvement in some respects; but the gain has
been theoretic and artistic rather than practical. The result has been
to separate oral from written arithmetic; to increase the average number
of books in a series to five; and to load the elementary works with
intricate detail and useless puzzles.
As a rule, a child spends an hour a day of school-life in the study of
arithmetic. This amount of time should suffice to teach the arithmetical
processes necessary in ordinary business. Yet the majority of pupils
never advance beyond the ground rules. This results from making the
text-book the guide. So general is this custom that few teachers desire
to run the risk of changing it, and the pupil is compelled to leave
school before fractions have been reached. He carries with him the
belief that there are two kinds of arithmetic, one mental, the other
written; and while he may be able to explain an oral example, he can
simply tell how the written example is done. The small number of pupils
who reach the higher branches suffer from an overdose of commercial
economy which can only be mastered when they come face to face with
business affairs.
The text-books prepared by Mr. James E. Ryan afford a remedy for most of
these defects. The elementary course contains all that can be taught to
the mass of pupils. It includes the fundamental rules, fractions,
decimals, denominate numbers, and percentage. Each division contains
oral and written work, the same analysis being used in both cases. The
mode of treatment is excellent. The book includes no more practice work
than is absolutely necessary to secure facility and accuracy in
calculation, while the analysis of each step is so clear that any pupil
can easily comprehend it.
The chapters treating of fractions are cleared of obscure subdivisions,
thereby dispensing with a mass of unnecessary rules for special cases.
In addition to this improvement the rules for common and decimal
fractions are made to correspond. Denominate numbers are treated with
marked ability. Obsolete weights and measures are excluded. The various
tables of the metric system are introduced in connection with the
English standards.
A close examination of Mr. Ryan’s treatise will convince the most
exacting teacher that it is an excellent arithmetic.
THE STANDARD ARITHMETIC, FOR SCHOOLS OF ALL GRADES AND FOR BUSINESS
PURPOSES. No. 2. By James E. Ryan. New York: The Catholic Publication
Society Co., 9 Barclay St.
This volume begins with simple numbers and carries the pupil through the
commercial rules. The amount of arithmetical knowledge requisite for
business purposes has grown with the enormous growth of insurance,
annuities, etc., so that it has become necessary to define the limits of
school instruction. The author includes percentage, interest, discount,
partial payments, exchange, profit and loss, commission or brokerage,
insurance, duties, taxes, equation of payments, proportion, involution,
evolution, mensuration, and progression in the regular course. The
discussion of the equation, mechanics, specific gravity, builders’
measurements, gauging, alligation, life insurance, annuities, stocks and
bonds, freights and storage, etc., is reserved for the appendix.
In the advanced portions of the work analysis and synthesis, or
induction, as it is now called, are combined. The treatment of each
subdivision is so unique that it is hardly fair to single out one for
special praise. Equation of payments, however, is made somewhat
conspicuous by the amount of condensation it has undergone. In six pages
we obtain the information which is usually spread over twenty. It is
safe to say that the best scholars leave school without a clear
comprehension of this subject, partly because of the senseless rules
laid down, but chiefly because of the number of them. The chapter on
mensuration is remarkable. By it the author proves that a student may
obtain all the knowledge of mensuration requisite for surveying without
studying geometry.
Oral and written exercises are given under every rule, and the examples
are so shaped as to test the pupil’s knowledge of principles. The
appendix contains a mass of important work of the highest value to
students qualifying themselves for active business. For this reason the
volume is well adapted to the wants of high-schools and academies.
RECUEIL DE LECTURES, A L’USAGE DES ECOLES. Par une Sœur de St. Joseph.
New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co. 1877.
This is a very useful addition to the Catholic Publication Society’s
excellent series of school literature. There is probably no living
language from which so much pleasure and profit can be derived as the
French. Even if a person does not speak it with ease and fluency, it
requires no vast amount of study to be able to read it as readily as
one’s native tongue. The first requisite towards a knowledge of French
is a good text-book and grammar. The little volume before us answers
admirably the first of these requirements. It is interesting, clear, and
constructed on an intelligent plan. The instructions for pronunciation
at the beginning are short but excellent, and likely to rest in the
memory. The exercises begin in a very simple manner. They are always
sensible, and do not confuse words and phrases, and jumble them together
after the Ollendorff plan, although they effect the same end, so far as
the interchange of words, phrases, and ideas goes. As the lessons
proceed, they gradually increase in difficulty, as they do in interest,
the simpler exercises giving place to extracts from the best French
authors.
We think the book in every way well adapted for youthful students of
French who have a teacher.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
---------------------
VOL. XXVI., No. 153.—DECEMBER, 1877.
---------------------
MR. FROUDE ON THE “REVIVAL OF ROMANISM.”[66]
“Why is Protestantism standing still while Rome is advancing? Why does
Rome count her converts from among the evangelicals by tens, while
she loses to them, but here and there, an exceptional and unimportant
unit?” (“Revival of Romanism,” sect. i. p. 95).
These questions, asked by Mr. Froude in his latest-published volume, are
not new. They have been asked by many any time within the last quarter
of a century. They are being asked with more urgency, if not more alarm,
every day. They are questions worthy of an answer, if an answer can be
given to them; worthy, certainly, of all consideration from
serious-minded men. For, if founded in fact, they point towards a
reversal of the three centuries of Protestant history; to the failure of
Protestantism as a satisfactory system of belief; and, if not to a
general return of Protestant nations to the Catholic Church, at least to
the speedy and final approach to what keen writers and observers have
long seen coming—to wit, the general recognition that between
Catholicity and infidelity there stands no debatable ground for
Christian men.
The suspicion has been gradually growing up in the Protestant thinking
world—a suspicion that is fast hardening into a certainty—that
Catholicity is advancing with giant strides, while Protestantism is
surely, if sullenly, receding; worse still, that in spite of all
Protestantism can do, in the pulpit, in the press, in the government, in
the world at large, Catholicity is bound to advance, and the process of
damming it up and shutting it off seems hopeless. “How to compete with
the aggressions of Romanism” was, in various forms, one of the chief
subjects of debate before the Evangelical Alliance assembled a few years
back in this city. A similar subject excited the recent Pan-Presbyterian
assembly at Glasgow. Indeed, it is safe to say that, wherever a
Protestant assembly of any kind meets for amicable consultation and
discussion, that everlasting skeleton in the closet, “Romanism,” will be
exposed to view to remind the pleasant gentlemen assembled that they are
doomed to die.
This is only a sign of the times. The times were, half a century ago,
when such a sign was not visible; when Catholicity, as a real, living,
active power, was, so far as Protestant countries were concerned, dead
and damned beyond hope of redemption. There was a horror at the very
mention of the name of Rome; a universal Protestant shudder at the
thought of the pope; but Rome and the pope were things exploded with the
Gunpowder Plot and other dark horrors of a by-gone day. In England the
chief vestige of Catholicity and Catholic memories left showed itself in
the annual celebration of Guy Fawkes’ day and the loyal burning of the
pope in effigy.
To-day how changed is the position of Catholicity, not in England
only, but in all English-speaking peoples; not in all English-speaking
peoples only, but throughout the civilized world! Catholicity has
experienced a vast “revival,” to use Mr. Froude’s expression; and to
any one who has read Mr. Froude it will be easy to imagine how that
writer would handle such a theme. Mr. Froude dislikes many things in
this world, but of all things he dislikes Catholicity. It is hard for
him to write calmly on any subject; on this particular subject he
raves, even if he raves eloquently. His admirers, among whom for many
things—particularly for the good service his peculiarly violent temper
has done the Catholic cause—we beg to be numbered, will scarcely
accuse him of that passionless tone that is supposed to belong to
blindfolded and even-balanced justice. It is not passing beyond the
bounds of fair criticism, but simply stating what ought now to be a
sufficiently-established fact, to say that whenever Catholicity or
anything belonging to it crosses Mr. Froude’s vision that vision is
seared; the man is at once attacked by a species of literary
insanity—a _Popomania_, so to say—that renders him incapable of cool
judgment, and leads him to play havoc with all the instincts of good
sense, the laws of logic, the impulses of good nature, and, we are
sorry to add, the rules of honesty. Indeed, no man better than he
affords an example of the remark of a keen French writer that “it is
the happiness and the glory of Catholicity to be always served by its
adversaries; by those who do not believe in it; ay, by those who
pursue it with the bitterest animosity.”[67]
These, however, are only so many assertions on our part. Mr. Froude will
afford us ample opportunity of justifying them.
We have no desire to be unjust to Mr. Froude. Indeed, he is so unjust to
himself that an avowed enemy could wish for no better weapons of attack
than those supplied by Mr. Froude against himself. It is singularly true
that Mr. Froude is generally the best refutation of Mr. Froude. Still,
to a man of his way of thinking, the questions set at the head of this
article, which he so boldly puts and honestly attempts to face, must be
in the last degree not only exasperating but seriously alarming. To a
man who can see nothing more fatal in this world than Catholicity, the
confessed advance of Catholicity, in face of, in spite of, and over all
obstacles, must seem like the spread of a pestilence of the deadliest
kind—a mental and moral pestilence: a darkness of the understanding, a
deadening of the heart, a numbing of all man’s fine, free, and ennobling
qualities, a wilful renouncing of
“The mighty thoughts that make us men.”
Of course we laugh at so preposterous an idea; but Mr. Froude has
persuaded himself that Catholicity is all this, and we are trying our
best to regard him honestly and as being honest. Nor does he stand alone
in his persuasion. There are many who go with him in his estimate of
Catholicity, and we have them in view quite as much as he in whatever we
may have to say. And the first thing we have to say is this: Is there
really a “revival of Romanism”? In what and where is it reviving? Of
course we reject the term Romanism, as applied to Catholicity. Still, a
wilful man may as well have his way, especially where his wilfulness
costs nothing. We have a more important controversy with Mr. Froude than
a quarrel over names and a haggling over words. If Romanists we must be
from his point of view, why Romanists, in the name of peace, let us be,
to the extent at least of an article. Some statisticians estimate us at
200,000,000. We can afford to be called names once in a while.
Surely Mr. Froude is mistaken. If it be true, as a very high
authority[68] assured us a few years ago, that “in the kingdom of this
world the state has dominion and precedence,” Catholicity, as a whole,
fares very badly in the kingdom of this world, however high it may rank
in the next. And strange as it may appear to Mr. Froude and to Prince
Bismarck, Catholics have a singular liking for their own place in this
world; they lay claim to at least as lawful a share of the things of
this world as do Protestants; and they utterly and stubbornly refuse to
live on sufferance. The attempt to make Catholics exist on sufferance,
go a-begging for their lives, so to say, and eat and drink, and work and
sleep, and play and pray by the gracious favor of certain princes of
this world, occasions all the trouble between Catholics and the states
governed by such princes. So when a “revival of Romanism” is talked
about we naturally look to see how Catholics stand in the world; and the
look is not encouraging.
The “kingdoms of this world” are all, or mostly all, dead-set against
Catholicity. The Catholic Church is proscribed in Germany; proscribed in
Russia; tied down in Austria and Italy; hounded in Switzerland; vexed
and tormented in Spain and the states of South America. Looked at with
the eyes of ordinary common sense, and from a merely worldly
standipoint, the Catholic Church, under these governments, which are so
strong and powerful, and play so large and important a part in the
world, is in about as bad a condition as its worst wisher could desire.
By the governments mentioned, with some inequality in the degree of
severity, Catholicity is regarded and treated as at once a secret and an
open foe, whom it requires every device and strain of the law and the
resources of government to put down. What Emerson, in one of his latest
and best utterances, has said of the assertion of “moral sentiment” is
here exactly true of Catholicity: “Cities go against it; the college
goes against it; the courts snatch at any precedent, at any vicious
forms of law to rule it out; legislatures listen with appetite to
declamations against it, and vote it down. Every new assertion of the
right surprises us, like a man joining the church, and we hardly dare
believe he is in earnest.”[69]
The press is not only against it of its own accord, but is suborned to
be against it. Its supreme Pastor has literally scarcely a roof to cover
him in the states that through almost all the centuries of the Christian
era belonged to the church, and such a roof as he has hangs on the word
of a royal[70] robber, who, in turn, holds what he has and what he has
so ill-gotten by the slenderest of tenures—the breath of a mob. The city
that witnessed the divinization of paganism, its awful and just
overthrow, the long agony of the Catacombs, the building up of
Christendom on the pagan ruins, the glories of the “ages of faith,” is
to-day one of the chief centres of the new paganism, which has for its
deity nihilism. In all the world to-day no royal crusader is to be found
to draw his sword for Christ and Christ’s cross. The race of Charles
Martel, of Pepin, of Charlemagne, of Pelayo, of Godfrey de Bouillon, of
St. Louis of France, of Scanderbeg, of Sobieski, of Don Juan of Austria,
the race of heroes whose swords wrought miracles at Poitiers, at
Jerusalem, at Acre, at Rhodes, at Malta, at Vienna, at Lepanto, seems to
have died out, though a foe as terrible to Christianity as was ever the
old pagan North and the Moslem South and East besieges and threatens now
the citadel of the city of God. It is, perhaps, characteristic of the
age that the only one to assume the title of royal champion of the cross
should be the present Russian emperor. It is, perhaps, equally
characteristic of the wicked assumption that it should have met with so
fearful and unexpected a response at the hands of the wretched remnant
of a power that true Christianity had crippled, and would have smote to
the dust had not the division of Christendom lent allies from within the
camp to the ancient foe. Does it not look like a just retribution?
The Catholic Church stands between two revolutions—the revolution from
above and the revolution from below. Both alike have decreed its death.
The Herods, the Pilates, and the rabble, foes in all else, are friends
in this. _Delenda est Roma Catholica!_
This is no fancy picture. We are not speaking now of the church in
herself—that consideration will come later—but of the church as she
stands towards governments, or rather as they stand towards her. Even
where some comparative freedom is allowed her it is doled out gingerly
and grudgingly, or given under silent or open protest. The erection of a
free Catholic university in France—that is, a university independent of
the government: a government accused, too, of “clericalism”—is the
signal for the French “republicans,” as writers on this side of the
water insist on calling them, to be up in arms. Men laugh to-day at the
English Ecclesiastical Titles Act and the turmoil created by it. Yet it
moved liberal England in 1850 till the country rocked with the tumult of
it. Its author was a liberal leader. He is still living, we believe,
though it is hard to think of Earl Russell living and not using his
well-remembered voice. At all events he was living a few years ago, and
we heard him then—liberal as ever. He had promised to preside at a
meeting at Exeter Hall, London, to express sympathy with Prince Bismarck
and the German government in their contest with the Catholic Church—a
contest that we shall have occasion to refer to in another place. At the
last moment Earl Russell “caught a bad cold” and could not appear, but
his place as chief speaker was nobly taken—by whom? By a free American
citizen, the Rev. Joseph P. Thompson, D.D., formerly of the Church of
the Tabernacle in this city; and his closing advice to Prince
Bismarck—an advice thrice repeated—was to “stamp out” Catholicity.
These individual instances are only straws, but straws that betoken a
great deal of wind somewhere. Such liberty as the Catholic Church has is
only conceded to it when and where the very character and stability of
the governments necessitate its concession. Under such circumstances,
then, does it not sound strange and startling to be alarmed at a
“revival of Romanism”?
So much for the dark side of the picture; and there is no denying that
it is dark indeed. There is light, however, and the light is very strong
and lovely. If the race of royal men and heroes whose swords were ever
ready to be drawn in the cause of Christ seems to have quite died out,
the race of true Catholics has not died with them. Royalty, at its best
even, was generally and almost necessarily a treacherous ally to the
church. The kings have gone from the church, but the people remain. In
face of this universal, protracted, bitter, and resolute opposition to
Catholicity on the part of so many great states, we find the church, as
in the days of the apostles, adding daily to her number “those that
should be saved.” Here, too, we find, as in all Christian history, the
greatest and sharpest contrasts—those contrasts that it baffles human
ingenuity to explain. The Catholic Church is to-day strongest where,
according to human calculation, she ought to be weakest, and weakest
where she ought to be strongest. She flourishes best in what three
centuries of almost total estrangement have made to her foreign soil.
This it is that so puzzles Mr. Froude.
“The proverb which says that nothing is certain but the
unforeseen was never better verified than in the resurrection,
as it were out of the grave, during the last forty years of the
Roman Catholic religion. In my own boyhood it hung about some
few ancient English families like a ghost of the past. They
preserved their creed as an heirloom which tradition rather than
conviction made sacred to them. A convert from Protestantism to
Popery would have been as great a monster as a convert to
Buddhism or Odin worship. ‘Believe in the Pope!’ said Dr.
Arnold. ‘I should as soon believe in Jupiter’” (p. 93).
This is undoubtedly, in the main, a true picture of the result of three
centuries of apostasy in England. As for Dr. Arnold, that learned
gentleman probably understated his belief. He would, if anything, much
sooner have believed in Jupiter than in the Pope. It would be
interesting to know what he thought of, say, George IV., as the supreme
head of the church of which Dr. Arnold was so distinguished an ornament,
or of Queen Victoria. He is as good an example as any of modern refined
and intellectual paganism, and his distinguished son is but the natural
outcome of the influence of such a man’s character and teachings, as in
another way was John Stuart Mill of _his_ father.
“The singular change which we have witnessed and are still witnessing,”
pursues Mr. Froude, “is not due to freshly-discovered evidence of the
truth of what had been abandoned as superstition” (p. 93). In this, of
course, we quite agree with Mr. Froude, though, perhaps, not exactly in
the manner he would wish. The truth is the same to-day as it ever was.
Superstition is the same to-day as it ever was. Without going into the
matter very deeply just here, we merely hint that Mr. Froude’s “singular
change” may not be quite so singular as he imagines. The change to which
he alludes is the return of a great body of the English-speaking people
to or towards what for three centuries England and England’s colonies
had been educated to consider superstition, darkness, idolatry even.
Certainly Rome has not changed within this period, as it will be seen
Mr. Froude, with passionate vehemence, insists. We only throw out the
hint, then, that possibly what was abandoned as superstition turns out
on closer inspection not to have been superstition at all. Truth may be
slow in coming, but once come it is very hard to close one’s eyes to it.
For men who have eyes there is no exercise so healthy and manful as
honestly to face a great difficulty. The modern keen spirit of
investigation we are far from considering an unmixed evil, if, indeed,
it be an evil at all. The closest inquiry is compatible with the firmest
and most whole-hearted faith. The objections of sceptics to the
doctrines of the church are, when not borrowed from the objections of
the doctors of the church, puny in comparison with them. On men,
however, who do not believe at all, the spirit of inquiry, when united
to earnestness of purpose, is working good. Many nowadays, who have
every whit as profound a distrust of Catholicity as Mr. Froude, are not
content with taking for granted all that they have been taught to
believe of Catholics and Catholicity. They go to Rome; walk about in it,
read it, study it, much as they would enter upon the investigation of a
disputed question in science; and, having examined to their hearts’
content, many of them stay in Rome, while most come back with at least
respect for what they formerly detested and abhorred.
It is impossible even to mention a few of the names of distinguished
Catholics within the century, many of them converts, and not be struck
by their mental and moral eminence. The world cannot afford to sneer at
men like Görres, Count von Stolberg, Frederic Schlegel, Hürter, Ozanam,
Lacordaire, Montalembert, Louis Veuillot, Balmez, O’Connell, Brownson,
Ives, Anderson, Bayley, Wiseman, Newman, Manning, Faber, Ward, Marshall,
Allies, Mivart, and a host of others almost equally eminent, who were
born leaders of men or of thought, who came from many lands, who filled
every kind of position, and who, led by many different lights,
traversing many stormy and dark and difficult ways, came at last to
Rome, to rest there to the end as loyal and faithful children of the
church. It is men like these who ennoble the human race and who leave a
rich legacy of thought and act to all peoples and to all time. To say
that such men, most of whom came from without, went deliberately over to
the old “superstition” because it was superstition will not do. They
found what they had esteemed darkness to be light.
This modern spirit of investigation has done and is doing another great
service to the Catholic cause: it is helping to unravel the tangled
skein of history, to explore dark places and drag buried truth to light.
Lingard’s _History of England_, for instance, really worked, or more
properly began, a revolution in English thought—a revolution which,
unconsciously, Scott’s novels and poems helped greatly to popularize.
The work set on foot by Lingard and the method adopted have been well
followed up by others, and by non-Catholics. Men came to try and look at
things dispassionately and fairly. The result was that certain rooted
English opinions and prejudices began slowly to give way. The “glorious
Reformation,” for instance, and the “great Reformers” in England
appeared on closer inspection to be neither quite so “glorious” nor
quite so “great” as before. It requires very exceptional mental, not to
say moral, courage nowadays to present Henry VIII. as a reformer of
religion, or “good Queen Bess” as really good, or as one whose “lordly
nature was the pride of all true-hearted Englishmen.”[71] And like in
character to the leaders were those who went with them in their measures
of reform. The Reformation itself has come to be regarded by all
intelligent minds, whatever be their estimate of Catholicity, as at
least not an unmixed good. “The religious reform,” says Guizot,[72]
“which was the revolution of the sixteenth century has already been
submitted to the test of time, and of great social and intellectual
perils. It brought with it much suffering to the human race, it gave
rise to great errors and great crimes, and was developed amidst cruel
wars and the most deplorable troubles and disturbances. These facts,
which we learn both from its partisans and opponents, cannot be
contested, and they form the account which history lays to the charge of
the event.” The constant revelations coming to light through the
publication of secret papers and such like make it perfectly plain that
reform, to have been at all effectual, should have begun with the
“Reformers” themselves. As an evidence of how thoroughly the sham and
rottenness of the Reformation have been exposed, we find Sanders’
much-derided _Rise and Growth of the Anglican Schism_ now accepted on
all sides as only too true.
Certain it is that a great idol of English Protestantism, if not quite
overthrown, has been very much battered and bruised of late by
iconoclasts who in other days would have knelt and worshipped before it.
Protestant England is built on the Protestant Reformation; but if that
turns out to have been on its religious side so very bad an affair, what
becomes of those who pinned their faith to it? That is a thought that is
working in men’s minds, and working good. That reform was needed in the
church and kingdom of England prior to the Reformation no man will
dispute. But real reformation should not be a sweeping out of one devil
to introduce seven more unclean.
While the truth of history was thus slowly forcing its way out, there
came a sudden shock to the mind of the English people—a shock so severe
and stunning in its first effects as almost to lead to a reaction and a
turning again into the old ruts. This was the deliberate desertion of
all pretensions to alliance with the early church by some of the
leaders—“the ablest” Mr. Froude styles them—of the Tractarian movement.
These became converts to the Catholic faith, and, in the slang of the
day, “went over to Rome.”
The falling away of these men from the Anglican Church can only be
likened to a revolution, a yielding of some buttress of the British
Constitution, which was thought to be as impregnable, as solid, as
lasting as England itself. And yet “the intellect which saw the
falsehood of the papal pretensions in the sixteenth century sees it only
more clearly in the nineteenth,” says Mr. Froude. Possibly enough; a
distinction, however, is to be drawn at “intellect.”
“More than ever the assumptions of the Holy See are perceived to rest on
error or on fraud. The doctrines of the Catholic Church have gained only
increased improbability from the advance of knowledge. Her history, in
the light of critical science, is a tissue of legend woven by the devout
imagination.”
We have thus far only quoted from the first of fifty-four pages, and
already we pause to take breath. Mr. Froude has a peculiar manner of
putting things. Such wholesale and sweeping assertions are only to be
answered in a volume or by a simple denial. Of course, if the Catholic
Church _is_ all that Mr. Froude unhesitatingly sets her down to be,
there is an end of the whole question. In that case the “revival of
Romanism” is really a grave danger to the world; nay, the very existence
of “Romanism”—_i.e._, of Catholicity—is a menace to human society. If
the “papal pretensions” are “falsehood”; if “the assumptions of the Holy
See” “rest on error and fraud”; if “the doctrines of the Catholic Church
have gained only increased improbability from the advance of knowledge”;
and if “her history is a tissue of legend,” men who commit themselves to
the defence of such a monstrosity set themselves at once beyond the pale
of civilization. Were Mr. Froude writing of the Turks or of the Mormons
he could scarcely use language more strongly condemnatory. It is
probable that, with his generous impulses, he would find “extenuating
circumstances,” did he think any needed, for Mormon or Turk, which he
could not concede to a Catholic.
When Mr. Froude visited this country recently on his ill-judged and, to
him, disastrous mission—for a mission he called it—a critic (in the New
York _World_, we believe) described his style, very happily it seemed to
us, as feminine. Women are not supposed to sit down to serious questions
of wide and general import as calmly and judiciously as men. They argue
from the heart rather than the head. They like or they dislike, and woe
betide the person or the cause that they dislike! Argument is thrown
away on them. They make the most astounding statements with the easiest
confidence; they have a happy faculty of inventing facts; they
contradict themselves with placid unconsciousness, and everybody else
with scornful rigor; for logic they have not so much a disregard as a
profound contempt, and take refuge from its assaults in thin-edged
satire. This, of course, is only true of them when they are out of their
sphere and dealing with matters for which they have a constitutional
incapacity.
Mr. Froude, however, is just this. Take any one sentence of those last
quoted; look at it calmly; weigh it in the balance, and what do we find?
Take this one: “The doctrines of the Catholic Church have gained only
increased improbability from the advance of knowledge.” With this
confident statement he leaves the matter. There is no doubt, no
hesitation, no reservation at all on his part. A reasonable man will ask
himself, however: “Is this stupendous statement true?” “The doctrines of
the Catholic Church! What! all of them?” Apparently so; Mr. Froude, at
least, makes no exception. “I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
Creator of heaven and earth,” is the primary article of the Catholic
Creed. Has that only “gained increased improbability from the advance of
knowledge”? Mr. Froude would hardly say so; indeed, in more places than
one he takes occasion to sneer at the modern scientific gospel. Even if
Mr. Froude himself said so, his Protestant readers who make any
pretensions to Christian faith would scarcely agree with him. Belief in
the Trinity of God is another doctrine of the Catholic Church; in Jesus
Christ the God-Man, the Redeemer of the world; in the Holy Ghost; in the
resurrection of the body and life everlasting. All these are doctrines
of the Catholic Church. Does Mr. Froude pretend to say that they have
all been swept away by “the advance of knowledge”? If he did not mean to
say this—as, indeed, we believe he did not—why did he say it? What are
we to think of him? Is this sober writing and a right manner of
approaching a serious question? In p. 93 he tells us that “the doctrines
of the Catholic Church have gained only increased improbability from the
advance of knowledge.” In p. 95 he has already forgotten himself, and
tells us that “the Protestant churches are no less witnesses to the
immortal nature of the soul, and the awful future which lies before it,
_than the Catholic Church_,” which is the strongest kind of concession
of what he had just before denied; and forgetting himself again, he
tells us in a third place (p. 141) that the Protestant ministers “are at
present the _sole_ surviving representatives of true religion in the
world.” This is only one of a multitude of instances in which Mr. Froude
allows himself to run away with himself. Passion and prejudice narrow
his mental vision, until at times it becomes so diseased as to result in
moral as well as mental obliquity.
The same thing is observable in the sentence immediately following the
passage last quoted: “Liberty, spiritual and political, has thriven in
spite of her [the Catholic Church’s] most desperate opposition, till it
has invaded every government in the world, and has penetrated at last
even the territories of the popes themselves” (p. 94).
Even Mr. Froude cannot absolutely blind himself to facts; at least, he
cannot alter them. He may hate the Catholic Church as much as he
pleases—and it pleases him to hate her very much—but the fact of his
hatred cannot convert the persecution of her children into “liberty,
spiritual and political.” Nor are we at all begging the question in
giving the name of persecution to the treatment that Catholics are
receiving at the hands, if not of “every government of the world,” at
least of those previously enumerated. It is the word, as we shall show,
applied to the anti-Catholic legislation in Germany by candid
Protestants, countrymen of Mr. Froude, too, who hate the church and the
Pope just as resolutely as he, but with more apparent show of reason. It
is too late in the day to argue about this matter. There is no longer
question to an honest mind as to whether the Catholics in Germany are or
are not persecuted. There may still be question as to whether or not the
persecution be necessary, but there is no dispute as to the fact. To
talk of the “spiritual liberty” of Catholics in Germany to-day is simply
to talk nonsense. But, lest there should be any possible doubt regarding
the matter, it may be as well to freshen men’s memories a little on a
point that is intimately connected with our whole subject; for what
covers Germany covers every land where the struggle between the Catholic
Church and the state is being waged.
The organs of English opinion have been very faithful in their
allegiance to Prince Bismarck, who is such an experienced cultivator of
public opinion. They are the bitter foes of the Papacy and the Catholic
Church. Nevertheless, they have some pretensions to principle, and, when
there is no escape out of the difficulty, call white white, and black
black. At all events they do not always call black white. In Germany,
then, according to Mr. Froude, “liberty, spiritual and political, has
thriven in spite of the Catholic Church’s most desperate opposition.”
While the struggle of the German government with the Catholics had as
yet not much more than half begun the English _Pall Mall Gazette_
discovered that
“There is no parallel in history to the experiment which the
German statesmen are resolutely bent on trying, except the
memorable achievement of Englishmen under the guidance of Henry
VIII.... Like all these measures, the new law concerning the
education of ecclesiastical functionaries, which is the most
striking of the number, will apply to all sects indifferently,
but, in its application to the Roman Catholic priesthood, it
almost takes one’s breath away.”
It may be only natural to find the apologist of Henry VIII. and
Elizabeth describing the revival in modern times of “the memorable
achievement of Englishmen” under Henry VIII. as “liberty, spiritual and
political.” Yet the same “experiment” takes away the breath, not only of
so cool a journal as the _Pall Mall Gazette_, but of a much cooler and
more influential journal still.
“The measures now in the German Parliament, and likely to become
law,” says the London _Times_, “amount to a secular organization
so complete as not to leave the Pope a soul, a place, an hour,
that he can call entirely his own. Germany asserts for the civil
power the control of all education, the imposition of its own
conditions on entrance to either civil or ecclesiastical office,
the administration of all discipline, and at every point the
right to confine religious teachers and preachers to purely
doctrinal and moral topics. Henceforth there is to be neither
priest, nor bishop, nor cardinal, nor teacher, nor preacher, nor
proclamation, nor public act, nor penalty, nor anything that man
can hear, do, or say for the soul’s good of man in Germany,
without the proper authorization, mark, and livery of the
emperor.”
Mr. Froude is perfectly correct in saying that such measures have been
carried “in spite of the church’s most desperate opposition,” but
whether he is equally correct in styling the same thing “liberty,”
spiritual or political, we leave to the judgment of honest readers. The
London _Spectator_, writing at the same period, was in sore trouble as
to the event.
“Is an age of the world,” it asks, “in which few men know what
is truth or whether there be truth, one in which you would ask
statesmen to determine its limits? We suspect that a race of
statesmen armed with such powers as Prussia is now giving to her
officials would soon cease to show their present temperance and
sobriety, and grow into a caste of civilian ecclesiastics of
harder, drier, and lower mould than any of the ecclesiastics
they had to put down.... To our minds the absolutism of the
Vatican Council is a trifling danger compared with the growing
absolutism of the democratic temper which is now being pushed
into almost every department of human conduct.”
We shall have occasion to show the results of the work of these
“civilian ecclesiastics” on the Protestant Church in Germany,
particularly in Prussia. Even at this early stage of the struggle the
London _Times_ confessed:
“We do not anticipate any retrogression in the development of
Prussia, but it seems inevitable that there should be some check
in the progress of change, some slackening in the audacity of
legislation, some disposition to rest and be thankful.”
Of the same measure the Prussian correspondent of the London _Times_
wrote:
“The Catholic dignitaries are not the only ecclesiastics opposed
to the bill. The new measures applying not only to the Catholic
Church, but to all religious communities recognized by the
state, the Ober-Kirchenrath, or Supreme Consistory of the
Protestant Church in the old provinces, has also thought fit to
caution the crown against the enactment of these sweeping
innovations.”
“The official papers openly accuse the Protestant clergy of
becoming the allies of the Ultramontanes,” says the _Pall Mall
Gazette_ (April 12, 1873). “Herr Von Gerlach no longer stands
alone as a Protestant opponent of the chancellor’s policy.”
“This rough-and-ready method of expelling Ultramontane
influences ‘by a fork’ can hardly fail to suggest to a looker-on
the probability that, like similar methods of expelling nature,
it may lead to a reaction. Downright persecution of this sort
(we are speaking now simply of the Jesuit law), unless it is
very thorough indeed—more thorough than is well possible in the
nineteenth century—usually defeats itself,” says the _Saturday
Review_.
But why multiply quotations? Surely those given are enough to show that
the leading organs of English opinion, representing every stripe of
thought, are quite agreed as to what name should be given to what Mr.
Froude calls the “liberty, spiritual and political,” in Germany. We
leave the case confidently in their hands; and Mr. Froude apparently
thinks the verdict has gone against him. He deplores the fact that “free
England and free America ... affect to think that the Jesuits are an
injured body, and clamor against Prince Bismarck’s tyranny. Truly, we
are an enlightened generation” (p. 136).
What is here true of Germany is true also of Russia, Austria (in great
measure), Italy, Switzerland, and other lands. So that if Catholicity is
really reviving, as Mr. Froude alleges, it is reviving under the very
shadow of death, and in face of the combined opposition of the most
powerful governments. A revival under such circumstances ought to extort
the admiration of Mr. Froude, who is as true a hero-worshipper as
Carlyle, even if he be about equally happy in his selection of heroes.
In the “Preliminary” to _The English in Ireland_ Mr. Froude propounds
his theories of might and right:
“A natural right to liberty, irrespective of the ability to
defend it, exists in nations as much as, and no more than, it
exists in individuals.... In a world in which we are made to
depend so largely for our well-being on the conduct of our
neighbors, and yet are created infinitely unequal in ability and
worthiness of character, _the superior part has a natural right
to govern; the inferior part has a natural right to be
governed_; and a rude but adequate test of superiority and
inferiority is provided in the relative strength of the
different orders of human beings. Among wild beasts and savages
might constitutes right. Among reasonable beings right is for
ever tending to create might” (vol. i. pp. 1, 2).
As we are not now examining Mr. Froude’s theories on government, we only
call attention to the very hazy nature of the views here expressed on a
subject which of all things should be clear and definite. He uses the
word _right_ without telling us what he means by it, whether or not it
has an absolute meaning and force. He speaks of “the superior part” and
“the inferior part” without informing us in what sense the terms are
used. Superior in what? Inferior in what? To any rational mind it is
plain that, just because of the inequality of human beings “in ability
and worthiness of character,” there must, under a divine dispensation,
which Mr. Froude does not deny, be absolute rules of right and wrong for
all alike, a moral code which shall extend to and determine all rights,
natural or acquired. If not this, right and wrong become convertible
terms, and right and might of course follow suit, which is really the
outcome of Mr. Froude’s theory—a doctrine that impregnates and inspires
all his writings.
“There neither is nor can be an inherent privilege in any person
or set of persons to live unworthily at their own wills, _when
they can be led or driven into more honorable courses_; and the
rights of man—_if such rights there be_—are not to liberty, but
to wise direction and control” (p. 2).
A very plausible-looking doctrine, but a very dangerous one as here laid
down. An example will serve to show the mischievous and vicious nature
of it. According to Mr. Froude, to be a Catholic is “to live
unworthily.” The comment suggests itself.
“Individuals cannot be independent, or society cannot exist.... The
individual has to sacrifice his independence to his family, the family
to the tribe,” etc. Why so? Would it not be truer as well as nobler to
say that the individual _uses_ his independence for his family?
“Necessity and common danger drive families into alliance for
self-defence; the smaller circles of independence lose
themselves in ampler areas; and those who refuse to conform to
the new authority are either required to take themselves
elsewhere, or, if they remain and persist in disobedience, may
be treated as criminals” (p. 4).
Quite independent of the nature and claims of the “new authority,” so
far as Mr. Froude enlightens us.
“On the whole, and as a rule, superior strength is the
equivalent of superior merit.... As a broad principle it may be
said that, as nature has so constituted us that we must be ruled
in some way, and as at any given time the rule inevitably will
be in the hands of those who are then the strongest, so nature
also has allotted superiority of strength to superiority of
intellect and character; and in deciding that the weaker shall
obey the more powerful, she is in reality saving them from
themselves, and then most confers true liberty when she seems
most to be taking it away” (pp. 4, 5).
We hold that “superiority of strength” belongs to “superiority of
intellect and character,” but not in Mr. Froude’s sense. This sense is
obviously that expounded by the third Napoleon in the preface to his
_Julius Cæsar_—viz., that once Cæsar is established, it is a crime to go
against him under any circumstances; which is equivalent to saying that
whatever is, is right. It is forgotten by, or not known to, these
writers that man is prone to evil from childhood; that the good has
always a hard battle to fight; that it does conquer by force of
“superiority of intellect and character,” but that it is often, and for
a long time, borne down by the physical superiority of brute strength.
The history of Christianity is the strongest instance we can offer of
the truth of our position. Christianity has been struggling upwards for
nineteen centuries; to human eyes it was often at the point of death; on
those whom it subdued it conferred superiority of intellect and of
character—a superiority which they sometimes turned against itself—and
to-day it is struggling as fiercely as ever.
However, let us gauge Mr. Froude by his own standard: that superiority
of strength goes with superiority of intellect and of character. It is a
very convenient theory as so stated; but it is apt to work two ways. So
long as it works for Mr. Froude it is very natural and explicable. As
soon, however, as it turns to the opposite side it is to Mr. Froude a
“phenomenon.” We are as little inclined to underrate as to overrate
success, though very far from accepting it as the standard of right. One
thing, however, will be conceded by all men: what succeeds in face of
the most strenuous, long-sustained, and powerful opposition; in face of
wealth, position, possession, numbers, resources, education,
tradition—in a word, of all that goes to form and mould and fix peoples
and their character, their history, their mode of thought, their
national bent—what, we say, succeeds in face of all this must have
something in it very much resembling Mr. Froude’s “superiority of
intellect and of character.” It must have an immense vital force and
strength and reality within it. It is hard for any man not to
acknowledge that under such circumstances success approves itself; that
it came because it deserved to come.
But this is just Mr. Froude’s “revival” of Catholicity—a fact which for
him has no adequate explanation.
“The tide of knowledge and the tide of outward events,” he says,
“have set with equal force in the direction opposite to
Romanism; yet in spite of it, perhaps by means of it, as a kite
rises against the wind, the Roman Church has once more shot up
into visible and practical consequence. While she loses ground
in Spain and Italy, which had been so long exclusively her own,
she is gaining in the modern energetic races, which had been the
stronghold of Protestantism. Her numbers increase, her
organization gathers vigor. Her clergy are energetic, bold, and
aggressive. Sees long prostrate are re-established; cathedrals
rise, and churches, with schools, and colleges, and convents,
and monasteries. She has taken into her service her old enemy,
the press, and has established a popular literature. Her
hierarchy in England and America have already compelled the
state to consult their opinions and respect their pleasure;
while each step that is gained is used as a vantage-ground from
which to present fresh demands. Hildebrand, in the plenitude of
his power, was not more arrogant in his claim of universal
sovereignty than the present wearer of the tiara.”
This glowing passage suggests a variety of comments. In the first place,
taking it as a statement of facts, it is, coming from Mr. Froude, a most
marvellous testimony to the power and growth of the Catholic Church
within the present century. Let us venture to paraphrase his outburst,
and see how it runs:
Here are you whom we thought dead and buried under your weight of
superstition, idolatry, absurdity, and fraud, an old fossil of mediæval
times, deserted, neglected, despised, and contemned by the intelligence,
wealth, and worth of the age, suddenly leaping into new life, and by a
single miraculous stride coming right abreast of, if not ahead of, your
foes. What have we that you have not? Energy is ours, yet you surpass
us. Numbers are ours; you are stealing them from us. Knowledge and
learning are ours; your teachers put ours to shame. We stole your sees,
your cathedrals, your monasteries, your convents, your schools, your
universities—all that you had of beautiful, and holy, and intellectual.
You ask them not back, but set to work to build them anew. Ours is
stolen property; yours is built on the free offerings of the poor. We
invaded the domain of English literature; it was all ours; we poisoned
its wells to you; we invented the newspaper to perpetuate the falsehoods
that we wove about you. You have found an antidote to the poison; you
win over our brightest intellects; you make a literature of your own
which we are compelled to admire and read. You face us at every turn,
and we may as well confess that you beat us at many.
This is really Mr. Froude’s picture, not ours. His words mean this or
nothing. Will it not occur to anybody that for a church built on
“superstition,” “falsehood,” “fraud,” “error,” “a tissue of legend,”
etc., etc., Mr. Froude’s is indeed a strange showing—so strange that if
the church were the direct opposite of all that he asserts it to be, it
could hardly hope for more signal or deserved success? Does it ever
occur to Mr. Froude that he may by some remote possibility be mistaken
in his estimate of the Catholic Church? that it, if not right
altogether, may at least be righter than he thinks?
To some minds, to many and to greater and broader minds than Mr.
Froude’s, the doubt has suggested itself. Some, like Macaulay, face it,
acknowledge the wonder of it, make no attempt to explain the wonder, and
stand without for ever, still wondering. Others draw nearer and examine
more closely, and finally enter in. Here is how Mr. Froude views it:
“What is the meaning of so strange a phenomenon? Is the progress
of which we hear so much less real than we thought? Does
knowledge grow more shallow as the surface widens? Is it that
science is creeping like the snake upon the ground, eating dust
and bringing forth materialism? that the Catholic Church, in
spite of her errors, keeps alive the consciousness of our
spiritual being and the hope and expectation of immortality? The
Protestant churches are no less witnesses to the immortal nature
of the soul, and the awful future which lies before it, than the
Catholic Church. Why is Protestantism standing still while Rome
is advancing? Why does Rome count her converts from among the
evangelicals by tens, while she loses to them, but here and
there, an exceptional and unimportant unit?” (p. 95).
Mr. Froude has put questions here each of which would take a volume to
answer. We leave them to be pondered over by those for whom they are
chiefly intended, and of whose conscientious consideration they are well
worthy. For ourselves, we can have no doubt as to the answer to be given
to each, but we are more concerned at present with Mr. Froude’s reply.
First among the causes which he assigns as having “united to bring about
such a state of things” is the Tractarian movement in the Anglican
Church, resulting from the “latitudinarianism of the then (1832) popular
Whig philosophy.”
“The Whigs believed that Catholics had changed their nature and
had grown liberal, and had insisted on emancipating them. The
Tractarians looked on emancipation as the fruit of a spirit
which was destroying Christianity, and would terminate at last
in atheism. They imagined that, by reasserting the authority of
the Anglican Church, they could at once stem the encroachments
of popery and arrest the progress of infidelity. Both Whigs and
Tractarians were deceiving themselves. The Catholic Church is
unchanging as the Ethiopian’s skin, and remains, for good and
evil, the same to-day as yesterday.”
Yes; “the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever” is the church of God. It
cannot be the church of God and be otherwise. If there was any deception
Mr. Froude lays it at the right door. These men were “deceiving
themselves.” The church gave no intimation of change, made no promises,
held out no concessions, thought of no compromise in matter of teaching.
She cannot do so; it is not in her power to do so.
It was the liberal philosophy that was chiefly instrumental in bringing
the change about. Men had to choose between the fixed doctrines of the
Catholic Church and the shifting doctrines and intolerable pretensions
of the Anglican Church. They rejected both; they rejected revelation;
they looked at man himself, and attached to him certain natural rights
which are as well expressed in our Declaration of Independence as
anywhere. They would, if they could, strike out the Catholics, as was
attempted here. But it was impossible. They could not do it and be true
to themselves and their principles. If liberty of thought, freedom of
conscience, and the right to worship or not to worship God in your own
way be natural rights of man, they necessarily attach to all, whether a
man call himself Catholic, Protestant, Jew, or Nihilist. It is a
political and practical impossibility in these days of divided and
clashing beliefs to profess liberty, yet seal the door to any special
form of worship; and Catholicity of all beliefs is dreaded, because,
when free and untrammelled, it has the tendency and the force to
assimilate and receive all into its bosom. The result of this partial
concession of freedom to Catholicity in England is thus pictured by Mr.
Froude:
“The Tractarians’ principles led the ablest of them into that
very fold against which they had imagined themselves the most
efficient of barriers. From the day in which they established
their party in the Anglican communion a steady stream of
converts has passed through it into the Catholic ranks; while
the Whigs, in carrying emancipation, gave the Catholics
political power, and with power the respect and weight in the
outer world which in free countries always attends it.”
It is the attainment of this power by Catholics that Mr. Froude so
bitterly resents. It would be more satisfactory if he told us plainly
what he would have done to Catholics. Would he deny them votes? To deny
them votes is to deny them political life. And would he deny votes to
Catholics only? Or would he grant votes, but compel them to use them in
one way, and, if in one way, in which way? In a word, would he allow
Catholics to exist at all as Catholics, would he force them into the old
state of political slavery, or would he openly force them into
Protestantism under the persuasion that Protestantism, no matter of what
stripe, was better for them? Though he shrinks from saying so himself,
the latter seems to be the only fair practical conclusion to be drawn
from his words, and in passages already quoted he has given us the
grounds on which he would act, and feel justified in acting: “The
superior part has a natural right to govern the inferior part.” It is
plain as between Protestantism and Catholicity which Mr. Froude
considers “the superior part.” “The inferior part has a natural right to
be governed.” “There neither is nor can be an inherent privilege in any
person or set of persons to live unworthily at their own wills, _when
they can be led or driven into more honorable courses_.”
We must interpret Mr. Froude by himself, and, judging him by his own
words, we are led irresistibly to the conclusion that had he the power
he would do all that has been done in the past, and even go beyond
it—for all measures have thus far proved ineffectual—to destroy
Catholicity from the face of the earth.
And here we come to our final consideration in the present article. Mr.
Froude’s observations amount practically to this: Set Catholicity and
Protestantism side by side; give them each perfect freedom; Catholicity
will infallibly gain, Protestantism will as infallibly lose. “The
phenomenon,” he says plaintively, “is not confined to England.... In
America, in Holland, in Switzerland, in France, _wherever there is most
political freedom_, the power of Catholics is increasing.”
Well, what of it? The fault, still following Mr. Froude, if fault there
be, must rest either with Catholicity, or with Protestantism, or with
political freedom. If with Catholicity, it is its fault that “wherever
there is most political freedom” its “power is increasing.”
If with Protestantism, it is _its_ fault that, where Catholicity is
placed on an equal political footing with it, its power decreases, while
the power of Catholicity proportionately increases; and it is to be
borne in mind that the power of numbers in the distinctively Protestant
countries is altogether against the Catholics.
If the fault lie with political freedom itself, that with it the power
of Catholics increases, what are we to say or do? That political freedom
and Catholicity go hand in hand is the obvious comment, and that it is
impossible to check the advance of Catholicity without at the same time
contracting political freedom. We submit that this is the plain and
logical deduction to be drawn from Mr. Froude’s words. It is no trick of
verbiage. The fact is to himself a “phenomenon.” We are giving now no
opinion of our own, but simply translating Mr. Froude, when we say that
by his concession—Protestantism cannot stand by the side of Catholicity
in a free air. It must go to the wall. This we have to reconcile with
his other statement that “liberty, spiritual and political, has thriven
in spite of her [the Catholic Church’s] most desperate opposition, till
it has invaded every government in the world.” Where it has really
invaded governments, by his own confession, “the power of Catholics is
increasing.” Where it is cut off, there is Catholicity strangled, so far
as human power can strangle it. But we shall show that even there it is
the only religion with any vitality in it, and that all forms of
religion which claim the name of Christian suffer with the Catholic
Church and lose by her losses. We have thus far only treated the
“revival” in a general way. In a future article we shall, in company
with Mr. Froude, examine the specific causes which he assigns for the
“revival.” sp 2
Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1877.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO F. W. FABER.
Amico, io vivendo cercava conforto
Nel monte Parnasso;
Tu, meglio consigliato, cercalo
Nel Calvario.
—Chiabrera’s epitaph at Savona. From the title-page of Father Faber’s
_Poems_.
I.
True poet of all mountain sight and sound,
Of barren glen where mighty echoes wake,
Of eagle-haunted, crag-o’ershadowed lake
Where loneliness in silent state sits crowned
And shares her kingdom with no shallow heart:
True lover of all nature’s solemn ways,
The columned forest’s wind-waked song of praise—
Sad chords wherein all deepest joy hath part—
True reader of the primrose’ golden tale,
Finding its glow but shadow of a light
Wherein who seeks may find the Infinite,
That doth its mystery so in least things veil—
A seer thou seem’st in thy high mountain place,
E’er with all holiest visions face to face.
II.
Yet wandering content in lowlier ways,
By brambly lane and lawn-embroidered mere,
By quiet river in whose waters clear
The clustering willows and tall towers gaze
Of minster-town whose ancient bells ring out
And trail their music through thy thoughtful rhyme
Like far-off echoes of an older time
When trembled in their peal no note of doubt.
Landless, yet holder of a royal fief
In all the beauty by rich nature wrought—
Each blossoming hedge-row with an earldom fraught,
Wide duchies bound in every golden sheaf—
Thine the unchallenged tenure of the whole,
By right divine of unstained poet-soul!
III.
Still hearkening ever to that low heart-beat
Of sorrowing earth, whose flowers fade in death,
Whose silver-threaded rills grow faint for breath,
Whose wounded birds cry out beneath thy feet.
Not deaf thy human ear to any plaint
Of our sad mother whom her sons make weep—
Breaking with cries of hate her quiet sleep,
Crowding in sunless ways their brothers faint.
Nor dumb thy poet-voice to speak her woe—
She that hath shivered when mankind stood mute
Or flung harsh words of evilest repute,
Veiling her face her Maker’s cross below.
With filial love thy heart ’gainst hers is laid
Who rears the hills, in keeping holds the dead.
IV.
Like cleansing waters touched with heavenly grace
Thy mountain-consecrated words are shed,
Lifting our souls to light unshadowèd,
Guiding our footsteps in the holy trace
Of Him who yet shall make the hills a way—
Exalted paths trod by the clean of heart,
Shrines for the holy-minded set apart
Wherein profaner feet unheeding stray.
All nature wins true loving from thy song—
Fair not alone with her e’er-changing grace,
But, lighting each dear feature of her face
The thought of love enduring, pure and strong—
True poet, in Parnassus’ shadow still
Feeling the loadstone of blessed Calvary’s hill.
V.
To that sad mount how eloquent a guide!
Not Hybla’s blossoms could so fair beguile
The wandering bees as thy entreating wile
Faint souls to climb that seeming arid side.
With strength thou lead’st from seraph-haunted cave
Where Infinite Might with infinite loving smiled
From frail, sweet lips of Holy Mary’s Child;
Anon where pitying palm-trees shadow gave
To ease the weary exile of their Lord;
On through the humble toil of patient years—
Till, mingling with the Magdalen our tears,
Our heart’s poor vase of precious ointment poured—
We stand, God’s Mother near, with woe beside
The love-pierced feet of Jesus Crucified.
VI.
The sweetest refuge any soul can know!
Where all complaining stills its idle voice,
And trembling joy bids sorrow soft rejoice
Finding the living wand, whose staff below
The living waters lie like mountain spring
Defiled not in its source, whose shining face
Gives to e’en homely herbs a resting-place,
With heaven’s blue for their bright shadowing.
Pure, living source! wherein who drinks shall thirst
Not any more. Blest cup of Love Divine!
About whose stem the thorny wreath doth twine,
Grown soft for us since He hath borne it first.
Cool draught! wherein no hidden drop of gall
Makes heaven bitter, and earth’s promise all.
VII.
Shall poets change for bay the crown divine
Wreathing the head of Him about whom throng
Life’s tenderest flowers, who holds art’s perfect song
In his pierced hands?—pure gift in holiest shrine!—
From whose rent side the consecrating flood
Doth cleanse the poet’s thought from earthly stain,
Him king anointed o’er a grand domain
By true inheritance of royal blood;
In whose wide heart, broken for very love,
Lies master-key to all true harmonies,
So tuned, no base, discordant melodies
Shall jar earth’s music saints shall sing above;
So tuned, may wake in sweetness weakest string,
Immortal anthems loyal echoing.
VIII.
So keyed thy sacred song, O poet true!
With holy joy its very sorrow light,
So glorified with that love infinite
That shines as stars in heaven’s darkest blue:
Washed clean thy earth-born lays in that pure flood—
Thy cloudy mountains hide no fear save one
Of loving awe; though in dark gorge the sun
Falls not, e’en there the Eternal Dove doth brood.
Thy mountain springs are pure, wherein we dare
Drink as we will, not fearing, so bent down,
We shall lose sight of heaven’s fairer crown
And find but our own likeness resting there.
Fresh with a dew bearing no stain of earth,
Thy hill-paths lead unto our Father’s hearth.
IX.
With thee, my poet, lie our souls at rest
In the soft glory of our Mother’s smile—
The Maid Immaculate, who could beguile
Her God to be a child on her pure breast.
With thee we labor that our little life
Shall learn to lose itself, that it be found
In that far, other life eternal crowned
‘Mid hero-saints whose prayers were ours in strife;
Humbly with thee, our dearest Lord before,
Veiled in the little, pale, and helpless round
Wherewith on earth he chooseth to be crowned,
We bend with love that yearneth to love more.
Fond children, at the Father’s feet we kneel,
Finding the love his Spirit doth reveal.
X.
O poet! more than Crashaw, saint! forgive,
If break my singing in unworthy praise;
Pardon, if uncouth love in stammering lays,
Seeking to thank, but give thee cause to grieve.
Unspoken gratitude is burden sore
When debt so passing strong of love is owed;
Unworthy speaking but augments the load,
Forgiveness making so love’s burden more.
So much to thee I owe! Along my life
Thy words like patient, wingèd seeds are sown,
So long amid the dark and brambles grown,
Yet winning bloom at last despite the strife.
As once for him of Ars thy heart was shrine,
So mine holds thee, O blessed of Love Divine!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMONG THE TRANSLATORS.
VIRGIL AND HORACE—II.
“Traduire Horace, et surtout le traduire en vers, est même devenu,
depuis soixante ou quatre-vingts ans, et chez nous et en d’autres pays,
une sorte de légère infirmité morale, et de douce maladie qui prend
régulièrement un certain nombre d’hommes instruits au retour d’âge;
c’est une envie de redevenir enfant, adolescent, de se reporter au temps
des études qui nous étaient chères.” To translate Horace, says
Sainte-Beuve, above all to translate him in verse, has become within the
last sixty or eighty years, both in France and abroad, a kind of venial
moral infirmity, a sort of mild fever, which periodically seizes a
certain number of educated men as they find themselves growing old; and
it has its source in the longing to renew our youth, to live over again
the time of studies we were fond of.
Like all the sayings of that most delicate and _spirituel_ of critics,
this is so far true that most translations of Horace will be found, we
think, to be the work of men advancing in life, and, in the majority of
cases, to have grown up insensibly through a number of years. One does
not sit down to a version of the _Odes_ as to a version of the _Æneid_,
beginning at the first line and going religiously through in order to
the end. No; but we pick out an ode here and there, as the mood takes us
and that fits the mood—some gay _Ad Amphoram_ or _Ad Asterien_ when we
are young and sprightly, _calidus juventâ_; a nobler _Ad Augustum_ or
_Ad Calliopen_ when we are older and graver, in the time of whitening
locks—riding in the cars, it may be, walking in the street, smoking the
after-dinner cigar; everywhere, in fact, that solitude gives us a chance
to entertain the best of all good company. We turn it into such English
as we can muster, and print it perhaps, or, better still, put it away in
our portfolio; Horace must have had a prophetic eye on his coming
translator when he gave that soundest of poetic counsels—unless
_Punch’s_ “Don’t” be sounder still:
“Nonumque prematur in annum
Membranis intus positis”—[73]
we put it away to be taken up again and again, lingered over fondly,
touched up and polished, until the exact word is found for every elusive
epithet, the precise equivalent for every tantalizing phrase, and the
entire ode lies before us, its foreign garb bagging, indeed, a little
here and there, but fitting as snugly as our art can make it, and we are
content. That is a moment of such supreme satisfaction, of such tranquil
triumph, as life but rarely yields. Less than any other that dabbles in
ink has your true Horatian the fever of the type. His virtue is
really—what virtue, alas! so seldom is in this perverse world—its own
reward. Like Joubert, _il s’inquiète de perfection bien plus que de
gloire_; to have hit upon what he feels to be a happy rendering is glory
enough; enough that he and Horace should share his exultation; a
felicitous adjective will put him in good-humor for a week. And so,
before he well knows it, his portfolio is nearly full, and the notion
first dawns upon him—the duty it almost seems—of sharing his good
fortune with his fellows. “Rather would I have written the _Quem tu
Melpomene semel_ or the _Donec gratus eram tibi_,” cried Scaliger, “than
to be king of Aragon.” Rather would I make a perfect translation of
these or any other of the _Odes_, cries our Horatian, than to be king of
all Spain, with all _Cuba libre_ to boot—
“Quam si Libyam remotis
Gadibus jungas et uterque Pœnus
Serviat uni.”[74]
Somewhat in this wise, we fancy, have most versions of Horace come to be
and to be printed; certainly, we incline to think, all the best
versions. Thus, too, partly for the reason M. Sainte-Beuve gives, partly
from the poet’s universality and the charm which lies in the very
difficulty of the task—an impossibility Johnson called it, but it is one
of those “sweet impossibilities” which ennoble failure—do we count so
many renderings of single odes by famous men. There are few names
eminent in English letters or statesmanship that are not thus allied to
the genial Venusian—names, too, of the most diverse order. Not only
poets like Cowper and Montgomery, Chatterton and Byron,[75] essayists
like Addison, or dramatists like Congreve, Rowe, and Otway, but grave
historians such as Mitford and Merivale, judges like Lord Thurlow and
Sir Jeffrey Gilbert, philosophers like Atterbury and Sir William Temple,
bitter satirists like Swift, tender sentimentalists like “Namby Pamby”
Phillips, professors and prime ministers, doctors and divines, lords and
lawyers, archdeacons and archtraitors, have joined in paying court to
the freedman’s son. In his ante-room, or _atrium_, prim John Evelyn is
jostled by tipsy Porson humming somewhat huskily one of the bacchanalian
lyrics to a tune of his own (perhaps the _Ad Sodales_, i. 27, which that
learned Theban has rendered with true Porsonian zest—a little too much
so to quote); Warren Hastings there meets Edmund Burke in friendlier
contest than at the bar of the House of Commons; Dr. Bentley takes issue
with Archdeacon Wrangham over a doubtful reading; Mr. Gladstone leads a
poetic opposition to Lord Derby in Englishing the _Carmen Amabœum_. In
that modest _cœnaculum_ we can greet these great men all on a familiar
and equal footing, made one of them for the nonce by the fellowship of a
common taste—nay, may even flatter ourselves that here, at least, we are
at their level; that our poet’s door may even be opened to us sooner
than to the tallest and wisest among them. It is true greatness has no
prerogative in Horace; the meanest may win to his intimacy, be admitted
to his _penetralia_, sooner than the mightiest. Of all the distinguished
names we have quoted, few would have had much distinction as translators
alone, though Bishop Atterbury’s versions, especially that of the _Ad
Melpomenen_, iv. 2, are deservedly famous. Hastings’ translation of the
_Ad Grosphum_, written during his passage from Bengal to England in 1785
(he was going home to the famous trial), merits notice for its curious
adaptation to his Indian experiences:
“For ease the slow Mahratta spoils
And hardier Sikh erratic toils,
While both their ease forego....
“To ripened age Clive lived renowned,
With lacs enriched, with honors crowned,
His valor’s well-earned meed.
Too long, alas! he lived, to hate
His envied lot, and died too late
From life’s oppression freed.”
Another verse had perhaps a still more personal application; there is
but a trace of it in the Latin:
“No fears his peace of mind annoy
Lest printed lies his fame destroy
Which labor’d years have won;
Nor pack’d committees break his rest,
Nor avarice sends him forth in quest
Of climes beneath the sun.”
The fashion of fitting Horace to contemporary persons and events was
much in vogue in Hastings’ time and earlier. Creech tells us in his
preface that he was advised “to turn the Satyrs to his own times.” It
was carried out to the fullest extent in the well-known _Horace in
London_ of Horace and James Smith.
Within the past twenty-five or thirty years many complete versions of
the _Odes_ have been put forth, including those of H. G. Robinson, the
Rev. W. Sewell (printed in Bohn’s Library), Lord Ravensworth, Mr. Whyte
Melville, Mr. Theodore Martin, the late Prof. Conington, and the late
Lord Lytton. Of these, Mr. Martin’s, which we should feel inclined to
pronounce upon the whole the best, and the most notable Lord Lytton’s,
have alone been reprinted here. In giving this pre-eminence to Mr.
Martin’s work we are perhaps influenced by a strong individual liking,
amounting even to a prepossession, in its favor, dating from that very
potent time Sainte-Beuve speaks of—“_le temps des études qui nous
étaient chères_.” When it first fell into our hands it was the only
version we had yet seen which at all reproduced, even to a limited
degree, for us its original’s charm. By many Prof. Conington’s
translation, easy, fluent, and in the main faithful—just what, from his
_Æneid_, one might expect it to be—will be preferred to Mr. Martin’s,
which it certainly surpasses in single odes. As to the worst there need
be no such doubt. The Rev. Mr. Sewell’s is not, perhaps, the worst
possible version of the _Odes_, as one is half tempted to believe who
remembers how it was recommended to the readers of the _Dublin
University Magazine_ long ago—how we relished that literary execution
with all boyhood’s artless delight in slaughter! Time, alas! soon sobers
that youthful vivacity of temper, and, better than Æsop, teaches us to
respect the frogs whom it loves to revenge in kind. No; the
possibilities and varieties of badness in this direction are unhappily
too great for that; but it is as bad as need be—as need be, let us say,
for admission to Bohn’s Library.[76] Great indulgence is certainly to be
extended to translators of Horace; much is to be forgiven them; but one
must finally draw the line, and probably most Horatians would feel like
drawing the line at the Rev. Mr. Sewell.
It was in the process of pointing out this fact to that gentleman, in a
review of his book in the magazine mentioned, that Mr. Martin some
twenty years ago put forth, we believe, the first specimens of his own
translation, which was completed and published some years later. Its
success was immediate and deserved; for its positive no less than its
comparative merits were great. Mr. Martin was one of the first to
discern, or at least to put in acceptable practice, the true theory of
translating the lighter odes—“a point of great difficulty,” as he truly
says. “They are,” he adds, “mere _vers de société_ invested by the
language, for us, with a certain stateliness, but which were probably
regarded with a very different feeling by the small contemporary circle
to whom they were addressed. To catch the tone of these, to be light
without being flippant, to be playful without being vulgar, demands a
delicacy of touch which it is given to few to acquire, even in original
composition, and which in translation is all but unattainable.” The
graver odes have their own difficulties; but the skilful translator
handles them more easily, we fancy, than the gay fluttering swarm of
laughing Lydias and Neæras that flash athwart their statelier pomp like
golden butterflies through the Gothic glooms of summer woods—butterflies
whose glossy wings, alas! lose something of their down and brilliance at
every, even the lightest and most loving, touch. The thought of a poem
is always easier to transplant into other speech than its form. Ideas
are essentially the same, whatever tongue interprets them—Homer’s Greek
or Shakspeare’s English; but the infinite delicate shades of beauty or
significance added to them by the subtle differences of words, by that
beauty of their own and intrinsic value which, as Théophile Gautier puts
it—himself a master of language—words have in the poet’s eyes apart from
their meaning, like uncut and unset jewels, the deftest, most patient
art of the translator toils in vain to catch. They vanish in his grasp
like the bubble whose frail glories dazzle the eyes and mock the
longing, chubby fingers of babyhood; to render them is like trying to
paint the perfume of a flower.
Now, it is true enough, whatever iconoclasts like Stendhal may pretend,
that in poetry thought cannot be divorced from form; it is the
indissoluble union of both that makes the poem. Try to fancy any really
great passage of verse expressed in other words, even of the same
speech, and you see at once how important form is. Take once more
Shakspeare’s
“Daffodils
That come before the swallow dares, and take
The winds of March with beauty,”
and try to change or misplace a single word. One feels instantly that
any change would be fatal; it almost seems, with such passages, as
though noble thought and perfect word had been waiting for each other
from all time until the high-priest of Apollo should come to wed them.
To quote Sainte-Beuve again—the critic who wishes to instruct his
readers can scarcely quote him too often: “Je conçois qu’on ne mette pas
toute la poesie dans le métier, mais je ne conçois pas du tout que quand
il s’agit d’un art on ne tienne nui compte de l’art lui-même et qu’on
déprécie les parfaits ouvriers qui y excellent.”[77] Yet it is none the
less true that a poem in which the idea is paramount is more susceptible
of translation than one whose form is the chief element of its charm.
One can imagine Wordsworth’s fine sonnet on Milton, “Milton, thou
shouldst be with us at this hour,” being turned into Latin with
comparatively little loss; indeed it has been so turned by one of the
most accomplished of English scholars—Dr. Kennedy—into Alcaics of which
the purity and finish make a fitting casket for that gem of poetry;
though even here one feels the wide difference between the original of
that immortal line,
“Thy soul was like a star, and dwelt apart,”
and the Latin
“Mens tua lumine
Fulgebat, ut sidus, remote,”
missing, as we do, the “lovely marriage of pure words,” that in the
English is itself a poem. But take such a bit of verbal daintiness as
George Darley’s “Sweet in her green dell the flower of beauty slumbers,”
with its peculiar and _saisissant_ rhythm, the perfection of verbal
music; or Tennyson’s “Break, break, break,” where the poetry—and
undeniable poetry it is—lies in a certain faint aroma of suggestion that
seems to breathe from the very words, and try to reproduce the effect of
them in other speech. As well try with earthly tools to rebuild
Titania’s palace of leaf shadows and the gossamer, to weave her mantle
on any mortal loom out of moonbeams and the mist.
Much the same is it to attempt to transfer to an English translation
aught of the peculiar grace which invests Horace’s lightest lyrics with
a charm we feel but cannot analyze, which resides in the choice of
epithets, the arrangement of words, the cadence of the rhythm, the
metrical form, and which yet is something more than any or all of these.
The noble thought which lies embodied in the _Justum et tenacem
propositi virum_ we may not despair of rehabilitating, with somewhat of
its proper majesty, in our own vernacular; but the shy, fugitive
loveliness of that wildwood picnic to which the poet bids us, to forget
the cares of life,
“Quo pinus et ingens albaque populus
Umbram hospitalem consociare amant
Ramis, et obliquo laborat
_Lympha fugax trepidare rivo_”
—what art can coax away from its native soil? Do we find it in Francis?—
“Where the pale poplar and the pine
Expel the sun’s intemperate beam;
In hospitable shades their branches twine,
And winds with toil, though swift, the tremulous stream”;
or in Creech—though Creech is here luckier than usual?—
“Where near a purling Spring doth glide
In winding Streams, and softly chide
The interrupting Pebble as it flows”;
or in Prout?—
“While onward runs the crooked rill,
Brisk fugitive, with murmur shrill”;
or in Lord Lytton?—
“Wherefore struggles and murmurs the rill
Stayed from flight by a curve in the shore.”
Even Mr. Martin gives it up, and presents us, instead of a translation,
with a couplet which is very pretty English verse, but about as far
from Horace as can be:
“Where runs the wimpling brook, its slumb’rous tune
Still murmuring as it runs to the hush’d ear of noon.”
It is passages such as this especially which have caused Horace to be
called the untranslatable.
To come from theory to practice, it is in the lighter odes, and in
those parts of all the odes the beauty of which in the original lies
chiefly in expression, that all Horace’s translators have most
conspicuously failed. Take Milton’s _Ad Pyrrham_, for example (Ode v.).
The _Ad Pyrrham_ is not only one of the most charming but also one of
the most difficult of the minor odes, and for that reason among the
oftenest translated. It is one of the many _mitten_-pieces wherein the
inconstant bard seems to have taken a somewhat ostentatious delight in
celebrating the numerous snubbings he had to put up with from the no
less inconstant fair who were the objects of his brief and fitful
homage. In it, as in the _Ad Neæram_ (_Epod._ xv.) and the _Ad Barinen_
(_Carm._ ii. 8), reproaches to the lady for her perfidy are mingled
with self-gratulations on the poet’s own lucky escape and sinister
warnings to his rival—the time-old strategy and solace of the discarded
lover the world over. He has been shipwrecked, he says, on that
treacherous sea of love; but having, the gods be praised! made shift to
scramble ashore in safety, and got on some dry duds, sits in gleeful
expectation of seeing his successor get a like ducking. The poem is
simply a piece of mock heroics, for the counterpart of which we must
look to such minglings of cynicism and sentiment as we find in the
poetry of Praed and Thackeray and Locker, or, to a less degree, in many
of Béranger’s lighter songs. The difference between the modern poets
and the ancient is that in the former the sentiment is real, veiled
under an affectation of cynicism: in the latter it is precisely the
reverse. But, bearing that difference in mind, the translator may find
in the methods of the poets named some hints for the handling of such
odes as the _Ad Pyrrham_.
But how do the translators treat it? Take Milton’s famous version,
which everybody knows:
“What slender youth bedewed with liquid odors
Courts thee on roses in some pleasant cave,
Pyrrha? For whom bind’st thou
In wreaths thy golden hair?
“Plain in thy neatness,” etc.
—’tis as solemn as a Quaker conventicle. Nor, with reverence be it said
_en passant_, is it altogether free from graver faults; undeniably
elegant as it is, this translation has had quite as much praise as it
deserved. It is full of those Latin constructions Milton loved—“on
faith and changed gods complain” for _fidem mutatosque deos flebit_,
“always vacant” for _semper vacuam_, “unwonted shall admire” for
_emirabitur insolens_, etc.—which are nowhere more out of place than in
a translation from the Latin. Some, indeed, claim that they carry with
them and impart a certain flavor of the original to those unacquainted
with it; but this seems to us a view at once fallacious and
superficial. The office of translation into any language is surely to
reproduce the original in the idiom of that language as nearly as may
be; and though the theory, like all theories, may be pressed to an
excess—as we think Mr. Morris has pressed it, for example, in his
translation of the _Æneid_—better that than such deformities as
“Always vacant, always amiable
Hopes thee.”
It is the suggestion not of Horace but of Milton here that is pleasant;
it is because Milton’s natural English style is a highly Latinized and
involved style that these oddities of his translation strike us less
than in another. Sometimes, too, oddly enough for so good a scholar, he
falls short of the full sense of his original. _Potenti maris deo_, the
commentators tell us, means, not “the stern god of sea,” but “the god
potent over the sea”; and “plain in thy neatness” for _simplex
munditiis_ misses the entire significance of the latter word, which
implies something of grace and beauty. “Plain in thy neatness” suggests
rather “Priscilla the Puritan maiden” than Pyrrha of the dull-gold
hair. Ben Jonson’s
“Give me a look, give me a face
That makes simplicity a grace,”
hits Horace’s meaning exactly, and certainly far more poetically.
Indeed, we often find in original English poetry much apter renderings
than the translators give us. Prof. Conington knew this when he went to
Shakspeare for “fancy free” as an equivalent for this very word
_vacuam_ we have been talking of—a perfect equivalent of its
association did not make it a little un-Horatian—and to Matthew
Arnold’s “salt, unplumbed, _estranging_ sea” for the very best version
we have seen of that most puzzling phrase (i. 3), “_oceano
dissociabili_.”
This is, perhaps, a digression; but as we set out for a ramble, we have
no apologies to make. Conington’s version, in the same metre as
Milton’s, only rhyming the alternate lines, is not all so good as
“fancy free,” though it gains from its rhyme a certain lightness
lacking in that of Milton’s:
“What slender youth besprinkled with perfume
Courts you on roses in some grotto’s shade,
Fair Pyrrha? Say for whom
Your yellow hair you braid.
“So true, so simple! Ah! how oft shall he
Lament that faith can fail, that gods can change,
Viewing the rough black sea
With eyes to tempests strange,” etc.
So true, so simple! We are not much nearer to _simplex munditiis_ than
before. Martin is not here at his best, and Francis is unusually
successful: “dress’d with careless art” and “consecrate the pictured
storm” are felicities he does not always attain. Prout is chiefly
noticeable for yielding to the almost irresistible temptation of a
false beacon in _intentata nites_:
“I the false light forswear,
A shipwreck’d mariner”;
and Leigh Hunt’s, though but a paraphrase, is surely a very happy one:
“For whom are bound thy tresses bright
With unconcern so exquisite?”
and
“Though now the sunshine hour beguiles
His bark along thy golden smiles,
Trusting to see thee for his play
For ever keep smooth holiday,”
admirably elude, if they do not meet, the difficulties of the Latin.
But in none of these, nor in any other rendering we have seen, is there
any trace of that _nuance_ of sarcasm or polite banter we seem to taste
in the original. The only American version we remember to have met with
is not in this respect more successful:
“In thy grotto’s cool recesses,
Dripping perfumes, lapped in roses,
Say what lissome youth reposes,
Pyrrha, wooing thy embrace?
Braid’st for whom those tawny tresses,
Simple in thy grace?
“Ah! how oft averted heaven
Will he weep, and thy dissembling.
And, poor novice, view with trembling
O’er the erewhile tranquil deep,
By the angry tempest driven,
Billowy tumult sweep;
“Now who in thy smile endearing
Basks, with foolish fondness hoping
To his love thou’lt e’er be open,
To his wooing ever kind,
Knowing not the fitful veering
Of the faithless wind?
“Hapless they rash troth who plight thee!
On the sacred wall my votive
Picture, set with pious motive,
Shows I hung in Neptune’s fane
My wet garments to the mighty
Monarch of the main.”
It may be said that this sly spirit of badinage which lurks, or to us,
at least, seems to lurk, in the shadows of the lighter odes, like some
tricksy Faun peering and disappearing through the thickets of
Lucretilis, it is impossible to seize; that when we try it “the
stateliness of the language” interposes itself like a wall, and we find
ourselves becoming vulgar where Horace is playful, flippant where
Horace is light. Doubtless this is so; what then? Because it is an
impossibility, shall any loyal Horatian balk at it? It is just because
of these impossibilities that translations are always in order, and
will, to a certain extent, always be in demand. Translations of other
poets pall; it is conceivable that a version of Virgil might be
produced which human skill could not better. But no such thing being
conceivable of Horace, every fresh version is a whet to curiosity and
emulation; each separate ode hides its own agreeable secret, every
epithet has its own individual surprise. Let there be no talk, then, of
impossibilities; for our own part, to paraphrase what Hallam says of
Lycidas, we look upon the ability to translate such odes as the _Ad
Pyrrham_, so as to demonstrate their impossibility, a good test of a
man’s capacity to translate Horace at all.
Another nice consideration for the translator of Horace is in respect
of metre. Undoubtedly the translator who can retain the metrical
movement of his original has gained so much towards reproducing his
general effect. But with Horace this attempt may as well be abandoned
at once. The Alcaic and the Sapphic stanza, much less the Asclepiad or
the Archilochian, have never yet been, and for obvious reasons never
will be, naturalized in our English verse, though poor Percival thought
differently, and added one more to a life of failures. Tennyson, in his
ode to Milton,
“Whose guardian-angels, Muriel, Abdiel,
Starred from Jehovah’s gorgeous armory,
Tow’r, as the deep-domed empyrean
Rings to the roar of an angel onset,”
gives us, perhaps, as good Alcaics as we have any right to look for in
English (though “gōrgĕoŭs” is not a very gorgeous dactyl); yet how
different from the Horatian cadence:
“Æquam memento rebus in arduis
Servare mentem, non secus in bonis
Ab insolenti temperatam
Lætitia, moriture Delli.”[78]
As for Sapphics, whether we take Canning’s _Knife Grinder_ for our
model or Mr. Swinburne’s
“All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,
Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,
Yet with lips shut close, and with eyes of iron,
Stood and beheld me,”
we are not much nearer to Horace’s melody:
“Scandit æratas vitiosa naves
Cura, nec turmas equitum relinquit
Ocior cervis, et agente nimbos
Ocior Euro.”[79]
But, at least, following that rule of compensation with which all good
translators are familiar, some attempt may be made to suggest the
metrical variety and richness of the _Odes_ by a corresponding variety
and grace in the English measures of the translation. It is here that
the modern translators excel; indeed, it may be said that only within
the last hundred years have translators had this adjunct at their
command, for it is only during that period that English poets have
begun to comprehend and master fully the resources and possibilities of
English metre. Not that the earlier poets were at all deficient in the
metrical sense; that their ears were not quick to catch the finest
delicacies of verbal harmony. Not to mention a host of minor bards who
knew how to marry “perfect music unto noble words,” Milton’s lyrics are
melody itself. There is scarcely a more tunable couplet in the language
than his
“Sweetest Shakspeare, fancy’s child,
Warbles his native woodnotes wild.”
The open vowels and liquid consonants fairly sing themselves. Nor was
it for lack of experiment that they failed of
“Untwisting all the chains that tie
The hidden soul of harmony”
in words, as Shelley and Tennyson and Swinburne learned to do later.
The attempt to naturalize the classical metres, for example, began at a
very early period of our literary history, and many learned treatises
were written to prove them your only proper vehicle for English poetry.
Perhaps it was the ill-success of these efforts that made our poets so
long shy of wandering in their metres away from the beaten track and
the simplest forms. Up to the time of Campbell we may say that the
iambus and the trochee reigned supreme in English verse; the anapest
and the dactyl, of which such effective use has been made by the later
poets, were either unknown or contemned. Suckling’s _Session of the
Poets_, the metrical intention of which appears to be anapestic, shows
what desperate work even the best lyrists could make when they strayed
after strange metrical gods.[80]
It may be said, then, that until within a comparatively recent period
Horace could not be properly translated into English verse at all.
English verse was not yet ready to receive so noble a guest. Compare
Martin’s or Conington’s versions with one of the earlier translations,
and the truth of this, we think, will be apparent at once. Creech,
indeed, seems to have had a dim notion of the truth, and his version
shows a perceptible striving for metrical effect, at least in the
arrangement of his stanza; but Creech had too little of the poetical
faculty to make the effort with taste or success. Francis for the most
part is content with the orthodox measures, and Father Prout was
perhaps first to bring to the work this essential accomplishment of the
Horatian translator. Prout’s metrical inventions are bold, and often
elegant; and his versions, though free, are always spirited, and often
singularly felicitous. Among the most striking of his metres is the one
he employs for the _Solvitur acris hiems_ (_Carm._ i. iv.):
“Now Venus loves to group
Her merry troop
Of maidens,
Who, while the moon peeps out,
Dance with the Graces round about
Their queen in cadence;
While far ’mid fire and noise
Vulcan his forge employs,
Where Cyclops grim aloft their ponderous sledges poise.”
A paraphrase that, not a translation; but not even Horace could find it
in his heart to gainsay so graceful a paraphrase. Another effective
metrical arrangement which shows off well Prout’s astonishing
copiousness of rhyme is that of the _Quum tu Lydia_ (i. 13):
“But where meet (thrice fortunate!)
Kindred hearts and suitable,
Strife comes ne’er importunate,
Love remains immutable;
On to the close they glide ‘mid scenes Elysian,
Through life’s delightful vision.”
Mr. Martin is here somewhat closer and not less skilful in handling his
metre:
“Oh! trebly blest, and blest for ever,
Are they whom true affection binds,
In whom no doubts or janglings sever
The union of their constant minds;
But life in blended current flows
Serene and sunny to the close.”
Compare with these Francis, who is scarcely more literal than Prout,
and not so literal as Martin:
“Thrice happy they whom love unites
In equal rapture and sincere delights,
Unbroken by complaints or strife
Even to the latest hours of life.”
Is not the advantage in point of poetry altogether on the side of the
moderns, and is it not largely due to their superior mastery of rhythm?
The passage, it may be said, has been paraphrased by Moore in the
lines,
“There’s a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
When two that are linked in one heavenly tie,
With heart never changing and brow never cold,
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die.”
Both Mr. Martin and Prof. Conington have given close and successful
attention to this part of their task. But it was left for Lord Lytton
to attempt something like a systematic imitation of the Horatian
metres. His plan, as set forth in his preface, “was in the first
instance to attempt a close imitation of the ancient measure—the
scansion being, of course (as in English or German hexameters and
pentameters), by accent, not quantity—and then to make such
modifications of flow and cadence as seemed to me best to harmonize the
rhythm to the English ear, while preserving as much as possible that
which has been called the type of the original.” Something of this
kind, no doubt, Milton had in view in the measure he took for his _Ad
Pyrrham_, and which the Wartons and Professor Conington adapted to the
same purpose after him, the latter, however, adding the embellishment
or, as Milton himself had called it, the “barbarous jingle” of rhyme.
Milton’s measure (well known as that of Collins’ “Ode to Evening”),
which consists of two unrhymed iambic pentameters, followed by two
unrhymed iambic trimeters—or, to be “more English and less nice,” of
two ordinary blank-verses followed by two three-foot verses—resembles
Horace’s metre, which the grammarians would tell us is the third
Asclepiadian strophe, “rather,” says Prof. Conington, “in the length of
the respective lines than in any similarity of the cadences.” Lord
Lytton attempted something more, and with only partial success, though
the task, it must be owned, was not an easy one. Horace, in the _Odes_
and _Epodes_, uses eighteen different varieties of metre, ranging from
the grave sadness of what is called the first Archilochian strophe, the
lovely measure in which one of the loveliest of all the _Odes_ is
written (iv. 7)—
“Diffugere nives; redeunt jam gramina campis
Arboribusque comæ,”[81]
to the quick sharpness of the first iambic strophe in which the poet
mauls the unsavory Mævius. And not only this, but each of these metres
is used by Horace to express widely differing moods of feeling. Thus,
the same measure which in the beautiful lament for Quinctilius breathes
the tenderest spirit of grief and resignation, serves equally well to
guy Tibullus on his luckless loves, to sound “stern alarums” to the
absent Cæsar, or to bid Virgil or Varius to “delightful meetings.” The
Sapphic rises to the lofty height of the _Carmen Seculare_ or stoops to
chide a serving-boy for his super-serviceable zeal; is equally at home
with an invocation to the gods or an invitation to dinner; while the
Alcaic—what subject is there that in Horace’s hands the Alcaic cannot
be made to sing?
This flexibility of the Latin metres Lord Lytton has recognized, and
sought to meet by a corresponding variation of his own, “according as
the prevalent spirit of the ode demanded lively and sportive or serious
and dignified expression.” Thus, for the Alcaic stanza he employs “two
different forms of rhythm”; one as in i. 9:
“See how white in the deep fallen snow stands Soracte;
Laboring forests no longer can bear up their burden;
And the rush of the rivers is locked,
Halting mute in the gripe of the frost”;
the other as in i. 34:
“Worshipper rare and niggard of the gods,
While led astray, in the Fool’s wisdom versed,
Now back I shift the sail,
Forced in the courses left behind to steer,”
or, with a slight modification, as in i. 35:
“Goddess who o’er thine own loved Antium reignest,
Present to lift Man, weighted with his sorrows
Down to life’s last degree,
Or change his haughtiest triumphs into graves.”
For the Sapphic, likewise, he has two varieties; for the statelier odes
three lines of blank-verse and what may be called an English Adonic;
for “the lighter odes a more sportive and tripping measure.” Thus, for
iv. 2 he gives us:
“Julus, he who would with Pindar vie
Soars, with Dædalian art, on waxen wings,
And, falling, gives his name unto the bright
Deeps of an ocean”;
for iii. 14 a nearer approach to the _Knife Grinder_ jingle:
“Nothing cools fiery spirits like a gray hair;
In every quarrel ’tis your sure peacemaker:
In my hot youth, when Plancus was the consul,
I was less patient.”
Lord Lytton’s experiment is full of interest to Horatians—as, indeed,
what translation is not?—even the worst, even the Rev. Mr. Sewell’s,
may be of use in teaching the translator how not to do it—and his
failures, which are many, are scarcely less instructive than his
successes, which seem to us fewer than for so bold an essay could be
wished; but both alike are suggestive of many possibilities. It is in
the lighter odes that he is least satisfactory, and we doubt if these
can be done full justice to without the aid of rhyme. Horace’s grace of
form in these is so delicate and exquisite that it taxes all the
resources and embellishments of our English verse to give any adequate
idea of it. Take, as an illustration of Lord Lytton’s method, and as
giving, perhaps, the measure of his success, his version of that
delicious little landscape, _Ad Fontem Blandusiæ_ (iii. 13):
“Fount of Blandusia, more lucid than crystal,
Worthy of honeyed wine, not without flowers,
I will give thee to-morrow a kid
Whose front, with the budded horn swelling.
“Predicts to his future life Venus and battles;
Vainly! The lymph of thy cold running waters
He shall tinge with the red of his blood,
Fated child of the frolicsome people!
“The scorch of the Dogstar’s fell season forbears thee;
Ever friendly to grant the sweet boon of thy coolness
To the wild flocks that wander around,
And the oxen that reek from the harrow.
“I will give thee high rank and renown among fountains,
When I sing of the ilex o’erspreading the hollows,
Of rocks whence in musical fall
Leap thy garrulous silvery waters.”
This is better because more literal than Joseph Warton’s unrhymed
version in the Miltonian stanza, with which it may be compared:
“Ye waves that gushing fall with purest streams,
Blandusian fount! to whom the products sweet
Of richest wines belong,
And fairest flowers of spring,
To thee a chosen victim will I slay—
A kid who, glowing in lascivious youth,
Just blooms with budding horn,
And, with vain thought elate,
Yet destines future war; but, ah! too soon
His reeking blood with crimson shall enrich
Thy pure, translucent flood
And tinge thy crystal clear.
Thy sweet recess the sun in midday hour
Can ne’er invade; thy streams the labor’d ox
Refresh with cooling draughts
And glad the wand’ring herds.
Thy name shall shine, with endless honors graced,
While in my shell I sing the nodding oak
That o’er thy cavern deep
Waves his embowering head.”
It would almost seem as if the author of this version had taken pains
to rub out every Horatian characteristic. The pretty touch of the
_loquaces lymphæ_ is thus omitted, unless the first line be meant to do
duty for it, while by such padding as “chosen victim” and “endless
honors” Horace’s sixteen lines are diluted into twenty—a danger to
which the unrhymed translator, constantly seeking by inversions and
paraphrases to cover the baldness of his medium, is peculiarly liable.
Whatever may be said to the contrary, rhyme compels conciseness, and
helps to point quite as often as it entices to expansion. Prof.
Conington’s version, in the same metre as Warton’s, but rhymed in
alternate lines, will be found greatly superior to it, and is perhaps,
on the whole, the best we have seen—better even than Mr. Martin’s, who
cannot get his Latin into less than twenty-four octosyllabic lines.
Instead of giving either, let us see if all that is essential in Horace
cannot be given in the same number of lines of what is known as the
Tennysonian stanza, which is somewhat less capacious than the Alcaics
of the original, though, by a certain pensive grace, peculiarly fitted
to render the sentiment of this delightful ode:
“Blandusian fount, as crystal clear,
Of garlands worthy and of wine,
A kid to-morrow shall be thine,
Whose swelling brows, just budding, bear
“The horns that presage love and strife;
How vainly! For his crimson blood
Shall stain the silver of thy flood
With all the herd’s most wanton life.
“The burning Dogstar’s noontide beam
Knows not thy secret nook; the ox
Parched from the plough, the fielding flocks,
Lap grateful coolness from thy stream.
“Thee, too, ‘mid storied founts my lay
Shall shrine: thy bending holm I’ll sing,
Shading the grottoed rocks whence spring
Thy laughing waters far away.”
Though terseness and fidelity are two of the chief merits claimed by
the advocates of the unrhymed measures, it is just here that they
oftenest fail; and Lord Lytton is no exception. Space permits us to
give but few instances. “Trodden by all, and only trodden once,” is
Lord Lytton’s version of _calcanda semel_, i. 28—seven English words
for two Latin, and the sense then but vaguely given at best.
_Feriuntque summos Fulgura montes_ is in like manner diluted into
“The spots on earth most stricken by the lightning
Are its high places.”
Awkwardness of style, too, is a much more frequent characteristic of
Lord Lytton’s renderings than we should look for either from his own
command of style or the freedom which disuse of rhyme is claimed to
ensure. For instance, in ii. 2:
“Him shall uplift, and on no waxen pinions,
Fame, the survivor,”
might surely have been bettered; and in the same ode a line in the
stanza already quoted above, _Latius regnes avidum domando Spiritum_,
is translated, “Wider thy realm a greedy soul subjected,” which would
be scarcely intelligible without the Latin. “Bosom _more seen through_
than glass” is by no means the neatest possible equivalent for _per
lucidior vitro_, and such expressions as “closed gates of Janus vacant
of a war,” “lest thou owe a mock,” “but me more have stricken with
rapture,” are scarcely English.
Nevertheless, with all its faults and shortcomings, Lord Lytton’s essay
is in some respects the most interesting translation of Horace that has
yet appeared, and may pioneer the way to more fortunate results in the
same direction. It has, at least, the _raison d’être_ which Mr. Matthew
Arnold denies to such translations as Wright’s and Sotheby’s Homer; it
has a distinct and novel method of its own, and does not simply repeat
the method and renew the faults and virtues of any predecessor. The
American edition, it is worthy of remark, is printed in the
old-fashioned way, with the Latin text to face the English—an
innovation, or, more properly, a _re_novation, which will no doubt be
welcome to lovers of the Venusian, whose love has outlived their
memory, and who, though loyal to the spirit of our poet, are no longer
so familiar with his letter as in the days, the far-off sunny days,
when Horace was the heaviest task that life had yet laid upon us.
We have dwelt upon this subject at somewhat greater length than we
intended; for to us it is full of a fascination we should be glad to
hope we had made our readers in some sort share. But it has also a
practical side which the most fanatical opponent of the classics, the
most zealous upholder of utilitarian education, must recognize and
admit. As a means of training in English composition, as an aid to
discover the resources of our own tongue, there is no better practice
than translating Horace into English verse, with due attention to his
epithets. That, perhaps, may serve in some degree to reconcile the
practical mind to his retention in the modern curriculum, even though
Homer be kicked out of doors and Virgil sent flying through the window;
for a practical man is none the worse equipped for business in being
able to say what he means in “good set phrase.” To be sure it does not
ask the pen of an Addison to write an order for a “hnd. trces. lard,”
but we dare say if Mr. Richard Grant White were called upon to make out
a bill of lading, he would do it none the worse for knowing all about
the English language that is worth knowing, if not more than is worth
telling. There are mysteries in our English speech that the _Complete
Letter-Writer_, or even the “editorials” of the daily newspaper, do not
quite explore, and some of these our old friend Horace may help us to
find out. _Fas est ab hoste doceri._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LITTLE CHAPEL AT MONAMULLIN.
CONCLUSION.
Father Maurice sped upon his journey to Moynalty Castle. The dinner
hour was eight o’clock, but he had delayed so long with his guest that
it took the little pony her “level best” to do the seven miles within
the necessary time.
“Av we wor wanst beyant the Mouladharb berrin’ groun’ I wudn’t care a
thraneen; but sorra a step the little pony’ll pass it afther dark,”
observed Murty Mulligan, bestowing a liberal supply of whip upon the
astonished nag, whose habit it was to proceed upon her travels at her
own sweet will, innocent of lash, spur, or admonition.
“Tut, tut! Nonsense, Murty! Push on.”
“It’s thruth I’m tellin’ yer riverince. We’re at it. See that,
now—curse of Crummell on her! she won’t put wan foot afore the other,”
adding, in a whisper full of consternation: “Mebbe she sees ould Casey,
that was berried a Munda. He was a terrible naygur—”
“Jump down and take her head,” said the priest.
“Be the powers! I’ll have for to carry her, av we want to raich the
castle to-night.”
Father Maurice dismounted, as did Murty, and, by coaxing and
blandishment of every description, endeavored to induce the pony to
proceed; but the animal, with its ears cocked, and trembling in every
limb, refused to budge an inch.
“Och, wirra, wirra! we’re bet intirely. It’s Missis Delaney he sees,
that died av the horrors this day month,” growled Mulligan.
“Silence, you jackass!” cried Father Maurice, “and help me to blindfold
the pony.”
This _ruse_ eventually succeeded, and they spun merrily along the road,
the terrified animal clattering onwards at racing speed.
“This pace is dangerous, Murty,” said the priest.
“Sorra a lie in it, yer riverince.”
“Pull in.”
“I can’t hould her. She’s me hands cut aff, bad cess to her!”
“Is the road straight?”
“Barrin’ a few turns, it’s straight enough, sir.”
The words had hardly escaped his lips when the wheel attached to the
side of the car upon which the priest was sitting came into contact
with a pile of stones, the car was tilted upwards and over, Father
Maurice shot into a thorn hedge, and Murty Mulligan landed up to his
neck in a ditch full of foul and muddy water, while the pony, suddenly
freed from its load, and after biting the dust, quietly turned round to
gaze at the havoc it had made.
“Are ye kilt, yer riverince? For I’m murdhered intirely, an’ me
illigant Sunda’ shuit ruined complately. Och, wirra, wirra! how can I
face the castle wud me duds consaled in mud? How can I uphould
Monamullin, an’ me worse nor a scarecrow? Glory be to God! we’re safe
anyhow, an’ no bones bruck. O ye varmint!” shaking his fist at the
unconscious cause of this disaster, “its meself that’ll sarve ye out
for this. Won’t I wallop ye, ye murdherin’ thief, whin I catch a hould
of ye!”
“Hold your nonsense, Murty. How near are we to the castle?”
“Sorra a know I know, yer riverince; the knowledgeableness is shuk out
o’ me intirely.”
“The shafts are broken.”
“Av course th’ are.”
“Here, help me to shove the car over to the ditch and pile the cushions
under this hedge. God be praised! neither of us is even scratched.”
A carriage with blazing lamps came along.
“Hi! hi! hi!” roared Murty, “we’re wracked here. Lind us a hand! We’re
desthroyed be a villain av a pony that seen a ghost, an’ we goin’ to
dine at Moynalty Castle.”
The carriage belonged to Mr. Bodkin, the senior member for the county,
who was only too delighted to act the Good Samaritan; and as he, with
his wife and daughter, was bound for the castle, which still lay two
miles distant, the meeting proved in every respect a fortunate one.
The worthy priest was received by his host and hostess with the most
flattering courtesy, and by Miss Julia Jyvecote as though he formed
part and parcel of her personal property. He took Mrs. Jyvecote into
dinner, and said grace both before and after.
Father Maurice was positively startled with the splendor and exquisite
taste of the surroundings. The room in which they dined—not _the_
dinner-room, but a delightful little snuggery, where the anecdote was
the property of the table, and the _mot_ did not require to be handed
from plate to plate like an _entrée_—was richly decorated in the
Pompeiian style, with walls of a pale gray, while the hangings were of
a soft amber relieved by red brown. The dinner was simply perfect, the
_entourages_ in the shape of cut glass, flowers, and fruit—veritable
poems—while the quiet simplicity and easy elegance lent an
indescribable charm which fell upon the simple priest like a potent
spell.
Every effort that good breeding combined with generous hospitality
could make was called into requisition in order to render the timid,
blushing clergyman perfectly at home; and so happily did this action on
the part of his entertainers succeed that before the lapse of a few
moments he felt as though he had lived amongst them for years.
Mrs. Jyvecote promised to send him flowers for the altar, and Julia to
work an altar-cloth for him.
“I must go over and pay you a visit, father,” she said. “I am one of
your parishioners, although I go to Mass at Thonelagheera.”
“I wish you would, my dear child; but I have no inducements to offer
you, although at present perhaps I have.” And he narrated the arrival
of the guest to whom Mrs. Clancy was playing the _rôle_ of _châtelaine_
during his absence.
“Why, this is quite a romance, Father Maurice. I must see your artist
_coûte que coûte_, and shall drive over next week.”
But fate determined that she should drive over the next day.
When, upon the following morning, Father Maurice came to examine the
condition of his pony, he found both the knees barked and the luckless
animal unfit to travel.
“We couldn’t walk her home, Murty, could we?” he asked of his
_factotum_.
“Och, the poor crayture couldn’t stir a step wudout tears comin’ to her
eyes. Me heart is bleedin’ for her this minnit,” replied the wily
Mulligan, sagaciously perceiving that so long as the pony remained at
the castle he should abide with her; and as his reception in the
servants’ hall had been of the same flattering description as that of
his master up-stairs, he resolved to continue in such delightful
quarters as long as he possibly could.
“Poor Rosy!” he cried, affectionately scratching the pony’s forehead,
“shure it’s yerself that wud dance on yer head for his riverince, av ye
wor able; but yer bet up, poor little wumman, an’ it’s rest ye want for
a cupple o’ days, anyhow.”
When Father Maurice mentioned the predicament he found himself in, Mrs.
Jyvecote instantly proposed sending him home in the carriage, since he
could not be induced to prolong his stay; but Julia insisted upon
driving him herself to Monamullin in her basket phaeton; and so, laden
with flowers, hot-house pines, grapes, a hamper of grouse and a brace
of hares, and under solemn promise to make another visit at no distant
date, Father Maurice turned homewards under the “whip” of his
newly-found and exceedingly charming parishioner.
As they jogged along by the sad sea-wave she told him the entrancing
history of her conversion—of her meeting with Cardinal Manning at a
garden party at Holland House, and of a casual conversation which led
to so much.
Father Maurice felt as if he had a white-robed angel by his side, and
revelled in the absorbing narrative until the phaeton stopped at the
cottage gate. The pony was duly stabled, and, while the priest set
forth to attend to a sick-call, Miss Jyvecote proceeded to the chapel,
where she encountered his artist guest.
Brown started, despite himself, when Father Maurice mentioned her name.
“A parishioner of mine, Mr. Brown.”
“I—I saw you in the church just now,” muttered the artist. “It’s an
awfully seedy—I mean it’s a very quiet little place.”
“I could pray more fervently in a church like that than in the
Madeleine,” she replied in a soft, silvery voice.
“The Madeleine is too rowy, too many chairs creaking, too many swells,
and all that sort of thing, you know.”
Insensibly the drawl of society had come upon him, and the slanginess
of expression which passes current in Mayfair and Belgravia.
“Miss Jyvecote is going to brighten me up, Mr. Brown; she is going to
work me an altar-cloth,” exclaimed the delighted priest.
“And I am going to paint you an altar-picture, a copy of Raphael’s
Virgin and Child—that is, if you will kindly accept it,” he added,
blushing to the roots of his hair.
“Oh! how charming, how generous,” cried Miss Jyvecote.
“My dear Mr. Brown,” said Father Maurice, crossing the room and taking
his guest by the hand, “I am deeply, _deeply_ sensible of the kindly,
the noble spirit which actuates you to make this offer; but you are a
young man, with a grand future before you, with God’s help, and by and
by, when you have leisure, perhaps you will get a stiff letter from me
calling on you to fulfil your promise. You’ll find me a very tough
customer to deal with, I assure you.”
“He thinks I cannot afford it,” said Brown to himself; “and how
delicately he has refused me!”
The entrance of Mrs. Clancy with a smoking dish of salmon cutlets
turned the tide of the conversation, and in a few moments the artist
found himself with Miss Jyvecote discussing the Royal Academy pictures
of the last season, glorifying Millais, extolling Holman Hunt, raving
over Leslie and Herbert, and ringing the changes over the pearly grays,
changeful opals, amaranths, and primrose of Leighton. From London to
the _salon_ is easy transition, and from thence to the galleries of
Dresden, Munich, and Florence. She had visited all, and to a purpose.
He had lingered within their enchanting walls until every canvas became
more or less a friend. There was a wonderful charm in this meeting. To
Brown Miss Jyvecote was a listener freshly intelligent, _naïvely_
sensible. To her the clever _critiques_ of this high-bred yet humble
artist savored of a romance written but unreal. It is scarcely
necessary to say that when people drop thus upon a subject so charming,
so inexhaustible, so refreshing the old Scytheman is utterly
disregarded, and the sun was already sinking towards the west when Miss
Jyvecote’s phaeton came to the gate.
“Have you any of your sketches here, Mr. Brown?” she asked, as she drew
on her yellow dogskin driving-gloves.
“Only a few that I dashed off on my walk hither from Castlebar.”
They were glorious little bits of weather-worn granite, brilliant with
gray, green, and orange lichens; luminous green seas and black rocks
basking in the sunlight; fern-crowned inlets and cliffs glittering with
bright wild flowers. She gushed over them. What girl does not gush over
the sketches of a tall, handsome, earnest artist?
“Oh! if I might dare to ask you for one of them, Mr. Brown.”
“Take all,” he said.
She would not hear of this.
“They are your working-drawings, Mr. Brown?” selecting one, possibly
the least valuable.
“Will you not require an escort, Miss Jyvecote, on your lonely drive?”
“Escort! No. In the first place, I shall probably not meet a human
being; and, in the next, I should only meet a friend were I to
encounter any one. I fear my prolonged visit has spoiled your work for
to-day, Mr. Brown.”
“My work! You will hardly guess what I am pledged to do and the work I
am about to commence. It is nothing less than a copy of the picture of
Daniel O’Connell which hangs over the mantel-piece. It is for Mrs.
Clancy, who is to adorn her kitchen wall with it.”
“Surely you are not in earnest?”
“_Hélas!_ I am always in earnest, and so is Mrs. Clancy,” he added,
laughingly narrating that worthy lady’s anxiety with reference to the
artistic adornment of the back door.
“May we not hope to have the pleasure of seeing you at Moynalty? Father
Maurice has promised us a visit. I’m sure my father will call and—”
“Pray do not trouble him. I never visit, and, as my stay here is only
one of sufferance, I know not the moment I may be evicted by my
ruthless landlord.”
“You should make an exception in our favor, Mr. Brown. We can show you
a Claude, a doubtful Murillo, and a charming Meissonier. Our flowers,
too, are worth coming to see—that is, they are wonderful for Connemara.
Father Maurice, you must ask Mr. Brown to come over with you on
Monday.”
“Of course, my dear child, of course. He’ll be enchanted with the
castle. You’ll come, of course, Mr. Brown?” turning to our hero, who,
however, remained silent, although brimming over with words he dared
not speak.
“Then it’s _au revoir, messieurs_!” gaily exclaimed Miss Jyvecote, as
she whirled rapidly away.
It would have surprised some of the artist’s London friends could they
have peeped behind the scenes of his thoughts and gazed at them as
naturalists do at working bees. It would have astonished them to hear
him mutter as he watched the receding vehicle: “This is just the one
fresh, fair, unspotted, and perfect girl it has been my lot to meet.
Such a girl as this would cause the worst of us to turn virtuous and
eschew cakes and ale.”
* * * * *
Mr. Brown had confided in one man ere dropping out of Vanity Fair. To
this individual he now addressed himself, requesting of him to “drop
down to O’Connor’s, the swell ecclesiastical stained-glass man in
Berners Street, Oxford Street, and order a set of Stations of the
Cross. You don’t know what they mean, old fellow, but the O’Connors
will understand you. Let them be first class and glowing in the reds,
yellows, blues, and greens of the new French school of colors. I don’t
mind the price. Above all things let them have especially handsome
frames of the _Via Dolorosa_ pattern.” The letter went on to tell Mr.
Dudley Poynter of his doings and the calm throb of the heart of his
daily life. “There is not much champagne in it, Dudley, but there is a
body that ne’er was dreamed of in your philosophy, or in that of the
wild, mad wags of the smoking-room _clique_.”
Mr. Brown completed his copy of the Liberator, to the intense
admiration of Father Maurice and the ecstasy of Mrs. Clancy. The worthy
priest would not permit its being hung in the kitchen, though, but gave
it the place of honor in the snug little sitting-room. It is needless
to say that the entire population of Monamullin, including the cabin
curs—who were now on terms of the closest intimacy with the
artist—turned in after last Mass to have a look at the “picther o’
Dan.”
“Be me conscience! but it’s Dan himself—sorra a wan else,” cried one.
“I was at Tara, an’ it’s just as if he was givin’ Drizzlyeye [Disraeli]
that welt about his notorious ancesthor, the impinitent thief on the
crass,” observed another.
“Faix, it’s alive, it is. Look at the mouth, reddy for to say
‘Repale.’”
“There’s an eye!”
“Thrue for ye; there’s more fire in it than in ould Finnegan’s chimbly
this minit.”
“Troth, it’s as dhroll as a pet pup’s.”
“Stan’ out o’ that, Mr. O’Leary, or ye’ll get a crack av his fist.”
“Three cheers for the painther, boys!”
These and kindred comments flung a radiated pleasure into the inner
heart of the artist—that _sanctum_ which as yet was green and fresh and
limpid—while the eulogies, however quaintly and coarsely served up,
bore the delicious fragrance which praise ever carries with it like a
subtle perfume.
“The love of praise, howe’er concealed by art,
Reigns more or less, and glows in every heart.”
Mr. Brown was enamored of his new existence—possibly with the child
passion for toyland; but the passion endured, nevertheless,
strengthening with each successive sunrise and maturing with every
gloaming. An invitation, accompanied by a card, had arrived by special
messenger for the artist, requesting the favor of his company, _et
cætera, et cætera_, to which that gentleman responded in a polite
negative, assigning no particular reason, but indulging in vague
generalities. He had thought a good deal of Miss Jyvecote, and sat
dreaming about her by the sea, his hands clasped around his knees and
his beloved meerschaum stuck in his mouth—sat dreaming, and fighting
against his dreams—fights in which fancy ever got the uppermost of the
rude and real. A longing crept up out of the depths of his heart to see
her once again, and to travel in the sunlighted path of her thoughts.
One thing he was firmly resolved upon—not to leave Monamullin without
another interview; though how this was to be brought about he did not
very well see. Yes, he would see her just once more, and then stamp the
whole thing out of his mind. He had been hit before, and had come
smilingly out of the valley of desolation, and so he should again,
although this was so utterly unlike his former experiences.
Father Maurice was charmed with his guest. He had never encountered
anything like him—so bright, so genial, so cultured, so humble and
submissive, and so anxious to oblige.
“Imagine,” said he in cataloguing his virtues to Larry Muldoon—“imagine
his asking me to let him ring the bell for five o’clock Mass, and he a
Protestant!”
The priest and his guest had long talks together, the latter drawing
out his host—digging for the golden ore of a charming erudition, which
lay so deep, but which “was all there.” Night after night did Father
Maurice unfold from germ to bud, from bud to flower, from flower to
fruit the grand truths of the unerring faith in which he was a
day-laborer, the young artist drinking in the sublime teachings with
that supreme attention which descends like an aureole. Father Maurice
was, as it were, but engaged in thinking aloud, yet his thoughts fell
like rain-drops, refreshing, grateful, and abiding.
The good priest, although burning with curiosity with regard to the
antecedents of his guest, was too thorough a gentleman, had too great
respect for the laws of broken bread and tasted salt, to ask so much as
a single question. A waif from the great ocean of humanity had drifted
into this little haven, and it should be protected until the ruthless
current would again seize it to whirl it outwards and onwards. Miss
Jyvecote betrayed her disappointment in various artless ways when
Father Maurice arrived at the castle without the artist. “I’m sorry you
didn’t fetch him along _bon gré mal gré_, father,” said Mrs. Jyvecote,
“as papa goes to Yorkshire next week, and Juey can talk of no person
but Mr. Brown.”
Miss Jyvecote blushed rosy red as she exclaimed: “What nonsense, mamma!
You have been speaking a good deal more about him than I have. You rave
over his sketch.”
“I think it immense.” Mrs. Jyvecote affected art, and talked from the
pages of the _Art Journal_ by the yard. “His aerial perspective is full
of filmy tone, and his near foreground is admirably run in, while his
sense of color would appear to me to be supreme.”
“Come, until I show you where I have hung it,” exclaimed Miss Juey,
leading the priest up a winding stair into a turret chamber fitted up
with that exquisite taste which a refined girl evolves like an
atmosphere.
“You have really hung my guest most artistically. And such a frame!
Where on earth did you get it?”
“I—I sent to Dublin for it—to Lesage’s, in Sackville Street.”
“I have no patience with the fellow for not coming over to see this
joyous place,” said the priest, “and I really can’t understand his
refusal.”
Miss Juey couldn’t understand it either, but held her peace.
According to Murty Mulligan’s veterinary opinion, the pony was still
unfit to travel.
“It’s meself that’s watchin’ her like a magpie forninst a marrabone;
but she is dawny still, the crayture! an’ it wud be a sin for to ax her
to thravel for a cupple o’ days more, anyhow, your riverince.”
“Why, her knees are quite well, Murty.”
“But she’s wake, sir—as wake as Mrs. Clancy’s tay on the third
wettin’—an’ I’m afeard for to thrust her; more betoken, yer
riverince”—in a low, confidential tone—“she’s gettin’ a bellyful av the
finest oats in the barony, that will stand to her bravely while she’s
raisin’ her winther coat.”
Mr. Brown asked Father Maurice a considerable number of questions anent
his visit, and was particularly anxious in reference to the departure
of Mr. Jyvecote.
“He told me himself that he would leave Westport to-morrow by the night
train for Dublin, in order to catch the early boat that leaves Kingston
for Holyhead.”
Upon the following morning the artist, slinging his knapsack across his
back, started in the direction of the Glendhanarrahsheen valley.
“I want to make a few sketches of the coast scenery about May Point,”
he observed.
“There is better scenery in the Foil Dhuv, about two miles farther on;
and, bless my heart! you’ll be quite close to Moynalty Castle, and why
not go in and see their pictures, your own especially, in such a grand
gilt Dublin frame?”
Simple priest! Artful artist!
It was a delightful morning that was shining over Monamullin as the
artist quitted it _en route_ to—May Point, of course. The sea, like a
great sleeping monster, lay winking at the sun, and but one solitary
ship was visible away in the waste—a brown speck in a flood of golden
haze. If young gentlemen would only put the single “why?” to themselves
in starting upon such expeditions, it might save them many a heartache;
but they will not. Any other query but this one. What a talisman that
small word in every effort of our lives!
Brown felt unaccountably joyous and brave, charmed with the present,
and metaphorically snapping his fingers at the future. A morning walk
by the deep and dark blue ocean summons forth this sensation. You bound
upon air; champagne fills your veins; all the ills the flesh is heir to
are forgotten, all the phantoms of care and sorrow are laid “a full
fifty fathom by the lead.”
It is a glorious seed-time, when every thought bears luscious fruit.
He travels merrily onward, now humming a barcarolle, now whistling a
fragment of a _bouffe_, until he reaches the gloomy defile known as the
Valley of Glendhanarrahsheen. A turn of the sylvan sanded road brings
him in sight of the lordly turrets of Moynalty; another turn, and lo!
he comes upon no less a personage than Miss Jyvecote, who, with her
married sister, a Mrs. Travers, are driving in the direction whence he
had come. Juey was Jehu, and almost pulled the ponies upon their
haunches on perceiving our hero.
“This _is_ a condescension, Mr. Brown,” she said, presenting him to her
sister. “Will you take a seat?”
“Thanks, no; I am about to ascend that mountain yonder,” pointing
vaguely in the direction of the range known as the Twelve Pins.
“Then we shall expect you to luncheon at two o’clock.”
“I’m afraid not. I purpose returning by the other road.”
“What road? There is no other road.”
“Across country.”
“Then you do not intend honoring us with a visit?” Her tone was vexed,
if not haughty.
Now, he had quitted Monamullin with no other intention than that of
proceeding straight to the castle, and yet he replies in the negative.
Let those better versed in the mysteries of the human heart than I am
analyze his motives. I shall not endeavor to do so.
“Don’t you think you are acting rather shabbily?” she said, preparing
to resume her drive.
He laughed.
“_Au plaisir_, then!” And with a stately salutation, courteous enough
but nothing more, she swept onwards.
He watched the phaeton go whirling along the white road and disappear
round a huge fern-covered boulder, and his vexation with himself grew
intolerable.
“What an ass, what a brute I have been! What could I have been thinking
about? Was I asleep or mad? Invited to the house, I actually refuse to
pay the stereotyped visit. Why a counter-jumper would know better. How
charming she looked! And that delicious blush when she met me! She
seemed really pleased, too. What can she think of me? My chance is
gone.”
He seated himself on the stump of a felled tree in his favorite
attitude, having lighted his pipe.
“Might I thrubble yer honner for a thrifle o’ light or a bit of a
match?” asked a passing peasant.
“With pleasure; take a dozen!”
The man looked puzzled; he had never seen wax vestas till now.
“They look mighty dawny, yer honner.”
“Do you belong to the castle?” asked our hero. Somehow or other the
castle and its inmates were ever uppermost in his thoughts now.
“Yis, sir.”
“Is Mr. Jyvecote at home?”
“No, yer honner. I met him this mornin’ at Billy’s Bridge, makin’ hard
for Westport.”
The cards all in his favor, and he wouldn’t play his hand! What did it
mean? Would he go up to the castle, and, announcing himself to the
_châtelaine_, pay that visit which conventionality demanded? No; he had
swung into another current, and he would not alter his course. It was
better as it was—ay, far better. And there came a sort of desolate
feeling upon him, smiting him drearily like a dull ache. Had he seen
the last of her? Was his life henceforth to be unlighted by the
radiance of her presence? Here, in the mystic silence of
Glendhanarrahsheen, came the revelation. Here did his own secret
surprise him. He had allowed the image of this fair young girl to twine
itself around his heart, till he now felt as if he could fling aside
pride, reserve, past and future, just to hear her voice once more, to
feel the tender pressure of her tiny hand.
And so he sat there dreaming, and fighting with his dreams, until his
tobacco “gave out,” and until, shaking himself together, he summoned a
supreme effort to help him on his road.
“It won’t do to be caught skulking here,” he thought.
The soft white shingle drawn from the brown-black waters of the lake
muffle the sound of approaching wheels, and, ere he can return to a
coign of vantage, the phaeton flashes past.
I have already stated that my hero was a young gentleman of warm
temper, great energy, and prone to sudden impulses and unconsidered
actions, and on this occasion he was true to his nature, for he shouted
“Stop!” with the authoritative tone of a post-captain on a
quarter-deck.
Miss Jyvecote pulled up.
The artist, glowing with a fierce excitement, plunged down the road and
came up to the vehicle.
“Miss Jyvecote,” he pants, his handsome face flushed, his eyes
flashing, “I don’t want you to think me a brute. I do not know why I
acted so rudely this morning. I left Monamullin on purpose to come and
visit you. Father Maurice says that open confession is good for the
soul. You have it now. _Do_, please _do_ forgive me.”
“Hand and glove,” she exclaims, holding out her coquettishly-gloved
hand.
He jumped into the back seat, and, in a flutter of joyous commotion,
was whirled to the grand entrance of the castle.
“You must first come and see _my_ picture, Mr. Brown,” exclaimed Miss
Jyvecote, leading the way to the turret chamber.
There was a courteous flattery in this that caused the heart of the
artist to swell in admiring gratitude.
Later on they visited the gardens and the conservatories, tasting green
figs and toying with luscious bunches of bursting grapes; and by and by
came the presentation to Mrs. Jyvecote, who complimented him in
pre-Raphaelite terms upon his greens, grays, opals, and blues.
“We want some one to continue the fascinating pages of Hook,” she said,
“and I feel assured, Mr. Brown, that next year’s Academy will see you
‘on the line.’”
After luncheon they repaired to the drawing-room, where Mrs. Travers
indulged in chromatic fireworks upon a superb Erard piano; and when she
had risen the artist seated himself unasked, and sang a little
love-song of Shelley’s in a baritone that would have pushed Mr. Santley
_a l’outrance_. Song was one of Mr. Brown’s gifts, and his voice was
cultivated to perfection. A deep, rich voice, sweet, sad words, with
perfect enunciation of every syllable—_ma foi_, there are moments, and
there _are_ moments, and this was one of the latter in the life of
Julia Jyvecote.
He sang Gounod’s _Ave Maria_ as that sublime hymn has been rarely sung
in a drawing-room—sang it with a religious fervor, and with a simple
intensity of feeling that wrought its own magic. He _felt_ his success,
and smiled gravely to himself as he bent over the instrument, playing
the closing chords ever so softly, until note after note fainted in
sheer melody.
He was asked for _Annabel Lee_—for “that love that was more than
love”—but refused. He possessed Tom Moore’s secret, and, having
produced the desired effect, faded out like his own last notes. Mrs.
Jyvecote tackled him upon art, Mrs. Travers upon music, and Miss
Jyvecote was silent. Somehow or other in talking to _her_ he was stupid
and confused, while in conversing with the others he was at his best.
Pressed on all sides to stop for dinner and remain the night, he could
scarcely refuse, although pleading dress and the probable anxiety of
his host. The first point was settled by a declaration upon the part of
his entertainers that it would be a treat to sit down in morning
toilettes; the second by the despatching of a boy to Monamullin. Mr.
Brown resigned himself to his fate and went with the stream.
How beautiful Miss Jyvecote looked in the mild radiance of the
wax-lights which lit up the rooms at night—wax-lights everywhere—in the
hands of Ninive dancing-girls, Dresden shepherdesses, oxidized silver
sconces, and girandoles of quaint and cunning design. What rapture in
being seated beside her, engaged in turning over the pages of a superb
photographic album too heavy for her dainty lap, and resting upon his
knees!
Why does he start and turn pale?
Why does Miss Jyvecote gaze at him, and with a merry laugh exclaim:
“Why, Mr. Brown, this photo is the very image of you.”
Beneath the photograph were the words:
“To Jasper Jyvecote from Ernest Noel.”
* * * * *
“Three days away from me! Why, it appeared three weeks,” exclaimed
Father Maurice, as the artist returned to the cosy cottage of the amber
thatch and snow-white walls. “I knew you would appreciate the
Jyvecotes, and I felt that they would appreciate _you_. Have you taken
any sketches?”
“One, the lake of Glendhanarrahsheen, which I mean to finish; and then,
_padre_, I must say _adios_ to Monamullin for many a long day.”
“Tut, tut, tut, man! we can’t do without you,” said the priest; “and
mind you, Mr. Brown, I’m sure the ladies at Moynalty would have their
likenesses done, and give you a good deal of money for them,
too—probably as much as five pounds apiece.”
“Five pounds apiece,” thought the artist, “and Millais getting two
thousand guineas for a single portrait!”
“And I’m delighted to tell you, my dear friend, that your O’Connell has
already got you a job. Mr. Muldoon—you might have noticed his shop
nearly opposite the chapel, a most flourishing concern—is anxious to
have his likeness done, and will have his wife and mother painted also,
as well as his five children and his collie; and if his maiden aunt
comes over from Castlebar he’ll throw her in, provided you can draw her
chaise. So I think,” added Father Maurice triumphantly, “I have been
doing good business for you in your absence.”
“Splendid, my valued host! But before I can touch these commissions I
must finish the lake.”
“Of course, of course; there’s no hurry. But, mind you, Muldoon is
ready money, and all you young fellows in the world require a little of
that—not that you want it here,” he cried hastily, lest his guest might
suppose that anything was required of him; “but when you take a day in
Westport, or perhaps as far as Sligo, you’ll want many little things
that couldn’t be had here for all the gold in the Bank of Ireland.”
The three days Mr. Brown had spent at Moynalty completely riveted the
fetters which might have been easily burst ere the iron had grown cold.
He endeavored to persuade himself that this visit was a mere romantic
episode in the career of an artist—a thing to be talked of in the sweet
by-and-by, and to be remembered as a delightful halting-place in the
onward journey. He tried to fling dust in his mind’s eye, and but
succeeded in closing the eye to everything save the glorious inviting
present. He floated on from day to day in a sort of temporary
elysium—why call it a fool’s paradise?—so tranquil that it was
impossible pain or sorrow could be its outcome. An intimacy sprang up
in this wild, strange, isolated place that a decade of London seasons
could never have brought to ripeness, and he felt in the _entourages_
of the palatial dwelling as though he was in his own old home. He rode,
walked, boated, drew, and sang with Julia Jyvecote. She, too, would
seem to live in the present, in the subtle, delicious consciousness of
being appreciated—ay, and liked. The small chance of ever enjoying a
repetition of his visit lent a peculiar charm to every circumstance,
and forbade those questionings as to who’s who with which the favored
ones of fortune probe the antecedents of the standers at the gates
which enclose the upper ten thousand.
From the accident of the photograph he was playfully christened Sir
Everard, and it became a matter of amused astonishment how readily he
accepted the title and how unvaryingly he responded to a call upon the
name.
He quitted Moynalty in a strange whirl of conflicting thought.
“May we not hope to see you in London, Mr. Brown?” said Mrs. Jyvecote,
graciously coming upon the terrace to bid him adieu. “We go over in
April, and our address is 91 Bruton Street, Mayfair. I know how sorry
Mr. Jyvecote will be to have missed you, especially as he arrives here
to-morrow; and I am also confident that he would be anxious to serve
you—although,” she added, with a caressing courtesy, “a gentleman of
Mr. Brown’s gifts requires no poor service such as we could render
him.”
“How long do you remain in Monamullin, Mr. Brown?” asked Mrs. Travers.
“Until I finish a sketch of the lake here which Miss Jyvecote intends
to honor me by accepting.”
“Oh! then we shall see _much_ more of you.”
“I am compelled to raise the drawbridge and drop the portcullis upon
the hope, Mrs. Travers. My working-drawing is here, and—”
“Then if Mohammed will not come to the mountain, the mountain must come
to Mohammed. I’ll drive my sister over to service next Sunday, and see
how the priest, the painter, and the picture are getting on.”
It was a great wrench to the artist to tear himself away, and the _sans
adieux_ that fluttered after him on the evening breeze seemed sad and
mournful. Was the barrier between Mr. Jyvecote and himself utterly
impassable? Could it not be bridged over? He could not assume the
initiative. _He_ would see Jyvecote and his whole race in—Yokohama
first; and yet what would he not do to gain the love of the youngest
daughter of the house! Anything, everything. Pshaw! any chance of
wooing and winning such a girl should be through the medium of his
title, his position, and by passing beneath the yoke of society. What
sheer folly to think of her from the stand-point upon which he had been
admitted to her father’s house! As the artist he was patronized, as the
baronet he could be placed; and yet to win her as the artist would just
be one of those triumphs which lay within the chances occasionally
vouchsafed by the rosy archer. She had been silent, reserved, and had
seemed shy of him. She spoke much of a man in the Guards, a chum of her
brother Jasper; possibly this Guardsman was _the_ man.
In musings such as these did Mr. Brown pursue his work, and the picture
came to life beneath his glowing hands. The canvas, with all the
necessary _et cæteras_, had arrived from Dublin, the good priest
marvelling considerably at the pecuniary resources of his guest. “His
little all,” he thought, “and he’s going to make it a present to my
sweet parishioner.”
But a great surprise was in store for Father Maurice.
Mr. Brown had issued instructions to his London friend to forward the
Stations of the Cross, free of all carriage, to the Rev. Maurice
O’Donnell, P.P., Monamullin, Ballynaveogin, County Mayo.
This order was promptly complied with, and a lovely autumnal evening
beheld the whole village, curs and all, turn out to speculate upon the
nature of the contents of four gigantic wooden cases which were
deposited in the little garden attached to the priest’s cottage. It
were utterly useless to endeavor to describe the _furore_ occasioned by
the opening the boxes; the excitement rose to a pitch never realized in
Monamullin since the occasion of the visit of the Archbishop of
Tuam—the Lion of the Fold of Juda. Father Maurice fairly wept for joy;
Mrs. Clancy insisted upon doing the Stations there and then; and as
each picture was brought to light, from the folds of wrappers as
numerous as those surrounding the body of an Egyptian mummy, a hum of
admiration was raised by the assembled and reverential multitude. The
good priest, never guessing the source from whence the splendid gift
had emanated, endeavored to trace it to Miss Jyvecote—a belief which
Mr. Brown sedulously sustained—and Father Morris, full of the idea,
chanted whole litanies in her praises, scarcely ever ceasing mention of
her.
“I’ll drive over to-morrow and tender her my most devoted gratitude.
I’ll offer up Masses for her. I’ll—”
“She will be here to-morrow, father. Mrs. Travers is to drive her over.
Don’t you think we ought to see about hanging the Stations? It will
please her immensely to see them in their places in the church.”
A hanging committee was appointed and the work of suspending the
pictures carried into instant execution. The mouldy little edifice was
soon ablaze with gilding and glorious coloring, which, alas! but seemed
to display its general dinginess more glaringly.
“My poor little altar may hide its diminished head,” said Father
Maurice mournfully, brightening up, however, as he added: “But, sure,
I’ll soon have Miss Jyvecote’s beautiful altar-cloth.”
The “castle people” arrived upon the following morning and were
escorted by the artist to the church.
“You have come over upon an interesting occasion, Miss Jyvecote,” he
said; “Father Maurice has received an anonymous gift of a set of
Stations of the Cross, and he thinks that you can tell him something
about them.”
Great was the astonishment of the simple priest when Miss Jyvecote
disclaimed all knowledge of the presentation.
“Why, father, you must think me as rich as Miss Burdett-Coutts,” she
cried. “These beautiful works of art have cost hundreds of pounds. Mr.
Brown here will tell you how much they cost,” turning to that
gentleman. How often a stray shot hits home! Mr. Brown had the
receipted bill in his pocket at that particular moment.
“They are French,” he said, evading the question.
“Consequently more expensive, _n’est ce pas_?”
“They are not badly done.”
“They are on the borderland of high art, Mr. Brown. Why do you
pooh-pooh them?”
Poor Father Maurice was fairly nonplussed. All his guesses anent the
donor fell short, while his surmises died from sheer inanition. It
could not be the cardinal. Might it be little Micky O’Brien, that ran
away to sea and was now coming home a rich man? or Paudheen Rafferty,
who was a thriving grocer in Dublin? For the first time in his life the
parish priest of Monamullin felt uneasy, if not unhappy. What did it
portend? Who could possibly take so serious an interest in the affairs
of his little parish? Mr. Malachi Bodkin might have done so in the
olden time, but the famine of ‘48 left him barely able to keep up
Corriebawn. Sir Marmaduke Blake was a scamp who racked his tenants and
spent his money in debauchery.
“I suppose I shall learn some day,” sighed the priest. “I must be
patient, but I wish it was to-day.”
After luncheon—Father Maurice’s breakfast—the artist and Miss Jyvecote
strolled along the shore. The sun seemed to shine with a certain
sadness, the gray ocean to moan as if in pain, and the shadow of the
“we shall not meet again” to hang over Julia and her companion as they
seated themselves in a secluded nook surrounded by huge rocks—a spot in
which the world seemed to cease suddenly.
“And so you think of leaving?” she said after a long silence, during
which she drew eccentric circles in the sand with the tip of her
parasol.
“My _kismet_ says ‘yes,’ Miss Jyvecote.”
“Does your _kismet_ say whither?”
“It points to that little village on the Thames called London.”
“We go to London next month, _en route_ to Egypt. My sister Gussie—you
never met her—who has been in Italy with my uncle, is recommended Egypt
for her chest. Papa received letters yesterday.”
“How long do you think you will remain in London?”
“Only a day or two.”
“Might I hope to see you?”
“Why not? Our address is 91 Bruton Street, Mayfair.”
“Is—is Mr. Delmege, of the Guards, going to Egypt?”
She looked gravely at him, full into his eyes, as she replied, somewhat
coldly:
“Not that I am aware of.”
His heart gave one great bound, as though a dull, dead weight had been
suddenly removed.
“I hope to see your handicraft on the walls of the Academy when we
return.”
“_Sabe Dios_!” he said, clasping his knees with his hands, and gazing
out across the moaning sea.
“If you try you will succeed.”
“I have a very poor opinion of my own power of success in anything. I
am colorless, purposeless.”
“Neither one nor the other. You have a noble profession, a glorious
talent, and Father Maurice says you have a good heart. With three such
friends as companions life is a garden of flowers.”
“And yet till within the last few days I have found it but a desert.”
Then silence fell upon both.
“Father Maurice will miss you dreadfully,” she murmured. She was very
pale, and her dark eyes turned upon him with mournful earnestness. “He
has become so much attached to you; and the poor little altar will miss
your artistic grouping of the flowers. Do you know,” she added, “I
shall say an _Ave Maria_ when I visit the little church, and for your
conversion?”
“Is that a promise, Miss Jyvecote?”
“It is.”
“Will you also”—he stopped suddenly short, and dug his heel into the
sand.
“The shay is waitin’ for ye, Miss Jewel, and Missis Thravers is roarin’
murdher,” cried Murty Mulligan, thrusting his shock head between a
cleft in the rocks.
Brown sprang to his feet and offered Miss Jyvecote his arm. Neither
spoke during the walk to the cottage. “If you should hear of me through
your brother, do not think ill of me,” he whispered, as he handed her
into the phaeton.
“What do you mean?” she asked in as low a tone.
“Promise me that you will not forget Brown, the poor artist.”
“It is scarcely necessary,” she murmured, as she gave him her hand.
There was a blank at the priest’s home when the artist left. Father
Maurice missed him sadly—missed his hit at backgammon, his gay gossip,
and his cheery company.
“He was a rale gintleman,” said Mrs. Clancy; “he wanted for to give me
a goolden soverin—mebbe th’ only wan he had—but I tuk a crukked
ha’penny for luck, an’ it’s luck I wish him wherever he goes.”
“He was the nicest man, an’ the nicest-mannered man, I ever seen,”
chimed in Murty; “an’ I’m in dhread that I spoke too rough whin he
offered me menumeration.”
“He promised to come here next summer, and he will keep his promise,”
said the priest.
* * * * *
Mr. Jocelyn Jyvecote was seated in the study at 91 Bruton Street,
engaged in perusing the columns of the _Times_. He had slept well,
breakfasted well, and was thoroughly refreshed after his journey, as he
had arrived in town from the East upon the previous day.
A servant entered with a card upon a silver salver.
Mr. Jyvecote adjusted his eyeglass and leisurely lifted the tiny bit of
pasteboard. “What does this mean?” he cried, letting it fall again. “Is
the gentleman waiting?”
“In the ‘all, sir.”
“Show him in.”
A tall, high-bred-looking young man entered. His face was pale and he
somewhat nervously stroked a _Henri Quatre_ beard.
“May I ask to what I am indebted for this visit from Sir Everard Noel?”
demanded Mr. Jyvecote haughtily.
“I shall explain the purport of my visit in a few words.”
“Pray be seated.”
“Thanks! Mr. Jyvecote, there was bad blood and bitter feud between you
and my poor father about the Ottley Farm.”
“You need scarcely remind me of that, Sir Everard.”
“There is bad blood between us, Mr. Jyvecote. You claimed it in right
of an old lease that could not be discovered when the case came before
the court, and I retain possession of it by law. The last time that we
met we met in hot anger, and—and I used expressions for which I am very
seriously sorry. So long as that farm is in possession of either of us
it will lead to bad feeling, and I came here to-day to tell you what I
mean to do about it.”
A somewhat less stern frown appeared upon Mr. Jyvecote’s features as he
listened.
“Last autumn accident threw me into the wildest portion of the west of
Ireland, a place not unknown to you—Monamullin.”
“It is within seven miles of Moynalty Castle.”
“I am aware of that. I was the guest of one of the purest men that God
Almighty ever made—Father Maurice O’Donnell.”
“Your estimate is just, Sir Everard.”
“His soul is in his work, and his simple heart is fragmentarily divided
amongst his little flock. I found his church dingy, dilapidated,
falling. He is worthy of a better building; he is worthy of anything,”
cried the young man enthusiastically.
Mr. Jyvecote bowed assent.
“Well, sir, I purpose selling Ottley Farm, and devoting the proceeds
towards building a new church for Father Maurice O’Donnell. I have an
offer of three thousand pounds for the farm, and here are the plans,
prepared by Mr. Pugin—pure Gothic,” extracting a roll of papers from
his pocket and eagerly thrusting them into the hands of the other.
Mr. Jyvecote leisurely surveyed them, while the young man regarded him
with the most eager scrutiny. Suddenly flinging them upon the table,
Mr. Jyvecote rose, and, taking Sir Everard Noel’s hand, shook it
warmly.
“Noel, you are a fine-hearted fellow, and a chivalrous one. There are
not ten—pshaw! there are not two men in London who would patch up a
feud as you are doing to-day. I am better pleased to see you in this
fine form than the acquisition of ten farms. Give the dear old priest
his church, and for my daughter’s sake—I am as stanch a Protestant as
yourself—I’ll put up an altar. Come up-stairs now, and I’ll present you
to her.”
At this particular moment Miss Jyvecote entered the study. Upon
perceiving our hero she grew deadly pale and then flushed up to the
roots of her hair.
“Mr. Brown,” she said holding out her hand.
“You are mistaken, Juey; this is an old enemy and a new friend—Sir
Everard Noel.”
* * * * *
The church was erected at Monamullin and is a perfect gem in its way,
the talent of “all the Pugins” being thrown into the design. At its
altar Everard Noel received his First Communion, and at its altar he
was united to Julia Jyvecote by the proud, happy, and affectionate
Father Maurice O’Donnell.
“An’ only for to think o’ me axin’ a rale live baronet for to paint the
back doore,” is the constant exclamation of the worthy Mrs. Clancy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
RECENT POLEMICS AND IRENICS IN SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY.
It is not always easy to draw the line, either in theology or
philosophy, that divides the part which has been dogmatically or
scientifically defined from that which remains open ground of
discussion in the Catholic schools. Occasionally we are aided and
favored by a new definition, made with supreme and final authority by
the Holy See, which adds something, not to the immutability of truth
itself, which is eternally incapable of the slightest alteration, but
to the quantity of science as fixed and immutable in the conceptions of
the understanding intellect. The authority of reason may also suffice
to add to the quantity of certain science by inductions from facts made
evident by experience, which have the force of demonstration. But the
dogmatic definitions are not so numerous and frequent as some minds,
impatient of discussion and difference of opinion, may desire. Rational
demonstration, though fully sufficient to define scientific truth and
terminate doubt in the understanding of those who clearly and
distinctly apprehend it, is not always understood sufficiently for this
purpose even by all intelligent, educated minds, at least for a
considerable period. Discussion on important points is not, therefore,
terminated between different Catholic schools, and agreement in
doctrine established, as completely and speedily as might be desired by
those who have a strong sense of the importance of unity in theological
and philosophical doctrine. Some, who are animated by a polemical
spirit, are disposed to claim for the doctrines of their own particular
school a greater amount of dogmatic or scientific authority than that
which is generally conceded to them. They are disposed to amplify the
import of decisions or declarations made by the authority of the
church, to magnify the authority of great doctors and masters in
Catholic science, and to extend as far as possible the claim of
metaphysical or moral certitude for the doctrines which they advocate.
Others are animated by a more irenical spirit. They desire to moderate
polemical ardor; to control the zeal for the triumph of particular
systems, and the exaltation of individual masters in wisdom, within
reasonable bounds; to harmonize all branches of science with each
other; to observe the just limitations of dogmatic or scientific
certainty; to extend the range of rational science by calm discussion
which has only the attainment of truth in view; and, without
compromising orthodox doctrine, to leave open and free to argument all
that domain which has not been closed in by any final definition of
competent authority. The polemical and irenical tendencies are not in
real opposition. They are elements capable of combination with each
other. We do not believe that differences of opinion among Catholic
schools will ever be entirely terminated or controversy cease. Yet
there is always an increasing approximation toward unity, and the
irenical spirit aids this movement by diminishing misunderstandings and
moderating controversial ardor. The Holy See not only at times decides
and terminates controversies by a judgment, but also, at other times,
refuses to pronounce judgment, and admonishes those who seek to stretch
too far the import of her decisions to respect the liberty of opinion
and discussion which she allows.
We have an instance of this in the subjoined documents respecting the
philosophy of the venerable and holy Father Rosmini—a system which has
at present a considerable following and is in very decided opposition
to the ideological doctrine of the Thomist school, as well as to other
parts of the common, scholastic teaching.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ROSMINI’S WORKS, AND THE JUDGMENT OF ROME UPON THEM.
(The following is a translation of the official communication which
appeared in the _Osservatore Romano_ of June 20, 1876.)
MOST ILLUSTRIOUS MARQUIS:
In No. 136 of your esteemed journal, June 14, 1876, I have read
with pain an article on a little work entitled “_Antonio
Rosmini and the Civiltà Cattolica before the Sacred
Congregation of the Index_, by Giuseppe Buroni, Priest of the
Mission.”
You are well aware that the works of the distinguished
philosopher Antonio Rosmini were made the subject of a most
rigorous examination by the Sacred Congregation of the Index
from 1851 to 1854, and that at the close of this examination
our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., still happily reigning, in the
assembly of the most reverend consultors and the most eminent
cardinals, whose votes he had heard, and over whom he deigned,
with a condescension seldom shown, to preside in person, after
invoking with fervent prayers the light and help of Heaven,
pronounced the following decree: “All the works of Antonio
Rosmini-Serbati, concerning which investigation has been made
of late, must be dismissed; nor has this same investigation
resulted in anything whatever derogatory to the name of the
author, or to the praiseworthiness of life and the singular
merits towards the church of the religious society founded by
him.”
The author of the article referred to undertakes to discuss the
meaning of the words _Dimittantur opera_, but, while professing
to admit their force, he reduces it well-nigh to nothing. For
he says: “We do not deny that _Dimittantur_ is in a _certain
respect_ equivalent to _Permittatur_; but to permit that a work
may be published and read without incurring ecclesiastical
penalty has nothing whatever to do with declaring the work
itself uncensurable.” Now, by these words one is led to suppose
that the Sacred Congregation, or rather the Holy Father, by
pronouncing that judgment, did nothing more than permit that
the works of Rosmini may be published and read without
incurring a penalty.
But I ask: What penalty did the editors and readers of
Rosmini’s works incur before those works were subjected to so
lengthened and accurate a scrutiny? None whatever. What, then,
would the Sacred Congregation of the Index have done by such
grave study and labors so protracted? Nothing whatever. And to
what purpose would the judgment of the Holy Father have been
given? To no purpose whatever. If, then, we do not wish to fall
into these absurdities, we must say that the accusations
brought against the works of Rosmini were false; that in these
works nothing was found contrary to faith and morals; that
their publication and perusal are not dangerous to the
faithful. Who can ever suppose that the Holy Father has set
free for publication works containing erroneous doctrines, and
liberated the readers of them from penalty? To liberate from
penalty the readers of books infected with error would be an
act productive of greater injury than if a penalty were imposed
or (assuming its previous existence) were maintained in full
vigor.
I might touch on other points of the article in question, and
show that its author has presumed to dive further than he ought
into a matter which does not belong to him. But what I have
said suffices to make it imperative on me to address this
letter to you. As it may not be known to every one that the
Master of the Sacred Palace does not, under existing
circumstances, revise the journals, and as the character and
fame of the _Osservatore Romano_ might lead to a belief that he
(the Master of the Sacred Palace) has approved of the article
in question, I think it necessary to declare to you that I
should never have given my consent to the publication of the
same. Nay, I have to request that you will not, in future,
receive any articles either on the sense of the judgment
_Dimittatur_, or against the learned and pious Rosmini, or
against his works, examined and dismissed.
I take this opportunity to remind all concerned that the Holy
Father, from the time of the issuing of the _Dimittantur
opera_, enjoined silence, and this in order that no new
accusations should be put forward, nor, under any pretext, a
way made for discord among Catholics: “That no new accusations
and discords should arise and be disseminated in future,
silence is now for the third time enjoined, on either party, by
command of His Holiness.”
Who does not see that the seeds of discord are sown by
traducing the works of Rosmini either as not being yet
sufficiently examined, or as suspected of errors which were not
seen either before or after so extraordinary an examination, or
as dangerous; or by using expressions which take away all the
value or diminish excessively the force and authority of a
judgment pronounced with so much maturity and so much solemnity
by the supreme Pastor of the church?
By this it is not meant to affirm that it would be unlawful to
dissent from the philosophical system of Rosmini, or from the
manner in which he tries to explain some truths, and even to
offer a confutation of them in the schools; but if one does not
agree with Rosmini in the manner of explaining certain truths,
it is not on that account lawful to conclude that Rosmini has
denied these truths; nor is it lawful to inflict any
theological censure on the doctrines maintained by him in the
works which the Sacred Congregation has examined and dismissed,
and which the Holy Father has intended to protect from further
accusations in the future.
Believe me, etc., etc.,
Your most obedient servant,
FR. FRANCIS VINCENZO MARIA GATTI,
Of the Order of Preachers,
Master of the Sacred Apostolical Palace.
JUNE 16, 1876.
The following appeared in the _Osservatore Cattolico_ of Milan, July 1,
1876:
The Sacred Roman Congregation of the Index, by a letter
addressed to His Grace the Archbishop of Milan under date of
June 20, 1876, and signed by His Eminence Cardinal Antonio de
Luca, Prefect of the Congregation, and the Very Reverend Father
Girolamo Pio Saccheri, of the Friars Preachers, Secretary, and
delivered by his grace in person to one of the responsible
editors of this journal in the afternoon of Wednesday, July 28,
has enjoined us:
“1. To maintain in future the most rigorous silence on the
question of the works of Antonio Rosmini; because, in
consequence of the authoritative decree of the Holy Father
(_That no new accusations and discords should arise and be
disseminated in future, silence is for the third time enjoined
on either party by command of His Holiness_), it is not
lawful—in matters pertaining to religion and relating to faith
and sound morals—to inflict any censure on the works of Rosmini
or on his person; _the only thing upon which freedom is allowed
being to discuss in the schools and in books_, and within
proper limits, his philosophical opinions and the merits of his
manner of explaining certain truths, even theological. 2. To
declare in an early issue of this journal that we have not
rightly interpreted the sentence _Dimittantur_, which the
Sacred Congregation of the Index thinks fit sometimes, after
mature and diligent examination, to pronounce upon works
submitted to its authoritative judgment.”
Full of reverence for the supreme authority of the Holy See,
and wishing to be faithful to our duty as well as to the
programme of this journal, we, the undersigned, responsible
editors of the _Osservatore Cattolico_, in our own behalf and
of all who have written in our columns on the question
aforesaid, intend to declare and do hereby declare in the most
docile and submissive manner possible, that
1. As to the silence now imposed we repeat and confirm what we
said on occasion of reproducing in this journal the letter of
the Master of the Sacred Palace to the editor of the
_Osservatore Romano_—viz., that it shall be observed.
2. The sentence _Dimittantur_, as used by the Sacred
Congregation of the Index was not rightly interpreted by us.
ENRICO MASSARA, Priest,
DAVIDE ALBERTARIO, Priest,
Editors of the _Osservatore Cattolico_.
MILAN, June 30, 1876.
Another and more recent instance is that of the controversy concerning
the constitution of bodies. A letter of the Pope to Dr. Travaligni,
president of a scientific society in Italy, commending the effort to
bring physical and medical science into harmony with the scholastic
philosophy, was interpreted as giving authoritative sanction to a
certain doctrine of the Thomist school. A professor in the University
of Lille wrote a letter to the Pope on the subject, setting forth the
differences of opinion and the continued controversies respecting the
constitution of bodies, and praying for a positive decision. In reply
to this the professor and all others interested in these questions were
instructed, in a letter written and published by order of the Holy
Father, that the Holy See had defined nothing in the premises, and that
a solution of difficulties should be sought for by scientific
investigation and discussion. We have not space for the publication of
this letter, but it may be found in one of the back numbers of the
_Catholic Review_ of Brooklyn (Sept. 22, 1877).
As for the Rosminian philosophy, we agree personally with Liberatore
and the Thomist school in rejecting it as scientifically untenable.
Nevertheless, we have heretofore distinctly avowed that in a dogmatic
aspect it is free from censure, and we are glad to see the matter
placed beyond question, and the controversy relegated to its proper
sphere as one debatable only on purely rational grounds. The other
question is one which has been extensively discussed in our pages, and
which we regard as extremely interesting and important.
The doctrine proposed and elaborately discussed in the articles
formerly published under the title “Principles of Real Being” has been
attacked by a very learned and able writer in a German periodical
published at St. Louis, on dogmatic as well as philosophical grounds.
This is a convenient opportunity to state that we have in manuscript a
very long and minute defence and vindication of the doctrine advocated
in these articles, written by their distinguished author, who is well
versed not only in scholastic theology and metaphysics, but also in
mathematical and physical science. We refrained from publishing his
reply to the attack of his antagonist, partly because the discussion
was too subtle and abstruse for our readers, and still more from
unwillingness to engage in dogmatic controversy when there is a risk of
perplexing pious minds. In matters really dogmatic and pertaining to
Catholic doctrine we want no compromise or attenuation. We desire only
the restriction of the argument from authority within its actual
limits, that the discussion of matters purely philosophical may be
carried on by rational arguments alone, without accusations of
heterodoxy on either side. In respect to the essence and integrity of
the scholastic philosophy according to the system of the two great
doctors, Aristotle and St. Thomas, we are in hearty concurrence with
the great intellectual movement of the revival and restoration of this
philosophy as the only true and scientific metaphysics to its ancient
dominating position. We do not, however, consider that a blind
submission to the authority even of St. Thomas is reasonable. An author
who, like Liberatore, professedly aims at nothing more than an exact
exposition of the doctrine of St. Thomas undoubtedly renders a service
to metaphysical science and its students. The writer of this article
esteems very highly all the philosophical works of this distinguished
Jesuit, and has used by preference, for several years, his
_Institutiones Philosophicæ ad triennium Accommodatæ_ as a text-book of
instruction. Yet we cannot approve of such a complete abdication of
original and independent investigation and reasoning as a rule to be
followed in philosophical teaching. We do not find that the system of
the strict Thomists is proved in a manner entirely satisfactory and
conclusive, in some of its details, particularly in that part which
relates to the harmony of physical with metaphysical science. There is
such a thing as progress and development in theology and philosophy.
The opinions of private doctors are not final. Neither St. Augustine in
dogmatic theology, St. Alphonsus in moral theology, nor St. Thomas in
both these sciences and metaphysics, though declared by the Holy See
doctors of the universal church, were competent to pronounce final
judgments; since they were not rendered infallible by the superiority
of their genius and wisdom, from which alone their authority is
derived. Their private doctrine, inasmuch as it passes beyond the line
of the Catholic doctrine contained in their works and having its own
intrinsic authority, has only a claim to a respectful consideration,
with a presumption in its favor. In the last analysis all its weight
consists in the rational evidence or proof sustaining it, which is
lessened or destroyed by probable or demonstrative proof to the
contrary. The Jesuit school has always insisted on these principles.
While recognizing St. Thomas as master, it has diverged from the
teaching of the Dominican commentators on St. Thomas, both in theology
and metaphysics. Whether Suarez and others diverged or not from the
genuine doctrine of St. Thomas, in their controversy with writers of
the Thomist school, is a matter of dispute. The question as to what is
the real sense and import of the doctrine of St. Thomas or of Aristotle
is distinct from the question of the material truth and evidence of any
controverted proposition. The latter is much the more important of the
two, and reason alone must decide it, so far as it can be decided, in
the absence of any authoritative definition. If philosophy, therefore,
is to make any progress, and if there is to be any real approximation
to unity in philosophical doctrine among Catholics, the authority of
reason and evidence must prevail over all human authority, and
exclusive devotion to systems or great names must be abandoned, that
truth may be investigated and brought to light.
The great motive urged by those who write in a specially irenical
spirit is to strengthen the combination of forces in the Catholic
intellectual army for the polemical contest against error and doubt.
That the sophists of heresy and infidelity may be confuted and
vanquished, that those who are erring and out of the way may be
reclaimed, that honest seekers after truth may be guided to a
successful discovery of this hidden treasure, is the great object of
Catholic polemics. The great field of contest is the philosophical
domain. It springs to view at once that agreement in philosophical
doctrine is of the utmost importance for the success of the Catholic
cause in this holy warfare. Among those who have labored most zealously
and successfully toward this end, the distinguished Jesuit Father
Ramière stands pre-eminent. In his most recent publication, _L’Accord
de la Philosophie de St. Thomas et de la Science moderne au sujet de la
composition des corps_, prepared with the aid of another Jesuit
specially versed in the physical sciences, he has made a deeply-studied
and masterly effort at harmonizing the peripatetic system with the
results of experiment and induction in modern chemical science. It is
the most subtile and acute piece of argumentation which has ever
proceeded from his pen. The doctrine of Aristotle and St. Thomas has
hitherto been generally supposed to be in a diametrical contradiction
to that of modern chemistry in respect to the combination of elements
in the compound substances. The peripatetic theory has been, on this
account, abandoned by most of our modern authors and professors in
philosophy. A few, however, among whom Liberatore and the editor of the
_Scienza Italiana_ are conspicuous, have exerted all their power of
subtile analysis to defend the Thomist opinion. Another recent writer,
Dr. Scheid of Eichstädt, has endeavored to maintain the same thesis in
the most exclusive sense, and attempts to prove that the Thomist theory
alone is either compatible with the dogmatic definitions of the church
or adequate to give a satisfactory explanation of the facts established
by chemical and physical experiments. On the contrary, Dr. Frédault,
who is a French physician and an advocate of the general doctrine of
the Thomist school on form and matter, maintains that it is
inadmissible in respect to the constituent elements of compound
substances. In order to facilitate the understanding of the subject of
controversy, we will cite from Father Ramière’s appendix a part of the
_Exposé parallèle des deux systèmes_ prepared by a distinguished
professor in a Catholic college of France at Father Ramière’s request.
_Peripatetic _Chemical School._
School._
I. WHAT IS A SIMPLE BODY?
It is a composition of It is a material
first matter and substance endowed with
substantial form. determinate forces.
II. WHAT IS A CHEMICAL BODY—FOR INSTANCE, WATER?
It is a composition of It is oxygen and hydrogen
first matter and the combined in the
aqueous substantial proportions of 88 to
form. 11. The forces of the
two components remain
identical in the
composition, although
in the state of
combination they do not
manifest all their
special
characteristics.
III. HOW ARE THE SIMPLE BODIES EXTRACTED FROM A CHEMICAL COMPOUND?
At the moment of The force of the chemical
decomposition the re-agent destroys the
substantial form of the combination and union
compound is destroyed of the simple bodies,
and replaced by the dies, which return to
substantial form of the their primitive state,
components, which are and manifest anew their
produced from their own proper forces in all
proper non-existence their integrity.
(_ex nihilo sui_); and
the simple bodies
recover their former
proportions.
IV. WHAT IS AN ANIMAL BODY—THE BODY OF A MAN, FOR EXAMPLE—OR A PART OF
SUCH A BODY, AS A BONE, ETC.?
This body is a The human body, like all
composition of first bodies, is a
matter and a composition of
substantial form. In molecules and of parts
man this substantial endowed with chemical
form is the rational forces which are united
soul, which gives to together by the mutual
the matter its action of these forces;
_corporeity_, or but, during life, these
corporeal being. In forces are subjected
such a way that a body, and subordinated to the
taken in the vital force of the
reduplicative soul, which penetrates
sense—that is, inasmuch them, dominates them,
as it is considered and unifies them in
simply as body—is a their vital functions,
composition of first and which gives to the
matter and the soul, entire body the form of
which latter gives to a human body, life, and
the body its specific sensibility.
material being. NOTE.—Form does not
mean _figure_ but the
determining principle
of the specific nature
which this organized
body possesses as a
human body.
V.—WHAT PRODUCES DEATH IN THE ANIMAL BODY AND THE HUMAN BODY?
At the moment when the Death consists simply in
soul departs from the the separation of the
body there is produced soul and body, and does
in it a new substantial not exact the
form, the _cadaverous_ production of any
form, which by its substantial form. The
union with the first chemical forces, which
matter constitutes the are no longer dominated
corpse. But when the by the soul, act
dissolution of the freely, and the
corpse proceeds dissolution of the
gradually by the effect corpse is nothing but
of corruption, the the natural result of
cadaverous form is their action.
succeeded by new
substantial forms,
produced from previous
non-existence (_ex
nihilo sui_), as
numerous and different
as are the substances
resulting from
corruption, the
mephitic particles
dispersed in the air
being included.
The theory here presented under the name of the peripatetic, and
claiming to be the genuine doctrine of Aristotle and St. Thomas, is
frequently called the theory of _substantial generations_. Under that
name it has been examined and opposed in the series of metaphysical
articles in this magazine already referred to. It is necessary to
explain, before proceeding further, that the term _matter_ in
scholastic philosophy denotes, not the complete material being or body,
whether simple or compound, such as oxygen, water, iron, etc., but
merely one element or component of the material substance—viz., the
common, indeterminate element, which is the same in all, having a
potency or receptivity for every possible determination, but no fixed
and necessary union with any. It is the principle of extension, but not
extended; the source of inertia and all that is passive, yet not a
solid atom; the subject of qualities and active forces, but itself
possessing no quiddity or quality, and not having existence, or the
possibility of existence, except as joined with its compart, the active
and determining element, joined with it in order to make any single
material substance. This active element is called the substantial form,
which is equally incapable of subsisting alone, and therefore has no
separate being, yet is capable of giving its first being to matter, and
thus constituting with it material substance. According to the
peripatetic theory, as stated above, in chemical combinations which
produce a new, compound substance, such as water, nothing remains of
the components except the material substratum or first matter. The
determining form which gave this matter its specific being as oxygen
and hydrogen are destroyed, and a new form, the aqueous, springs forth
to give the matter a new first being and constitute the substance
water. There is, consequently, in this and every similar case, the
generation of a new substance, in which the matter is pre-existent, but
the substantial form is educed from the passive potency of the matter,
[ex nihilo sui], or from utter previous non-existence.
Father Ramière maintains that this theory is the creation of the
commentators on Aristotle and St. Thomas, but does not properly belong
to the system of either, and can be refuted by arguments drawn from the
works of both these great doctors. This is rather startling and
contrary to the prevalent supposition. The Thomist writers, many of
whom are men of the most remarkably acute power of analysis and
thoroughly conversant with the works of these great masters, honest
also and candid withal, have certainly not imputed a theory to
Aristotle and St. Thomas which is a pure invention, or without
plausible grounds and apparent reasons. Father Ramière gives an
explanation which is at least ingenious and merits consideration. In
the first place, he argues that the two doctors of peripatetic
philosophy did not reason from _à priori_ principles respecting the
composition of bodies. They both taught that celestial bodies are
composed of what they called _materia quinta_, which is incorruptible
by reason of the inseparability of its form from the matter. The
separability of matter and form in earthly bodies, therefore, belongs
to them as a peculiar kind of bodies, composed from what were supposed
to be the four simple elements of earth, air, fire, and water. The fact
that these elements are transformed one into the other in the
transmutation of substances led to the conclusion that there was a
common substratum underlying all, which remained under different
substantial forms. But since chemistry has discovered the really simple
bodies which are not susceptible of mutual transmutation, and cannot be
resolved into other substances by mechanical or chemical agents, Father
Ramière argues that the very principles enunciated by Aristotle and St.
Thomas respecting _materia quinta_ require that oxygen, hydrogen, etc.,
should be placed with it under the same category. Moreover, he
maintains that the permanence of what we now know to be simple
substances and irresolvable in combination, was really taught under
another concept and with different terms by Aristotle and St. Thomas;
that is, that certain virtualities were recognized as remaining and
exercising an active force in the compound or transformed substance,
which is incompatible with the supposition that only nude matter
remains, acted upon by a wholly different and entirely new active
force. In regard to the human body, in particular, he shows an
incompatibility between the explanation of the cause of death which St.
Thomas gives and the peripatetic theory. The reason of death given by
St. Thomas is that contrary forces are combined in the human body which
are dominated by the vital force of the soul only to a limited extent
and with a limited duration. When, by the laws of nature, these
contrary forces begin to free themselves from the dominating vital
force, decay commences, and is continued until they have freed
themselves to such an extent that they destroy the aptitude of the body
for receiving the mode of being from the soul which is called sensitive
life. The soul then necessarily ceases to inform the body, and the two
comparts of the human substance or essence are separated. The soul,
being a self-subsisting, incorruptible form, an immortal spirit,
departs to the sphere of spirits, and the body is dissolved by the
force of natural decomposition. Now, according to the peripatetic
theory, the soul, being the only substantial form or active force in
the body, giving to the nude first matter of the body its first being
or physical, corporeal existence, must be itself the active cause of
decay and death. This is contrary to the teaching of St. Thomas that
the soul gives only life to the body, and, so far from ceasing of
itself the vital influx, would continue to exert it for all eternity,
and thus make the body immortal, if other and contrary forces did not
work within the body to make it incapable of receiving this influx, and
thus force the soul to abandon it to itself and to the power of death.
Father Ramière acknowledges that it is difficult to make all the texts
of Aristotle and of St. Thomas harmonize with each other, and to bring
out a completely distinct and finished theory from their writings. He
advances a conjecture, with some plausible appearance of probability,
that some texts found in the works of St. Thomas have been interpolated
by disciples who were more zealous than honest in their efforts to
maintain their own system. The same conjecture has been made heretofore
in regard to passages relating to the doctrine of the Immaculate
Conception. Be this as it may, we think it is quite sufficient to
explain obscurities of any kind which are found in the dogmatic or
philosophical system of the Angelic Doctor, that he either had not time
or any pressing motive for a thorough investigation and elucidation of
the matters in question, or had not the requisite data before him for
the deductions and conclusions pertaining to the case. It is more to
the purpose to discuss the doctrine of the composition of bodies on its
own merits, using all the facts discovered by experiment, and rational
argumentation, aided by the light of all previous investigations, both
physical and metaphysical. Left to its own intrinsic probability, the
peripatetic theory is sustained by a kind of argumentation which seems
to be more ingenious than conclusive. Several of its ablest advocates
have acknowledged that it is incapable of demonstration. It rests its
claim to acceptance chiefly on _aliunde_ considerations. And on the
other side there are certain arguments which have not yet, so far as we
know, received a satisfactory answer.
Father Ramière advances some of these with his usual subtlety and
force, and at the same time with the most courteous moderation and
respect toward his opponents.
It is admitted—as it indeed must be, for there is no escape from
evident facts—that a chemical re-agent applied to a composite substance
like water brings back the component elements in their former
proportions. Water gives up its eighty-eight parts of oxygen and its
eleven parts of hydrogen. What is the producing cause of these
so-called new substantial forms which invariably make their appearance
_ex nihilo sui_? When the soul, which is said to be the only
substantial form of the body, leaves it in its nudity as first matter,
without first being, quiddity, or quality, and, as it would seem,
doomed to annihilation, what is the cause which produces the cadaverous
form, that suddenly appears to actuate the matter and give it being as
a corpse? Here Father Ramière has made one of his most dexterous
logical passes—one which it will require great dialectical skill to
parry. The editor of the _Scienza Italiana_ replies thus to the
question as to where these forms come from:
“Certain forms do not come to the subject from an extrinsic cause, but
spring up within the subject, by educing them (_traendole_) from the
potentiality of the same subject.” Father Ramière desires to be
informed “what is the object to which the active verb _traendole_ is
referred; what is that which educes these forms from the potentiality
of the subject?” If no sufficient cause can be assigned by which
substantial forms are educed, the theory becomes untenable.
Father Ramière devotes a considerable part of his treatise to a
consideration of the important question, What is the true sense of the
proposition that the rational soul is the form of the human body? This
proposition, maintained by Aristotle and received by sound scholastic
philosophy, has been defined as Catholic doctrine by the Council of
Vienne and by Pius IX. Father Ramière refers to Father Palmieri, S.J.,
the author of a recent philosophical text-book of high repute, who
“proves that the Council of Vienne by no means intended to condemn a
doctrine maintained at that time and since by perfectly orthodox
theologians. The error proscribed by the council is that which ascribes
to the human body another vital principle besides the rational soul.”
The Catholic doctrine is that the soul is _forma corporis_, in the
sense that it is the life-giving principle of the composite, corporeal,
organic structure which constitutes the human body in its physical
though incomplete nature, as one compart of the total human composite,
or complete human nature. Father Palmieri calls the bodily part a
complete substance but an incomplete nature, as likewise the spiritual
part, which is the soul. Father Ramière adheres to the common
terminology which denominates each part an incomplete substance. As
considered in distinction from the soul, it lacks its due complement,
the vital principle which makes it a living body and sentient. The soul
also, as distinct from the body, lacks the complement of its inferior
vital force, which is an eminent kind of sensitive and vegetative
principle contained in the same subject to which the attribute of
rationality belongs, and giving to the subject—that is, to the soul—an
exigency for a body as its essential compart. The soul and body
complete each other in the human essence or nature. The body is passive
and inert in respect to every vital force and function, without the
soul. The soul remains in a merely potential state in respect to its
inferior faculties, when separate from the body. In the composite
essence, the human nature composed of soul and body, the body stands in
the relation of _materia_ to the soul, the soul in the relation of
_forma_ to the body. Thus is constituted the human, rational
_suppositum_ or _persona_, and the specific essence and unity of the
human being, of man, according to his logical definition as _animal
rationale_. We will let Father Ramière speak for himself, and explain
at length in his own language what his own view is on this important
topic:
“Between spiritual substance and body there is a complete
opposition, and it is consequently absurd to suppose that a
body can borrow from a spirit that by which it becomes body.
Since the substantial form of a being is that which makes it
formally to exist as such, the soul cannot be the substantial
form by which a body exists as body, unless it is itself
corporeal. It is the same with all forms essentially material,
and consequently with all those which belong to the essence of
the elementary substances. These forces, not being in the soul,
cannot be destroyed when the elements pass into the body;[82]
yet they no longer exist in their former state of independence.
They are seized upon and controlled by the superior force of
the soul, elevated in a certain sort above their natural
condition, and employed as instruments of the vivification of
the matter of the body. Heretofore these elements formed so
many independent unities; henceforth they become fractions of a
whole to which the soul must give the specific determination.
Their entire force continues to subsist; their being is not
destroyed; but, under the domination of a new form, it acquires
a new formal existence. It is thus that the soul is the
principle of the substantial unity of man. It does not destroy
the variety of the elements, but it unites them; it does not
suppress completely their mutual opposition, but tempers it so
far as to establish a condition of harmony. There is really but
one substantial form in man—the reasonable soul, because this
soul alone gives to the entire totality of the human being its
substantial determination; it alone reduces the diversity of
elements to unity. It confers upon the body, by its union with
the same, something which is not a mere accident but a new
being, the being of humanity, which raises it above all purely
corporeal beings, and constitutes it within the generic class
of rational substances.
“The modern theory, understood in this sense, is in perfect
agreement as to its substance with the peripatetic doctrine,
and safe from all the dangerous tendencies imputed to it. There
is no just cause for repeating any longer the accusation
heretofore made against this theory that it suppresses the
substantial unity of bodies, since, as we have shown, so far
from destroying this unity it presents it as it subsists in
various grades, proportioned to the relative degrees of
perfection in substances, much better than the other systems.
There is even less foundation for the pretext that the theory
in question is in opposition to the definitions of the church
regarding the union of soul and body in man. What, in fact, do
these definitions affirm? That the soul is the true form of the
human body, which it informs and vivifies, not accidentally or
mediately, but immediately and essentially. Now, all this is
perfectly verified in our theory, which supposes that the body
receives its life, its specific nature, its existence as human
body, without any interposing medium, from the soul. Moreover,
its union with the soul, so far from being regarded as
accidental, is shown to be, on the contrary, substantial, in
whatever aspect it is considered, whether on the side of the
soul or on the side of the body: on the side of the soul, which
without this union would be unable to exercise several
faculties proceeding from its essence; on the side of the body,
which receives from this union the substantial complement of
its elements. When, therefore, we examine closely that argument
which is the strongest, if not the only, one sustaining the
contrary theory,[83] we perceive that it resolves itself into a
mere equivocation. The partisans of this theory, who sometimes
reproach their adversaries with equivocating in respect to the
words ‘substantial and accidental,’ do not perceive that they
themselves commit this fault. They confound that which is
indispensable to a being that it may exist, with that which is
indispensable to it that it may possess the integrity of its
nature. Union with the body is not essential to the soul in the
former sense, as all acknowledge, but it is certainly not
allowable to conclude from this that it is purely accidental to
it. We may very justly call substantial, and even essential,
all that which is exacted by the nature of anything. Now, union
with the body is certainly exacted by the nature of the soul,
which differs mainly from pure spirits by this exigency.
Nothing could be more contrary to the principles of scholastic
philosophy than to regard that property pertaining to the soul
which adapts it to be the form of the body as a simple
accident; but if this is an essential property, union with the
body cannot be considered as purely accidental, even admitting
that the body is composed of elements endowed with their proper
forms. Let us apply the same reasoning to the elements, which
are themselves made in order to unite themselves with other
elements, as the soul is made in order to unite itself with the
body; and by this simple distinction of the two senses of the
word _substantial_ we shall eliminate the doctrinal
misunderstanding which makes a division between us.
“How, then, could it happen that this division has been so long
continued? It is because the distrust of the defenders of
traditional philosophy has been provoked by the presentation of
the theory at the present day generally adopted by scientists,
as an innovation. This distrust will have no longer any object,
and harmony cannot fail to be re-established, from the moment
when it shall be recognized that the modern experimental
science is in perfect harmony with the principles laid down by
Aristotle and accepted by St. Thomas.”
The professor of physics who prepared the _Exposé_ given in Father
Ramière’s appendix presents very distinctly and strongly what is the
common sentiment, especially of those who are devoted to the study of
physical science, in our modern Catholic schools:
“The peripatetic system on the composition of bodies is
rejected by the greater number of Catholic philosophers,
because this system, considered metaphysically, sustains itself
solely on _equivocations and the begging of questions_ (Card.
Tolomei), and _has no demonstrative_ _force_ (P. Zigliara);
considered psychologically, it gives a handle to materialism;
considered in the aspect of the chemical sciences, it is in
evident contradiction to their experimental facts; considered
historically, it has been, so far as its psychological part is
concerned, always combated by the school of Alexander de Halès,
St. Bonaventure, Scotus, and the Franciscans; was condemned in
the thirteenth century by all the doctors of the English
universities, together with a majority of those of the
Sorbonne; and in the eighteenth century was commonly repudiated
by all the schools, with the exception of the most rigid
Thomists.”
There is certainly no chance whatever that this theory will ever regain
any considerable sway from the mere weight of authority which belongs
to it from the traditions of the past. As Father Ramière justly
remarks:
“We must not forget that the present discussion appertains to
the purely scientific order, and must consequently be
definitively decided _not by authority but by reason_. So long
as the rational arguments which overturn the theory contrary to
our own have not been refuted, nothing will be gained by the
effort to prove from a literal interpretation of some texts
that this theory belongs to St. Thomas. The only interpretation
admissible in this case is the rational interpretation, which
clears up obscure texts by the perfectly clear principles which
the holy doctor loudly proclaimed. It is thus that we explain
many difficult passages in the works of the eagle of Hippo; and
those who act otherwise, far from proving in this way their
respect for him, really inflict an outrage on his memory by
putting him in opposition to himself and to the truth. Let us
not do a similar wrong to St. Thomas. As he was always
attentive to correct himself even to the end of his short
career, we can be sure that, if his mortal existence had been
prolonged to our day, he would not have failed to clear up that
which remained in obscurity in his writings, and to complete,
by the aid of new discoveries in science, what was necessarily
incomplete in his theories. Let us act in the same manner, and
not fear to show ourselves more faithful to the spirit of the
doctrine of St. Thomas than to the letter of a certain number
of texts found in his writings.”
Father Ramière could not have expected to put an end to the controversy
by his short essay, and, in fact, the only immediate result of Dr.
Frédault’s larger work and his own briefer piece of argument has been
to call forth rejoinders from the _Scienza Italiana_ and the _Civiltà
Cattolica_. Some of the advocates of the peripatetic theory are
unquestionably as well versed in the physical sciences as their
opponents. Their studies in chemistry and other branches of science
have made them dissatisfied with the prevalent modern theories on the
constitution of bodies, and they have for this very reason sought for a
more philosophical doctrine in the ancient metaphysics. It is not to be
supposed that they will yield to anything short of cogent reasoning, or
that any agreement in unity of doctrine can be produced, unless some
really solid, satisfactory, and conclusive theory is presented with
such convincing proof and evidence that it must command general assent.
Until this is done there is no choice except to continue the
discussion. If it is interminable, then all sides must agree to differ,
and in such a case it is quite natural to fall back on the authority of
great men who are supposed to have been gifted with extraordinary
perspicacity of intellect, and to have seen into things more clearly
and deeply than modern men are able to do, perhaps by the aid of
supernatural light. If the constitution of bodies is an impenetrable
mystery, we must be content to remain in our ignorance, and accept
whatever formulas of metaphysical or physical statement seem to us the
best expression of the vague and confused notions we possess. We are
not quite prepared to accept this situation as inevitable, and it is
certain that not only on the European continent, but in England and
America also, the reviving interest in metaphysical studies and the
necessity of combating materialism will stimulate an effort toward a
more perfect evolution of the truth contained in the ancient philosophy
by the help of mathematical and experimental science. It may be asked
what metaphysics and theology have to do with these matters, which seem
to belong to the domain of physics. We reply to this question in the
words of Father Ramière:
“The question what is in general the nature of material beings,
and what is in particular the nature of man as appertaining by
his corporeal part to the material world, does not belong, at
least exclusively, to physics; it is also within the domain of
philosophy and theology. The special object of physics is the
study of the sensible properties of bodies, the observation of
the phenomena by which the different forces with which they are
endowed manifest themselves, and the determination of the laws
which regulate the exercise of these forces. The investigation
of the essential properties which enter into the very idea of
body and distinguish it from spiritual being belongs to
metaphysics. And since, in man, the body, united with the
spirit, participates in its destiny; since, in Jesus Christ,
the corporeal world has been associated to the divine dignity,
theology cannot give us a perfect knowledge of our destiny and
our deification by the divine Person who assumed humanity,
without availing itself of the aid which is furnished by an
exact notion of the nature of bodies.”
It seems to us that the real point of difficulty and of controversy
respecting the “nature of bodies” lies deeper than any of the questions
proposed by Father Ramière, and that the whole discussion must start
from this point in order to be thorough and decisive. It is no solution
at all of the question, What is the nature of corporeal being? to tell
us that bodies are material substances endowed with determinate forces,
or composites of such substances. The drop of water, mechanically
divided, gives us only minuter and minuter molecules of water. But
since, chemically divided, it gives oxygen and hydrogen in composition
with each other to form these minutest molecules, there must be in each
of these molecules others of such minute quantity as to elude
experiment, which are composed of still smaller distinct molecules of
oxygen and hydrogen. One of these molecules of oxygen, considered apart
from all other corporeal beings, must be itself constituted by smaller
molecules or of some more simple elements. We must come at last to
these simple elements, and ask the question, What constitutes the
entity and first actuality of these elements? Boscovich and Leibnitz,
two of the most original thinkers of modern times, both of them well
versed in mathematics as well as eminent in metaphysics, have presented
the theory of simple monads, which are dynamic centres radiating in
space upon each other the active forces which produce extension,
quality, motion, and every kind of material substance with all their
specific differences. Father Bayma, in his remarkable work _Molecular
Mechanics_, has presented the hypothesis that these simple elements are
each separately endowed with only one force—that is, either the
attractive or repulsive. The laws of molecular mechanics have been
exposed in this treatise with rigid and complicated mathematical
demonstrations. The metaphysical part of this hypothesis has been fully
developed, so far as its primary and essential principles are
concerned, in the pages of this magazine. The arguments by which this
hypothesis is sustained and the contrary ones overturned we have never
seen fairly and distinctly answered. Certain objections are made, such
as these: that a force is not a being in itself, but needs a substance
to support it; that dynamism takes away the reality of matter, that it
makes material substance like spiritual substance, that it gives no
basis for extension and continuous quantity, etc. We think there is
some misunderstanding of terms and concepts in the minds of those who
make these objections. We understand in this theory such terms as
“active force” to denote not an attribute or product without subject or
cause, but a principle from which force proceeds, which is also a
passive principle upon which active force terminates. It is a real
being, simple, unextended, not a body or a spirit, having position but
not quantity, marking by its existence a point in space, the first
element of the primary composite body or molecule, distinguishable in
respect to its matter and form, but not separable, any more than the
centre and circumference of a circle are separable. It is a substance,
standing _in se et per se_, in respect to existence, but expressly
created for entering into composition with similar entities, in order
to make bodies with the various attributes and accidents, active powers
and passive potencies, which experience shows them to possess. It is
not a spirit, because it has no capability of consciousness,
intelligence, or volition, but is simply determined by its grade of
being to act in space by means of motion. It is _ens mobile_, and the
beginning of physical quantity, as the point is the beginning of
abstract quantity in geometrical science. As to the difficulty of
conceiving how extension arises without a first material _continuum_ to
begin with, we think this objection is counteracted by the arguments
proving that such a _continuum_ is an absurdity and an impossibility.
The great desideratum in the question of matter is to find the
invariable and indestructible element, which remains, and will forever
remain, the same amid all transmutations of bodies, the ultimate
substance endowed with a perpetual existence _in se_, and competent
from its potency and active power to be the principle of every possible
combination and mode of being within the limits of the purely corporeal
essence. Such a principle seems to be furnished by the theory of
Boscovich and Leibnitz, as corrected and developed by Father Bayma. The
simple beings endowed with attractive or repulsive force proceeding
from a centre which marks a point in space, and having both a form and
a material principle which are naturally inseparable, are capable of
existing, each one alone by itself, and absolutely indestructible,
except by annihilation. Though utterly useless and inoperative, except
as existing in multitude and mutually acting on each other in their
chemical and mechanical combinations they furnish the substratum of
every kind of matter and form which can be predicated of corporeal
being as _ens mobile_. The primary molecules of the simple bodies
formed by the first combinations of simple elements are so firmly bound
together that no power of which man can avail himself suffices to
separate them, and we may suppose there is no power in nature which can
break up their unity. Nor is there any difficulty in supposing that God
can make bodies of any magnitude or composite perfection which are
likewise incorruptible, in accordance with the ancient conception of
_materia quinta_, or celestial, incorruptible bodies. The reasoning by
which this dynamic hypothesis is sustained and contrary theories
refuted seems to be extremely probable, and even, in certain parts,
demonstrative, from its premises and _data_. If these include all which
must be included, and nothing pertaining to the essence and integrity
of the matter of demonstration is left out, the hypothesis is
sufficient to account for all which must be accounted for, and by its
simplicity recommends itself to the mind as proposing enough, and no
more than enough, for a distinct notion of the nature of body and its
specific difference from soul and spirit. Just here, it seems to us,
comes in the need for more full explanation and evolution of the
theory, and a more minute discussion between its advocates and those
who advocate the theories of the rigid peripatetic system or the system
favored by Father Ramière. We would like to see a more complete proof
given that all which can be predicated of material substance, as such,
can be referred to its nature as _ens mobile_, and accounted for by the
two primitive forces of attraction and repulsion.
Especially when we consider the phenomena of organized, living bodies,
vegetable and animal, the most important questions arise, demanding
from each one of the different philosophical schools the answers which
they are able to furnish, and an exposition of the way in which they
seek to harmonize this particular portion of their respective systems
with the first principles of philosophy, of physics, and of theology.
The notions of potential matter and substantial form assume here a new
import and present difficulties of the first magnitude, the solution of
which in one way or another introduces most considerable modifications
into the metaphysics and the theology of each different party in the
controversy.
What is the principle of vegetable life and reproduction? If all the
facts and phenomena of vegetable life can be explained by the laws of
molecular mechanics and chemistry, the need for a distinct, simple
form, vital principle, or vegetable soul, is removed; otherwise the
hypothesis fails to meet the exigency of the case, and the reasoning of
the peripatetic philosophers remains, in this respect, unanswered.
The question of the animal soul stands by itself, and is more
important. Molecular mechanics and chemical combinations cannot produce
a sentient subject or account for the sensible cognition which animals
possess. There is certainly in the animal a distinct form giving to
animal nature a potency and a power not reducible to attraction and
repulsion between molecules, not a modification of mobility and motion.
The ingenious scholastic theory gives us a formula which answers very
well as a verbal statement of the difference between the irrational and
the rational soul, between the brute and man. According to this theory,
the animal soul is not a substance, is not capable of existing _in se_,
depends on the body and is destroyed by its death, is not immediately
created, but is educed, _ex nihilo sui_, from the potentiality of
matter by the physical agencies and laws of generation. What is
startling and puzzling about this theory is that it makes an organized,
material body exercise sensible cognition. The soul is a mere
substantial form, higher than the aqueous or igneous or cadaverous
form, but of the same genus. It is educed from the potentiality of
matter, and therefore matter is in potency to the sentient faculty, as
it is in potency to have quantity, figure, color, and weight. Second
causes suffice to evolve from its potency this new form of being in
which it can see, hear, feel, imagine and remember, simulate many of
the processes and actions of rational beings, enjoy and suffer,
recognize friends and enemies, invent stratagems, play tricks, exercise
courage, fidelity, fortitude, and constancy in affection, and show
forth all those remarkable phenomena which make the animal, in one
point of view, the greatest marvel of creation. If the animal soul is
not a distinct substance, immediately created and having existence _in
se_, the peripatetic theory, pure and simple, with all its
mysteriousness, is preferable to any other, and its failure to give
demonstration and satisfy the _ingenium curiosum_ of many searchers
into the secrets of nature is a necessary consequence of the
impenetrable mystery which shrouds the essence of material being.
If the animal soul is a substance, we must admit a grade of being
between the corporeal and the rational natures, an inferior kind of
spirit, similar to the human soul in respect to that which makes it fit
to be the animating principle of an organic body, destitute of
intelligence and incapable of activity independent of its bodily
organs, yet, as a substance in itself and a simple being, not
destructible by corruption. It is a maxim in philosophy that there is
no destruction of anything once created by annihilation. It continues
to exist, therefore, after the death of its bodily compart. If the
_anima belluina_ is imperishable, what becomes of it when the animal
dies? Even the human spirit, though capable by its intellectual
faculties of living a separate life, has an intrinsic exigency for a
body which it can animate; much more, then, the _anima belluina_, which
is a principle of animal life and activity, and nothing more. There is
nothing superfluous or useless in nature, yet this kind of soul,
continuing to exist without a body, is a useless thing. Moreover,
although the more perfect animals manifest qualities which can easily
be taken to indicate the presence of a vital principle which is a
distinct substance, what shall we say of those which can be divided
into sections, each of which continues to live; and of those which
approach so near to the line of demarcation between animal and
vegetable life that the difference between the two seems to reach a
vanishing-point, and they shade into each other by nearly imperceptible
gradations?
This is enough to show how serious is the task of reconciling
philosophical parties, and settling the disputes about the constitution
of bodies, matter and form, and all their cognate topics, and making a
perfect synthesis of physics and metaphysics. Mathematics come in also,
with the consideration of quantity, space, infinites and
infinitesimals, demanding a place in a really complete synthetical
exposition of fundamental and universal philosophy. There is room
enough for a great genius who shall be a continuator of the work of St.
Thomas. If such a man should arise, he would need to have all the
intellectual gifts and all the knowledge of a great metaphysician, a
great mathematician, and a great physicist, combined under one form.
There has been but one Aristotle and one St. Thomas, and we cannot tell
whether or no any other man like them, or even equal to Suarez, will be
granted to the science of philosophy. It seems that we need some man of
that kind to deal with the obscurities and ambiguities, the new aspects
and new relations of scholastic metaphysics, and with the peculiar
mental attitude and habits of thought and expression belonging to our
own time. The English-speaking part of the educated world certainly
needs the service of some really original thinker, as well as learned
and acute expositor, to make all that is certain or highly probable in
the Thomistic philosophy thoroughly intelligible, and to accomplish
whatever is requisite and possible in advancing this philosophy toward
a desirable completion. Able and learned expositors of the ancient
philosophy are not lacking in Italy and Germany, but it seems to us
that some higher degree of original power of thought and expression
than is found even in the most eminent of these authors is desirable
for the masterly handling of certain questions of present controversy.
Father Ramière considers that the time has come to hope for and attempt
the construction of “the majestic temple of Catholic science, whose
base is laid in the infallible dogmas of faith and the immovable
principles of reason, whose stories are erected by the co-operating
labor of observation and reasoning, whose circuit embraces the entire
expanse of human knowledge, in which facts and laws, experimental and
abstract sciences, the truths of the natural and those of the
supernatural order, complete, strengthen, and embellish each other by
their mutual agreement.” That “complete synthesis, to which all the
particular sciences are attached as branches of a tree to the trunk,”
he considers to have been fifty years ago apparently impossible, though
the conception of it may have been latent in some minds, but at present
to be really within the power of combined and rightly-directed
intellectual effort to achieve.
So far as essentials are concerned, we are convinced that the learned
and pious Jesuit is not without a solid ground for his enthusiastic
prognostication of the advancement of Catholic science. In respect to
the special topics of which we have been writing in the present
article, we are not very sanguine of a speedy adjustment of the
controversies which divide Catholic philosophers and others, whether
physicists or metaphysicians, who investigate and argue upon the nature
of material substance. There is yet a good deal of discussion and
controversy to be gone through, and we confess we are in doubt how far
it will ever terminate in a conclusive and final result. There are
limitations to human knowledge which are not precisely determined. The
space of the unknowable lies around our restricted sphere of the known
and the knowable. Happily, it is not necessary for the substantial
solidity and practical utility of rational metaphysics and ethics, much
less for theological certainty in the matters of real moment, that all
the interesting and abstruse questions of controversy between different
schools should be decided. Apparent “antinomies of reason” may furnish
a pretext to the sceptical and captious, but they prove only the
limitation of intellect and reason, our imperfect and inadequate
conceptions of the terms and premises which we reason about and from
which we draw conclusions, and the defectiveness of language as the
medium of thought. The certainties of reason, of history and
experience, of the judgments of the human conscience, of divine
revelation, of Catholic authority, of the common sense of mankind, are
amply sufficient for refuting every kind of infidel or heretical error
which cloaks itself under a scientific pretext, and for proving and
defending all that belongs to sacred dogma in faith or morals, or is in
proximate connection with it. Unity and harmony in these things need
not be disturbed by differences and discussions respecting all manner
of scientific questions. We understand that this is what Father Ramière
principally aims at, and he himself gives a good example of free and
earnest controversial discussion conducted in the irenical spirit. We
have always found his writings luminous, interesting, and profitable.
We trust that he and his _confrères_ will continue their labors in the
same direction. We shall look also with great interest for the
arguments by which the learned writers for the _Civiltà Cattolica_ and
_Scienza Italiana_ and other advocates of strict Thomism maintain their
own opinions. The Sovereign Pontiff, in his recent letter to the rector
of the University of Lille, has declared that he desires all learned
Catholics “should with one accord, _although they follow different
systems_, turn all their energies to put down materialism and the other
errors of our age.” This shows that, in the judgment of the Holy
Father, agreement in these matters of actual difference is not a
necessary condition precedent to combined and successful polemics
against materialism and the other dangerous errors of our time. The
Holy Father also exhorts “all whom it may concern” not to “scatter
their forces by disputing with one another on questions which are
matters of free opinion.” We understand this to mean that discussions
should not degenerate into disputes of that kind which is hostile to
the spirit of unity and charity, and not that discussion should be
altogether abandoned. For, in another paragraph, he exhorts learned
Catholics to “keep within the bounds of moderation and observe the laws
of Christian charity while they discuss or attack systems in nowise
condemned by the Apostolic See.” This may suffice for the present, and
we trust that our readers who hold metaphysical articles in aversion
will tolerate this one, in consideration of the long time they have
been spared a similar trial of their patience.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTA PULCHRA.[84]
Can God so woo us, nor, of all our race,
Have formed one creature for his perfect rest?
Must the Dove moan for an inviolate nest,
Nor find it ev’n in thee, O “full of grace”—
In thee, his Spouse? Or could the Word debase
His Godhead’s pureness when he fill’d thy breast,
Tho’ Moses treasured up, at his behest,
The typical manna in a golden[85] vase?
Who teach that sin had ever aught in thee,
Utter a thought the demons may not share—
Not tho’ they prompt it in their fell despair:
For these, while sullenly hating the decree
That shaped thee forth Immaculate, “All Fair,”
Adore it still—and must eternally.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MYSTERY OF THE OLD ORGAN.
In one of the least-visited churches of Ghent stands the most curious
and characteristic thing in it—its organ: a contrast to the defaced
wood-work and mouldering Renaissance plaster, to the unused and
deserted chests in the vestry and the few benches in the choir. The
paintings, the removable carvings, even some of the monuments, the
choir-stalls and the stained-glass windows, disappeared long ago; the
very name by which the church goes in the popular speech is ill-omened
and mysterious. Old women cross themselves and shake their heads as
they whisper the name of the Apostate’s church, and tradition tells the
rare inquirer that this was a private chapel, the property of a once
renowned family, noble and brave, but fierce and fanatical, well known
in the town annals for centuries, and only struck from the roll of
citizens and householders at the end of the great Flemish struggle of
the sixteenth century, when the Protestants left Spanish ground for
ever and found a new country in Holland. The disappearance of all
valuable objects in the deserted church is ascribed—and perhaps
truly—to many combining causes. Some were destroyed during the
occasional image-breaking raids that distinguished the wars of the
Reformation; some were sold or carried off by the family whose property
they were, some confiscated or stolen by the triumphant Spanish
government, or by no less indignant relations of the family, who,
remaining behind, were anxious to prove by deeds their freedom from
complicity with the apostate and fugitive Stromwaels. Such were the
fragments of information to be picked up by any one in whom the simple
people of the neighborhood had confidence; but whether every fragment
was historical is another question. The church was in a lonely quarter
of the town, the least altered by progress, where stood only small
shops supplying the local wants, which in such populations and such
places vary very little from those of five or six generations ago. A
few spacious, comfortable houses showed among more cramped and less
ornamented ones, but the aspect of all, if rather dead-alive, was very
picturesque. The church stands in a narrow street and far from the
house of its patrons, now used as a storehouse by the few wholesale
dealers of this quarter, who each have one floor. In the attics live a
few workmen and one or two nondescript, eccentric, and inoffensive
persons, supposed to be pensioners of one of the dealers. One of these
is a bookworm and supposed to know much of local legends and history.
Being very poor, he frequents only the public library and such private
ones as are accessible gratis to students; and when he wants to
preserve information which he cannot purchase in the shape of printed
books, he copies it assiduously on miscellaneous paper, recruited from
old ledgers, bank and register books, large parcels, etc., besides the
little he buys or has been given to him. His notes thus present a very
curious appearance, which he sometimes complacently connects with the
possible researches and comments of scholars of two hundred years
hence. One of his many little sheaves of manuscript came into my hands
not long ago while I was poking about the neighborhood, looking for
anything out of the way, and I was induced to go and see him. He was
very shabby and commonplace, and a good deal smeared with snuff;
neither his appearance nor his home was in keeping with the outward
look of the houses, and there were no artistically-dilapidated
surroundings to fill out the romantic sketch which my imagination had
made before I was introduced to him. Travellers seldom mention their
disappointments, and always make the most of their agreeable surprises,
so that stay-at-home people are often deluded into a belief that every
one on the European continent is more or less like a Dresden figure or
an actor in a mediæval play. My friend, however substantial the
entertainment might be which his manuscript and his narrative gave me,
was decidedly a failure personally, but none the less was he to me a
very important and, in a degree, even an interesting vehicle of
information. A free translation of his manuscript is all that I can
give; as to his absorbed manner in speaking, his evident interest in
the past, and his self-forgetfulness when he got upon the subject of
the stories he had dug out or pieced together from ancient papers, and
his own impressions concerning whatever was uncertain—these it is
impossible to convey to others. He asked me first whether I had
examined the organ in the chapel. I had done so, and found its case a
very beautiful piece of carving; the keys were kept speckless, and the
front contained a remarkable group of figures, carved in wood and
painted, representing our Lord and the twelve apostles. The instrument
stood in a high tribune looking into the choir, and reached by a
separate staircase, narrow and winding. A carved railing gave this
tribune something of the look of a balcony, but it scarcely projected
forward into the chapel; the carved front of the organ and the gilt
pipes were visible from below, and a tapestry curtain hung from an iron
rod on each side of the instrument, concealing the back entrance into
the tribune. The peculiarity about this organ was that it was all but
dumb, and had never given a satisfactory sound since its maker had bid
it be silent. It emitted some doleful sounds, if struck, but for all
musical purposes it was useless. The situation it was in, and the
defects in its interior, besides a third reason still unforgotten by
the popular mind, accounted for its having been left when the rest of
the church treasures were carried off. As a relic of antiquity it was
valuable, exhibiting as it does the state of mechanical art at the
beginning of the sixteenth century; but it was still more interesting
as the tangible proof of a story connected with its maker, the organist
of the church in 1505. This my old friend of the attic had written out
in the queer-looking manuscript I have mentioned.
* * * * *
Nicholas Verkloep was born a servant of the Stromwaels, and brought up
in their household in the very house where I read the story. His
parents kept the outer gate, and the boy passed through the usual
stages of service common to lads of his position, now a favorite, now a
butt, according to the humor of his master and each member of the
family, but all the spare time at his command was devoted to music. He
haunted the churches, and begged his way into choirs and libraries,
learnt all the church music he could pick up by his ear, the hints of
choristers, and the few explanations in the manuscript chant-books of
the time, and at last begged to be allowed to blow the organ-bellows at
the family chapel. Meanwhile, he joined in the services, and drew on
himself the notice of the old organist, who grew so fond and proud of
him that he taught him all he knew, taught him to play the organ, and
asked the Count Stromwael to allow him to bring the boy up as his
successor. Nicholas was fifteen when this request was granted, and
henceforth he nearly lived in the chapel. Not only the music of the
organ fascinated him; he grew absorbed in studying its mechanism, and
would crouch for hours within the instrument, getting his eyes used to
the darkness, and learning by heart the “feel” of each piece. This
developed all sorts of oddities in him: he grew absent-minded, and
often unconsciously moved his fingers as if at work. Soon after he
began to make models of various parts of an organ, indifferently the
inside and the outside; for carving seemed as natural to him as
mechanical dissection. He had not the same conservative feeling about
things as is common among our present musicians, and the fact that the
Stromwael instrument was a hundred and fifty years old, and had gone
through many repairs as time went on and new improvements succeeded
each other, did not prevent him from feeling certain that he could make
a much better organ in a very short time. His plans were manifold; the
subject grew and grew in his mind; the additional stops which he added
in imagination disgusted him with the music he could draw from the
instrument at present; and while every one in the town was excited
about the wonderful young player who bade fair to be a prodigy, he
himself was impatiently bewailing his drawbacks.
He told no one but his old master of his hopes and his expectations,
and this confidant was certainly the safest he could have; for the old
musician was a contented and patient man, used to his old ways, firm in
his old traditions, not caring to travel out of his old grooves, and
rather resentful of the idea that what had been good music and perfect
mechanism in his time should not be good enough to satisfy the
fastidious taste of a young beginner. Yet he was fond of his pupil, who
used to soothe him by the saying that each generation had a new door to
open and a new room to explore in the house of knowledge, and that he
ought not to grudge him his appointed advance, any more than Moses
grudged Josue his succession to the leadership. In truth, the old man
was secretly proud of his clever scholar, and, perhaps unconsciously to
himself, expected even more of him than the youth did of himself. The
two lived together in the house of their patron, but had little
intercourse with the rest of the mixed household, more gay and more
ignorant than themselves, and my snuffy old friend nursed the belief
that he had discovered the room which was home to these two. It was a
small attic chamber looking towards the church, and in a chest in it
had been found remnants of wood, wire, and leather, as well as some
strange-looking models and bits of carving, with rough sketches on
strips of parchment, all of which I had seen in their case in the
museum at the Town-hall. On the walls were some doggerel Latin verses
and some rather indistinct marks, which, nevertheless, the most learned
musician in the town had pronounced to be, most likely, a sort of
musical short-hand, understood only by its author. All this I also saw,
and, having no opposite theory to uphold, was glad to believe remains
of Nicholas.
Now, says the manuscript, there were found notes and jottings besides
plans and sketches, and it seems plain from these that the young
organist wished eagerly to make a new organ, on which no one but
himself should work; indeed, this idea grew to be a monomania, and he
devoted to it all the energy and interest which a man generally spends
on wife, children, friends, home, profession, and advancement. But the
count was an obstinate conservative, and scouted the idea of replacing
his time-honored family organ by a new one, the work of a crazy youth,
even though he were the best player and composer that ever breathed.
The old organist and his pupil had many anxious talks on the subject.
In those days it was not easy to transfer your domicile and allegiance
to a patron better suited to you; family bondage still held good in
practical matters; the Stromwaels had given him all the home and
education he had, and, in fact, he belonged to them. Besides, the count
was as proud of his human possession as he was of his ancient organ,
and set as much store by the reputation of the marvellous young
musician whom he owned as he did by that of his best-bred falcon, dog,
or horse. He would not have given up any of these; they were all
ornaments to his name, and it was fitting that he should not be beneath
or behind any of his townsmen. He was not old enough to give room to
hope for a change of circumstances through his death, and Nicholas
became every day more discontented at his prospects. He was more
reserved, morose, and morbid than ever, and as he grew odder the more
was his music admired. Strangers from neighboring towns came to hear
him play; the towns-people begged him to teach their sons; women looked
up at the gallery where he sat with his back to them, with eyes that
told of as ready an inclination to love the player as to admire the
music; wealthy foreigners sent him presents of money or jewels, after
the fashion of the times; but nothing seemed to elate, or even
interest, him.
One day, while he was sitting at the old organ, poring over his plans
for a new one, and contrasting the existing instrument with the
possible one, a man lifted the curtain which then, as now, covered the
entrance to the tribune. He was a stranger to Nicholas, and seemed
elderly; he was very quietly dressed in black, and wore a sword. The
young man looked up in bewilderment, but rose and welcomed the unknown,
who sat down with great composure by his side on the wide carved bench
in front of the organ. He spoke Flemish, but Nicholas thought with a
foreign accent, which, however, he could not localize.
“You will forgive my curiosity,” he said, “in coming here. I have often
heard you play from below, and to-day, passing by the open door, I came
into the chapel in hopes of hearing something, but met your little
blower lying asleep on the altar steps, woke him up, made inquiries,
and decided to come up.”
“You are very welcome,” said Nicholas in a low voice, politely but not
cordially, and speaking with that resignation which well-bred but much
tried misanthropes have but too much occasion to practise in all times
and companies.
“I want to speak of something else than mere conventionalities,” said
the stranger abruptly, “and I will begin by telling you that I quite
understand and appreciate your distaste to general fellowship with your
kind; I see no reason why I should be an exception, so you need not
resort to courteous commonplaces. I have heard what is your aim, and
only seek you because I think I may be of some use to you.”
Nicholas looked up, at first eagerly, then a shadow came over his face.
Any allusion to future success fired him even against his will, but
experience had always hitherto gone the opposite way. Taking the
stranger’s permission literally, he said nothing, but looked at him
inquiringly. The other went on after a pause:
“I think I can promise you the certainty, within ten years, of
accomplishing your wish and seeing your organ, if not in this place, at
least in some other quite as advantageous. I have oddities and fixed
ideas myself, and understand them in others. In short, it rests mainly
with you whether you like to accept my proposal or not.”
“There are conditions, then?” asked Nicholas, whom the belief of his
time with regard to compacts with the devil imbued quite as strongly as
if he had not been a genius, and who, in consequence, immediately
jumped to the conclusion that this visit was not wholly natural.
“Yes,” said the stranger in his metallic voice, unimpassioned but
compelling attention by some quality indefinable to Nicholas’ mind, yet
surely present to his perception, “I always hedge in business with
conditions; otherwise I should be a mere Haroun-al-Raschid, an
experimenter in benevolence, which, though an amiable character, is a
weak one. I hate weakness and I hate foolishness. I judged you to be
neither fool nor weakling, and so sought you out. The conditions are
very simple: I want you to bind yourself to my secret service for ten
years, and in return I promise you the fulfilment of your wish at the
end of that time. In the meanwhile your fame will increase, your powers
as a musician will be unrivalled; you will play and compose so as to
rouse the jealousy of all your profession; you will be in danger, but
will never be struck down; you will have full time for work and study,
yet you must always be ready to leave everything instantly when I call
upon you; you will be my right hand, but no one will suspect it; but if
you once fail in your allegiance to me during these ten years, your
object will be frustrated at the end of that time.”
“But,” said Nicholas, who had listened, growing more fascinated as the
stranger spoke, and by his eagerness and play of features guiding
unconsciously the latter’s fast-increasing promises—“but what power
have you to bring such things about? Count Stromwael is a great man,
besides being obstinate and perverse; how can you dispose of his
property, and even his will?”
“And how,” quickly retorted the stranger with a cold smile, “can you be
so imprudent as to speak thus unguardedly of your master’s defects to
one whom you saw to-day for the first time, and whose name, position,
and motives are unknown to you? Do you know that you put yourself in my
power by these words? But I will partly answer your question. I know
something of Count Stromwael, and what I know gives me the right to
offer you what I do; and as I happen to want your services—they will
never conflict with your outward allegiance to your patron—I make you
the only proposal, as an equivalent, for which you care. If you cared
for the common things—women, money, position—you would not be the
person I want; such vassals can be bought by the cart-load, in every
station in life, from the Countess of Flanders or the first lord of her
household down to the ragged beggars or the sleek hypocrites who crowd
the city. I want you, my fancy has chosen you, and I ask you will you
buy success at the price of ten years of your life?”
“But why,” persisted the eager but uneasy Nicholas, “only ten years?
Why not ask for my whole life?”
The stranger laughed oddly. “And your future life too?” he said. “Yes,
I see what you are thinking of: that I want your soul. I will not deny
your imputation; you flatter me by identifying me with one whose power
is as dread as you have been taught to believe the devil’s to be, but I
am quite truthful in saying that I do not crave more than a promise of
ten years’ faithful and blind service. You may, if you can, redeem the
sacrifice by a long after-life—I only ask ten years; at your age it is
not much to give.”
“And if I should die before the ten years are over?”
The stranger raised his eyebrows, but without opening his eyes
perceptibly wider.
“You insist on continuing the parallel?” he asked. “I only said ten
years of life; if you die you escape me, but you lose your own chance.
What should I want with a dead man? The loss would be as much mine as
yours.”
“If you can guarantee, as you said, that I should be in danger but
should not be struck down, perhaps you can promise me that I shall not
die till our contract is fulfilled on both sides?”
“My dear friend, one would need to be deathless one’s self to make such
a promise. Even a doctor could only promise life provided such and such
circumstances were certain.”
“If you can dispose of Count Stromwael’s will and property,” said
Nicholas doggedly, “you can ensure me ten years’ life.”
“Is your life dearer to you than your success, then?”
“No; but the latter depends on the former, and if _you_ must hedge in
business by conditions, _I_ must be sure that I do not give you in
advance all you want without being sure of my reward at the end.”
“I should not have expected so much foresight in you; I respect you for
it. I will see that you have this assurance, but how do I know whether
you will believe in it? You see you are so much shrewder than ordinary
enthusiasts that I may be taking a spy or a critic into my service.”
“I have never thought about business or guarantees before, because I
care for nothing but the success of my organ, and only that would have
made me eager to bind you to your promise,” said Nicholas, still
uneasily; “but since you only ask ten years’ service, I think I may
safely say yes.”
The stranger smiled again, as oddly as before, and drew out a roll of
parchment from a little bag. “According to tradition, you should sign
this with your blood,” he said, “but I shall be quite content if you
sign it with common ink. Here is a horn and a pen; only write your
name. But first read the bond.”
Nicholas looked suspiciously at the stranger, who calmly handed him the
paper; the latter’s face showed neither interest nor triumph. The deed
was very simply worded: “I, Nicholas Verkloep, promise to owe unfailing
and unquestioning obedience in all things to Marcus Lemoinne for the
space of ten years from this day and hour, in return for the success of
my organ at the end of that time, and for all the help he may give me
in the interval.” The date was already filled in, being the day on
which the above conversation took place, and the hour was marked two
hours after noon. Nicholas glanced at the clock behind him in the
chapel; the hands pointed to ten minutes to that hour. The stranger
followed his glance, quietly rose from the bench, and turning his back
upon him, knelt down on the narrow board fixed for this purpose to the
front of the tribune.
Nicholas quickly turned things over in his mind: as to his silence
about it when the promise was signed he had decided; as to his
fulfilment of his obligations to the letter he was as loyally certain;
as to the individual whom this man either was or represented he had
very little doubt. Very few in his time would have thought otherwise;
perhaps few would have hesitated so much after having made up their
minds not to ask the advice of any one either before or after the
contract was made. Nicholas was only an average Christian, and had no
strong feelings except on the subject of his art; everything was in
favor of his giving ten years’ life for the success of his scheme. As
the clock struck the hour the stranger rose, touched his shoulder, and
said, “Well?”
Nicholas, with something like a start, took the pen and signed his name
as quickly as he could, whereupon the other also wrote in a fair and
scholarly hand these words: “I, Marcus Lemoinne, promise to ensure the
success of Nicholas Verkloep’s organ at the end of ten years, in return
for his obedience to me during that time.”
No commonplaces passed at parting, and Nicholas went home soon after.
His old master noticed that he was a little more excited than usual,
and began to make plans and preparations with more energy, but he was
used to these phases of mind. The young man (he was now twenty-three)
procured beautiful and costly wood for carving, besides ivory, paints,
and other materials, and set to work on a complete model. Now began the
oddest experiences of his life: his mind seemed doubled, for he was
conscious of a never-ceasing expectation, an alertness, and a
watchfulness hitherto unknown to him. In the streets, in church, in bed
at night, he was always looking for Lemoinne or ready to obey his
summons, yet his attention, when he bestowed it on his work, was not
disturbed or lessened by this parallel current of thought. His mind
grew stronger, brighter, quicker, more ingenious; his fanatical
devotion to his art increased daily, and with it his powers, until his
fame grew to be just such as the stranger had foretold. This stimulated
him further, and he made unheard-of progress, so that his old friend
and teacher was half-crazy with joy and pride. The count sent for him
to play in the hall before his guests on a small organ of no great
power or value, and Nicholas drew from it such sounds as the great men
of the profession could not draw from the most magnificent church
instruments. That they were jealous of him he knew, but he feared no
jealousy, as he courted no admiration. He refused repeatedly to take
advantage of his reputation and increase his fortune by travelling to
the various art-loving cities of the Netherlands and of Italy, or even
by performing in public on great occasions, so that the crowds of his
persistent admirers had to content themselves with hearing him at his
own old organ in the Stromwael chapel. Even the popular preachers of
the day were envious of him. Meanwhile, he worked first at the model,
then at the separate pieces of his future organ. The count had given no
permission, nor hinted at any, and Lemoinne had made no call on his
time, but his belief in the efficacy of the bond never flagged for a
moment. It did not occur to him to wonder why he never heard the man’s
name mentioned as among those who, whether merchants, artists, or
statesmen, had public or secret power; his unspoken suspicion of his
identity prevented all such ideas, but it did strike him as odd that
for ten months after the signing of the contract nothing was required
of him. He felt morbidly that he did not belong to himself, and knew
that, do what he would, a secret influence sat within, master of his
heart and will, master even of his dreams, and, he feared, of his art
also. Was it himself that he put forth in his compositions? When the
ten years were ended he would be able to tell, but it was a long time
to look forward to. Yet during that time his fame would have been made,
and if his power then suddenly deserted him and his suspicions came to
be confirmed, he could easily retire on his former laurels and compose
no more. Retire at thirty-three? Well, there was the monastery; many
men had made a second career, more creditable even than the first, by
devoting their worldly gifts, their wealth, and their fame to religious
purposes when circumstances made the world distasteful to them at an
earlier period than usual. If his suspicions should be true, an
after-life of atonement would be fitting, and it would give him time
for studies which he longed to undertake, but had no leisure or
opportunity for at present. The spiritual element counted for nothing
in his calculations; there were many doors still closed in his nature.
As he wandered in fancy, his fingers worked and produced beautiful or
weird things. The face of Lemoinne, so constantly present to his mind,
often came out in wood under his touch, and always, when finished, gave
him a start of surprise; for, surely, that was not the expression he
remembered? And yet, in carving the likeness, he must have had the
recollection before him? A year after the interview in the chapel his
old teacher the organist died, and the first strange thing that he had
ever said to his pupil he said on his death-bed.
“My son,” he began, as he lay with his hand in that of Nicholas, “there
is one thing I feel I must say to you before I go; it is my duty, and
young men sometimes forget it. With you it is more dangerous than with
most. Be your own master; do not lose the ownership of yourself. Men
who do generally commit crime, and, if the slavery be to a woman, they
often do base, mean things. I have sometimes feared that you were
losing the mastery of yourself, and yet at other times I saw you
absorbed in what has been your only idol for twelve years or more.”
“There is no woman that shares that idolatry,” answered Nicholas
evasively, starting at the old man’s anxious looks and awakened
insight.
“Well,” said the dying man, “I do not grudge you a wife, but I fear any
one, man or woman, whose influence over you is not entirely supported
and controlled by reason. In God’s name, Nicholas, and as a dying man,
I beseech you, if you are in any toils, break through them as quickly
as you can.”
“My dear master,” said his pupil, “when you are in heaven pray that I
may be guided aright, for I shall have lost the only guide on earth
whose help or advice was of use to me.”
“That is no answer, Nicholas,” said the old man reproachfully and
wearily; “but remember what I said.”
“Yes, I will remember it,” said the other in an altered tone, “and, if
I can, I will heed it.”
After the old man’s death Nicholas led a very lonely life, but his
increasing labors at his organ cheered him and occupied his time. His
fame kept at its high pitch, and the jealousy of his brother artists
was well known.
Fourteen months after his first interview with Lemoinne the latter came
again, this time to his home (possibly the attic before described).
Nicholas told him how surprised he had been at hearing nothing from him
for so long.
“One does not use one’s best and rarest tools often,” said the other
with his indescribable smile, “though the highest price paid for them
is none the more begrudged on that account; and, again, the finest
instruments are used to do what seems the least important work. You
know how a glass-cutter uses a diamond? Now, all I want you to do is to
ride to a certain place and deliver this letter; you will find the
horse ready saddled at St. Martin’s Gate; you have twelve hours to do
it in, and by daybreak you will find the same man ready to take the
horse at the same place from which you start. The fleetest government
messenger would take sixteen hours; but I know the horse and his
powers; of his rider I know enough to make me trust him equally.”
The implied trust flattered Nicholas, who took the letter, and, seeing
the direction, started a little, but said: “If you say it can be done,
it can, but the distance would take a common rider nearer twenty hours
than sixteen. Shall I go at once?”
“Yes, and remember your trust goes no further than the delivery of this
package to whoever opens the door of that house to you.”
It would take too long to describe the night ride, or even the state of
mind in which Nicholas found himself while careering along at a
headlong speed towards his goal. This was the first service he had
performed for his strange master—an easy and safe one apparently,
though secret; the man’s fascination of manner or voice—which was
it?—had evidently not lessened since his last appearance. Nothing
special occurred; he gave the letter to a commonplace looking person at
the door of an ordinary, rather shabby house, and returned by dawn. As
to curiosity concerning his errand, it struck him as odd that he should
feel none; yet he had never been of a gossipy turn of mind, and these
things were, after all, only details in the scheme. This business of
Lemoinne’s was probably connected with politics, about which he cared
nothing. He did not see his patron again for months, and his work
progressed wonderfully.
The next figure which bore the man’s likeness was that of a physician,
pouring a liquid from one vial into another, and the expression was
that of absorbed attention. The organ-case was to be ornamented with
figures representing various saints, the patrons of music, of the
Stromwaels, of the chapel, and of the city; then figures typifying the
various city guilds; then nine figures emblematic of the traditional
nine choirs of angels; but a space was left in the centre, just over
the key-board, for the crowning masterpiece. A rose-tree hedge was to
run round the instrument, and the pedals were each to be carved so as
to represent the seven deadly sins, which, by being trodden under foot,
contribute to make the music of the soul before God. Fantastic ideas
and odd devices were constantly springing up in his brain and being
realized beneath his touch, and in these he encouraged himself to
indulge. In one corner of the case, however, was to stand a beautiful,
dignified, venerable figure, the glorified likeness of his old master,
with no corresponding figure opposite, and robed like a prophet,
holding a tablet on which in letters of gold were to be carved in Latin
these words: “Be master of thyself.”
His life as a solitary artist and mechanic was a monotonous one to
record; even his few tests of obedience to Lemoinne were neither
romantic nor terrible. Once he was sent in the disguise of a page to a
court entertainment, with orders to follow and observe a high official
of the state (who afterwards was proved a traitor and put to death
accordingly); another time he was instructed to detain for half an hour
a professor of one of the great universities, by which delay the man
lost an appointment he much coveted; and another time he was sent to a
young man of great position and wealth, but an orphan, to recommend a
servant to him. From this, however, sprang some other circumstances
worth recording. The young man, Count Brederode, took a violent fancy
to him, visited him at his home, entered into his hopes and plans, and
begged him to be a friend and brother to him. Nicholas felt drawn to
the count, but reminded him of the difference between their stations,
and only agreed so far as circumstances would allow. This young man was
his very opposite—bright, garrulous, sociable. He always had a love
affair on hand, and always confided it to Nicholas, whose words on the
subject were never, however, very encouraging. He wasted his money in a
way that distressed his prudent friend, and his time in a thousand
pursuits for which he had no better excuse than that “gentlemen
generally did so and so.” The best-employed part of his day was that
which he sometimes spent watching Nicholas at work. At last one day he
said suddenly:
“Do you know I am to marry Count Stromwael’s favorite niece, whom he
brought up as a sister with his own only daughter? And upon this
occasion I am going to ask him a favor, which I am sure he cannot
refuse: to let you put up your organ in place of his, which I will take
for my chapel in the country.”
Nicholas stared at him in silence. Was this a roundabout fulfilment of
Lemoinne’s promise, or a wild, boyish freak, likely to result in
nothing?
“Your organ is sufficiently far advanced to put up and play on, is it
not?”
“It will be in six months.”
“Then six months hence you shall transfer your workshop to the chapel
tribune,” said Brederode confidently.
Nicholas said nothing, but the other was used to that. The famous
musician grew more silent every day; things got complicated in his
mind, and he was always puzzling himself. His brain was clear only for
his work; at all other times he walked in a dream of expectation,
conjecture, and dread. Each day the seemingly light burden weighed more
upon him; the horror of being entangled in conspiracies of which he was
ignorant, and concerned in wrongs which he could neither prevent nor
reconcile to himself, haunted him; and yet in actual facts there was
nothing to complain of, nothing even to describe. It seemed
incomprehensible to him that Lemoinne should have made so solemn an
appeal and promise for so little reward, and should have used his power
so sparingly. The very blandness of the passing years made him fear
some awful test towards the last. Meanwhile, Brederode’s generous,
boyish friendship cheered and soothed him. But a year after he first
knew him, and two months after Count Stromwael had yielded to his
nephew-in-law’s vehement pleading for the Verkloep organ, Nicholas, at
work in the chapel, saw him enter with an unusually serious face. The
young man began to make dark confidences on political subjects, which
Nicholas instinctively repelled, and, without knowing why, he said:
“I entreat you, Count Brederode, do not make me the repository of plans
and intentions that may end dangerously for you. I wish to know nothing
of anything which is likely to make the state rake up all your habits
and intimacies, and use them as the Philistines did Delilah.”
“I would sooner trust you than my own wife,” laughed the young man,
“and no one will suspect such a maniac as you are, you know!”
“If you insist upon it,” said Nicholas sadly, “let me at least solemnly
swear to you, by my hope of salvation, that nothing shall make me
betray you in the slightest thing.”
“I would trust you without an oath,” cried Brederode.
“Then you are not of the stuff of which conspirators are made,” said
Nicholas, “and I wish you would retire from a position unsuited to you.
You have no interest even in it.”
“None but the fun of secrecy and excitement—except this,” he added more
seriously: “that having once promised to give others the shield of my
name and the support of my money, I am bound in honor not to run away.”
“True, but break with them honorably and frankly.”
“I cannot.”
“You _will_ not?”
“No, it is not that; there are other games almost as exciting, but my
wife’s brother is involved, and I must stand by him. Let us treat it
only as an escapade; I want to tell you about it.”
“I repeat my oath, then, and pray Heaven to strike me deaf, dumb, and
palsied before I have anything to do in this to your disadvantage.”
“You make it so serious that it loses its fun. But....” And Brederode
went on to explain a scheme which the spirit of the times and its
prejudices alone made dangerous, but which, if frustrated and
discovered, surely entailed capital punishment. Nicholas listened
moodily, striving to abstract his mind, endeavoring not to take in his
friend’s talk, and all the while feeling a miserable consciousness
that, however it might come about, he was nearing one of the tests of
his hateful bondage. The day passed, and he still felt uneasy; each
step on the stairs frightened him; he could hardly work. At night
Lemoinne came to see him. Few words passed; Lemoinne bade him in the
same cool, metallic voice, indifferent yet compelling attention,
denounce Brederode and his fellow conspirators. He pleaded his oath.
“No oath that conflicts with your promise is worth anything.”
“But he is my friend, and his wife the niece of my patron.”
“No harm shall come to you through denouncing him; your name will be
unknown. You shall appear only as an agent—my agent—and not even
Brederode himself shall have the chance of upbraiding you.”
“But, since you know the whole affair, why not act yourself?”
“I do not know the whole, but you do, and I mean you to tell me and
write it down; I will sign it alone. I am known and have power in many
places, but it is useful to have instruments; I have bought mine, and
only wish to use what I purchased. Sit down and write.” Nicholas stood
sullen and silent. “Do you fancy, because your organ is partly built
and placed, that no accident may happen to it? I can do more than you
think; you weigh an act with which no one but I shall be acquainted
against the possible destruction of your favorite, the fall of your
ambition, the collapse of your whole life.”
“No one can put it to me more forcibly than I have done to myself,”
said Nicholas moodily; “but, unluckily for me, I have a conscience
left.”
“Forget it for twenty-four hours.”
“You do not ask me to forget it, but to disregard it, to gag it. I know
what I lose in breaking my bond, and I believe in your power
sufficiently to be sure that even my friend would not have opportunity
to rebuke me in life.”
“Why do you talk about it?” interrupted Lemoinne with the cold smile
peculiar to him. “To discuss a thing, and weigh _pros_ and _cons_, is
to yield; you do not reason against what you have made up your mind to
refuse.”
Nicholas gazed at the man in horror. Who was he to go thus mercilessly
to the heart of the question, to see his hidden thoughts, to interpret
the secret of all the uneasiness he had felt ever since his friend had
spoken those light but fatal words? Who? A master stronger than
himself; one whom it was little use to resist now, no doubt, since he
had not had the fortitude to resist him at first. It ended in his
yielding, but not without the most terrible self-contempt;
self-reproach was nothing to it. He wrote what he knew; as he wrote it
all came back to him, much as he had honestly tried not to hear or
understand the details. Lemoinne alone signed the paper, and bade him
take it to a certain address before morning.
“If you change your mind or try to deceive me, I shall know it,” he
said coldly as he left, “and all the difference will be that you will
lose your hopes, as well as Brederode his life.”
Nicholas did as he was bidden, and from that day the little peace he
had had before fled. The day of the execution came, and he could not
resist going to see his friend pay the penalty of _his_ treachery. His
tongue was parched and his eyes bloodshot; he skulked behind people in
the crowd, and wore his cap as low as he could over his forehead; but
nothing availed him, and when the axe fell he felt as if his own soul
had been under it instead of the head of his friend. Feverishly and
recklessly, all but despairingly, he returned to his work, but though
his brain and hands had not lost their cunning, the impressions of that
day clouded everything else in his mind, and he had no heart for
anything. Two years sped on, and Nicholas Verkloep, with his glowing
reputation, was more of an enigma than ever; but it would be impossible
to describe the many phases of his mental _delirium tremens_ during
that time. The organ was near completion, and Count Stromwael was now
as proud of it as the maker. Lemoinne visited Nicholas once more before
the end, and this time at the place where the contract was first made.
It was the same hour, too. He began by congratulating him on his
success so far, then examined the carvings, and smiled as he noticed
his own face repeated many times.
“And here is Brederode’s,” he said, as he pointed to the figure
personifying the Choir of Thrones. “What made you put him in?”
“Because, as you well know, his face is always with me,” said Nicholas,
emboldened by his very complicity with his terrible master. “It was a
relief to me to make the image a sort of reality, to give tangible
expression to my remorse.”
“Yes; I see you have made the carvings a sort of history of your mind:
I see the venerable prophet and the device he bears; the rose-hedge
with the prominent and unnaturally-multiplied thorns; the haunting imps
of dreams, your own face and mine, and so on. It is only a year and a
few months now to the time when our contract ends, and hitherto we have
kept it well. I think it likely we shall not meet again till the day is
over. Nothing but silence now will be your burden. If you speak of or
hint at anything of our transactions, remember the bond is cancelled;
but, of course, after the expiration of the ten years you are free to
publish the whole.”
He smiled scornfully, and, with another expression of admiration as to
the work, left the tribune. It was now that Nicholas put in just over
the key-board the groups of our Saviour and the twelve apostles (Judas,
with the bag of money, bore Lemoinne’s likeness), but, instead of
being, as they are at present, immovable, the figures went in and out
by a spring hidden among the stops, so that at the Consecration they
could be brought forward, and after the Communion return to the
interior of the organ, in the same way as some of the famous figures of
the clock in Strassburg Cathedral. The day of the public opening of the
completed organ came, the tenth anniversary of the day of the contract,
and the reader may imagine all the paraphernalia of a great mediæval
_fête_, half-religious and half-secular.
Lemoinne sat among the guests at Count Stromwael’s banquet; it was the
first time Nicholas had met him in public. The strange man seemed
utterly unconscious that they had ever met before, and his eyes met the
organist’s fully as he complimented him in set phrases and handed him a
golden gift with a small roll of parchment attached. Stromwael laughed
as he remarked:
“Is that the title-deed to a mortgaged estate, or a share in one of
your ships?” Nicholas clutched it in silence and tried to smile; the
talk around him seemed to point to his strange master being a banker,
but he held to his first suspicions. As soon as he was alone he looked
hastily at the hateful bond and thrust it into the fire. It seemed odd
to him that he did not yet feel free; he had expected the release to be
instantaneous. Weeks passed, and still the same old watchfulness and
uneasiness went on. Brederode’s face came to him more constantly; all
his faculties were centred in horrible recollections and vague and
still more horrible expectations. All Flanders raved about the
wonderful organ, and requests for similar ones made under his
directions and supervision poured in from distant parts. He vowed to
himself never to touch such a thing again, or even give directions for
it; it was to his fancy an accursed thing, associated with all the
horror and despair of his life. He refused all offers; and this grew to
be even more of a mania with him than the making of the instrument had
been before. Now that his dream had been fulfilled, he only longed to
die; his servitude was still unbroken, though the letter of the bond
was now a dead letter; he felt himself miserably fettered, haunted,
paralyzed. To the rather imperious demand of Count Stromwael’s cousin,
himself a powerful personage, for an organ with the same group of the
twelve apostles, he returned a flat denial, and neither threats nor
promises could shake him. At last the power of the two nobles combined
threw him into prison; they made sure of reducing him to obedience by
violence and temporary ill-treatment. The prison was what all mediæval
dungeons were—damp, filthy, unhealthy, dark. His food was bread and
water, and a very scanty measure of both. For a month he was treated as
a criminal, but nothing made any impression on the moody,
prematurely-aged man. He had made up his mind that only death would
make him free, only death would make him able to explain and excuse
himself to his dead friend. He cared for no bodily tortures; for ten
years he had suffered a mental hell. His friends and his patrons came
alternately to coax and tempt or to threaten and abuse him; he would
not yield.
Neither wealth, marriage, nor a patent of nobility tempted him; neither
the wheel, the rack, nor the block frightened him. He grew weaker and
weaker. His eyes saw Lemoinne and Brederode all over the narrow cell;
the one seemed like a fiend, and the other always like a corpse, with
the head half-severed, yet still conscious with a kind of ghastly life.
Physicians examined him and confidently pronounced him sane, and
priests visited him and pronounced him certainly not possessed, but
both agreed that something unusually terrible must be preying on his
mind. He never told what he saw or felt, and answered all questions
evasively. At last Stromwael, furious at his vassal’s obstinacy,
threatened to put his eyes out and prevent him from ever taking
pleasure in work again. He only said:
“You cannot take away my sight, even if you put out my eyes; would to
God you could!”
Before this last measure was resorted to he received a visit from
Lemoinne, who, in the calm tone of a cynic and a man of the world,
begged him to reconsider his decision.
“Nothing could tempt me!” said Nicholas. “Not even you could compel me;
it is not in the bond, and I am free.”
“Of course,” said the other, smiling. “I only ask you to yield for your
own good. Why should you object?”
“Because the thing is accursed; it has wrecked my life, and I will have
no more to do with it,” said Nicholas violently.
“But you are free now?”
“Am I?” said Nicholas, with savage meaning.
“You do me too much honor,” said Lemoinne sarcastically, “in believing
my power to be supernatural. Shall I tell you who I am, and what was
both my object and the secret of my influence?”
“You can tell what lies you like.”
“I dare say your superstition is greater than my falsehood,” said the
man with a smile; “and if I told you, you would be convinced against
your will and still remain of the same opinion. Well, you are free now,
and show your freedom by throwing away the very gift you sold yourself
to obtain.”
“If I could undo the past ten years,” said Nicholas, “I would give up
not my organ only, but my art. But as it is, I shall never be free
while I live, and I will do nothing that may save or lengthen my
horrible life—a mockery, indeed, of freedom!”
“If that is your last decision, I will say no more,” said Lemoinne;
“but remember, though our pact is over, I am still your friend, and,
should you wish anything between this and death which your jailers
would deny you, send me word.”
Nicholas looked at him in surprise and suspicion.
“Yes, they know me here by the same name as you do, and I can generally
find means to do what I wish. It is not the first time I have been here
or made a like offer to a condemned man.”
“I believe you,” said Nicholas shortly, and his visitor left him. Two
days elapsed before the threat was carried into execution, but the
prisoner, full of his own trouble, hardly dwelt upon the coming trial.
He prayed wildly that the red-hot iron which was to take away his
bodily sight would blot out his phantom companions from his mental
vision; the horrors of his disturbed brain appalled him more than any
earthly punishment, and his half-description or hints of it to one
person who visited him constantly was such that the latter
compassionately got leave for one of his jailers to sleep with him in
his dungeon. The day of the horribly unskilful torture came, and with
common iron rods, heated red-hot, the famous artist’s eyes were put
out. He writhed and moaned, but the bodily pain was only a faint image
of the agony of his mind. Was it madness? Was it possession? Were all
the learned men wrong, and he alone right, in thinking that he carried
hell within his brain? There was no peace from the gnawing remorse of
his betrayal of friendship; no assurance that his repentance was of
avail comforted him; no obstinate affirmations could make him feel that
the unholy fetters of his bond were in truth broken. It was not his
blindness that was killing him; it was his mania. He felt life ebbing,
and was fiercely glad, yet at times furious that, with such gifts as
his, he should go prematurely to the grave. A chaos of schemes floated
through his brain and maddened him yet more: he saw a long array of the
works he might have accomplished before he died—Masses, antiphons,
fugues; the improvements in the organ-stops and the internal machinery
of the instrument; a school he might have founded—if he had been
content to rely upon his own industry and the slow path of trust in
Providence. He had sold his birthright, and what was the farce of a ten
years’ contract, when he knew that at this present moment even the
wreck that was left of him was not his own? “If I am still his, at
least he shall help me once more,” he thought suddenly, as Lemoinne’s
offer occurred to his mind. “I will end this suspense at once.” He
asked the man who brought him his meals to tell Lemoinne that he wanted
him; and as he began the message he watched with fear and curiosity to
see how it would affect the bearer of it. Strange! nothing but a common
assent; evidently the request was not a novel one. Lemoinne came that
very evening, and Nicholas asked him for a sharp knife. He produced his
own, which Nicholas felt all over and took, saying:
“When you hear of my playing on my organ for the last time, come to the
tribune and claim your knife. I shall make the request, and feel sure
they will grant it.”
“What do you mean to do with the knife?”
“Nothing which _you_ would disapprove; but since you _say_ I am free,
let me prove it by not answering this question.”
“I do not press you,” said Lemoinne with his usual icy smile. Nicholas
felt the look he could not see, and his very heart seemed to tighten
and writhe within him. He had guessed truly; when he asked Count
Stromwael to allow him to play once more on the organ before he
died—for he felt that he should not live long, he said—the request was
quickly granted. His persecutors fancied that he would be less on his
guard now, and that somehow, while he played, they could surprise the
secret which they wanted to discover. He was taken to the chapel and
seated before his instrument. Stromwael, his cousin, and Lemoinne were
there, besides other less important persons. All watched eagerly. After
half an hour’s playing, as divine as the player’s mind was storm-driven
and despairing, Nicholas asked:
“Are the apostles out or in?”
“In,” was the answer.
He pressed a spring and the group came slowly out—our Lord’s figure
from the centre, and those of six apostles from each side. Then, with a
quick and deft touch, he cut something, and a snapping sound was heard
within; his fingers moved again, the knife gleamed, and a wailing sound
came from the notes on which his left arm now leaned; then, turning
round with a smile of triumph that looked ghastly on the blank face and
mutilated eye-sockets, he said:
“I am free now. I am ready to die.”
Lemoinne quickly took up the knife that Nicholas dropped, and smiled as
if another character-play had come to an end and he had solved another
riddle; Stromwael burst out into wild and furious threats of
purposeless revenge. Nicholas sat unmoved and said:
“This organ will be my only monument, and, if a man’s curse can follow
another, may mine follow whoever shall attempt to remove or to repair
my organ.”
To this day the instrument stands a witness to the tradition of its
maker’s fate; the group is immovable, and the few sounds the notes
produce are worse than dumbness. Nicholas died two months after, in
prison, his mind more and more delirious each day. It is said that,
when Lemoinne heard of his death, he remarked to one of his associates:
“That man was the most perfect tool I ever knew. If I had sworn
to him that I was a banker, a merchant, a usurer, a spy—an
unscrupulous eccentric, whose one mania was the possession of
secret power, and whose conscience was dead to any obstacle—he
would still have believed in his own theory. But I own I
overshot the mark and drove him too far.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GERMAN ELEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES.
The social, moral, and political influence of the German-born and
German-descended population of the United States upon their
fellow-citizens has already been perceptible; that this influence will
vastly increase in the future is highly probable. We may state here one
of the many reasons for this belief. The intellectual and political
leaders of the Germans in America have hitherto mainly confined their
public utterances, in the press or on the platform, to the German
language. The German newspapers are very numerous; their circulation is
large; they are written for the most part with much ability; their
treatment of social and political questions is often marked by a
breadth of view and a soundness of logic too frequently wanting in many
of their English contemporaries. Their influence upon the minds of
their readers is also greater than that wielded by the majority of our
newspapers printed in the English language. We have heard this fact
attributed to the superior honesty with which the German press is
conducted; but upon this delicate ground we shall not enter. Our point
at present is that German thought and opinion, as expressed through the
German periodical press, influence for the most part only the German
population. Few of us who are not Germans read a German journal; what
the German leaders in politics, morality, and literature are saying,
day after day, is for the most part wholly unknown to the rest of us.
Occasionally an American editor translates a leading article from a
German journal and gives it to his readers; still more frequently he
avails himself of the ideas and the arguments of his German
contemporaries and reproduces them as his own.
In the next generation this state of things will be modified; more
Americans will read German literature, and more Germans, or
German-Americans, will write in English journals, speak in English at
public conventions, and sit in our legislative assemblies. The barrier
of language, which has hitherto tended to separate Germans from the
rest of us to so great an extent, will gradually yield and disappear.
The German language will be learned by increasing numbers of our
non-German citizens; the common use of the German language by the
German-Americans will be dropped, and the English tongue adopted in its
stead, not only in business affairs, but in politics, literature,
religion, and social intercourse. The English language has made many
conquests, but in America it has only to hold its own. It is the
language of the country, of the legislature, of the courts, of the
markets and exchanges, and of society. Our German citizens must acquire
it, or enter handicapped into all the relations of life.
The ability with which the German journals here are conducted does not
prevent nearly the whole of them which are not avowedly Catholic from
being inspired by an antagonism to religion. The genius of the German
mind has little sympathy with socialism or communism, and the theories
of socialism and communism find expression among our German citizens
only through the writings or speeches of a few insignificant and
uninfluential men in New York and some of our other large cities. But
the German who is not a Catholic is most often an atheist; and he
differs from the French atheist in wishing his wife and children to be
atheists also. The non-Catholic German press faithfully represents this
phase of the German mind; and it sneers at religion with the same
pertinacity and often with more skill than is shown in a like direction
by too many of our English-written newspapers.
The total immigration into the United States from the close of the War
of Independence to the end of 1876 was 9,726,455 souls. The records of
the government do not furnish an ethnological classification of all
these; it is only since 1847 that this classification has been made.
But every one knows that the bulk of our immigrants have come from
Ireland and Germany. At the port of New York alone the total number of
Irish immigrants from 1847 up to September 1 of the present year was
2,009,447; of German immigrants 2,345,486; of all others 1,265,240. An
estimated classification of those arriving before 1847, added to the
above figures, gives 2,463,598 Irish, 2,622,556 German, and 1,542,311
of other nationalities. The present Secretary of the Interior is the
only American citizen of German birth who has ever held a cabinet
appointment; we believe that he is the only citizen of German birth who
has ever sat in the Senate. But among the senators at the last session
of the Forty-fourth Congress there were seven who were either of
foreign birth or the sons of foreigners; and in the lower House of the
same assembly there appears to have been but one German to twelve
naturalized citizens of other nationalities. The Secretary of the
Interior owes the prominent political position which he fills less to
his statesmanlike and philosophical acquirements than to his command of
the English language and to his grace and power as a public speaker. No
doubt there are among our German citizens many who are his equals in
learning and political wisdom, but who are almost wholly unknown
outside the German-speaking community, for the reason that they confine
themselves, on the platform or in the press, to the use of the German
language. The coming generation of Americans of German descent will not
subject themselves to this disadvantage; and thus the influence of
German thought will be widened and deepened.
Upon this portion of our subject we may as well reproduce in substance,
although not with literal exactness, the observations made to us by a
German ecclesiastic, a member of one of the German religious orders
which are working here with so much zeal and success. In his opinion
the German element now in the United States will ere long be greatly
increased by a revival of immigration. Immigration from Germany may not
again attain the vast proportions which it reached in 1852–53–54, nor
during the seven memorable years 1866–1872, but it will still be very
large. All other things being equal, the proportion of Catholics
immigrating from Germany will be greater in the future than in the
past. In looking at the future of the country we should reckon that the
German element here will for many years to come steadily and rapidly
increase. But it is not probable that, after the passing away of the
present generation, our German population will so tenaciously retain
its distinctive national or ethnological features. It will become
absorbed in, amalgamated with, the rest of the community, but through
this very absorption and amalgamation it will leaven the whole mass for
good or for evil; and most probably the good will preponderate.
In our present German population, especially the younger portion of it,
there is a very perceptible disposition to be a little ashamed of their
German origin. This feeling, which has long existed, received a check
during and immediately after the triumph of Germany over France in 1870
and the erection of the German Empire. But it has now revived and
prevails with more force than before. Our German citizens feel that the
golden apples of victory have turned to ashes in the grasp of the
conquerors. The milliards wrung from France have sunk into the ground
or vanished in the air, and Germany is poorer than before the war—much
poorer than France, which Prince Bismarck imagined had been crushed
into nothingness. All the glory that Germany won by her conquest of
France in the field has been eclipsed by the peaceful victory of
France—a victory the effects of which were made manifest at our
International Exhibition last year. More serious still than this, in
the opinion of the learned and acute ecclesiastic whom we are quoting,
is the dislike and contempt with which the iniquitous, unnecessary, and
tyrannical policy of the German government toward the church is
regarded not only by Catholic Germans in America, but by those of their
non-Catholic compatriots here who are not swayed by sectarian hatred of
the church. This policy is justly regarded as at once an evidence of
weakness and a prolific source of future trouble, and among the
non-Catholic German-Americans the remark is common that “between the
Red-coats and the Black-coats—the Communists and the Catholics—the
empire is in great danger of destruction.” For these reasons, and other
slighter ones, our German fellow-citizens are becoming less and less
disposed to boast of their nationality, and more and more inclined to
Americanize themselves and their children. The “Watch on the Rhine”
gives place to “Yankee Doodle”; the suggestive inquiry as to the
precise locality and boundaries of the Faderland is not so popular as
“Hail Columbia.” Certain considerations of a utilitarian nature aid
powerfully in leading our German citizens in the same direction. Their
common sense enables them to see that their own advancement in life,
and the prosperity and happiness of their children, materially depend
upon their thorough Americanization—their complete identification with
the rest of the community in which they live. The first step towards
this end is the acquirement and use of the English language, and in
this the children often outstrip the wishes of their parents. In the
German-American schools, secular as well as religious, the study of the
English language is compulsory, and necessarily so. The children appear
to have a natural affinity for the English tongue; they acquire its use
rapidly and soon begin to speak it in preference to their native
language. It is not uncommon to meet with families where the parents
address the children in German and the children reply in English. The
truth is that the English language as now spoken, largely Teutonic in
its composition and structure, but enriched and softened by Celtic,
Latin, and Greek accretions, more easily adapts itself to the
expression of the necessities, the emotions, and the ideas of the age.
An amusing illustration of this self-asserting power of the English
language was afforded by the experience of a village in Indiana, on the
Ohio River, which was settled a few years ago by an exclusively German
colony consisting of about three hundred families. Nothing but German
was at first spoken in the houses, but in a very brief space of time
the language in the streets was found to be English, and ere long that
became the prevailing dialect of the place, appearing, as one of the
residents said, to have sprung up and taken root there just as the
weeds in the fields.
We should not omit to mention, however, a fact which to a very large
degree tends to show that the Americanization of our German citizens is
not so rapid as it might be. Intermarriages between Germans, or
descendants of Germans, and Americans of other descent are not regarded
with favor by the older Germans of the present generation, and such
marriages are of rare occurrence. This is to be deplored, especially
for the sake of the non-German party. In all the domestic virtues the
Germans are richly endowed. The influence of the mother in the family
is supreme within certain limits, and this influence is almost always
exerted for good. The German husband does not regard his wife as a
pretty plaything, a fragile and expensive doll to be dressed in gay
raiment and paraded for the gratification of her own and his vanity. On
the contrary, the German husband, if at fault at all in this respect,
looks upon his wife too much in the light not merely of a helpmeet, but
of a servant in whose zeal, industry, and faithfulness he can repose
the utmost confidence. Americans too often make useless idols of their
wives; the German husband may seem to regard his spouse from too
utilitarian a point of view. In the German household, here as in the
Fatherland, there is not, as there is too often in American homes, one
bread-winner and one or more spenders. The wife, whenever it is needful
or expedient, not only manages the domestic affairs of the family with
economy, prudence, and good sense, but takes a full share of the burden
of providing its income. If one journeys through those portions of the
West where the Germans are largely engaged in agricultural pursuits, he
will see the wife and daughters working in the fields alongside of the
husband and the brothers; in the towns, while the husband is pursuing
his trade or laboring in the streets, the wife is keeping a shop or a
beer-saloon, or otherwise earning her full share of the family income,
and aiding her husband to lay up the nest-eggs of their future fortune.
The will of the wife is most frequently supreme in all domestic
affairs, and even in matters of business; and this, too, without the
husband feeling himself at all “hen-pecked.” His wife is his equal; he
shares with her his amusements as well as his toils. Nothing is more
pleasant than the spectacle of German families, on _fête_ days or on
summer evenings, taking their pleasure together in the beer-gardens.
The presence of the women and children does not lessen the gayety of
the men; but it prevents them from excess and compels propriety of
conversation and deportment. With these habits, and with the gift of
living well and wholesomely, on plain but abundant food, without
wastefulness, the Germans prosper, and they acquire competences sooner
and more generally than other classes. When wealth comes, their frugal
and sensible habits of life are not laid aside for extravagant display,
nor is the influence and sway of the mother weakened or lessened. The
daughters, even of the wealthiest and most cultured German families,
are taught how to become good and useful wives to poor men, and are
thus prepared for reverses of fortune. By some of our American women
these virtues of their German sisters may be regarded with contempt and
dislike; but many American men, we are inclined to think, would lead
happier lives and escape much pecuniary trouble, if they won for
themselves wives from among the daughters of their German neighbors.
There are but few such marriages now. The German parents dislike them;
and there is, moreover, a little ignorant prejudice on the American
side. The next generation or two, we trust, will be wiser.
The limits of our space and the scope of our article forbid us to do
more than merely glance at a branch of our subject which is in itself
worthy of a separate essay—the influence exerted by our German
fellow-citizens upon the rest of us by their works in music and in the
fine arts. Here the barrier of language does not exist; the genius of
music and of art is universal. A certain degree of cultivation of the
ear and eye is necessary, of course; but, this being attained, the
music of a German composer, the painting, the sculpture, the
architecture, or the decoration of a German artist, is appreciated,
admired, and imitated as well by those ignorant of his language as by
those of his own nationality. There is reason to believe that American
taste in music and in art owes vastly more to German influence than is
generally supposed or conceded. Perhaps the strongest evidences of this
would result from a critical examination of the extent to which German
ideas have modified, enlarged, beautified, and spiritualized our
architecture, our dramatic, domestic, and ecclesiastical music, and all
those phases of our daily life wherein the fine arts play a part.
Among German-American architects may be mentioned G. F. Himpler, a
student at Berlin and Paris, and a thoroughly-educated master of his
art—the builder of fine churches in St. Louis, Detroit, Sandusky,
Elizabeth, Rome (New York), Atchison, and other places; among
historical painters, Leutz—now dead, but whose works at Washington and
elsewhere have given him a national fame—Lamprecht and Duvenech (the
latter a native of this country), Biermann and Lange; among decorative
painters, Thien, Ertle, and Muer; among sculptors and designers,
Schroeder, Allard, and Kloster—the latter a very distinguished young
artist; among German singers, as well known here as in Germany,
Wachtel, Hainamns, Lichtmay, and Tuska; among actors. Seebach,
Janauschek, Taneruscheck, Lina Meyer, and Witt.
But we can only hint at these things, and hasten on to remark, in
passing, that our German citizens, even more generally and zealously
here than in Germany, seek to provide for and to secure the education
of their children. “The first thing that a colony of German emigrants
settling in America seeks to establish is the school,” said to us a
high authority. “If they are Catholics, or even zealous Lutherans, the
church is built simultaneously with the school; but in every case the
school must be set up, and the children must attend it at whatever cost
to the parents.”
Thus far we have written of our German population as a whole. We now
turn our attention to that portion of it which belongs to
ourselves—_i.e._, the German Catholics of the United States. United
with us by the bond of faith, their welfare is especially dear to us,
and in their spiritual and material progress, prosperity, and happiness
we have a deep and abiding interest.
Prior to 1845 the German emigration to the United States had been
numerically insignificant, and consisted chiefly of the peasant class.
The revolution of 1848 had the effect not only of greatly increasing
this emigration but of materially changing its character. An official
report recently made by Dr. Engel, Director of the Bureau of Statistics
at Berlin, states that the number of Germans who emigrated to the
United States from 1845 to 1876, both years inclusive, was 2,685,430.
Dr. Engel remarks that a very large proportion of these emigrants
(considerably more than 1,000,000 of them) were “strong men”; there
were few old or infirm people among them; those of them who were not
adult males in the vigor of their manhood were chiefly young and
middle-aged women and children. A goodly proportion of these emigrants
must now be living among us; we know by the census of 1870 that our
German-born population even then numbered 1,690,410. The German race is
hardy and prolific; its women are good mothers; their thrift, industry,
and economical habits enable them to live in comfort upon modest
resources; without being teetotalers, they are seldom intemperate. The
German-born and German-descended population of the United States at
present—including in the latter class only those whose parents on both
sides or on one side or the other were natives of Germany, but who were
themselves born here—is believed to be about 5,500,000 souls. The great
bulk of this population is in the Central, Western, and Northwestern
States; the six States of New York, Illinois, Ohio, Wisconsin,
Pennsylvania, and Missouri contain nearly two-thirds of the whole
number.[86]
The German Empire as at present constituted contained at the latest
census (1875) 42,723,242 people. Of these not quite one-third are
Catholics. Had the immigration from the states which now form the
German Empire borne this proportion, we should have in the United
States a German Catholic population of about 1,800,000 souls. But the
immigration was largely from the Protestant states, or from those in
which the Protestants were in the majority. We should be satisfied, and
more than satisfied, when we learn that the German Catholics in the
United States, according to the latest and most accurate computation,
numbered 1,237,563 souls. It is a very large number—large enough to
establish the fact that the Catholic Germans arriving here have not
lost their faith, but have preserved and guarded it for themselves and
their children. These 1,237,563 German Catholics in America are not
mythical or hypothetical persons; in making up the numeration care was
taken to include only those who were known as practical Catholics,
frequenters of the sacraments, careful observers of their duties as
Catholic parents or Catholic children. In this connection we may add
some figures for which we are indebted to the courtesy of a German
priest and statistician, and on the accuracy of which our readers may
depend. First, however, let us state, upon the best authority, that the
church in America loses very few of her German children. We were
extremely gratified with the unanimous testimony which rewarded our
inquiries on this matter. It very rarely occurs that a young German
Catholic of either sex strays or is stolen from the fold. Neither the
false philosophy of the infidel or Protestant German schools, nor the
seductions and ridicule of their infidel or Protestant American
neighbors, lure them from the faith. We have observed in our own visits
to the German churches in New York, especially at the early Masses, the
large proportion of male adult worshippers. “Our old people, of course,
never leave us,” said a learned German priest, “and our young people
rarely, very rarely, stray away. They are faithful in their duties, and
they appear to love their religion with all their hearts. When they
marry and have children, they look after them as Catholic parents
should do. Our parochial schools are well attended; our higher schools
and academies are prosperous. Our teaching orders, of men and women,
have their hands full of work, and they are almost without exception
well supported. One of the bishops in a Western diocese, the greater
part of whose flock are Germans, has the happiness of knowing that all
the children of his people are in attendance either in his parochial
schools or in other schools of which the teachers are Catholics.”
Our 1,237,563 German Catholics in America are ministered to in
spiritual things by 1,373 German priests. They have 930 church
edifices, while there are 173 other congregations of them regularly
visited by priests, but as yet without church buildings. The whole
number of Catholic priests in the United States, according to the
_Catholic Directory_ for this year, is 5,297, of churches 5,292, and of
chapels and stations 2,768. Thus it will be seen that the German
priests number a little more than one-fourth of our American
ecclesiastical army. There is a German priest for every 900 German
Catholics. How faithfully they discharge their duties, and how
zealously the people, on their part, assist their pastors, may be
estimated by the fact that the baptisms by these German priests last
year numbered 71,077—an average of more than one each week for each
priest; and that the number of children in the German parochial schools
was 137,322—an average of almost exactly 100 children for each priest.
The following table will show with approximate exactness the number of
German Catholic priests and German Catholic laymen in the various
States or dioceses:
_Priests_. _Laymen_.
New York 149 134,100
Baltimore 103 92,700
Pennsylvania 75 67,500
Ohio 200 180,000
Indiana 132 118,800
Michigan 33 29,700
Kentucky 43 38,700
Wisconsin 163 146,700
Kansas 13 11,700
Illinois 135 121,500
Missouri 80 72,000
Minnesota 74 69,600
Louisiana 38 34,200
Other 135 120,363
localities
—— ————
1,373 1,237,563
The education of the juvenile portion of this large army of
German-American Catholics is partly in the hands of the teaching orders
of the church, male and female; partly in the hands of the parish
priests; and partly confided to private instructors. The “German
Sisters of Notre Dame,” for example, 923 in number, in 79
congregations, have charge of the parochial schools and instruct 25,557
children. They have also 15 academies, in which 1,375 pupils are
receiving higher education; and 11 orphan asylums with 1,400 children.
Another branch of the same sisters have their houses in 17
congregations, and in these 63 teaching sisters are instructing 9,000
children; they have also 3 academies with 700 pupils. The German
Franciscan Sisters, in 19 congregations, have 53 teaching sisters
educating 5,700 children; and one academy. The Sisters of the Precious
Blood, in 11 congregations, employ 17 of their number in teaching 900
children. The German Dominican Sisters, whose houses are in New York,
Williamsburg, and Racine, Wisconsin; and the Sisters of Christian
Charity, at Melrose and elsewhere, are among the many religious orders
chiefly engaged in educational work among the German Catholics. Prince
Bismarck has done us a very good turn without wishing it. The expulsion
of the religious orders of men and women caused by the persecution of
the church in Germany compelled these servants of God to seek new
homes. Many of these orders already had houses in this country; driven
from Germany, they found not merely a refuge but a warm welcome and
abundant work with their brothers and sisters here. Others of them, not
previously established in this country, and being robbed by the
paternal government of Prussia of all their property, arrived here in
poverty; but they were joyfully received and speedily supplied with
means for commencing their work in these new and inviting fields. The
German branch of the Christian Brothers—“Christliche Schulbrüder”—has
experienced a marvellous growth, and is accomplishing splendid results
in the primary and higher education of the German Catholic youth.[87]
A visit to a German Catholic church can scarcely fail to be interesting
and profitable to an American Catholic. He will see much that is
edifying and highly pleasing. The congregations at the early Masses on
week-days—we speak now only of what we have ourselves observed in New
York—are generally large and are composed of a fair share of men; at
all the Masses on Sundays the attendance is still more numerous. On
days of obligation, other than Sundays, these churches are thronged to
their utmost capacity; at the nine o’clock Mass on last Corpus Christi
we saw the great Church of the Redemptorists, on Third Street, packed
from the altar rails to the doors, and even the spacious vestibule
filled with kneeling worshippers. On this occasion, as on many others,
nearly or quite one-half of the congregation were men—a fact which we
emphasize, as it contradicts the mistaken idea that the faith is losing
its hold upon our men and is mainly cherished only by women. There are
thirteen German Catholic churches in this city. The good sense, thrift,
and wise management of the Germans have borne their natural fruit in
their churches and religious houses as well as elsewhere. For example,
attached to each of the two Capuchin churches is a large, handsome, and
substantial convent for the use of the fathers and for their schools.
We were astonished at the extent, the good arrangement, and the
solidity of these edifices, and our astonishment was not lessened when
we learned that they had both been erected within the last ten years.
It would be well, we think, if the relations between our German
Catholics and the rest of us were made more close and intimate. The
bond of faith, we know, unites us in all essential things; but it would
be well for us to come nearer together in every way. Our German
co-religionists are worthy of all esteem. They are already strong in
numbers. They will constantly became stronger. The _Pall Mall Gazette_
recently contained a most interesting summary of a report made by
Vice-Consul Kruge upon the subject of German emigration. We quote the
following portion of this summary:
“Emigration from Germany, particularly to the United States,
increased steadily after the memorable year 1848, and assumed
very large proportions immediately after the chances of a war
between Austria and Prussia in 1852 and 1853. The largest
number of emigrants of any year left in summer, 1854, or after
the declaration of the Crimean war—the United States alone
receiving 215,009 German immigrants in that year. There appears
a considerable falling off from 1858 to 1864, but already in
1865, when a probability of a war between Austria and Prussia
became more and more visible, the number of emigrants began to
increase very much. The years from 1866 to 1870, most likely in
consequence of the suspicious relations between France and the
North German Confederation, which ultimately brought on the war
in 1870, give very large figures. Even the year 1870 has the
large number of 91,779 emigrants. ‘Strange to witness,’ says
Consul Kruge, ‘after the close of the Franco-German war, when
the German Empire had been created, and a prosperity seemed to
have come over Germany beyond any expectation, when wages had
been almost doubled, and when, in fact, everything looked in
the brightest colors, a complete emigration fever was raging in
all parts of Germany’; and the years 1871, 1872, 1873 show an
almost alarming tendency to quit the Fatherland. This movement
would no doubt have continued but for the natural check it
received through the financial and commercial crisis in the
United States. There are however, at present again
unquestionable signs that a very large emigrating element is
smoldering in Germany, stimulated by political and economical
embroilments which will break forth as soon as sufficient hope
and inducements offer themselves in transatlantic countries in
the eyes of the discontented and desponding Germans. The
general political aspect and the decline of German commerce and
industry at the present period are, observes Consul Kruge, such
that an emigration on a large scale must be the natural
consequence of the ruling state of affairs. Among other
illustrations of the causes of a desire on the part of the
Germans to leave their native land, Consul Kruge mentions the
religious ‘Kulturkampf,’ which, he says, in its practical
results may, at least up till now, be rightly termed an
unsuccessful move on the political chessboard, and has been
brought home by degrees to the Roman Catholic population in an
irritating, harassing form. Between the priests on the one hand
and the Government on the other the lives of the Roman Catholic
peasantry are made one of ‘perfect torment’; and these people
naturally desire to leave that country where, rightly or
wrongly, they believe their religion attacked or endangered.
The relations between France and Germany also act powerfully to
promote emigration, and the huge expenses of maintaining the
army, besides a navy of considerable size, contribute to swell
the emigration tendency of the country. Consul Kruge thinks
that if the Australian colonies care to have the largest
portion of the coming German emigration, at no time have they
had a better chance of creating an extensive movement to their
shores than at present.”
These remarks strongly confirm the opinions expressed by ourselves when
writing on the same subject four months ago.[88] But when the wave of
German emigration again rises to its former height, it will turn toward
this country, as before, and not to Australia. Here the German
population is already so large and so well-to-do that the new-comers
will find themselves at home upon their arrival. Especially will the
United States be attractive to the German Catholics; for here they will
find their exiled priests and nuns, already settled in their new homes,
with churches and schools prepared for them. The return of moderate
prosperity to the United States will probably give the signal for the
commencement of the new German exodus; and we are scarcely too sanguine
in believing that this return to prosperity will not be delayed much
longer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AT THE CHURCH-DOOR.
The city lights still glimmered in the square,
Shivered with morning’s chill the winter air,
Scarce yet the eastern line of light broke through
The starlit darkness of the deep skies’ blue.
Upon the sparkling snow clear shadows lay
The moon flung eastward,—as if so the day,
Whose unseen coming seemed to fill the air,
They yearning sought with outstretched arms of prayer.
A sound of bells from far-off towers broke,
The frosty silence with their pealing woke,
And answering bells flung back across the sky
The Christmas morning’s glad, earth-echoed cry.
Dark, muffled figures with quick, constant tread
O’er glittering ice and snowy pathway sped—
A gathering train, crowding from lane and street,
To lay love’s homage at the Child-Christ’s feet.
A soft gleam from the church’s windows fell
Across the square, as if in peace to tell
Of light less clouded shining pure within,
Of peace more eloquent cleansed souls should win.
As, with the thronging crowd, my feet drew near
The open doorway whence the light streamed clear,
The accents of a language not my own
Broke through the hurrying footsteps’ monotone—
Quick-spoken words of soft Italian speech:
So far the simple utterance seemed to reach,
To Roman skies my dreaming thoughts it bore,
While home’s familiar walls new aspect wore.
Seemed it almost, beneath that dark of dawn,
As if my feet fell Roman pavement on,
The lights that twinkled through the open door
Burning some altar, centuries old, before,
Whose glow, in truth, fell soft on northern fir
O’er whose dark shadow shone the face of her,
The lowly Mother-Maid, Lady of Grace,
Foligno’s Queen watching the holy place.
And shrined within lay martyr-saint of Rome—
Vial and bones from ancient catacomb
Of that far city that seemed far no more,
Whose faith and speech met at the low church-door.
Seeming that speech true witness of the peace
Won years ago, when weary earth’s release
The angels chanted in the midnight sky,
And earth’s Redeemer waked with infant cry:
He who had come the narrow bonds to break
Of race and nation, who frail flesh did take
That Jew and Gentile might one Father claim,
And win all sweetness through one Brother’s name.
Scarce foreign seemed the stranger’s vivid word;
Nay, rather was it as if so I heard
The Christian speech of some old saintly age
Claiming in faith an earlier heritage.
Before one altar soon our knees should bend,
In one heart’s-worship soon our prayers ascend,
Within those sacred walls—our common home—
As children kneel of one true mother—Rome.
One faith was ours, one country all our own,
Wherein all petty landmarks are o’erthrown:
Not worshipping as Latin, Saxon, Gaul—
The children of one God who made us all.
Ours an inheritance so full and great,
Each lowliest handmaid clothed in royal state;
No heart so poor but that it throne may be
For Heaven’s King in his infinity.
From Rome this guerdon of our faith we hold:
What though its light o’er broken seas is rolled?
Unfaltering it shines through storm-clouds’ shade,
Unfailing beacon! by God’s Spirit fed.
A foreign faith! Ay, so, of that strange land
Whereof as citizens our free souls stand,
Whose earthly pasture is the church’s shrine—
Earth’s limits lost within her realm divine.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A SWEET REVENGE.
CONCLUSION.
IV.
At this moment the door-handle was touched on the outside, and M.
Rouvière sprang hastily from his chair and stationed himself with his
back to the fire, looking very straight and stiff and aggressive. The
door slowly opened and Mme. Dupuis entered, pushing out, at the same
time, the unfortunate cat which was trying to slip in with her.
“No, no, pussy,” said the lady, “you got yourself turned out, and you
must stay out. O the naughty men!” she exclaimed, laughingly, as she
closed the door, “they have been smoking.”
“Have we been smoking?” said Rouvière, sniffing. “Bless me! I really
believe we have; it shows how absent-minded one can be. I hadn’t
perceived it, so absorbed were George and I in our great project.”
“What project?” asked madame as she took off her hood and cloak. “Are
you going to stay with us, M. Rouvière?”
“Not exactly,” replied the guest, “but for George and me the result is
the same. Are you good at guessing riddles, madame?”
“You are not going to take George away with you, are you?” asked the
wife, her brown eyes resting firmly on his.
“With your permission, dear lady,” answered Rouvière, bowing with
ironical politeness.
“No, no, it cannot be!” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis, with a forced,
flickering smile, looking at him inquiringly and speaking low and
hurriedly. “You will think me very silly to take a joke so seriously,
but I cannot help it. You are playing with my life-spring. Tell me—I
pray you tell me, dear M. Rouvière, that you are _not_ going to take my
husband away.”
“I shall certainly leave his heart with you, my dear lady,” answered
the triumphant friend, “but it is a fact that I am going to carry off
his body for a while. The long and the short of it is this: for some
time past George has been meditating a return to the land of the
living, and he is glad to seize this opportunity to start at once, thus
obviating all minor hindrances.”
Mme. Dupuis listened silently, her eyes cast down; she had not taken a
seat since her entrance into the room, and she continued standing,
leaning against an arm-chair in front of her guest.
“It is true, then,” she murmured when Rouvière ceased speaking.
“Do you hear him?” cried her tormentor, laughing, as a heavy thump was
heard on the floor of the room above them. “The madcap! what a row he
is making up there with his trunk. He’s dragging it about as if it were
a triumphal car. Come, now, madame, you really ought not to feel
surprised that, after living thirty consecutive years in
Saint-Sauveur-le-Vicomte, a man like George....”
“Do not trouble yourself to enter into any explanations—I understand,”
interrupted Mme. Dupuis dryly. “Where are you taking him?”
“Why, to tell the truth, my dear lady, everywhere; first....”
“For how long a time?” again interrupted the victim.
“How long? Well, a year, perhaps, or two years ... at most. Ah! my dear
Mme. Dupuis, what pleasant hours he is preparing for you,” continued M.
Rouvière, who waxed each minute more and more vainglorious and
jubilant. “How vastly will your remarkable collection of curiosities be
enriched by his few months of travel! He will bring you back a dozen
authentic reliquaries, and as many rosaries, blessed by the Holy Father
himself ... _propria manu_! What say you to that?”
But Mme. Dupuis had ceased to listen; she had thrown herself into the
arm-chair before her and was weeping bitterly. “O my God! my God!” were
the only words she spoke between her sobs.
“Good!” growled Rouvière, scowling at the unhappy woman—“the elegiac
style. Come, now,” he continued, making a step towards her and forcing
himself to speak gently—“come, now, my dear lady, you are not
reasonable. What is all this crying about? A journey. A journey don’t
kill a man; am not I a proof of that? And, good God! sailors’
wives—what do they do? Really, this is too bad; you are placing _me_ in
a most annoying position, madame,” suddenly changing his gentle tone to
one of vexation. “You are rendering my mission excessively painful.”
“Excuse me, sir,” sobbed the stricken wife, raising her wet face for a
moment. “You see I ... I can’t....” She could not go on.
M. Rouvière began to pace the room angrily; his tactics were at a loss,
and he found his task more difficult than he had anticipated; the
little “_provinciale_” did not resemble the old Indian vixen as much as
he had imagined. Presently he stopped in front of the weeping lady.
“You are doing, madame,” said he sternly, “precisely what I was
instructed to tell you George wishes to avoid.”
“Shall I not see him before he goes?” asked Madame Dupuis with a
frightened look, half-rising from her seat as she spoke.
“You shall see him, if you can recover your equanimity,” replied
Rouvière; “if you cannot, it will be better for you and for him not to
meet. His resolution is not to be changed.”
“Oh! I will be calm, I promise you,” exclaimed the wife, great drops
flowing fast down her pale cheeks; “in a few minutes ... give me a few
minutes more.... I cannot ... all at once.... O God! merciful God!”
Again she wept despairingly.
“I am compelled to make the remark, madame,” observed Rouvière harshly,
“that all this despair is quite out of proportion with the cause. The
deuce take it! I’m not carrying your husband off to the war.”
“No, no; I believe that he will come back again,” sobbed Mme. Dupuis,
trying to wipe away her tears.
“You are a pious woman, madame, and now’s the hour to show your piety.
Religion does not consist in only going to church. You are not to think
of yourself solely in this world.”
“But you see, M. Rouvière,” replied the good little woman, making a
great effort to control her emotion, “he’s not accustomed, like you, to
a life of continual fatigue; his health is more delicate than you
suspect. You will take care of him,” she added, suddenly seizing her
enemy’s right hand with both of hers—“you will take care of him, will
you not?”
“Why, certainly, madame, certainly,” answered Rouvière a trifle more
gently; “you may rely on me for that. I promise to bring him back to
you as fresh and rosy as any lad in Cotentin. I give you my word of
honor. You understand me, do you not? But now, I beg you, let us have
no more tears, especially no scene at parting.”
“I will do all you wish me to do.” And Mme. Dupuis forthwith smiled
tearfully on the hard, cold man who had so wantonly upset her
happiness.
“Look,” she cried presently, as she wiped away the last hot drops, “it
can’t be perceived that I have been crying.”
“That’s right, madame; that’s the way! I’ve great esteem for strong,
single-hearted women; for wives who are truly Christian and
self-sacrificing. And now that you’ve recovered your calmness, allow me
to repeat to you that there really never was any reason for such great
grief. What is a year? Gracious heavens! it is nothing. You will
probably spend six months of it with your daughter, and the remaining
six months you will pass here in the midst of your remembrances. George
will not be more than half absent, for everything around you will bring
him constantly before you; you will meet him at every step!”
“Take care, sir, take care!” said Mme. Dupuis, shaking her head at him
with a faint smile, “lest, while you seek to comfort me, you increase
the pain, ... which you cannot understand!”
“I beg your pardon, madame; I understand it perfectly,” replied
Rouvière, an angry gleam lighting up his eyes for an instant, “and I
thought that I was proving to you that I do.”
“O sir! believe me, I wish to cast no reflection either on your
intelligence or your kindness; be quite sure of that!”
“Madame!” exclaimed the gentleman.
“But there _are_ things,” continued Mme. Dupuis, giving at last free
utterance to her feelings—“there _are_ things which are _not_ to be
_guessed_. Have you thought how different your life has been to ours?
You have been very wise; you have never allowed your heart to be bound
by any of those ties whose number and strength are only recognized when
they come to be broken. Yes, you may well say that everything here, the
very hearthstone itself, forms a part of our united lives, of our
remembrances, making our very thoughts the same. Everything around us
loves us, everything is dear to us.... So, at least, I believed until
now! A few minutes ago how dearly I prized the simple objects this room
contains—all so familiar to us both during so many years, all bearing
traces of our habits; each one reminding us of the projects, the
pleasures, the sorrows we have shared together! And now they are
nothing to me—they _can_ be nothing to me but the ruins of a false
happiness, the wrecks of a dream!”
“Really, madame, you exaggerate strangely,” replied Rouvière coldly;
“admitting that this journey throws a shade over the present, the past,
at least, remains intact.”
“You are mistaken, sir,” returned Mme. Dupuis. “This journey is
doubtless not much in itself, but it answers cruelly a question which I
have been accustomed to ask myself in secret nearly all my life: Is
George happy? No, he was not happy; I alone was happy. I know the truth
at last! He was resigned”—she struggled a moment to contain her
emotion—“but he was not happy. And yet my heart—I feel it, I am sure of
it—was worthy of his; in every other respect I was inferior to him, and
I felt it bitterly. What companionship could a mind like his find in
the conversation of a poor, provincial girl, ignorant of everything,
knowing nothing but how to love him?”
“You undervalue yourself,” remarked her attentive listener; “as for me,
I declare that the more I know you, the better I appreciate George’s
choice of a wife.”
“You flatter me, M. Rouvière,” replied Mme. Dupuis, smiling; “you see
me unhappy, and you are generous. I will be so too, and forgive you all
the pain you have occasioned me.... I have hated you for years.”
“Me? Impossible! What had I done to deserve it? But first tell me”—and
his voice was quite kind and gentle—“you feel better now, do you not? I
don’t know how it is, but really you look ten years younger!”
“Possibly,” said Mme. Dupuis, with a quiet smile; “I think that I am a
little feverish—so much the better!”
“Come, come, cheer up! And tell me, now, what painful part have I
played in your existence?”
“Well, M. Rouvière,” she began calmly, but became more and more excited
as she went on, “I need scarcely tell you that every woman, from the
very morrow of her wedding-day, finds herself in presence of a
formidable rival—her husband’s _unmarried_ life. Nor need I explain how
difficult is the task to make him forget all that he has given up for
his wife; how almost impossible it is to allay his regret for the
golden age that is gone—regret which grows stronger as those past days
recede farther and farther into the distance and youth fades away. I,
sir, soon perceived that _your_ name, incessantly on his lips, was
George’s favorite symbol of lost pleasures—the incarnation of all the
illusions of by-gone years. In his dear thoughts _you_ represented
liberty, adventure, and the days of fleeting sorrows and of infinite
hopes; while _I_—I was positive life, paltry domestic economy, and
daily anxiety. _I_ was prose and _you_ were poetry. It was with you
then that I had to struggle, and I did so with all my strength and with
all my soul. Alas! it was in vain; you were stronger than I. Each day
George grew more thoughtful, and it seemed to me as if every one of
those moments of sadness was a triumph for you. How often have I wept
secret tears over my defects, here, seated by this hearthstone, or
under the willow-trees in our little garden! But I was young then, and
God took pity on me and gave me my daughter, and you were overcome.
Now”—her voice fell and she paused a moment—“now the angel of our home
is gone, and victory is once more yours.”
“Who knows?” replied Rouvière, his voice strangely hoarse and
trembling. “The last word is not yet spoken. You are going to see
George. Speak to him. You can still prevent his journey.”
“I have promised you that I will not try to do so,” she answered
gently.
“But I give you back your promise!” cried her guest vehemently. “I will
not be your evil genius. I am abrupt, madame, selfish too,
sometimes—that’s a bachelor’s profession, you know; but I am not
bad—pray, believe it.”
“I do believe it,” she replied, looking him frankly and smilingly in
the eyes, “but I know George. All my efforts would be useless; they
would irritate him, and nothing more. Besides, even if, by dint of
tears, I could keep him at home, I would not do it now. I should only
be adding another new and bitter regret to those which have already
poisoned his life. And my heart would seem to reproach me with my
victory every time that I saw him silent or sad. No; he must go!”
“All you say is true—too true,” said Rouvière after a short pause.
“There is nothing to reply; you are right. But depend on me, madame, to
shorten his absence.”
“I will depend on you; thank you.” She rose from her seat as she spoke
and offered her hand to him. The repentant guest clasped it in both of
his and kissed it, bowing low as he did so. At the same moment a loud
noise as of something falling down the stairs, followed by a great
confusion of tongues, was heard outside.
“My God! what is the matter?” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis, pale as death. “It
is he; I hear his voice!”
She rushed towards the door, but before she could reach it her husband
entered, boiling over with passion, and followed by Marianne.
“You’re an awkward dunce! Be silent, I command you!” he shouted, as the
maid tried to excuse herself. “You can’t make me believe that you find
this trunk, which has nothing but a few shirts in it, too heavy for you
to carry. The stupid creature,” he continued, turning to his wife,
“actually let my trunk roll from the top to the bottom of the
staircase!”
“Well, the fact is,” cried Marianne, “ever since you told me that you
were going to Rome I’ve lost all strength in my arms and legs. I’ve no
strength at all. Going to Rome, indeed! What next?”
“The woman is crazy,” said Dupuis, red with indignation. “What business
is it of yours, I should like to know?”
“I don’t say that it’s my business,” replied the maid, who was as red
and angry as her master, “but, all the same, it’s a queer idea to leave
mistress here all alone, at her age too, while you go to Rome. You’ll
be lucky if you find her again when you come back. _I_ won’t answer for
it.”
“Marianne, take care!” cried Dupuis, who had listened, speechless with
amazement, to his old servant’s impertinence. “You must see that I am
far from pleased.”
“I’m not surprised at that,” returned she; “you’re not pleased with
others, because you’re not pleased with yourself. That’s always the
way.”
“I dismiss you from my service,” cried her master, in a fury.
“Go down stairs directly, Marianne,” said her mistress sternly.
“I dismiss you,” repeated Dupuis; “though they should be the last words
I have to speak in my own house, they shall be obeyed. I dismiss you
from my service! It is your fault also, my dear Reine,” he added when
the maid had gone from the room; “you allow your servants to be too
familiar with you. You see the consequence. I hope you understand that
I have dismissed that woman?”
“Yes, George,” answered the lady gently; “I will settle her wages
to-morrow morning, if you do not change your mind.”
“Change my mind!” exclaimed her husband. “Am I accustomed to change my
mind every five minutes? Am I a weathercock, or do you deem me so
weakened by age that I can submit to be lectured by my own servants?”
“I beg you, dear, not to say another word on the subject. She shall go
away to-morrow. But I want to know, George, if you have all you need.
Let me look into your trunk, will you? Men don’t know much about
wearing-apparel, and when one is travelling the merest trifle that is
missing suffices to put one out of sorts for the whole day. I know that
you can buy whatever you want, but where’s the use when you can avoid
it? And then, too, I wish to make you think of me all the time, you
gadabout!”
“Do as you like, love,” said George; “here are the keys.”
“Well, Tom,” he continued, when the lady had closed the door behind
her, “it seems to me that she received the news very well indeed.”
“Perfectly; do you know, George, your wife possesses some great
qualities?”
“I know she does,” returned Dupuis, looking inquisitively at his
friend’s serious, almost downcast countenance.
“She is shy and excessively timid, and that does her wrong,” went on
Rouvière.
“I told you so, my dear friend,” cried Dupuis eagerly. “She was afraid
of you at dinner. Now, I would bet any sum that, the ice once broken,
you hardly recognized her.”
“It is true. Under the influence of deep emotion—for I will not conceal
that she was at first very much affected—she found expressions,
directly from her heart, which astonished me.”
“She has plenty of heart, that’s certain!” exclaimed the gratified
husband.
“And you may add,” said his friend, “that she possesses a most refined
and elevated mind.”
“I know it, Tom—I know it well!” cried Dupuis with delight. “I’m not a
blockhead, hey? Do you suppose that I should have married her, if I had
not known all that? And if it had to be done again, I should do it
again. I am not only happy in the woman I have chosen, Tom, but I am
proud of her! She has some slight defects—I see them as well as any
one—but, bless me! of what consequence is a little awkwardness, or
perhaps a few parish prejudices, when you find in the same woman the
most self-sacrificing tenderness, the most exquisite good sense and
uprightness, the most fervent and unassuming piety—in short, all the
virtues that can captivate an honest man?”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Rouvière, slapping him caressingly on the shoulder.
“An honest man—there you are! Well, well! all right.”
“What do you mean?” asked Dupuis, astonished.
“I mean,” replied Rouvière, “that the conclusion of your little speech
is perfectly clear: thinking better about our journey, and estimating
more coolly the value of the treasure that remains in the house, you
have lost the courage to leave it. In short, you are about to let me go
away alone.... I can understand perfectly that it should be so.”
“But I swear ...” cried Dupuis.
“Say no more, say no more,” interrupted his friend. “I understand it
all perfectly, I tell you.”
“You _mis_understand, you mean,” said Dupuis angrily. “I have never,
for one moment, forgotten my wife’s good qualities, but, were she ten
times the saint she is, it is not less true that I have been living the
life of a snail. Good heavens! I shall be better able to appreciate her
many virtues when no consciousness of intellectual degradation is
present to spoil my enjoyment.”
“You are too absurd, George! You make me laugh with your ‘intellectual
degradation.’”
“You did not laugh half an hour ago,” retorted Dupuis, “when you
depicted it in colors ... well, in colors which not even your
friendship for me could soften.”
“Is it possible that you did not perceive that I was jesting? How
singular it is that there’s not an intelligent man in France who, if he
is condemned to live in the provinces, far from Paris, does not fancy
that he is becoming idiotic! I had a presentiment that you suffered
from this monomania, and I amused myself by exciting it. I had been
drinking, you know; let that be my excuse.”
“However that may be,” answered Dupuis, a cold, stubborn expression
stealing over his face and fixing itself there, “I am more than ever
resolved to travel; if I hesitated before, I do so no longer. I confess
that I was afraid of the effect my intention would produce on my wife,
but her calmness removes all my scruples.”
“Listen to me, George, I beg you,” replied his friend earnestly: “don’t
trust too much to appearances; your wife affects a firmness she is far
from feeling. I know....”
“_You know_!” interrupted Dupuis. “You know that you begin to think
that I shall be in your way, and so you want to cast me over.”
“No, George, no—nothing of the kind. You don’t understand me. I
sincerely believed, from what you said, that you had changed your mind.
I thought that I was anticipating your wishes in giving back your
promise to go with me. But if you really persist in your intentions,
all right ... I am delighted.”
“Here are the horses,” bawled Marianne, opening the door suddenly and
then shutting it with a bang.
“That old woman would take my life, if she could,” said Rouvière,
laughing. “Now, then,” he continued, taking up his cloak, “let’s gird
up our loins. By the bye, I think I remember that you never can sleep
in a coach.”
“I beg your pardon, I can sleep perfectly well.”
“So much the better. _Allons!_ Bravo! Are the horses put to, I wonder?
Does this window look out upon the street?” Rouvière opened the sash as
he spoke, but closed it quickly. “What a wind! It’s terrible—cold
enough to split a rock! Now I think of it, one of the glasses of the
post-chaise is broken. I’m afraid you’ll be frozen to death, George.”
“Don’t trouble yourself about me,” replied Dupuis, putting on his
overcoat. “I can bear cold like a Laplander.”
“All right!”
The clock at this moment struck nine, and Madame Dupuis entered the
room, carrying a soft India shawl suspended from her arm. The poor lady
was very pale.
“Everything is ready,” she said with a trembling voice, “and here are
your keys, dear. You will see that I have added some few little things
that you had forgotten. And here is a comforter for you. I’ve cut my
old cashmere shawl in two, and half of it will be very nice to wrap
round your throat; it is very warm.”
“How foolish of you to cut up your shawl!” cried Dupuis. “However,
since ’tis done, I accept; but it really was very foolish of you.”
“Here is the other half for you, M. Rouvière,” said madame, presenting
it with a kind smile.
“For me!” cried Rouvière, taking it from her with respectful eagerness.
“Thank you, thank you most sincerely!”
“You will remember your promises, will you not?” asked the lady gently,
fixing her eyes on his.
Rouvière bowed and turned away abruptly.
“You will write to our daughter, George? You will not fail?”
“I will write to her—to both of you—often, often,” answered George in a
husky voice, and pulling his travelling-cap over his eyes.
“The 12th of January!” suddenly exclaimed Rouvière, who was warming his
feet at the fire, while he examined an almanac placed on the
chimney-piece. “Is it really the 12th of January to-day?”
“It really is,” replied Mme. Dupuis. “Why do you ask? Is there any
particular remembrance attached to that date?”
“It is a date which interests me only,” replied Rouvière in a tone of
infinite sadness. “Five years ago this very evening, almost at this
same hour, I was passing through an ordeal I shall never forget. Now,
George, _are_ you ready?” he added with abrupt impatience.
“What kind of an ordeal? What had happened to you? An accident?” asked
George, with intense interest.
“No, not an accident, but I was very ill, which is always a
misfortune—and ill in an inn, which is horrible.”
“People are ill everywhere,” remarked Dupuis sententiously.
“True; but the impressions made on you by sickness and death vary
according to the circumstances in which they surprise you; you can
scarcely conceive how much, unless you have had the experience.”
“Pshaw! death is death under all circumstances; it is always equally
unpleasant!” cried Dupuis.
“Ah! you think that.... I should like to have seen you.... Well, I’ll
tell you my story. It happened at Peschiera, on the Lago di Guardia—a
lovely country; we’ll pass through it, and I’ll show you the house. I
was detained there by a fever of a somewhat pernicious character. All
went on well, however, during eight days—for I was delirious the whole
time, and knew nothing of what was passing—till one fine evening, the
evening of the 12th of January, when I suddenly came to myself, so weak
in body, so anxious in spirit, and at the same time with such an
extraordinary lucidity of mind that I felt convinced I was at the point
of death. I have passed through many bitter moments in the course of my
life—cruel moments—which nevertheless I can think of now with a kind of
pleasure; but when I recall to mind my awakening in that inn-chamber, a
cold shiver runs through me; I shudder!”
Rouvière paused as Marianne entered the room; Mme. Dupuis signed to her
imperatively not to interrupt, and the maid remained standing near the
door.
“What did you see that could make such a fearful impression on you?”
asked George, moving a little nearer to his friend.
“Nothing very horrible; only some people who were waiting for me to
die, an old woman and a young doctor who were conversing together in a
corner, and a priest who was kneeling at the foot of my bed.
“They formed to my eye a picture whose accessories were the dirty,
faded curtains of the couch on which I was stretched and the tarnished,
heterogeneous furniture of a lodging-house. But the ignoble
surroundings, the preparations for death even, caused me no emotion;
what revolted me—stirred up my very soul to protest—was the neglect,
the brutal lack of charity—saving the presence of the priest—the
desolate isolation, the void of all human sympathy in which I
_realized_ that I was at that moment dying. How distinctly I can
recollect the pitiful, suppliant look with which I gazed around me, as
if trying to interlink the life that was escaping me with _any_, the
slightest, earthly object; as if seeking to discover some sign of
interest, of pity even, in the impassible faces which looked so calmly
on me! My agonized heart longed for _any_ trifle—a picture, a vase, a
chair—which had _known_ me, and to which I could say farewell. But all
was strange.”
“Death never _can_ be agreeable,” remarked Dupuis crabbedly. “When the
last hour is upon us it is dismal to be alone, I don’t say the
contrary; but I can’t see that it is more cheerful to be surrounded by
a weeping family.”
“I think that you would have felt as _I_ felt then,” replied Rouvière
with melancholy gravity; “the death which God has ordained for men—the
death which most men die, which finds consolation and resignation in
the tears of tender regret shed by loving friends—that death appeared
to me, in my solitary agony, like a sweet, untroubled feast.... I made
many a singular reflection that night! But come, George, are you
ready?”
“When you will; ... but, first, what were your reflections?”
“Well, to tell you the truth, I lost somewhat of my self-sufficiency.
And then I congratulated myself a little less on the path I had chosen
for my life’s journey. Why not say it? The book of life seemed suddenly
to be opened before me, and I read on every page, traced by God’s own
hand, the words ‘duty and sacrifice.’ I had rejected that law. Hitherto
I had only seen its hardships; now I recognized its benefits. I had
avoided its bonds that I might live independently, and exile and
isolation had been my lot. I had fancied that, by escaping the usual
dull routine of humble duties, I should win for myself a happiness
unknown—pleasures inconceivable to the vulgar crowd. Alas! I found that
I had experienced nothing save a loveless youth, a solitary old age,
and an unlamented death. Then, George—_then_ I understood what an
erroneous price we pay for the indulgence of our selfishness.”
“Were you long in this agitated state?” asked Dupuis.
“Long enough for it to be indelibly impressed on my memory,” replied
his friend. “When the young physician perceived that I was looking at
him, he arose and approached me, and I felt the touch of his hand, cold
and indifferent as his heart. I pushed it away and closed my eyes. And
then a vision of my father’s death-bed flashed before me, distinct and
clear. I saw again, grouped around it, the faithful friends of his
youth—our ancient servants, the old doctor, the white-haired priest,
and, dearest of all, my mother, my good mother. They leaned over him,
they wiped his damp brow, they smiled at him through their tears; they
had gladdened his life, and they were beside him now, to cheer and
sustain him as he passed away! My dried-up heart melted within me as I
gazed on this vision of a scene I had long since ceased to recall, and
I burst into tears; they saved me!”
Rouvière stopped, overpowered by his emotion, and, covering his eyes
with his hand, leant forward against the mantle-shelf.
“These recollections are too painful,” said Dupuis gently.
“They _are_ painful,” replied Rouvière, his voice hoarse and trembling,
“and everything I see around me here awakens them. Oh! how alike these
old houses are,” he continued, speaking to himself and looking around
the room. “All this is familiar to me. There stood my mother’s little
work-table near the window, just as that is—I always found her seated
at it when I came home for a holiday—and there, in the chimney-corner,
was the great arm-chair in which my father always sat. And the family
portraits looked down from the walls just as these do. There, as here,
the trace of two lives closely entwined, never to be separated, was
visible everywhere. Why did I not learn by their example? Why was I
compelled to drag my weary, vagrant life, my unceasing remorse, all
over the wide world, ere I could comprehend that they were happy? Did
_they_ know that they were happy? I doubt it. How often I have heard my
father speak with envy of the very pleasures I have found so hollow!
How often they confided to me their mutual grievances! And yet when one
went the other could not stay. Dear old father! dearest mother!”
“My dear friend!” whispered George.
“And I,” continued Rouvière, with increasing emotion—“I sold their home
as soon as it was empty—I had the heart to do that! I sold the room
where I was born; I sold all our family traditions; I sold the ancient,
faithful friendships which seemed to adhere to the house and soil. I
alienated my patrimony.... I riveted the chain of egotism I was so
eagerly forging. I did my work well; no kind care, no friendly
companionship will ever be the solace of _my_ old age. I have nothing
to offer in return—not even the bribe of a legacy. I cannot even buy
back that humble home; my last days may not be sheltered by those walls
whose very shadows I have learned to love. I may not even die there.
Come! let us go,” he added with vehemence, dashing away the tears which
suddenly inundated his face.
“Yes, Tom, we will go”—and George seized his friend’s hand—“we will go,
if you refuse to accept a brother’s place by my fireside. And you,
Reine,” he said, turning to his wife, “dry your tears and forget this
hour’s ingratitude. It was the first; it shall be the last!”
“O George, my husband!” sobbed the sweet little woman as she gave him
the kiss of pardon; then, approaching Rouvière with gentle grace, she
said softly and beseechingly:
“Will not the happiness you have restored to us tempt you to remain
with us? We should be so glad to share it with you!”
“Madame, dear, good friends,” stammered the guest.... “O George! you
have caught me in the very snare I spread for you.”
He sank into a chair, overcome by his emotion, while George and Reine
stood by him, clasping his hands in theirs. “Oh!” sighed he at last,
“it is too sweet a dream for such a forlorn wretch as I am.”
“He will stay with us!” exclaimed Mme. Dupuis joyfully.
“And I will go and make his bed in the best blue chamber,” cried
Marianne, wiping her eyes with her apron. The poor girl had been
standing quietly near the door, an involuntary listener, during almost
the whole of Rouvière’s confession.
“What! the deuce! Marianne!” growled Rouvière, rising hastily from his
seat.
“I’m going to make your bed, sir!” cried Marianne, in great good-humor.
“Very well, then; but don’t let the head be lower than the heels, my
good creature, as you house-maids generally manage it. Slope it down
gently from head to foot, mind you, and....” He stopped a moment, then
smilingly resumed: “Make it as you will, Marianne; I’m sure it will be
first-rate. You see,” he added, turning toward his hosts when Marianne
had left the room, “how this disgusting egotism crops up incessantly;
... you must try to cure me of it. Oh! what a rest I’m going to have
now,” he exclaimed as he threw himself on the sofa.... “Madame, dear
madame, will you do me a favor? I know what the pains of exile are by
sad experience—pray, let the cat come in!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE RECENT PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CONVENTION AND CONGRESS.
This convention, which met in Boston on the 3d of October and continued
in session for twenty days, was the triennial “Convention of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.” The
bishops sat in a house by themselves and conducted their proceedings in
secret, following in this the precedent of the Anglican Church as well
as the custom of the Roman Catholic Church in its provincial and
plenary councils. The House of Deputies consisted of one hundred and
eighty clergymen and one hundred and eighty laymen, representing
forty-five dioceses, and eight clergymen and eight laymen representing
eight “missionary jurisdictions.” These sat in public, and a verbatim
report of their proceedings is before us. Among the lay delegates were
several gentlemen of national fame—the Hons. John W. Maynard, of
Pennsylvania; Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, the Democratic candidate
for the Vice-Presidency at the recent election; John W. Stevenson, of
Kentucky; John W. Hunter and L. Bradford Prince, of Long Island; Gen.
C. C. Augur, U. S. Army; Daniel R. Magruder and Montgomery Blair, of
Maryland; Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts; General J. H. Simpson,
U. S. Army; Hamilton Fish, Cambridge Livingston, and W. A. Davies, of
New York; Morrison R. Waite, of Ohio; and Geo. W. Thompson and Richard
Parker, of Virginia. It is not probable that any of the other sects
could marshal laymen like these to sit in its councils. We mention
their names because the list affords some explanation of the fact that
the social and political influence of the Protestant Episcopalians is
vastly out of proportion to their numerical strength. At a preliminary
session, the bishops and deputies being together, Dr. Williams, the
Bishop of Connecticut, preached a sermon in which he introduced a
subject that subsequently occupied much of the attention of the
convention—“the most threatening social evil of our time, the growing
lack of sympathy between different classes and individuals of such
classes.” “To-day,” he said, “we see great chasms opening everywhere
because of this, which threatens church and state alike with sad
disaster.” And he added:
“I think those chasms are more entirely unrelieved and ghastly
in this country than in almost any other. I know that we have
not been wont so to think or speak, and I know that to say this
involves some chance of incurring severe displeasure; but I
fully believe it to be true. In most lands there are things—I
speak of things outside of Christian sympathies and labors—that
somewhat bridge over these threatening severances. There are
ancient memories; ancestral offices and ministries that in
their long continuance have almost become binding laws;
relations, long enduring, of patronage and clientship; and many
other things besides. With us—we may as well face the
fact—those things have, for the most part, no existence. The
one only helping thing we have—still apart from what was just
alluded to—is political equality. And how much virtue has that
shown itself to have in pressing exigencies and emergencies?
When, all at once, in the late summer months, that yawning
chasm opened at our feet which appeared to threaten nearly
everything in ordinary life, how little there seemed to be to
turn to! There stood on either side contending forces in
apparently irreconcilable opposition, and everywhere we heard
the cry about rights! rights! rights! till nothing else was
heard. If some few voices dared to speak of duties they were
lost in the angry clamor. And yet those voices must be heard.
Those words about duty on the one side and the other must be
listened to, if ever we are to have more than an armed truce
between these parties—a truce which may at any time burst out
into desolating strife.”
Dr. Williams’ remedy was, of course, that the Protestant Episcopalians
should teach the people their duties. To do this, however, they must
first get the hearing of the people. But this is just what they have
failed to get, and will always fail in getting—certainly so long as
they provide fine churches with eloquent preachers for the rich, and a
very different order of preachers and churches for the poor. The
Catholic Church, before whose altars all distinctions of earthly rank
and position disappear, can and does teach the people what their duties
are, and she does it with effect, since her priests speak with
authority and by virtue of an incontestably divine commission—two
things quite unknown among the sects. This is what Rev. Hugh Thompson
felt and acknowledged when, in the Episcopal Church Congress held in
this city, he said:
“What is the worth of a church in this world except as a moral
teacher—except this: to get the Ten Commandments kept on earth?
The church canons are usually busy with questions affecting
garments, gestures, postures, and the orthodoxy of the
Prayer-Book, but rarely do we find any moral legislation. There
are plenty of instructions to the clergy and bishops, and we
are led to think what a wicked lot of people these clergy and
bishops must be to need all these laws, and what a good and
pious laity we must have when they have no need of such
legislation! The church gives no real expression of opinion on
the complicated questions of marriage, so that one minister may
bless a union while another would not do so under any
circumstances. Is it right that the church should evade such
responsibilities as these? The church must place itself plainly
on record. The church must be to a millionaire and beggar the
same, must demand equal justice for all—for the railway
president and the railway brakeman, for the worshipper in the
gilded temple and in the ordinary meeting-house. Such a church,
with the courage and fearlessness and ability to tell and
enforce the eternal truth, without fear or favor, is what this
country is waiting for, and would have an influence here
unequalled since the days of Athanasius.”
The first two days of the convention were spent chiefly in rather
unseemly discussions upon a proposition to print fifteen hundred copies
of Dr. Williams’ sermon, to appoint a committee “to consider the
importance of the practical principles enunciated in it,” and in
attempts to begin a debate upon three amendments to the constitution
proposed three years ago by the last convention. Much interest was
excited by some remarks by the Rev. Dr. Harwood, of Connecticut, who
thought that one of the most pressing duties of the convention would be
the invention of a method whereby clergymen who had grown tired of
their work might be retired without incurring disgrace. It is curious
to observe how the Catholic doctrine, “once a priest always a priest,”
still lingers among the laity of this Protestant body, while its
clergymen, or some of them, seem anxious to destroy it. Dr. Harwood
complained that although at present the regulations of his church
permitted any clergyman to “withdraw from the ministry for causes not
affecting his moral character,” nevertheless “somewhat of a stigma
rests upon the man, and people may even point to his children and say,
‘There go the children of a disgraced clergyman.’” This state of things
was found to be “a grievous burden”; for there were numbers of good
fellows who feel that “they are out of place in the ministry of the
Protestant Episcopal Church,” and who still continue in that service
because they fear to incur disgrace by leaving it. Dr. Harwood drew a
pitiful picture of the condition of these unhappy persons: “They may
have changed their minds about some doctrine; they may believe too much
or too little; they may be drifting towards a blank unbelief or towards
a wretched superstition; they may feel that they have mistaken their
calling and cannot do their work, for neither their hearts nor their
minds are in it.” We agree with Dr. Harwood that his church would be
better off without such parsons; and it is sad to record that his
proposition, looking towards the adoption of a cheap and easy, although
“honorable,” method of getting rid of them, was not finally successful.
On the third day of the convention the Rev. Dr. De Koven, of Wisconsin,
brought forward the question of changing the name of the Protestant
Episcopal Church. This proposition was made in the interest of that
section of it which follows the Anglican ritualists. This section has a
real or affected horror of the word “Protestant”; its members wish to
persuade themselves that they are Catholics—and the wish is very
natural and most praiseworthy—but they are resolved never to seek the
reality and yield to the living authority of the Catholic Church. In
order to avoid this submission, they set up the claim that they are
themselves the Catholic Church, or rather “a branch” of it. To make
this claim a little less absurd the elimination of the word
“Protestant” would be advisable; and for some time past, it appears, an
industrious propaganda for this purpose has been carried on. Certain of
the bishops, many of the clergymen, and a number of the journals of the
Protestant Episcopalians have been enlisted in the proposed “reform,”
and its advocates mustered all their forces in the convention. Dr. De
Koven introduced the matter by reading a paper adopted in the diocese
of Wisconsin last June, and moving a resolution. The paper was as
follows:
“_Whereas_, The American branch of the Catholic Church
universal [_sic_] includes in its membership all baptized
persons in this land; and
“_Whereas_, The various bodies of professing Christians, owing
to her first legal title, do not realize that the church known
in law as the ‘Protestant Episcopal Church’ is, in very deed
and truth, the American branch of the one Catholic Church of
God; therefore, be it
“_Resolved_, That the deputies to the General Convention from
this diocese be requested to ask of the General Convention the
appointment of a constitutional commission, to which the
question of a change of the legal title of the church, as well
as similar questions, may be referred.”
Dr. De Koven accordingly presented a motion for the appointment of this
commission and moved its reference to the Committee on Constitutional
Amendments. The absurd side of the assumptions made in the preamble is
apparent; but the ridicule and scorn which they excite should not blind
one to the arrogant claim therein set up. It is laughable to assert
that a sect with less than 270,000 communicants, and with a history of
less than a century, claims as its members all the baptized persons in
the United States, including seven or eight millions of Roman
Catholics; it is still more ludicrous to be told that the reason why we
and all the other “baptized persons” do not recognize this sect as our
mother the church is that up to this time she has chosen to call
herself by a false name. The name—the name’s the thing wherewith to
catch the conscience of the people! Let us only call ourselves
something else, and then “all the baptized persons in this
land”—Papists, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, Mormons, and all
the rest—will hasten to exclaim, “Our long-lost mother! Behold your
children!” This is the ludicrous side of the business, and it is funny
enough. The serious side of it is the fact that a claim so arrogant
should be seriously presented in a convention composed of respectable,
and in some cases eminent, American gentlemen. Let us see what became
of it.
Dr. De Koven’s motion immediately caused an animated debate. An attempt
to get rid of it by laying it on the table was lost; and after a
disorderly and heated discussion, in which the president seemed
occasionally to lose his head, the motion for reference to the
committee was carried. On the eighth day of the session the committee,
through Mr. Hamilton Fish, reported that it was “inexpedient to
institute any commission to revise and amend the constitution of the
church,” for the reason, among others, that such a commission would be
unlimited in its powers and might upset everything. On the tenth day
another committee, to whom had been “referred certain memorials and
papers looking to a change in the legal title of the church,” reported
that such a change might impair the legal right of property in the
several dioceses, and that it would be better to make no change. The
two reports came up for decision on the twelfth day of the session, and
the ball was opened by Dr. De Koven in a long and clever speech. He
proposed the adoption of a new resolution providing for the appointment
of a commission to consider and report upon the best method of
“removing apparent ambiguities,” and “the setting forth our true
relations to the Anglican communion as well as to the whole Catholic
Church.” He drew a very curious and not at all a pleasant picture of
his church as at present constituted. So far as the laity are
concerned, anybody may be a lay member, if he “merely goes to church a
few times a year” and pays money for the support of the minister. “He
need not be baptized; he need not be confirmed; he need not be a
communicant. He may even be Jew, Turk, or infidel, if you please,
_provided he has the money qualification which makes up the franchise
of the church_.” Here, indeed, is a pitiable state of things; a society
composed of unbaptized persons can scarcely be called a Christian
association. “Underneath it all,” Dr. De Koven went on to say, “lies
this money qualification. The parish elects its vestry, and its vestry
need not be communicants. The vestry and parish elect the lay delegates
to the diocesan convention, and they need not be communicants. The
diocesan convention elects the lay members of the standing committees,
and they need not be communicants.” The truth is that the ruling laymen
of the sect need not be, and probably are not, Christians at all, and
that they “run the machine” for social and political purposes, just as
they would manage a club or a political party. If the laymen are of
this stripe, what can be said of the priests? “Like people, like
priest,” said Dr. De Koven; “As you go through the land and witness the
sorrow, the trials, the degradation of the parochial clergy, you are
quite well aware that underneath all lies this simoniacal taint.” The
bishops are almost in as sad a state. Their councils of advice are the
standing committees; these may be composed of unbaptized men, and the
bishops have no voice in their nomination; and “thus you have the
marvellous spectacle of a bishop sitting at the head of his diocesan
synod, but bound by laws which that synod (possibly composed of
non-Christians) makes, and in the making of which he has had no voice
whatever, either of assent or dissent.” It could scarcely be supposed,
however, that evils so great as these would be removed simply by a
change of name, and Dr. De Koven found himself at last willing to admit
as much. He was willing, he said, to go on for a while longer with the
old name, although as long as it was retained such evil consequences
would follow. But he insisted that “the day will come when this church
shall demand, not that an accident of its condition, not that a part of
its organization, should represent it to the world, but that its
immortal lineage shall represent it.”
The church may demand what it pleases, and may call itself by whatever
name it chooses to invent; but its history is written and cannot be
changed. Men will always know that it is the daughter of that creature
whose father was Henry VIII. and whose nursing mother was Queen
Elizabeth. A delegate from Illinois pleaded for the change of name, for
the reason that he was tired of saying on Sundays, “I believe in the
Holy Catholic Church,” and all the rest of the week, “I believe in the
Protestant Episcopal Church.” Mr. Hamilton Fish declared that it was
“too late to change the name of Protestant Episcopal,” and that if the
sect was not Protestant it was nothing. His great objection, however,
was that if the change were made the church would be in danger of
losing its property. Finally, on the thirteenth day of the session, the
resolution for the appointment of the constitutional committee to
consider this and other changes was voted down by a vote of 16 to 51;
and a separate resolution, that no change should be made in the name of
the church at present, was carried by an almost unanimous vote.
The convention also touched upon marriage and divorce, but rather
gingerly. The House of Bishops passed a resolution repealing the
present canon on this subject, and adopting the following in its place:
“SECTION 1. If any persons be joined together otherwise than as
God’s Word doth allow, their marriage is not lawful.
“SEC. 2. No minister of this church shall solemnize matrimony
in any case where there is a divorced wife or husband of either
party still living, and where the divorce was obtained for some
cause arising after marriage; but this canon shall not be held
to apply to the innocent party in a divorce for the cause of
adultery, or to parties once divorced seeking to be united
again.
“SEC. 3. If any minister of this church shall have reasonable
cause to doubt whether a person desirous of being admitted to
holy baptism, or to confirmation, or to the holy communion, has
been married otherwise than as the word of God and discipline
of this church allow, such minister, before receiving such
person to these ordinances, shall refer the case to the bishop
for his godly judgment thereupon; _provided_, however, that no
minister in any case refuse the sacrament to a penitent person
_in extremis_.
“SEC. 4. No minister of this church shall present for
confirmation or administer the holy sacraments to any person
divorced, for any cause arising after marriage, or married
again to another in violation of this canon, or during the
lifetime of such divorced wife or husband; but this prohibition
shall not extend to the innocent party where the divorce has
been for the cause of adultery, nor to any truly penitent
person.
“SEC. 5. Questions touching the facts of any case arising under
this canon shall be referred to the bishop of the diocese, or,
if there be a vacancy in the episcopate, then to some bishop
designated by the Standing Committee, who shall thereupon make
enquiry by a commissionary or otherwise, and deliver his godly
judgment in the premises.
“SEC. 6. This canon, so far as it affixes penalties, does not
apply to cases occurring before its taking effect, according to
canon iv., title iv.”
From the Roman Catholic point of view there are at least two objections
to this canon. There is no authority pointed out whereby it may be
decided what it is that “God’s word doth allow” respecting marriage;
and the permission for the re-marriage of one of the parties in a
divorce is repugnant to the rule of the church, and could not for a
moment be assented to by any one who holds the Catholic and Christian
doctrine of marriage. In the debate upon the canon it was urged that
the second section could not be enforced among the Indians nor among
the negroes; and some of the clergymen objected to the section which
provides for the reference of doubtful cases to the bishop. Especial
ridicule was cast upon the sixth section, which, as one delegate
expressed it, asserts that “the longer a man has continued in sin the
less sin he has.” More than one clerical delegate, on the other hand,
lifted up his voice in favor of “greater freedom in the matter,” and
they drew pathetic pictures of the sad condition of a woman divorced
from her husband for incompatibility of temper, for example, and, under
this canon, unable to marry again. But at length the canon was passed.
Our readers can scarcely be expected to take much interest in the other
proceedings of the convention. There was a debate, lasting through
several days, upon a proposed canon for the creation and development of
orders of deaconesses, or “sisterhoods,” in imitation of our own
societies of holy women. The bishops wished to retain strict control
over these possible organizations; the lower house desired them to be
left quite free, or subject only to the supervision of the parish
clergyman. The two houses could not agree, and the matter was dropped.
A still more tedious debate arose from propositions for the adoption of
a “shortened service,” lay preaching, and the permissible use of the
English Lectionary. There was very little talk about dogma; and it is
noticeable that the quarrels between the Ritualists and the
Evangelicals were kept entirely suppressed during the convention. The
only doctrinal breeze which animated the gathering was caused by the
introduction of a paper by Mr. Judd, of Illinois, which, on the whole,
is so queer that we reproduce it here:
“_Whereas_, A majority of the bishops of the Anglican communion
at the Lambeth Conference, held in the year of our Lord 1867,
while solemnly ‘professing the faith delivered to us in Holy
Scripture, maintained in the primitive church and by the
fathers of the English Reformation,’ did also ‘express the deep
sorrow with which we view the divided condition of the flock of
Christ throughout the world, ardently longing for the
fulfilment of the prayer of our Lord, “that all may be one,”’
and did furthermore ‘solemnly record’ and set forth the means
by which ‘that unity will be more effectually promoted’; and
“_Whereas_, The Lambeth declaration was not only signed by all
the nineteen American bishops then and there present, but the
whole House of Bishops, at the General Convention of 1868, also
formally resolved that they ‘cordially united in the language
and spirit’ of the same; and
“_Whereas_, Our fervent prayer, daily offered, ‘that all who
profess and call themselves Christians may hold the faith in
unity of spirit,’ cannot receive fulfilment unless there be a
clear and steadfast clinging to ‘the faith once for all
delivered to the Saints’; and
“_Whereas_, The restoration of this ‘unity of spirit’ in the
apostolic ‘bond of peace’ among all the Christian people, for
which we thus daily pray, ought also to be the object of our
most earnest efforts; and
“_Whereas_, This unity manifestly cannot be restored by the
submission of all other parts to any one part of the divided
body of Christ, but must be reached by the glad reunion of all
in that faith which was held by all before the separation of
corrupt times began; and
“_Whereas_, The venerable documents in which the undisputed
councils summed up the Catholic faith are not easily accessible
to many of the clergy, and have never been fully set forth to
our laity in a language ‘understanded of the people’; therefore
“_Resolved_, by the House of Deputies of the Protestant
Episcopal Church in the United States of America, That a
memorial be presented to the Lambeth Conference at its second
session, expressing our cordial thanks for the action of its
first session in 1867, in which it enjoined upon us all the
promotion of unity ‘_by maintaining the faith in its purity and
integrity, as taught by the Holy Scriptures, held by the
primitive church, summed up in the creeds, and affirmed by the
undisputed general councils_’; and, in furtherance of the good
work thus recommended and enjoined, we humbly request the said
Lambeth Conference, by a joint commission of learned divines,
or otherwise, to provide for the setting forth of an accurate
and authentic version, in the English language, of the creeds
and the other acts of the said undisputed general councils
concerning the faith thus proclaimed by them, as the standards
of orthodox belief for the whole church.
“_Resolved, also_, That the House of Bishops be respectfully
requested to take order that this memorial shall be duly laid
before the next session of the Lambeth Conference by the hand
of such of its members as may be present thereat.”
The debate on this paper was somewhat amusing. It was pointed out that
rather serious consequences might follow the general dissemination of
“an accurate and authentic version, in the English language, of the
creeds and the other acts of the said undisputed general councils
concerning the faith”; and the awful question was asked, “Who is to
decide how many undisputed councils there have been?” But at last the
preamble and resolution were adopted, and we congratulate our
Protestant Episcopalian brethren upon that decision. Many of
them—clergymen as well as laymen—said they did not know what even the
first six œcumenical councils had decided. If they now acquire this
knowledge, they will learn enough to convince them that they are living
in heresy, and that their first duty is to seek for admission into the
church.
“The Church Congress,” which commenced its sessions in New York on the
30th of October and continued to sit for four days, was in some degree
a supplement to the “convention.” At the congress, however, nothing was
to be _done_; affairs were simply to be talked about. In four days much
can be said: the papers read and the speeches made before the Congress
will make a large volume when collected. A Catholic would arise from
their perusal with a feeling of profound melancholy. He would see the
blind leading the blind and tumbling into the ditch. In Protestantism
the opinion of one man is as good as that of another; views the most
discordant may be expressed on the same platform, and there is no
arbiter to pronounce with infallible voice what is truth. In the
congress, for instance, several of its clerical members took occasion
to lavish praises upon the Roman Catholic Church—one of them declared
that the true spirit of the Roman Catholic Church had always been
“tender, true, and noble”; another, a bishop, extolled the work of our
missionaries among the Indians, saying that they “had done the best
work,” and that their conduct was in glorious contrast with that of the
missionaries of the sects, who acted too often like “carpet-baggers.”
These declarations did not prevent other members when speaking from
indulging in bitter denunciations of “Romanism.” Bishop Potter, at the
opening of the congress, warned the members that they must not expect
to settle anything; the only good to be expected from their discussions
was such as might follow the interchange of opinion. A discussion on
church architecture was ended by a minister who said that churches
should be built wholly with respect to acoustics, and that the ideal
church would be a plain hall where the voice of the preacher could be
distinctly heard. The question of the relation of the church to the
state and to society was discussed at much length—some of the speakers
arguing for a union of church and state, and others advocating strict
abstinence on the part of the church from all political affairs. Bishop
Littlejohn, of Long Island, declared that
“The most urgent duty of the church to the nation was first to
vindicate its moral fitness to sway all in and around it. It
should show that its charter was divine. It should be able to
say to the grosser personality of the nation, ‘Come up higher;
this is the way, walk ye in it.’ The first duty of the church
to the national life was to put its own house in order. Again,
the church having elevated itself to the level whence it had a
right to teach and authority to guide, its habitual attention
should not be diverted from its great duties to society and to
the nation. The church’s best work was at the root and upon the
sap of the social tree of life, not with the withered and dead
branches. It was here that the church was to exercise its
highest functions upon society and upon the nation. Let it keep
before it that one of its highest duties was to show, both to
society and the individual, that they did not derive their
personality from each other, but from God. There was a warrant
for such teaching, for it rested upon a theological principle.
Humanity, in the genuine whole and in the individual man, had
its foundation in Christ, and, therefore, for each there was
infinite sacredness, even in Christ himself. But the church had
instructions for society, and especially for American society.
It had some teaching for those who in dreams and in revolutions
cried out for liberty, equality, and fraternity. By how many
was this cry raised, even to those who would have no sloping
sides, no top, but all bottom to the social pyramid! It seemed
that that was a cry which the church might answer. Liberty,
equality, fraternity! The land was full of false idols under
those names. The perversion was of man; the movement itself was
of God. The perversion could be brought about by forgetting the
movement itself. God in Christ not only willed that all men
should be free and equal, but he told them in what sense and
how they were to become so. It was by the ministry of the word,
not by the sword, not by the law, not by abstract speculation,
that man was to learn what these things were for which he so
thirsted. Modern society and the Gospel must be reconciled, and
to do this there was no competent authority except the church.”
Bishop Littlejohn, when speaking of “the church,” has in his mind his
own body. That society can never accomplish the work he points out; men
know that it has no authority to teach them, and those who speak in its
name speak with divided and inconsistent voices. The church of God,
however, can do this work and is doing it. She has no need “to
vindicate her moral fitness” or to “elevate herself to the level whence
she has a right to teach and authority to guide.” She had all this done
for her eighteen hundred years ago, when her divine charter was given
her. And that charter never has been and never will be revoked.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE _CIVILTA CATTOLICA_ ON THE FORTIFICATIONS OF ROME.
There is no European periodical which treats of the great political
movements of the day with more complete knowledge and consummate
ability and sagacity than the _Civiltà Cattolica_, especially in
respect to all that has a bearing on the Roman question. In the number
of October 6 an article of great interest takes up the topic of the
fortifications around Rome and Civita Vecchia which have been ordered
by the Italian government, and casts some light on the motives which
have induced the persons at the head of Victor Emanuel’s administration
to adopt this extraordinary measure.
The pretext put forth, that it is necessary to protect Rome against
armed invasion by the reactionary party of the _clericals_, is so
ridiculous that it has deceived no one, but has excited the ridicule
even of the Italian liberals. But one probable and credible reason can
be given for an undertaking involving such a great expenditure at a
time when the finances of the state are in such a wretched condition.
This reason is that the measure has been undertaken by the dictation of
Bismarck, in virtue of a secret treaty between Prussia and Italy, and
in view of a proposed war of the two combined powers against France.
The Italian kingdom was set up, as is well known to all, by Napoleon
III. for the sake of using its alliance and employing its military
power to the advantage of the French Empire. The control of this
convenient instrument was, however, wrested from the unfortunate
emperor by his conqueror and destroyer, Bismarck, who has continued to
govern not only William and his empire, but Victor Emanuel and his
kingdom, to the great and increasing disgust of the majority of
Italians, including a large portion even of the liberals. The intention
of Bismarck to seize upon the speediest convenient opportunity of
making a new invasion of France has been too openly manifested to admit
of any doubt. The execution of this purpose has been delayed at the
instance of Russia, in order to leave that power more free and
unembarrassed for its great enterprise of destroying the Ottoman Empire
and taking possession of Constantinople. In the Bismarckian scheme the
war against the Papacy and the Catholic Church, against France and
Austria, is all one thing, with one motive and end—the exaltation of
the infidel Teutonic empire on the ruins of Latin Christianity and
civilization; and the possession of Constantinople by the Russians as
the capital of another great schismatical empire, dividing with Prussia
the hegemony of the world, harmonizes with this scheme, as planned long
ago by the two astute and powerful chancellors, Gortchakoff and
Bismarck.
The papers have been saying of late that Bismarck, whose ambitious mind
triumphs over the shattered nerves and dropsical body which seem soon
about to become the prey of dissolution, has been lately threatening
Europe with a general war for the coming vernal equinox. This means, of
course, that he is preparing an equinoctial storm of “blood and iron”
to mark for ever in history the close of his own career as the
beginning of a new European epoch. The sagacious writer in the
_Civiltà_ considers the order for fortifying Rome and Civita Vecchia as
a strong confirmation of the fact of a military alliance between the
anti-Christian government of Italy and the Bismarckian empire, and of
the probability of an approaching war by the two allied powers against
France. He prudently abstains from carrying his prognostics any
further, wittily observing that it would be proof of a scanty amount of
brains if he were to attempt anything of the kind. We can easily
understand that, for men writing and publishing in Florence, a certain
caution and reserve are necessary in the open, explicit expression of
the hopes and expectations which they know how to awaken in other minds
by a significant silence. Nevertheless, as we happily enjoy more
liberty of speech than is conceded to Italians when they happen to be
_clericals_, we will run the risk of passing for a man of “scarso
cervello,” and give utterance to a few of the conjectures which sprang
up in our own mind upon reading the remarks of our able contemporary.
Both the Bismarckian and the Cavourian political fabrics are in a
precarious condition. It is perhaps less desperate to undertake a
hazardous enterprise on the chance of success than to remain quiet with
the certainty of being swept away by the current of coming events.
Nevertheless, the ruin may be hastened, and even directly brought
about, by the very means which are used to avert the crisis, if the
undertaking is really desperate. Perhaps the _bête noir_ which harasses
the sleepless nights of the Prussian, which the servile Italian
minister threatens upon the people grumbling at their excessive
taxation, which the political apes of French radicalism pretend to
dread, may be the nightmare of a prophetic dream. As the unhappy
victims of a divine fate in the Greek tragedies accomplish the direful
woes foretold at their birth by the very means used to avert them, the
accomplices in the anti-Christian conspiracy may bring upon themselves
the catastrophe they seem to fear—a reactionary movement in which they
will be submerged. If Italy consents to incur the unknown risks of an
alliance with Prussia, and play the part of a subservient tool to the
insane ambition of Bismarck, one of the consequences may be that her
speedily and falsely constructed unity will be shattered. Russia is at
present too deeply engaged in her deadly struggle with Turkey to be
either a formidable ally or enemy to any other great power for some
time to come, even if she comes off victorious in the end. In respect
to Russia, Austria has now her favorable, perhaps her last, opportunity
to secure her own stability and equality by a repression of her other
antagonist, Prussia. An invasion of France makes Austria, with her army
of one million, the natural ally of France. There are urgent motives
which might draw England into the same coalition. And what is there
improbable in the conjecture that one of the great events in such a war
would be the occupation of the Pontifical States by the allied troops,
and the restoration of the pontifical sovereignty? If the Pope recovers
his royal capital well fortified, the advantage of the fortifications
will be his, and make him more secure in future against lawless
invasion of banditti.
We are not at all certain that a prospective triumph of Russia bodes so
much good to the party of anti-Christian revolution as many suppose.
The interest, the safety even, of that empire requires of her that she
should exert all her power, and co-operate with every other legitimate
power exerted in Europe, to put down Freemasonry and restore the
Christian political order in the civilized world. It is very probable
that when the European congress meets, after the present cycle of wars,
to pacificate Europe and readjust the equilibrium of nations, neither
Gortchakoff nor Bismarck will be numbered among living statesmen; and
that the catalogue of disasters by which the enemies of the Holy See
are punished will be so far completed for the present century, as to
serve a salutary purpose in warning and instructing the rising and
coming statesmen and sovereigns of Christendom.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
SONNET.
There is a castle of most royal state,
Wherein no warder watches from the walls,
Nor groom nor squire abides in court or halls:
Silent are they, grass-grown and desolate.
A thousand steeds a thousand knights await,
Sleeping, all harnessed, in the marble halls
Until the Appointed One upon them calls,
Winding the horn that hangs beside the gate.
Then shall the doors fly open, and the steeds
Neigh, and the knights leap, shouting, to the selle,
And they shall follow him and do such deeds
All men must own him master. But the spell
Who knows not and, uncalled, essays the horn,
Falls at the fated doors and dies forlorn.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE IRISH HEDGE-POETS.
The music of the ancient Irish has been preserved because no
interpreter was needed to translate its beauties into another tongue.
The poetry which accompanied the music has well-nigh perished, and what
remains attracts but little attention. For this there are two reasons:
the students of Celtic literature have been few, and of those who have
endeavored to translate its poetry into English there are but one or
two who have succeeded in any fortunate degree in retaining the spirit
and beauty of the original. The best as well as earliest collection of
Irish poetry is Hardiman’s _Minstrelsy of Ireland_, but it is
accompanied by feeble and conventional translations. A literal
translation of the poetry would make this a most valuable collection
for the general reader; as it stands, it is only of worth to those who
can read the original Irish. Several other collections, smaller and of
less value, are in existence, but a real and full collection of Irish
poetry has yet to be made. We are aided in the present article by two
small volumes entitled _Munster Poetry_, collected by John O’Daly, a
well-known Dublin bookseller and antiquarian, and translated, the first
series by the unfortunate James Clarence Mangan, and the second by Dr.
George Sigurson. They do not attempt to deal with the general subject,
but only profess to be a collection of popular poetry current in
Munster from eighty to one hundred years ago, and composed by the last
of the Irish bards who sang in their native tongue, and were called
“hedge-poets.”
The race of bards or hedge-poets—whichever title may be preferred—who
sang in their native language virtually became extinct at the beginning
of the present century. The history of their lives, as well as most of
their poetry, exists only in tradition, and, but for a few incomplete
collections, would soon vanish for ever. It is not too late, however,
to form some picture of them, and the value of their poetry is such as
to make us deeply regret that no more has been preserved. And, even
without intrinsic merit, the national poetry of a people is always
worth preserving.
During the eighteenth century, as is well known, the Celtic Irish were
at a very low stage of political fortune. The entire subjugation of
Ireland, for the time, occurred at the battle of Limerick. The flower
of the army of Sarsfield followed its gallant leader to the plains of
Minden, and made the reputation of their race as soldiers under the
French banners. Those who remained in Ireland were crushed into outward
subjection. The tyranny of the conquerors, exasperated by the doubtful
and desperate struggle, placed no bounds to the humiliation which it
endeavored to inflict. The penal laws were cruel and barbarous beyond
those of any nation on record. All intellectual as well as religious
education was denied the Irish people, and it was only by stealth that
they could gratify their thirst for either.
The spirit of the Celtic population was crushed, but not degraded. They
were conquered, and were aware that another struggle was hopeless for
the present. None the less they preserved all their national feelings.
The language of the common people in their daily intercourse was Irish;
their only pride was in Irish tradition, and their only poetry was in
the same melodious tongue. This continued long after English was the
language used for business. It must not be supposed that, although the
Celtic Irish were poor and deprived of all religious and political
rights, they were entirely ignorant or uncultivated. The average Irish
peasant of the last century was likely to have more learning than his
English compeer. The hedge-schoolmaster was abroad in the land, and the
eagerness with which Irish peasant lads sought for knowledge under
difficulties was only second to the fervency of their religious faith
under persecution. The education was not of the most valuable or
practical cast in all particulars, but that it was cultivated so
earnestly is the highest proof of the undegraded character of the
people. The hedge-schoolmasters were more learned in Latin than in
science, and taught their pupils to scan more assiduously than to add.
The traditionary Irish history, the exploits of Con of the Hundred
Battles, and the prophecies of Columbkille were expounded more
particularly than the battles of Wolfe or Marlborough or the speeches
of Chatham. This was but natural. The Irish then felt no share in
English victories or interest in English literature. Poetry was
especially a branch of learning in those days as it has never been
since. The hedge-schoolmasters were often poets as well as pedagogues,
and the amount of verse produced of one sort or another was enormous.
Much of it was naturally worthless, but among the crowd of poetasters
was here and there a poet who had the heart to feel and the tongue to
express the woes of his country and the passions of his own heart in
the language of nature. The hearts of the people answered them, and
their memories treasured their songs. They were no longer bards
entertained in the halls of the great. They were the wandering
minstrels of the poor, but some of them were genuine poets whose power
and grace were visible under every disadvantage.
In considering the fragments of this poetry three things must be kept
in mind: first, that it has been preserved mostly by oral tradition;
secondly, that it is translated from a language whose idiom is
especially hard to be rendered into English; and, thirdly, that the
lyrical form imposes additional difficulties in adequate rendering. By
far the larger number of the productions of the hedge-poets are of an
allegorical cast. The poet in a vision sees a queenly maiden, of
exquisite beauty and grace, sitting lonely and weeping on some fairy
rath by moonlight, by the side of some softly-flowing stream, or by the
wall of some ruined castle of ancient splendor. He is at first
confounded by her beauty. Then he takes courage at her distress, and
asks whether she is Helen of old who caused Troy town to burn, or she
that was the love of Fion, or Deirdre, for whom the sons of Usnach
died. These are the three types of beauty almost invariably used. The
lady replies, in a voice that “pierces the heart of the listener like a
spear,” that she is neither of these three; she is Kathleen ni
Ullachan, or Grauine Maol, Roisin Dubh, the Little Black Rose, or
Sheela na Guira, these being the figurative names for the female
personification of Ireland. She laments to the poet’s ear that her
heroes brave, her Patrick Sarsfield, her John O’Dwyer of the Glens, are
driven across the seas, and that she is the desolate slave of the Saxon
churls. Then she rises into a strain, half-despairing, half-exulting,
that the heroes will soon return with help from the hosts of France and
Spain; that the fires of the Saxon houses shall light every glen, and
the “sullen tribe of the dreary tongue” be driven into the sea; that
God shall soon be worshipped once more on her desolate altars, and the
kingly hero, her noble spouse, her prince of war, shall once more clasp
her to his arms and place three crowns upon her head. This is the
outline of almost every one of these patriotic visions, and it will be
seen at once how beautiful was the conception and how capable of
exhibiting the highest pathos. The Irish minstrels had to sing of their
country in secret, for the ear of the conquering race must not hear of
their hopes and fears. In this disguise they would give voice to their
patriotic passion as to an earthly mistress, and their country’s woes
and hopes could be imparted with a double intensity. This personifying
the country in the form of a beautiful and desolate woman is not
peculiar to Irish poets, but seems the form of expression for the
passionate patriotism of all oppressed countries. It is common to the
Italian, the Polish, and the Servian poets.
In the description of the beauty of the forlorn maiden one poem bears a
great resemblance to another, and those beauties which are peculiar to
Irish girls are her distinguishing features; thus, the long, flowing
tresses, the _coolun_, or head of fair locks, is often most beautifully
painted.
“Her clustering, loosened tresses
Flowed glossily, enwreathed with pearls,
To veil her breast with kisses
And sunny rays of golden curls”
—_Sheela ni Cullenan_, by Wm. Lenane.
“Her curling tresses meet
Her small and gentle feet.
Her golden fleece—the pride of Greece,
Might shame those locks to greet.”
“The dew-drops flow down
Her thick curls’ golden brown.”
—_The Drooping Heart_, by MacColter.
“Sunbright is the neck that her golden locks cover.”
—_The Cuilshon._
“Her hair o’er her shoulders was flowing
In clusters all golden and glowing,
Luxuriant and thick as in meads are, the grass-blades
That the scythe of the mower is mowing.”
—_The Vision of Conor Sullivan._
From these specimens it may be guessed that either blonde beauty was
more common among Irish maidens than now, or that its rarity made it
doubly prized. It appears to have been as much in demand as in these
days, which have witnessed the grand rage for fair locks at the expense
of bleaching-irons and Pactolian dye. It is only occasionally that some
poet dares to express his preference for _cean dubh dheelish_—the dear
black head.
The pure brow of wax in fairness and radiance is not forgotten:
“Whose brow is more fair than the silver bright;
Oh! ’twould shed a ray of beauteous light
In the darkest glen of mists of the south.”
—_The Melodious Little Cuckoo._
Narrow eyebrows finely arched were a peculiar mark of distinction. For
the eyes there is almost a whole new nomenclature of comparison and
compliment. The peculiar and most often repeated color is “green,”
which is the uncompromising English translation of the delicate Irish
epithet which means
“The grayest of things blue,
The greenest of things gray”
—that shade of the most beautiful and brilliant eyes well known to
Spanish as well as Irish poets, and which Longfellow and Swinburne have
not hesitated to describe by the naked and imperfect English adjective.
This is the way in which one of these ignorant minstrels expresses what
he means, and renders it with a new grace:
“I gave you—oh! I gave you—I gave you my whole love;
On the festival of Mary my poor heart you stole, love,
With your soft green eyes like dew-drops on corn that is springing,
the music of your red lips like sweet starlings singing.”
—_Fair Mary Barry._
A beautiful and apt comparison for the sweet, rosy bloom, nowhere found
in such perfect charm as in Ireland, was the apple blossom and the
berry.
“On her cheek the crimson berry
Lay in the lily’s bosom wan.”
—_Sheela ni Cullenan._
“The bloom on thy cheek shames the apple’s soft blossom.”
Among the finest and most delicate comparisons, however, is this:
“Like crimson rays of sunset streaming
O’er sunny lilies her bright cheeks shone.”
The fair one’s bosom is declared to be like to the breast of the
sailing swan, to the thorn blossoms, to the snow, to the summer cloud,
in a variety of beautiful expressions:
“Her bosom’s pearly light
Than summer clouds more bright,
More pure its glow than falling snow
Or swan of plumage white.”
—_Beside the Lee_, by Michael O’Longen.
“Her breast has the whiteness
That thorn-blossoms bore.”
Her hands are pure and white as the snow, and never without being
accomplished in the art of embroidery. There is scarcely a poem in the
whole collection in which the skill of the heroine in this particular
is not mentioned. She does not play upon the harp. That was a manly
profession. Embroidery was the fashionable accomplishment for Irish
ladies, and the maiden who typified Ireland must be pre-eminent in it.
“Her soft, queenly fingers
Are skilful as fair,
While she gracefully lingers
O’er broideries rare.
The swan and the heath-hen,
Bird, blossom, and leaf,
Are shaped by this sweet maid
Who left me in grief.”
The voice was that of the thrush singing farewell to the setting sun,
the cuckoo in the glen, or the lark high in air. Bird-voiced was the
universal epithet. The branch of bloom, the bough of apple-blossoms,
was the whole lovely creature.
Such were the beauties and accomplishments of the heroines of the
hedge-poets, largely, doubtless, derived from the earlier bards, but
often exclusively their own. They were chiefly applied to the ideal
figure who represented in her beauty and her sorrow their forlorn
country, but sometimes to the earthly mistress of flesh and blood whose
smiles they sought. Seldom anything so natural and so delicate is to be
found in any national poetry. The false and artificial compliments of
English amatory poetry, equally with the overstrained comparisons of
Oriental verse, seem tasteless and tawdry beside these simple blossoms
of nature. They give out health and perfume, while the English
love-songs are like wax, and the gorgeous verse of the East is, like
its vegetation, magnificent but often odorless.
Those poems which we have described form much the larger portion of the
remains of the hedge-poets; but there are others, devoted purely to
love, to satire, and to lamentation. There are some which are a sort of
dialogue and courtship in rhyme. The minstrel “soothers” the damsel
with all the arts of his flattering tongue. He calls her by every sweet
name he can think of; tells how deep is his passion and how renowned he
will make her by his verse. The rustic coquette replies with a
recapitulation of all his faults and failings, his poverty, his
fondness for drink, his disgrace with all his relations, and his
general unfitness for the yoke of matrimony, and then very often yields
to his flattery and goes away with him; or else she listens to his
string of endearments without a word, and then dismisses him with
stinging contempt. Sometimes the bard sits down in sorrow, generally in
a tap-room over an empty glass, and details the charms of the fair one
who has wrought his woe; or sometimes, though rarely, it is one of the
opposite sex, who has been driven from home by the curses of her
kindred, and, sitting by the roadside, tells her tale of woe or
despair. Such cases, however, are infrequent, and the general purity of
both theme and verse is worthy of all praise. The number of
lamentations is much less than would naturally be expected among a
people whose vehemence of grief is noted, and where the _keener’s_
extemporaneous mourning reached such a height of impassioned eloquence.
From whatever reason, but few appear to have been preserved. Those that
are, however, are characterized by profound strength and pathos. The
_keen_ of Felix MacCarthy for his children is one of the saddest
lamentations ever put into verse. It is entirely too long for
quotation, but these two verses, describing the mother’s appearance and
grief, will show something of its genuineness and power:
“Woe is me! her dreary pall,
Who royal fondness gave to all,
Whose heart gave milk and love to each—
Woe is me! her ‘plaining speech”
“Woe is me! her hands now weak
With smiting her white palms so meek.
Wet her eyes at noon, and broken
Her true heart with grief unspoken.”
A lament for Kilcash, or rather for its patroness, is also very
powerful.
The romantic love-tales are few in comparison with the number among the
Irish street-ballads of to-day. The rich young nobleman who falls in
love with the pretty girl milking her cow, and the fair lady of great
estate who picks out her lover from the tall young men in her own
service, make but few appearances. The only ballad of this kind in the
collection is not after the usual pattern. The heir to “land and long
towers white” certainly falls in love with a rustic maiden, but,
instead of flying with him on his roan steed and becoming mistress of
his castle, she tells him with great prudence that he will find other
maidens better suited to his degree:
“I’m not used at my mother’s to sit with hosts,
I’m not used at the board to have wines and toasts,
I’m not used to dance-halls with music bold,
Nor to couches a third of them red with gold.”
And, in spite of his fervent and eloquent protestations, she refuses to
go with him.
Such are the themes and characteristics of the last age of Celtic
poetry in Ireland. If we have failed to show that the minstrels who
sang in such poverty and oppression had natural genius of a high order,
we have not accomplished our purpose. We think that true poetry is
visible in almost all that remains of their productions. Like all
sectional and class poets, they resembled each other very much. The
same species of imagery, the same terms of thought and peculiar
epithets, were common to them as to the Troubadours, the Scandinavian
minstrels, and to all other classes of poets singing to a confined
audience and having little or no acquaintance with other forms of
poetry. It is through them alone that the voice of the Irish people of
their day can be heard. All other forms of the expression of the
oppressed race have perished. In the music and poetry of Ireland is
made manifest, so that the dullest ear cannot mistake it, the sorrow of
a nation in bondage, tinging all mirth, all hope, and all love with an
indefinable cadence of melancholy as plainly as in the real outbursts
of lamentation and despairing cries of woe.
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RELIGION ON THE EAST COAST OF AFRICA.
The marvellous success of the indomitable Stanley has attracted the
attention of all to Africa, that region of mystery, marvel, and
malaria. The Catholic would naturally learn something of the work of
the church in that continent, and of the religious condition of its
population. But the subject is too vast for anything less than a large
volume, and it will be more profitable to confine our attention to the
dominions of the Sultan of Zanzibar. This region has a double interest.
Zanzibar is the starting-point of almost every Central African
expedition. Thence Livingstone, Speke and Grant, Cameron, and Stanley
on two occasions, have struck into the interior and made valuable
discoveries. It is also the old centre of the East African slave-trade,
which, though it has received a severe check, is not yet abolished.
Moreover, Zanzibar is a microcosm—a little world in itself. There one
meets with the Arab, the Hindoo, the Persian, the Malagashi, the
Banian, the Goa Portuguese, the negro, and the European.
The most important portion of the Sultan of Zanzibar’s territory is the
islands of which Zanzibar is the chief. The name was once applied to
the whole coast, and it is probable that that must have been the
meaning of Marco Polo when he says (on hearsay evidence) that the
island of Zanzibar is two thousand miles round. The term is supposed to
signify the “Land of the Blacks.” The island is in about 6° south
latitude, 48 miles long by 18 broad. It is separated from the mainland
by a strait only 20 miles in breadth. As one approaches Zanzibar from
the north the coast appears bare, rocky, and surrounded by low cliffs.
Here dwell some wild people, almost completely cut off from the more
civilized portion of the inhabitants, and following debasing and
degrading superstitions. But as we sail southwards, between the island
and the main, the shore becomes low and flat, the beach covered with
sand of silvery whiteness, and the whole backed by rising ground not
more than 300 feet high, on which grow in rich abundance cocoanut and
other feathery-leaved palms. Soft breezes, laden with sweet odors from
the groves of spice-trees, blow from the shore. The island is rich in
fruits; mangos, oranges, limes, pummalos or shaddock, pineapples,
jack-fruit, guavas, bananas, and cashew abound. But about four years
ago a hurricane visited Zanzibar for the first time; almost all the
dhows in the harbor were wrecked, many lives were lost, and the greater
part of the trees were destroyed. On one estate known to the writer
only four per cent. of the trees remained standing, and the ground,
strewn with palms, was a lamentable sight.
At the entrance of Zanzibar harbor are several beautiful islands of
emerald green. One of these, called French Island, is used as a
burial-place for Europeans, and many wooden crosses and boards mark the
last resting-place of seamen of the British navy, cut down by the fever
which is so fatal on this coast. The heat is not excessive, seldom
rising to 90°, but there is a feeling of depression in the atmosphere,
and a short residence in this climate serves to take the energy out of
most people.
Now we arrive at the city of Zanzibar, the most important place in East
Africa. Its name, in the native language, is Unguja. For miles before
reaching the city we have seen large white, square buildings close to
the shore—the country residences of wealthy Arabs. The appearance is
very pleasing, and so is that of the city from the sea, as similar
houses stand near it. These are the English, French, American, and
German consulates, over which wave the flags of their respective
nations; also the sultan’s palace, the custom-house, and residences of
rich Arabs and Hindoos. They are built of coral covered with the
whitest plaster, only relieved by regular rows of windows, the
brightness reflected from these houses being almost blinding. But on
entering the town you cease to wonder at the bad name it has earned.
With scarcely an exception Zanzibar is a heap of rubbish; the narrow
lanes, or paths which do duty for streets, are surrounded by low hovels
formed of earth plastered over wooden frames, roofed with palm-leaves,
and possessing no means of ventilation but the doorway, the interior
being consequently dark, stifling, and filthy. Many buildings have been
allowed to go to utter ruin, and the very mosques are hardly
presentable. But the bazaars form the sight of the city. They are,
perhaps, a little wider than the other thoroughfares, and the fronts of
the houses are occupied by small stalls, on which are piled articles
the most incongruous—soap, fish, plantains, cotton goods, medicine,
oil, etc. In the midst is seated, cross-legged, a fat old Banian,
stripped to the waist, with his naked foot in a basket of grain, or a
pretty dark-eyed girl with a ring in her nose. The market produce of
all kinds is heaped on the ground without any attempt at order, and, as
every one present is screaming at the top of his voice in his own
language, the Babel of tongues is complete.
The government is in the hands of the Arabs. This people have from time
immemorial had trading-stations on the coast, but Vasco da Gama doubled
the Cape of Good Hope in 1499, and the Portuguese soon superseded the
Arabs and held the coast for a couple of hundred years, when the Arabs
succeeded in dislodging them, and they are now confined to Mozambique
and Quilimane, at the mouth of the Zambesi.
Remains of Portuguese forts are scattered up and down the shores of the
mainland, and the writer assisted once in whitewashing Vasco da Gama’s
column at Melinda, which makes an excellent harbor mark. Near the fort
at Zanzibar numerous Portuguese cannon, cast in a European arsenal in
the present century, lie on the ground, a proud trophy for the Arabs
and a humiliating spectacle for Europeans. Fifty years ago Sayid Said,
the Imaum of Muscat, visited Zanzibar and fixed his residence there. At
his death one of his sons succeeded to his African and another to his
Arabian possessions, the former paying an annual tax of forty thousand
dollars to the Imaum. Sayid Barghash, the present sultan, succeeded his
brother Sayid Majid seven years ago. He had previously been exiled to
Bombay at the instance of the English, whose _protégé_ Majid was. His
policy has been one of economy and retrenchment. Though the government
may be called an absolute monarchy, yet it answers rather to the old
feudal constitutions of Europe in the middle ages, the sultan being
checked by members of his own and other powerful families.
The Arab statute-book is the Koran interpreted by what may be called
the priesthood. But witchcraft is a great power, not only with the
heathen but also with Mahometans, in Africa, and, after consulting his
sheiks and sherifs, the sultan often has recourse to the heathen
Mganga. One is reminded of the Witch of Endor, Pharao’s magicians, and
many of the old superstitions which we find recorded in the ancient
Hebrew Scriptures.
The population of the city may be one hundred thousand, and that of the
remainder of the island rather more; but one cannot decide this with
any accuracy, as it is against Moslem principles to take a census. Who
are they to count the favors of God? Of the mongrel population of
Zanzibar the Arab is the dominant race, though there are few, if any,
pure Arabs—sometimes that name being applied to a man as black as a
negro. But the better class of them are fine, handsome men, splendidly
dressed, and very dignified and self-possessed. They are ignorant,
however, bigoted, supercilious, and licentious. They are also very
indolent and have few redeeming features. Lower classes of Arabs there
are, who are soldiers, sailors, traders, and so on, and from them are
drawn the villains who carry on the iniquitous slave-traffic.
There are about seven thousand British subjects—Banians and other
Indian peoples. The commerce of the East African coast is chiefly in
their hands, and they are the bankers and represent the moneyed
interest. Those owning slaves are in danger of losing them, if the
British consul discover the fact; but it is hardly possible for them
not to trade in slaves, as they are always sold with landed properties,
and without them labor could hardly be obtained.
Most of the army, which numbers nine hundred, is composed of Belooches,
who are a motley set of rascals, brutal, lazy, and cowardly. But
somehow they contrive to live, and arm themselves too, on three dollars
a month, and seem to be pretty prosperous. The artillerymen are
Persians—tall, handsome men with black moustaches, high black sheepskin
caps, green tunics, and loose trowsers. But their battery, which is
full of small brass and iron guns overlooking the sea, is a poor
affair, ridiculous from a military point of view, and better adapted
for firing salutes than for purposes of warfare.
There are about two thousand men from the Comoro Islands, but no one
seems to have anything good to say of them.
The mass of the population is composed of blacks from the east coast.
These are almost entirely slaves, and are made to work for the support
of the lazy Arabs. A person acquainted with the country easily
distinguishes members of the different tribes from each other; they may
be known by the tribe marks—mostly punctures in the forehead—and by
their general appearance. The slaves are capable of much endurance; the
writer once paid thirty or forty slave women eight cents each for a
day’s work, which consisted of walking thirty miles, carrying weights
on their heads half the way. They did not seem at all exhausted after
this arduous task. Great cruelties are perpetrated in the capture of
the slaves and in conveying them to Zanzibar, but, as a rule, they are
treated fairly enough when once they are received into a family, being
allowed one day a week to work for themselves, besides other extra
time.
There are only sixty or seventy white people—American, English, Scotch,
French, and German—but without them the commerce of the place would
collapse. The chief exports are spices, ivory, ebony, cocoanuts, and
gum-copal. The imports are cotton fabrics, pocket-handkerchiefs of
bright colors, crockery, etc.
The climate of Zanzibar is healthier than that of the mainland, though
it is quite bad enough; the wonder is that any one can live there. The
city lies very low, almost surrounded by a shallow lagoon, over which
the water flows at every tide, leaving a deposit of reeking filth. No
attempt at drainage has been made; sanitary reform is totally unknown;
and the smell of the beach caused Livingstone to suggest that the name
should be changed to Stinkibar. The year before the great hurricane
there was a cholera epidemic which is supposed to have killed ten
thousand people. Strangely enough, the Europeans, who mostly suffer
much from fevers, were totally exempt, and the natives got the notion
that the devil, who gave them the cholera, was afraid to attack the
redoubtable _Myungoo_; so they sometimes whitewashed a man who showed
symptoms of the disease, to cheat the devil, but the devil refused to
be cheated so easily. The physical is far superior, however, to the
moral condition of Zanzibar; in fact, the place is a Sodom where
morality is unknown.
To arrive at an idea of the religious condition of the peoples it is
necessary to consider each race separately, and try to understand their
habits and modes of thought. First let us take the negro—the most
numerous class. Even so we shall be generalizing for the different
tribes and nations of the interior, as distinct from each other and the
races of Europe.
The writer has had considerable opportunities of judging of the black
man, having served in a British man-of-war engaged in the suppression
of the slave-trade, and having for some time been in charge of an
establishment of liberated slaves—mostly boys. The negro character is a
strange series of contradictions, and it takes some time to understand
him. He is profoundly conscious of his inferiority. An English officer
adopted a little slave boy taken from a dhow, and we taught him a few
elements of religion, which he eagerly grasped. Amongst others he was
much struck by the idea of a future state. One day he was being
chaffed: “Ah! you nigger—thick lips—flat nose,” when he replied: “If
I’m a good nigger, after I die I shall get up again, not black then,
but white as you are.” It was a long time, though, before he could
believe that a negro could rise again, though it did not seem
unreasonable to him for an Arab or white man to rise.
Passing with this same boy, Mumbo, through a graveyard at Zanzibar, he
pointed to a grave. “Who’s there?” he said. “Arab man,” I answered,
recognizing it to be so from the concrete with which the grave was
covered. “He get up again?” “Yes,” I replied, after which the boy was
thoughtful and silent for a while. “Who’s buried there?” he repeated,
pointing to a grave marked by a wooden cross. “A Msungu” (white man), I
answered. “He get up again?” “Yes.” Another pause. “And who’s there?”
the boy again asked, pointing to a mean grave unmarked by cross or
stone. “A nigger man,” said I. “He get up again?” But on replying in
the affirmative he would not believe it, and continued obstinately
sceptical for some time.
Selfishness seems to be the most prominent feature of the negro
character. Civilized people mask the repulsive feeling, but not so the
black. Everything is for himself and his own present sensual
gratification. They have not a particle of gratitude, and if you show
them kindness or give them a present it is considered a sign of
weakness, and their contempt for their benefactor is apparent. There is
no word expressive of thanks in the Swahili language, though the
“Santa” of the Arab, accompanied by a bow, the right hand placed on the
heart, is most graceful and pleasing. On taking charge of the boys’
house, in the benevolence of my heart I invested in numbers of stalks
of bananas—a large one can be obtained for eight cents—and distributed
them. But no word of thanks was heard, and the boys began to consider
fruit as a right, and to grumble if it were not forthcoming; so I grew
rather disgusted and discontinued scattering largesse amidst such a
graceless set. Neither do they show much affection. This, perhaps, is
hardly to be wondered at, as the slave-traffic, which has existed from
time immemorial, must, by constantly separating families, have weakened
and almost destroyed all ties of kindred. A gentleman well acquainted
with the people told me that the only known affection amongst them was
that between a son and his mother. Several slave boys whom we had
liberated and kept on board the ship, on our leaving the coast were
wisely sent on shore to the mission, only the one of whom I have
previously spoken remaining. He wept piteously and sobbed himself to
sleep. We were touched, and fancied that, after all, we had formed too
low an estimate of the negro, till on waking he appeared to have
completely forgotten his friends, and never spoke of them again. It
then appeared that his grief had been purely selfish; for, as he
phrased it, he would have no one “to skylark with.” “What will you give
me?” is the view a negro takes of his neighbor, and in this the
Ki-Swahili, and even the Arab, very much resemble him. One’s ear soon
grows familiar with the cry of “Lata paca”—“Bring pice”—pice being
little Indian copper coins which form the currency at Zanzibar. This
question is asked you in the streets or country roads, not merely by
the poor, but even by well-to-do people. I was one day walking home
from a feast to which I had been invited by the proprietor of a sugar
plantation—a Swahili man. These people are mulattoes, partly Arab, but
mostly negro. They are Mahometans and call themselves Arabs. We had
been hospitably _fêted_, and I was accompanied by a brother of my host,
a nice-looking young fellow, upright as a dart—as they all are—and
dressed in the graceful long white linen robe which they always wear.
He was proceeding to his home, a well-built stone house, but before
leaving me I was astonished at his asking in Swahili for a few pice!
Doubting my ears, I asked a boy who understood English what he had
said, and he told me that I had not mistaken his meaning; so I gave him
two or three coppers, and he went away well pleased.
Negroes are very improvident, like most savage races. They take no
thought for the morrow—not from faith, but from utter recklessness.
They are also fond of desertion for the mere sake of change. Slaves
sometimes leave their masters and hire themselves out for a year or two
to some one else, returning afterwards as if nothing had happened, and
receiving no punishment, the master fearing that he might revenge
himself on him or desert again, and also arguing that it is his nature
and that no better can be expected of him. I was once on a shooting
party in the Kingani River, and placing one of the boats in charge of a
quartermaster, left with him a Seedee boy, or black seaman, to clean
the jaws of a hippopotamus that I had shot on the previous day. I went
up the river in the other boat with the remaining seamen for a day’s
shooting, and on my return in the evening was informed that the black
had decamped, and we never saw any more of him. In the ship he was
receiving about four times as much pay as he could possibly earn
elsewhere, and, in addition to this, he left clothes and money behind.
Yet we afterwards learnt that before leaving the vessel he had told his
friends of his intention to run.
The negro is, in Africa as elsewhere, exceedingly indolent, and, nature
having provided him with abundance of the necessaries of life, he
indulges his laziness to the full when he possibly can—that is, in his
native country or at Zanzibar, if he can manage to possess a few slaves
to work for him.
He is also obstinate and headstrong. Going on shore on the beautiful
island of Pemba, north of Zanzibar, to trade for provisions, they were
uniformly refused us, whatever price we offered. Yet next day the
natives brought the things to the ship, some miles from the shore, and
offered them for sale. A little bit of a boy was so obstinate that he
would not obey orders unless he chose, even if thrashed with a
rhinoceros-hide whip; neither did he flinch nor utter a cry under
punishment. But when he left the ship, where he had been petted by the
sailors, being sent to the French Mission, he was so disgusted that the
first thing he did was to roll on the beach and completely destroy his
new clothes, and the missionaries were compelled to restore him his old
sailor costume. Still he sulked, and when I left they had not managed
to get him to speak.
Negroes are subject to sudden fits of fury almost amounting to madness,
and then they cry, shout, vociferate, and argue in the most ridiculous
manner. They love to eat and are very greedy, but are still more fond
of drinking, and in their own country begin the day by copious
potations of beer. However, at Zanzibar drunkenness would be punished
by imprisonment; and that is no trifle, the prisoners being placed in a
yard enclosed by four walls, and receiving no food, unless they have a
friend to bring them some. They are also exceedingly depraved, and,
when brought into contact with the semi-civilization of the coast, they
become, if anything, worse than before. A stranger is astonished at the
cool manner in which they enter a strange house, if they see the door
open. They place their spear in a corner, set themselves in the best
place, and talk till they are tired (they are especially fond of
hearing themselves talk), when they rise and leave. It is no good
trying to exclude them; their curiosity must be satisfied, and they
insist on seeing and learning about everything—examining and handling
your clothes and asking the value of each article.
Negroes have the redeeming feature of being mostly good-tempered and
pleased by a very little. They delight in a joke, yet their wit is of
the most elementary character. They are exceedingly fond of music;
neither does its unvaried monotony pall on them. I once passed an old
man amusing himself by drumming with two sticks on a plank; returning
after some hours, I found him continuing the performance, which he had
evidently kept up all the time. You will see them on a moonlight night,
or even in the daytime, dancing and flinging their limbs about in the
most ridiculous and ungraceful manner to the tune of tomtoms and fifes;
yet they keep perfect time. A circle is formed, and a performer waltzes
rapidly around the inner space, looking up to the sky, till she becomes
giddy and falls into the arms of her friends. Whatever work they are
engaged in, these people always sing, and in the streets you constantly
hear the chant of porters, who carry tusks of ivory or bales of goods
slung between two of them on a pole which rests on their shoulders.
The East African negro has been completely debased by centuries of
oppression and slavery. “All the good qualities appear crushed out of
the African race,” said an experienced missionary at Zanzibar to me.
Their religion is the same as that of the natives of the west
coast—fetichism. I believe this word is derived from the Portuguese
_feitiço_, a doing—that is, of magic. Nature has colored the black
man’s thoughts, but not with the sublime and beautiful. He sees nothing
in nature but the terrible, vast, threatening, and hostile. The dense
jungle with huge trees, concealing poisonous snakes, fierce lions, and
spotted leopards; the fever-breeding swamp; the devastating
cyclone—these have produced a feeling of dread, helplessness, and
terror on his debased mind. He has but a very vague, unformed idea of a
Supreme Being, and does not at all conceive of the spiritual and
eternal side of man. To him death is destruction. Yet he believes that
the ghost of the departed person remains, and he always imagines it to
be harmful and hostile. In fact, he is for ever in terror of ghosts and
witchcraft, and his religion consists in the propitiation of natural
objects. The African’s creed may be reduced to two articles: the first
demonology, or the existence of spectres of the dead; the second
witchcraft, or black magic. Their native superstitions the slaves carry
with them to Zanzibar or wherever they are taken, and so deeply rooted
are these beliefs in their minds that I have often been surprised to
hear negroes who have been Protestant Christians for years, and daily
attending public Christian worship, speak of witchcraft in ordinary
conversation as much as a matter of course as they would of any
every-day occurrence. For instance, missing some pice from my drawers,
I asked my servant to find out who had taken them. He replied that he
could not do so, but that a man had been there years ago who “made
plenty witchcraft”; he would have told me, but now he was gone. Some
very good Christian boys, as I was walking with them one day, suddenly
dropped their voices and told me that it was a “plenty bad place.” I
imagined that fever or ague was intended, as it was low, marshy ground;
but no such thing. They had once witnessed some “witchcraft” or other
there.
There are _Mganga_—wizards and witches—who are partly impostors and
partly dupes of their own imagination. To these people the negroes have
recourse in any calamity or sickness. Their office is to transfer the
evil from which they suffer to some one else. Of course payment is the
preliminary—no pay, no work. And an African must have present payment;
he attaches no value to promises of future reward, though ever so near.
These Mganga endeavor to entice ghosts from possessed persons and
transfer them to some inanimate object, striving to effect it by music,
dancing, and drinking. Thus, they nail pieces of cloth to trees to coax
the devils into them. Epileptic fits are very common, and it is not
astonishing that they should regard them as the effect of seizure by
some external agent. On the mainland they attempt to discover the
workers of magic by most cruel ordeals.
There are also rain-makers. It does not require an exceptionally
weatherwise person to infer what the weather will be in a country of
regular monsoons and seasons; still, they sometimes make a mistake, and
then the false prophets have to escape as best they can.
The Arabs have the utmost contempt for the negroes, and, so far from
trying to convert them, purposely leave them to perdition; if they made
them Mahometans they would be their equals, and this they do not at all
desire.
Such is the character and religious belief of these unhappy people. We
will see later on what the church can do for them, but in this inquiry
one important subject must be considered—that is, the slave-trade.
Slavery on the White Nile is admirably described by Sir Samuel Baker in
his _Nile Basin_, and it is much the same on the east coast. The petty
native chieftains are constantly at war with each other, the object
being plunder. They try to surprise a neighboring village at night,
fire it, and surround it with armed men. As the luckless inhabitants
rush out to escape from the flames, their enemies shoot down the men
and seize the women and children for slaves, carrying off the cattle.
Sometimes a thieving Arab slaving party joins one chief who has a
grudge against a neighboring village, assisting him to destroy it in
the manner just described and sharing the plunder. The Arabs then
manage to quarrel with their allies, and so obtain their goods also.
As long as this state of things exists mission work in the interior
will be impossible. The Protestant English mission, under Bishop
Mackenzie, some years ago established itself in the interior near the
Zambesi, and gathered together some hundreds of natives whose
improvement they hoped gradually to effect. But a powerful tribe
attacking the one amongst which they dwelt, they had to perform the
uncongenial task of driving off the invaders with their rifles. Their
friends were saved for the time, but many of the missionaries had died
from fever, and the small remainder was obliged to retire. Shortly
after this the tribe with which they had been was swept away and
destroyed. The slave-trade naturally prevents all progress and the
increase of population. It also weakens all family ties, parents
killing their offspring if they are in want. Great cruelties are
practised, not only in the capture of slaves, but in their transit to
the place of destination. The Arabs are very improvident, and
sometimes, having failed to provide sufficient food for their caravan,
they leave some of the slaves in the desert to starve, not even
removing the yokes by which they are fastened together. I was told of a
woman who was carrying a bale of cloth, and on the journey gave birth
to a child. She could not carry both the baby and the goods; the latter
were the more valuable, so the infant was brained against the nearest
tree and left on the ground.
About four years ago a treaty was signed between the Sultan of Zanzibar
and the British government, by which the importation of slaves was
prohibited, but the Arabs were permitted to retain the slaves they
already possessed. Strong pressure had to be brought to bear on the
Arabs to compel them to sign this treaty; but even now a considerable
traffic is carried on by the east coast with Arabia, Pemba, and
Madagascar. The negroes are crowded into the slave-dhows, and their
sufferings from hunger and filth must be extreme on a voyage. Many die
and are thrown overboard, and the remainder land in a miserably reduced
condition. But the household slaves are treated kindly and well fed;
this the owner finds politic, or the slave might desert. They are
addressed as “Ndugu-yango”—“My brother”—and considered part of the
family.
There are two sorts of slaves in the islands—the Muwallid, or domestic,
born in slavery, and the wild imported slave. The former class are much
better treated than the others. Even young captured slaves are not so
tractable as they, but the older ones are very obstinate and contrary
and given to thieving and disorder. Sometimes in revenge they attempt
the life of their master or try to get him into serious trouble, yet
they are seldom punished for it, any more than with us a vicious animal
would be. They are slaves, and it is their nature, and they themselves
give this as their excuse when convicted of the most abominable crimes.
But slaves often rise to a very important position; and as Abraham sent
his servant to Mesopotamia to negotiate his son’s marriage, so slaves
are entrusted by their masters with the command of trading caravans to
the interior, they preferring to remain comfortably at home. Free
negroes have been known to sell themselves for slaves, and, when asked
about it, to reply: “What can a dog do without a master?” Also, slaves
often own slaves of their own. The pilot of Zanzibar, an official of
some importance called Buckett, was a slave, and, when seen habited in
a naval officer’s old coat and a handsome turban on his head, he
appeared a person of much distinction.
It is difficult to see how slavery can be kept up at Zanzibar, now that
importation is forbidden; for the annual loss from death and desertion
is thirty per cent., and the average annual importation a few years ago
was estimated at thirteen thousand. Slavery, as it has been there, is
an abominable institution and a complete bar to improvement.
Though the negro is so ignorant, superstitious, and debased, yet it has
been abundantly shown that he is capable of improvement. I once visited
the well-ordered estate of Kokotoni, in the north of Zanzibar Island,
the property of Capt. Fraser. I found it in charge of an intelligent
Scotchman, who said that they had about five hundred laborers resident
on the plantation—half men and half women. They required them all to
marry, gave them cottages, provision, grounds, and two dollars and a
half each per month, and they were an orderly and well-conducted
people. The overseer had taught them different trades—as that of
wheelwright, necessary for the work of the estate—and, though they
sometimes deserted in true negro fashion, yet the truants were sure to
return again.
At Zanzibar and Bagomoyo, twenty-five miles off on the mainland, at the
mouth of the Kingani River, the Société du Saint-Esprit, the parent
house of which is in Paris, have most flourishing establishments. The
town house is in the centre of Zanzibar, its corrugated iron roof,
towering above the neighboring buildings, being a conspicuous object.
On entering you will be greeted in good French by very civil negro boys
dressed in blue blouse and trowsers and wearing a black glazed hat.
They will conduct you to a spacious sitting-room decorated with
pictures of religious subjects, and before long the superior, Père
Etienne, appears. He is a tall, slight man, and has not lost the
cavalry swagger which he acquired as captain in a Lancers regiment, and
which forms a strange contrast to his black soutane. He is a most
affable and agreeable priest, and conducts one round the interesting
establishment. There is a beautiful little chapel on the first floor,
and when I was last in it the walls were being stencilled. In the
workshops trades are taught to the boys by the lay brethren, such as
working in metals, carpentering, and boat-building. The pupils belong
to the mission, they having been either handed over to it by the
British consul from captured slave-dhows, or purchased by the mission
in the slave-market in the old times before slavery was abolished. At
Bagomoyo there is a still larger establishment under the care of Père
Horner, where about ten clergy and the same number of sisters have
charge of an agricultural colony on which are several hundred Christian
negroes. At first the mission did not mean to Christianize the natives,
thinking that they were so degraded that it would take several
generations to raise them to that point; but they found them capable of
more than was originally expected. The mission establishment is half a
mile from the town of Bagomoyo, which contains about five thousand
people, but it has the appearance of a small town itself. The grounds
are laid out in a most orderly manner; it is a pleasure to walk along
the straight, well-kept paths between fields of maize, millet, and
sweet potatoes.
The captain of the ship in which I served was one day up the Kingani
River in his boat, accompanied by a young Alsatian lay brother from the
mission. Shooting a hippopotamus cow, the calf, only a week or two old,
would not leave the mother’s carcase, and the captain, who had to
return to his ship, giving money to the brother, advised him to obtain
assistance and catch the little animal, which he presented to the
mission. A few months after, as we were visiting the good fathers, the
lay brother took us to a large tank surrounded with a fence, which they
had formed for the accommodation of the hippopotamus. Standing at the
gate, the brother called the animal by name, and it came snorting out
of the water, ran up to its master, looking up into his face, and
followed us about the garden and into the house like a dog. Here he was
fed from a bottle with flour and milk. He was taken to the Zoölogical
Gardens at Berlin shortly afterwards, and must have sold for at least
six thousand dollars. Hippopotami are inimical to the crops of rice
which grow near the rivers, as they come on shore in the night and
devour enormous quantities of the young tender shoots, so that the
fields have to be carefully watched. But more dangerous animals are
found on the coast, and Père Horner told us a story of a huge lion
which had carried off several of their cattle. They constructed a trap
of a deserted hut, into which they enticed the animal, which, finding
himself imprisoned, aroused all the establishment from their midnight
slumbers by his roarings. He was shot by one of the brethren.
The fathers give their guests a good dinner of many courses in true
French style, but one should not conclude, as does Stanley in his _How
I Found Livingstone_, that champagne is their ordinary beverage. On the
contrary, when I was there they could offer us nothing but a little
white rum which had been sent them from our ship, and the champagne
with which they welcomed Mr. Stanley was some of a small present which
they had received.
Their mode of work is undoubtedly the true one: to get a certain number
of negroes, isolate them as much as possible from the licentious
society of their heathen brethren, and hope of them to form the nucleus
of a future Christian population.
The Church of England has a mission at Zanzibar, and has also some
settlements on the mainland; and as I had several friends there, I know
something about it from personal observation, and regret that its
members are not Catholics, for a more devoted set of workers it would
be hard to find. They have a house on a _shamba_, or estate, two miles
from the town, in which there are a number of liberated slave boys, who
are instructed in reading, writing, and arithmetic, and are taught such
trades as carpentering and field labor. Dr. Steere, the third bishop of
this mission, which was set on foot by the English universities of
Oxford and Cambridge at the instance of Livingstone, is a linguist,
being the authority on Swahili, the language commonly spoken at
Zanzibar and on the coast. He has written a Swahili grammar, and
translated into the language great parts of the Bible, prayers, hymns,
and school-books, and these are excellently printed in the mission
press by some of the pupils, a few of whom he took to England to
perfect themselves in the trade at a large London printing
establishment. All the printing done in Zanzibar is their work. They
have a beautiful chapel, where there are daily morning and evening
services, and these are attended by all the establishment; and I am
told that many of the boys show great devotion, kneeling for a quarter
of an hour together in the chapel. I am inclined to fear, though, that
the African Anglican’s notion of religion is something which will
propitiate an angry, hostile power—in fact, a relic of demonology. “Our
Father” has no meaning to one who had perhaps been sold to an Arab by
his parent for a bowl of rice. Two miles beyond the English mission’s
boys’ house is a similar establishment for girls under the charge of
women. The girls look fatter and healthier than the boys, a large
proportion of whom are affected by the terrible skin diseases so
prevalent amongst the blacks.
The mission had a devoted young clergyman there some years ago, who,
being possessed of large means and wealthy friends, purchased the old
slave market in Zanzibar, on which a handsome stone church with groined
roof, and different school buildings, were erected. But he sacrificed
his life, as most of the workers of this mission have done, by his
zeal, and fell a victim to fever; his funeral was attended by parties
from the English men-of-war in the harbor, and by some of the Catholic
missionaries, and many of the European residents who wished to pay a
last tribute of respect to the memory of a brave and devoted, if
mistaken, man. He once told me that some of his pupils asked him a very
pertinent question: Why, if the Christian religion was one, the French
and English missions were not united? He evaded it by replying that
they taught in English, but the others in French! When his death was
announced in England a young clergyman, who had formerly worked in the
same mission, was preaching for it in an English church and exhorting
his hearers to give money and, if possible, their personal services to
the cause. He was astonished afterwards at a young woman presenting
herself and offering herself for the work. Neither pictures of fever,
discomfort, nor death could deter her from going to Zanzibar, as I
believe she afterwards did.
Bishop Steere used to give a weekly address in the native language in
the city of Zanzibar to any who chose to attend, and I have heard that
the rich Arabs used to flock to it in crowds, coming to the bishop’s
house afterwards to discuss the different Christian doctrines of which
they had heard. But if any Arab became a Christian he would probably be
assassinated by his comrades, so great is their bigotry. Singularly,
the part of the Bible which has most interest for an Arab is the
genealogies; for, as is well known, they are most careful in preserving
such records, even of their very horses.
The Mahometan residents at Zanzibar and on the coast, both Arab and
Ki-Swahili, go to school at seven years of age, and in two or three
years learn to write, and read the Koran. They are also taught a few
prayers and hymns and some Arab proverbs, and this completes their
education. In two points a good Moslem puts ordinary Christians to
shame—in prayer and temperance. In the East one often sees even the
poorest people prostrating themselves towards Mecca on their
praying-mat, and repeating the accustomed prayers at the stated hours,
which occur five times a day. I have seen a naked black laborer praying
in a coal-lighter during an interval of work. One is reminded of the
quaint old Belgian cities, where it is common to see female figures, in
their long black cloaks, kneeling before a crucifix in some open space.
Temperance the Arab rigidly observes; and how can one expect them to
become Christians when they daily witness the drunkenness of white
seamen? In fact, this objection has been urged upon me by natives, and
the answer which one makes, that our religion does not permit
drunkenness, is not satisfactory to them. “If we got drunk,” they say,
“our sultan would put us in prison.”
Strict Mahometans are very Pharisaical. We once had great trouble with
a Mahometan priest or schoolmaster who visited our ship. He refused the
coffee which we offered him because it was made by a Christian, and
would only condescend to drink some lime-juice out of a glass which we
assured him had never been used, and even this beverage had to be
prepared by his own servant. Some Arab gentlemen who accompanied him
and dined with us, being prevented from eating anything that we had
cooked, could get nothing but oranges.
The Hindis are a sect of Mahometans who are not recognized by the
Arabs, but the exact nature of their differences I have not been able
to learn. Neither could I arrive at the religion of the Banians. Their
mortality at Zanzibar is very great, and you may daily see processions
of Banian men going to the beach beyond the town, where they raise a
funeral pyre of wood, on which their deceased friend is consumed, the
remains being washed away by the rising tide.
On the coast the people are much the same as those who inhabit the
island of Zanzibar. There are the lazy, cowardly Belooch soldiers and
their families, and these swashbucklers are thoroughly despised and
hated. The towns are ruled by headmen, who are subject to the Sultan of
Zanzibar, but who enrich themselves by extortion. The Washenzi are
day-laborers, and are barbarians from the interior. Banians are always
found prospering in trade. The Ki-Swahili—which means people of the
coast, degenerate Arabs—are ignorant and vicious. They have a great
fear and hatred of the white man, particularly of the English, whom
they called _Beni Nar_—Sons of Fire. They think that, if once the white
man’s foot has been placed on the land, he is sure to obtain possession
of it in the end; and in this they are not far mistaken. The Wamrina
are a coast clan even more debased and vicious than the latter people,
and they appear to have little reason. They are cowardly and cautious,
but very cunning, and, as most of the inhabitants in those parts, lie
habitually, even when there is no object to be gained thereby.
There are a number of small towns on the coast from Magadoxo, a little
north of the equator, to Kilwa, the great slave-mart in the south. The
chief ones are Brava, Lamu, Marka, Melinda, and Mombas. At both of the
latter are Portuguese remains, and at Mombas is a Protestant mission
which at the time of my visit had been established thirty years, and
had cost a large amount of money, but had apparently done very little
good. The celebrated Dr. Krapf, who had been four years in Abyssinia,
was the first to go there, starting from Zanzibar. This was in 1844. He
was the first to draw up a Ki-Swahili grammar, in which he was assisted
by Dr. Rebmann, who arrived two years afterwards. Their journeys from
Mombas, which is situated in 4° south latitude, are well known. They
discovered Kilima Njaro, a snow-clad mountain 22,814 feet high, only 3°
south of the equator, and what they heard from the natives of vast
lakes in the interior, where nothing but sandy deserts had hitherto
been supposed to exist, led to the famous travels which have exposed a
new world to the wondering eyes of men and opened up new fields for the
glorious labors of the missionary.
Dr. Rebmann was living near Mombas at the time of my visit, though old
and blind, and, I hear, has since died. I did not see him, though I
started to do so with one of the missionaries. I was so disgusted by
this man’s narrow sectarianism in the midst of heathendom—he commencing
to abuse the mission of his own church at Zanzibar—that I preferred to
spend the night on the river in a boat with our seamen rather than,
with my friends, accompany him to the Rabai Mission. We came across a
pamphlet written by them for their English supporters, containing a lot
of pious texts: “Come over and help us”; “The fields are white to the
harvest”; “A wide door and effectual is open,” and so on; but it struck
us as being great nonsense. However, I am told that they have since
that started a large establishment of liberated slaves. The Wesleyans
have a mission in the neighborhood, but of them I know nothing, as we
did not visit them.
The Sultan of Zanzibar visited England two years ago, offered to place
his dominions under British protection, and has exerted himself to put
a stop to the slave-trade, though he fought hard against its abolition
at first, as from it he derived the principal part of his revenue. If a
stop could be put to this evil and peace established in the interior, a
splendid field for mission-work would be the result, the black having
such respect for the superior knowledge and intellect of the white man
that many tribes would receive the missionary with a hearty welcome.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
THE BEGINNINGS OF CHRISTIANITY, WITH A VIEW OF THE STATE OF THE ROMAN
WORLD AT THE BIRTH OF CHRIST. By George P. Fisher, D.D., Professor
of Ecclesiastical History in Yale College. New York: Scribner,
Armstrong & Co. 1877.
Dr. Fisher has taken up a line of argument of great interest and
importance, which has employed the minds and pens of a number of able
writers before him, but which cannot be too frequently or copiously
treated. The author informs us in his preface that he has prepared the
work as now published from a course of lectures before the Lowell
Institute of Boston. The principal portion of his argument presents
precisely what is needed by a large number of educated persons in New
England, especially in Boston, where a reckless, extravagant
rationalism and neologism, borrowed from Germany, are rapidly
undermining all belief in the genuineness, historical truth, and
doctrinal authenticity of our earliest Christian documents, together
with those of Judaism. This modern infidelity saps the historical basis
of Christianity, that it may be free to criticise it as a theory, a
mere natural phenomenon, a phase of human evolution. Any one who turns
their own historical and critical methods against these sceptics does
good service to truth. We are pleased to recognize the many merits,
both in respect to matter and diction, in the essay of the learned
professor. The five chapters on the Roman policy, and Greco-Roman
religion, literature, philosophy, and morals, are admirable. The
geographical accuracy and distinctness with which, as on a map, the
Roman Empire is graphically delineated, makes a characteristic and
noteworthy feature of this part of the work, which is enriched with a
great number of happy classical quotations. The succinct review of
historical Judaism during the important but much-neglected period of
five centuries immediately preceding the birth of Christ is interesting
and valuable. A very able critical defence of the genuineness of the
New Testament history, of the truth of the miracles and resurrection of
our Lord, his superhuman character and divine mission, completes a
solid and unanswerable argument for the historical basis of
Christianity as a divine and supernatural religion.
The author has shown the convergence of all the lines of movement drawn
in the past history of the world towards the moment of Christ’s
appearance. This is one of the strongest proofs of his divine mission,
inasmuch as it shows that the Author and Ruler of the world is also the
Author of the Christian religion. The complement to the argument should
point out the divergence of the lines from the same point through the
post-Christian times, and the work of human regeneration historically
fulfilled—the second and even greater proof of the divine legation of
Christ. The author shows very conclusively that those destructive
critics and sceptics who deny the true historical idea of Christ as
presented in the New Testament take away all sufficient cause for the
effect produced in Christianity.
The foundation for a complete argument from cause to effect and effect
to cause, in the relation between the historical idea of Christ and the
historical idea of his regenerating work, is laid by establishing his
supernatural character, mission, and works. Thus far Dr. Fisher gives
us complete satisfaction. When he proceeds to develop his own
conception of the true Christian idea—the plan, namely, of human
regeneration, and the means for executing the plan—we do not find it
complete and adequate. As compared with the view heretofore prevalent
among evangelical Protestants, it is, nevertheless, a marked
approximation to the Catholic idea. We consider that Dr. Fisher’s
argument requires a complement, in order to make the historical circle
embracing all ages and centred in Christ perfect in its circumference.
To explain our statement and adduce reasons for it would require many
pages, and we must for the present refrain from anything beyond a mere
expression of our judgment.
There is only one passage which we have thus far noticed in a perusal
of nearly the whole of Dr. Fisher’s volume which has jarred upon our
feelings as out of tune with his prevalent mode of philosophical candor
and historical justice. On page 238 it is written: “Pharisaism, like
Jesuitism, is a word of evil sound, not because these parties had no
good men among them, but because prevailing tendencies stamped upon
each ineffaceable traits of ignominy.”
We are persuaded that in the great number and variety of studies which
have absorbed his time and attention the writer of the foregoing
passage has never found leisure to read the books which would give him
the true notion of the institute and history of the Jesuits. We give
him credit for great sincerity and love of truth, and yet we cannot
help thinking that there is still a remnant of prejudice left in his
mind, which in this case causes, to use his own words, “groundless,
gratuitous suspicion, such as, in the ordinary concerns of life, is
habitually repelled by a healthy moral nature.”
As a production of learning, philosophical thought, and literary taste,
the _Beginnings of Christianity_ deserves, in our opinion, a place
among the best works of New England scholars. We will close this notice
by an extract which shows the philosophical and religious tone and
quality of the great argument presented in the volume:
“When we look back upon the ancient philosophy in its entire course, we
find in it nothing nearer to Christianity than the saying of Plato that
man is to resemble God. But, on the path of speculation, how defective
and discordant are the conceptions of God! And if God were adequately
known, how shall the fetters of evil be broken and the soul attain to
its ideal? It is just these questions that Christianity meets through
the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. God, the head of that universal
society on which Cicero delighted to dwell, is brought near, in all his
purity and love, to the apprehension, not of a coterie of philosophers
merely, but of the humble and ignorant. There is a real deliverance
from the burden of evil, achieved through Christ, actually for himself
and potentially for mankind. How altered in their whole character are
the ethical maxims which, in form, may not be without a parallel in
heathen sages! Forgiveness, forbearance, pity for the poor, universal
compassion, are no longer abstractions derived from speculation on the
attributes of Deity. They are a part of the example of God. He has so
dealt with us in the mission and death of his Son. The cross of Christ
was the practical power that annihilated artificial distinctions among
mankind and made human brotherhood a reality. In this new setting,
ethical precepts gain a depth of earnestness and a force of impression
which heathen philosophy could never impart. We might as well claim for
starlight the brightness and warmth of a noon-day sun” (p. 189). This
fine passage is supplemented by two condensed statements in another
place, that the end in view of the plan of Jesus was “the introduction
of a new life in humanity,” and the plan itself “the establishment of a
society of which he is the living head” (p. 467). This really
comprehends the whole Christian Idea in germ. Its true and perfect
evolution, and an accurate commentary upon it, would present a complete
philosophy of Christianity.
DE DEO CREANTE: Prælectiones Scholastico-Dogmaticæ quas in Collegio
S.S. Cordis Jesu ad Woodstock, Maxima Studiorum Domo Soc. Jesu in
Fœd. Americæ Sept. Statibus, habebat A.D. MDCCCLXXVI.-VII., Camillus
Mazzella, S.J., in eod. Coll. Stud. Præfectus et Theol. Dogm.
Professor. Woodstock, Marylandiæ: Ex Officina Typographica Collegii.
1877. 8vo, pp. xxxv.-935.
This treatise is a complete exposition and defence of the Catholic
doctrine on creation and its kindred topics as handed down in the
church by tradition from the earliest ages to the present day. As the
title of the book indicates, the subject is considered not merely from
a dogmatic point of view; all the errors of the ancients as well as of
their modern imitators being taken up in turn and refuted. A glance at
the general divisions of the work will show the wide range of topics
treated: I. “De Creatione Generatim”; II. “De Angelica Substantia”;
III. “De Hominis Origine et Natura”; IV. “De Hominis Elevatione ad
Statum Supernaturalem”; V. “De Humanæ Naturæ Lapsu”; VI. “De Hominis
Novissimis.”
Each of these subjects is developed with the greatest detail. Take, for
example, the seventeenth proposition in the third disputation, on the
origin of the human race. In the introductory remarks to this
proposition the author first explains our descent from Adam, the first
man, according to revelation, and then devotes some ten pages to a
concise but thorough exposition of Darwinism and its companion errors.
After this he lays down the following thesis: “Primi parentes, prout ex
divina revelatione constat, non modo quoad animam, sed etiam quoad
corpus, immediate a Deo conditi sunt. Quam certissimam veritatem
frustra evertere aut infirmare nituntur qui nunc audiunt Transformistæ:
principium enim quod assumunt arbitrarium est, atque experientiæ
repugnans; media, quæ assignant, ad transformationem efficiendam sunt
insufficientia; probationes, demum, quas adducunt, nihil omnino
evincunt.” This he proves directly by a large array of arguments from
the Holy Scriptures, the fathers and the doctors of the church. He then
proceeds to show the untenableness of the opposite theories,
demonstrating that animals can only be propagated by others of the same
species; that the ablest practical scientists of the day have
acknowledged the arbitrariness of the transformation theory, and that
many have proved it contrary to known facts; that the means suggested
by the evolutionists are insufficient to explain the origin of man,
etc., etc. He introduces a large and well-marshalled army of quotations
from American, British, and Continental scientists to back up his
position.
The divisions of the work and the order in which they are treated lay
no claims to originality, which the author has very sensibly considered
as worse than out of place in a theological text-book, since it tends
only to perplex the student and to introduce confusion into the schools
of divinity. The fate of writers who have, even in our own day, adopted
a different course proves clearly the correctness of this view.
Nevertheless, the method pursued in the treatment of particular
questions is at once novel and useful, and, as far as we know, peculiar
to Father Mazzella. As a general rule, theological writers, after
having briefly explained the meaning of the proposition and touched on
the errors of their adversaries, enter at once on the demonstration.
This done, they devote a great deal of space to the solution of
difficulties and the refutation of objections; and it is on this last
point especially that they rely for making the sense of their thesis
clear. Father Mazzella has adopted a different mode of proceeding. The
development of each of his propositions contains two distinct parts: in
the first he presents a complete exposition of the subject-matter in
all its bearings; in the second he proves the point at issue. He starts
out by giving a summary of the decisions of the church regarding the
question under discussion. Then, if there be any diversity of opinion
amongst Catholic doctors, he explains each system and notes the degree
of probability contained in it. Finally, he proceeds to the exposition
of contrary errors or heresies, and of the various senses, false and
true, in which the doctrine may be interpreted. All this opens the way
to the second part, in which the thesis is proved from Scripture, the
fathers, and reason, and the few difficulties that perhaps remain are
answered.
This manner of developing a subject seems to us to confer a twofold
benefit on the student: it gives him a clear and comprehensive
conception of the positive doctrine, and at the same time supplies him
with general principles by means of which he may readily solve any new
objections that may chance to arise in discussion. It is not sufficient
for the young theologian to have learned by heart a number of proofs,
and the answers to the long string of difficulties given in his
text-book. He must be imbued with the whole spirit of Catholic
doctrine, and thus he will form within himself a new theological
_sense_, if we may use the expression, by which he can easily discern
what is consonant with, and what is repugnant to, the truths contained
in the deposit of faith. Such is the result aimed at in Father
Mazzella’s method. Hence he devotes but little space to the answering
of objections; for he has already disposed of them in the exposition of
his thesis. Most difficulties, in fact, arise from a misunderstanding
of Catholic doctrine; hence it is plain that they must readily
disappear, if the dogmas of the church be clearly explained.
As is proper for a theologian, the author makes abundant use of
Scripture and tradition. Whilst avoiding all needless excursions into
the fields of philology and hermeneutics, he does not refuse to handle
the difficulties brought from these sciences. An instance of this is
his vindication of the true sense of the famous [Greek: eph ô]—_in
quo_—in the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. Whenever the
question under discussion has been defined by the church, the decrees
are carefully given and explained. We frequently find a series of
definitions on the same subject, taken from councils held at various
periods, proving the wonderful unity of the church’s teaching in
various ages. Father Mazzella makes frequent use of the fathers and
great scholastic writers. He generally quotes them word for word, thus
ensuring conviction as to their real opinion, and familiarizing the
reader with their peculiar modes of thought and expression, taking
care, however, to explain all obscurities in the text.
Every student of theology is aware of the importance of mental
philosophy in our days, when the repugnance of the supernatural to
reason is so loudly and boldly asserted. Hence the author constantly
appeals to it, but is careful to admit only such opinions as are
approved by the authority of the schools, taking as his guides only St.
Thomas and the ablest commentators of the Angelic Doctor, especially
Suarez.
In the third disputation the author has made the natural sciences come
to the aid of theology, especially when treating of the Mosaic
cosmogony, of the origin and antiquity of the human race, etc. Certain
devotees of modern experimental science, whose principles are built on
mere hypotheses, and who insist on our taking mere possibilities as
established facts, have declared a deadly war against revelation. It is
difficult to convince such men of their errors by appealing to pure
reason; for they are in a remarkable degree wanting in the logical
faculty. You can overcome them only by opposing facts to facts, and by
proving that their own pet studies contradict their theories. This
Father Mazzella has aimed at doing; and he supports his position by
bringing forward a mass of facts and disclaimers from the latest
writings of the ablest scientists. The style is clear, simple, and
straightforward—a most necessary quality in a book of the kind.
Difficult terms are always explained, and neither order nor precision
is ever sacrificed to a show of learning or rhetorical skill.
MODERN PHILOSOPHY, FROM DESCARTES TO SCHOPENHAUER AND HARTMANN. By
Francis Bowen, A.M., Alford Professor of Natural Religion and Moral
Philosophy in Harvard College. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co.
1877.
The preface of Prof. Bowen prepossesses us at once in his favor. “No
one,” says he, “can be an earnest student of philosophy without
arriving at definite convictions respecting the fundamental truths of
theology. In my own case, nearly forty years of diligent inquiry and
reflection concerning these truths have served only to enlarge and
confirm the convictions with which I began, and which are inculcated in
this book. Earnestly desiring to avoid prejudice on either side, and to
welcome evidence and argument from whatever source they might come,
without professional bias, and free from any external inducement to
teach one set of opinions rather than another, I have faithfully
studied most of what the philosophy of these modern times and the
science of our own day assume to teach. And the result is that I am now
more firmly convinced than ever that what has been justly called[89]
‘the dirt-philosophy’ of materialism and fatalism is baseless and
false. I accept with unhesitating conviction and belief the doctrine of
the being of one personal God, the creator and governor of the world,
and of one Lord Jesus Christ in whom ‘dwelleth all the fulness of the
Godhead bodily’; and I have found nothing whatever in the literature of
modern infidelity which, to my mind, casts even the slightest doubt
upon that belief.... Let me be permitted also to repeat the opinion,
which I ventured to express as far back as 1849, that the time seems to
have arrived for a more practical and immediate verification than the
world has ever yet witnessed of the great truth that the civilization
which is not based upon Christianity is big with the elements of its
own destruction” (pp. vi., vii.).
These are sound and wise words, which we welcome with peculiar pleasure
as emanating from a chair in Harvard University. The scope of _Modern
Philosophy_ is more restricted, as the author distinctly premises, than
the general title indicates. The authors whose systems are discussed
_ex professo_ are Descartes, Spinoza, Malebranche, Pascal, Leibnitz,
Berkeley, Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Hartmann. There is
also a general discussion of those great topics of metaphysics, the
origin of ideas and the nature of the universals, of the freedom of the
will and of the system of positivism, with an exposition of the
relation of physical to metaphysical science. It is quite proper for
the learned professor to select a particular range in modern philosophy
for his lectures, but we respectfully submit that a less general title
would have been more accurately definitive of his real object, and that
he identifies too much the course of European thought with the
direction of certain classes of thinkers. The revival of the philosophy
of Aristotle and St. Thomas in modern times is certainly worthy of
notice, and is exercising a strong and decisive influence on modern
European thought. The questions of ideology and the universals can
hardly be adequately presented without consideration of their treatment
by the able modern expositors of scholastic philosophy. We do not agree
with Mr. Bowen in his estimate of Descartes, or in his general views of
the superiority of modern to ancient and mediæval philosophy. Neither
are we in accordance with his special views of ideology. Nevertheless,
we recognize a current of very sound and discriminating thought
throughout his whole course of argumentation, which tends always toward
the most rational and Christian direction, taking up the good and
positive elements which it meets with on the way, and rejecting their
contraries. The author seems to have a subtle intellectual and moral
affinity for the highest, most spiritual and ennobling ideas of the
great men of genius, both heathen and Christian. Plato, Malebranche,
and Leibnitz seem to be those with whom he is most in sympathy. His
most marked antipathy is shown for the degrading pessimism of
Schopenhauer. We feel sure, from the tone of his reasoning and the
quality of his sentiments, that he would find the greatest pleasure in
the perusal of the writings of such Catholic philosophers as Kleutgen,
San Severino, Liberatore, Stöckl, and perhaps more than all of Laforet,
on account of his Platonizing tendencies.
Mr. Bowen’s style is remarkably and elegantly classic. He throws a
literary charm and glow over his discussions and expositions of
abstruse ethical and metaphysical topics which we do not often find,
except in the works of Italian authors, although some who write in
English are beginning to cultivate this style, in which logical
severity is combined with rhetorical grace. No one could write with
more modesty and suavity of manner, or in a more calm and amiable
temper. We hope this truly excellent volume, in such contrast with the
common run of jejune and debasing trash which passes for science and
philosophy, will be very much read, especially in the neighborhood of
Boston, where it is sadly needed.
HISTORY OF THE SUPPRESSION OF THE SOCIETY OF JESUS IN THE PORTUGUESE
DOMINIONS. By the Rev. Alfred Weld, S.J. London: Burns & Oates.
1877. (For sale by The Catholic Publication Society Co.)
This able work of Father Weld throws a flood of light on a very sad and
gloomy page of history. Never was the Society of Jesus so fearfully
tried and persecuted, and never did its virtues shine more
conspicuously, than in the period referred to by the author—that is,
during the twenty years preceding the entire suppression of the order
by Clement XIV. in 1773.
We behold its holy and self-sacrificing members spreading themselves
over the New as well as the Old World, making countless conquests for
Christ, bearing every hardship and danger in order to teach the truths
of faith to the most barbarous tribes and peoples, planting the
standard of the cross in the most distant regions, and watering the
seed of the Gospel by their blood. Wherever they went they gave
evidence, in their own persons, of the highest apostolic virtues.
God could not but bless the efforts of such disinterested and
self-sacrificing followers of his divine Son, and their labors were
crowned with astonishing success. Take, for example, the history of
their missions in Paraguay. No brighter or more cheering picture was
ever displayed to the world than the fatherly government of the Jesuits
over these poor children of the forest. Here civilization and religion
went hand in hand, and peace and prosperity reigned. But the very
success of the missionaries raised up against them powerful and bitter
enemies. The more saintly they were, the more envy they excited; the
more learned and influential, the more jealousy arose, until at last
their enemies vowed their destruction.
Chief among those enemies, and most powerful in his opposition, was
Carvalho, Marquis of Pombal, the chief minister of state under Joseph
I., King of Portugal. Having, by sycophancy, flattery, and deception,
made himself master of this weak sovereign, and always finding means to
prevent his evil designs from becoming known, he labored to destroy the
authority of the Holy See throughout the kingdom of Portugal, and to
establish, as nearly as possible, a national church. He saw that the
faithful Society of Jesus would be an insuperable obstacle in his way.
He accordingly determined on its destruction, or, if he could not
effect this, at least its expulsion from the Portuguese dominions.
Knowing the high esteem in which the learned body was held throughout
Europe by kings, princes, nobles, and people, and, above all, by each
succeeding Sovereign Pontiff, he made use of every means, and means
always the most malicious, in order to destroy the character and
influence of the Jesuits. There was no insinuation too low, no
instrument too vile, no slander too base, of which he did not make use
to effect their injury and ruin. He spread throughout Europe,
especially in the principal courts, the grossest libels (many of them
written by himself) against the society, and all under the hypocritical
plea of serving religion, law, and order. Every species of tyranny that
human malice, aided by a deeper malice, could invent or call into being
to injure the glorious institute founded by that great soldier of
Christ, St. Ignatius, Pombal exercised.
During his ministry nine thousand innocent persons, many of whom were
of the noblest families in the kingdom or ecclesiastics of the highest
character, were condemned either to prison or to death, without any
trial, and often without even knowing the cause for which they were
deprived of their life or liberty.
The sufferings of the poor Jesuits, many of whom had spent the chief
portion of their lives as apostles in South America and had been
brought back in chains to the dungeons of Portugal, were of the most
harrowing description. Not a few died in their wretched prisons, and
the few that survived at the end of eighteen years, when they were
released by order of the Queen, were but miserable wrecks of their
former selves.
On the day of the queen’s coronation, May 13, 1777, Francis da Silva,
Judge of the Supreme Court, pronounced his memorable address, in which
he thus denounces, in the name of the whole nation, the tyranny from
which they were just freed: “The blood is still flowing from the wounds
with which the heart of Portugal has been pierced by the unlimited and
blind despotism from which we have just ceased to suffer. He (Pombal)
was the systematic enemy of humanity, of religion, of liberty, of
merit, and of virtue. He filled the prisons and the fortresses with the
flower of the kingdom. He harassed the public with vexations and
reduced it to misery. He destroyed all respect for the pontifical and
episcopal authority; he debased the nobility, corrupted morals,
perverted legislation, and governed the state with a sceptre of iron,
in the vilest and most brutal manner that has ever been seen in the
world.”
All the machinations of this politician are laid bare, and his
miserable agents in this fearful persecution exposed to view, in this
work of Father Weld. He does not ask us to take for granted his simple
declarations, but fortifies every position which he takes by the
clearest and most undeniable proofs. He has had access to authentic
documents, which he has put to the best use. His style is clear and
forcible, and in the arguments which he uses and the proofs with which
he sustains them he gives us a noble, just, and triumphant vindication
of the great society of which he is a member.
In reading this work we could not but call to mind the prophecy of St.
Ignatius that “the heritage of the Passion should never fail the
society”—“A prophecy,” says the Protestant writer Stewart Rose,
“fulfilled up to this time; for they (the Jesuits) are still, as for
three hundred years past, indefatigable in the saving of souls,
perversely misrepresented and stupidly misunderstood.”
ANTAR AND ZARA, AND OTHER POEMS, MEDITATIVE AND LYRICAL. By Aubrey De
Vere.
THE FALL OF RORA, AND OTHER POEMS, MEDITATIVE AND LYRICAL. By the same.
London: Henry S. King & Co. 1877. (For sale by The Catholic
Publication Society Co.)
These two volumes “comprise the author’s secular poetry previous to the
‘Legends of St. Patrick’ (1872), together with many poems composed
before that date, though not published.” “His religious poems will be
collected later in a separate volume.”
_Antar and Zara_, with many shorter pieces, first appeared in the pages
of THE CATHOLIC WORLD. It was in those pages that the writer made Mr.
De Vere’s acquaintance; and not a few of our readers, probably, are
indebted to the same source for their introduction to the great
Catholic poet of the day. To such it will be a welcome surprise, as it
is to us, to find his cultured muse so prolific. The variety of themes,
too, within these volumes affords a frequent ramble “to fresh fields
and pastures new.” The poet himself has travelled. With Byron, he has
“stood on the Alps,” and pondered in the “City of the Soul,” and basked
in the “eternal summer” that “yet gilds the Isles of Greece.” At home,
again, he has sung Erin’s glories and woes as though he had taken down
the old Bardic harp from “Tara’s walls.”
As a poet, however, he shows the influence of two other great masters
than Byron and Moore—though some of his Irish ballads remind us of the
latter. He is chiefly a disciple of Wordsworth, while he has studied to
good purpose the scholarly verse of Tennyson. With most imitators of
Tennyson the classic perfections of the Laureate are turned to mere
affectations. Not so with Mr. De Vere, who is equally a scholar
himself. This scholarly taste, indeed, would have prevented him, we are
sure, from adopting Wordsworth’s theory of poetic diction, even had
Tennyson never arisen to recall English poetry from the loose,
inaccurate style into which his great predecessors, with the exception
of Coleridge, had thrown so much splendid thought.
This conviction of ours regarding the combined influence of Tennyson
and Wordsworth on our author’s poetry is confirmed by the discovery
that _Antar and Zara_ is dedicated to the former by “his friend”; and,
again, of the sonnet “Composed at Rydal, September, 1860,” with the two
following sonnets “To Wordsworth, on Visiting the Duddon.” _Antar and
Zara_, particularly in the shorter metre of _Zara’s_ “song,” is
eminently Tennysonian. For example:
“He culled me grapes—the vintager;
In turn, for song the old man prayed:
I glanced around; but none was near:
With veil drawn tighter, I obeyed.
“‘Were I a vine, and he were heaven,
That vine would spread a vernal leaf
To meet the beams of morn and even,
And think the April day too brief.
“‘Were he I love a cloud, not heaven,
That leaf would spread and drink the rain;
Warm summer shower and dews of even
Alike would take, and think them gain.
“‘It would not shrink from wintry rime
Or echoes of the thunder-shock,
But watch the advancing vintage-time,
And meet it, reddening on the rock.’”
And again:
“Dear tasks are mine that make the weeks
Too swift in passing, not too slow:
I nurse the rose on faded cheeks,
Bring solace to the homes of woe.
“I hear our vesper anthems swell;
I track the steps of Fast and Feast;
I read old legends treasured well
Of Machabean chief or priest.
“I hear on heights of song and psalm
The storm of God careering by;
Beside His Deep, for ever calm,
I kneel in caves of Prophecy.
“O Eastern Book! It cannot change!
Of books beside, the type, the mould—
It stands like yon Carmelian range
By _our_ Elias trod of old!”
Here are the sonnets:
“COMPOSED AT RYDAL,
“SEPT, 1860.
“The last great man by manlier times bequeathed
To these our noisy and self-boasting days
In this green valley rested, trod these ways,
With deep calm breast this air inspiring breathed.
True bard, because true man, his brow he wreathed
With wild-flowers only, singing Nature’s praise;
But Nature turn’d, and crown’d him with her bays,
And said, ‘Be thou _my_ Laureate.’ Wisdom sheathed
In song love-humble; contemplations high,
That built like larks their nests upon the ground;
Insight and vision; sympathies profound,
That spann’d the total of humanity:
These were the gifts which God pour’d forth at large
On men through him; and he was faithful to his charge.”
“TO WORDSWORTH, ON VISITING THE DUDDON.
I.
“So long as Duddon, ’twixt his cloud-girt walls
Thridding the woody chambers of the hills,
Warbles from vaulted grot and pebbled halls
Welcome or farewell to the meadow rills;
So long as linnets pipe glad madrigals
Near that brown nook the laborer whistling tills,
Or the late-reddening apple forms and falls
‘Mid dewy brakes the autumnal red-breast thrills;
So long, last poet of the great old race,
Shall thy broad song through England’s bosom roll.
A river singing anthems in its place,
And be to later England as a soul.
Glory to Him who made thee, and increase,
To them that hear thy word, of love and peace!”
II.
“When first that precinct sacrosanct I trod
Autumn was there, but Autumn just begun;
Fronting the portals of a sinking sun,
The queen of quietude in vapor stood,
Her sceptre o’er the dimly-crimsoned wood
Resting in light. The year’s great work was done;
Summer had vanish’d, and repinings none
Troubled the pulse of thoughtful gratitude.
Wordsworth! the autumn of our English song
Art thou: ’twas thine our vesper psalms to sing:
Chaucer sang matins; sweet his note and strong;
His singing-robe the green, white garb of Spring:
Thou like the dying year art rightly stoled—
Pontific purple and dark vest of gold.”
Wordsworth was a giant at the sonnet. His sonnets are, in our judgment,
by far his best productions, and those in which his theory of diction
jars one least. We congratulate Mr. De Vere on following in the
master’s footsteps by cultivating the sonnet, and without the defects
of the leader. We are also proud to see him disregard the Petrarchian
sonnet as the only correct type—a form in which the English language
would be sadly monotonous, were it never allowed to vary the order of
rhymes, particularly in the minor system. Surely our language has every
right to a sonnet of its own—and that flexible.
We will only add that the objections commonly made to Mr. De Vere’s
poetry—to wit, that it is elaborate and requires much thought—are of no
weight against his mission as a poet. He aims, we presume, at
interesting the cultured few rather than the uncultured many. A poet’s
highest function is, we say, to teach. And a true Catholic poet, like
our author, can reach intelligences, both within and without the
church, through doors at which “divine philosophy” in dull, prosaic
garb must knock in vain.
SADLIER’S ELEMENTARY HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES. By a Teacher of
History. New York: William H. Sadlier. 1877.
This is a very pleasing and useful little manual for children. It
presents the chief events of the history of this country in the form of
question and answer, giving a prominence much needed to the great part
which Catholics have played in the struggles of the Republic, and its
material and social development. The plan was well conceived, and has
been well executed. It is the last work of the enterprising and
much-lamented young Catholic publisher who was so suddenly carried off
at the opening of what promised to be a most useful and honorable
career.
ANCIENT HISTORY. From the French of Rev. Father Gazeau, S.J. Revised
and corrected, with questions at the end of each chapter. By a pupil
of the Sisters of Notre Dame. First American edition. New York: The
Catholic Publication Society Co. 1877.
This is another and useful addition to the Catholic Publication
Society’s educational series. It is a very interesting, clear, and
comprehensive history, embracing the chief powers and peoples of
ancient times, and ending with the death of Alexander the Great and the
division of his empire. The questions at the end of each chapter form
an improved feature on the original, and the translation runs as
smoothly as could be desired.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXVI., No. 154.—JANUARY, 1878.
BETWEEN THE YEARS.
1877–1878.
_Rogate, quæ ad pacem sunt, Jerusalem: et abundantia diligentibus
te._—Ps. cxxi.
I.
Old with its sorrow, weary with the load
Of angry strife and murderous thought of wrong
It hath with such sad patience borne so long,
The year draws near the judgment-seat of God.
Signed at its birth with Heaven’s holiest name,
Blessed with the chrism of self-sacrifice,
It brought men gifts of more than royal price;
Asked in return a pure and generous fame;
Life’s book it opened at a clean white page—
Whereon fell not the shadow of a stain—
Set in man’s hand a consecrated pen
Whose script should be the future’s heritage.
Lo! we have written; shall we dare to see
The closed book opened in eternity?
II.
_Jesu, Redemptor!_ at thy feet we kneel,
Who burn the tapers round the dying year;
Rest we beseech for him that lieth here,
And on the blotted page thy mercy’s seal.
Through this dark night we wait with hope the day,
Ready the handmaid of thy grace to greet
Who hear the rhythm of her strong, young feet—
The fair New Year, advancing swift this way.
Jesus, most patient, does thy morning break?
Shall she we wait for, with thy Spirit’s breath
Stir to new life a world that slumbereth?
Shall last year’s thorns to fleecy blossom wake?
Cometh thy kingdom? Shall thy will be done,
And Calvary’s shade be lost in Thabor’s sun?
III.
To thee we look, O Jesus, our true light!
With eyes, tear-dimmed, that, straining, gaze along
The future’s ways the past o’ershades with wrong;
That dread the glitter of this earthly night,
Where every star is rivet of a cross.
Still in the light of Child-blessed Bethlehem
We feel the portent of Jerusalem,
We hear the echoes of sad Rama’s loss.
In thee we trust, and in her, crucified,
Our holy mother Rome, thy spouse divine,
In whose dear face eternal light doth shine,
In whose maimed hands thy perfect gifts abide.
In thee we rest, who know the future thine;
Shape thou our deeds unto thy will divine.
Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1878.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHRISTIANITY AS AN HISTORICAL RELIGION.[90]
The doctrine of natural development or evolution may be apprehended and
presented in theoretical form under two diverse phases or aspects. One
of these resembles the old scholastic theory of the eduction of forms
from the potentiality of matter. The indeterminate something which is
almost nothing takes on all kinds of specific determinations, which
chase away and supplant one another, each one vanishing into
nothingness like a melody when the harp-strings cease to vibrate. The
animal soul, the highest of these determining principles, is only one
of the evanescent forms, depending for existence on the body it
animates, becoming extinct, like a sound or the trace of a bird in the
air, as soon as death takes place. So, in the theory of pure natural
evolution, history, polity, ethics, theology, science, educe themselves
from the potential, determinable substratum of humanity, without
efficient or final causes, in evanescent forms; and their animating
spirit is no more than an _anima belluina_.
The other theory may be likewise illustrated from the same philosophy,
comparing it with the doctrine of the rational soul, immediately
created, self-subsisting, entering into composition with body but not
immersed in it; like a swimmer in water, with head and shoulders above
the surface; animating matter, but dominating over it and subordinating
it to serve by its development and life the higher end of the spirit,
which reaches beyond the temporal and sensible toward infinity and
eternity. Thus all human development—though it is nature which is
developed, though natural processes subserve its evolution, and its
history is the history of human events, acts, thoughts, polities,
religions—is informed and dominated by a superhuman, a divine spirit,
power, action, for a supra-mundane end.
The true philosophy of history is constructed on this theory—meaning by
theory what Aristotle and the Greeks meant, not a visionary conjecture,
but an intellectual speculation by which the mind has true vision of
intelligible realities, as it has of sensible objects by ocular vision.
This true philosophy of history is partly identified with theology, or
the science of God and all that which is divine; not only in so far as
theology is the highest part of rational philosophy, but also inasmuch
as it transcends reason. The knowledge of God and that which is divine
transcending natural intelligence and reason, is the revelation of God
in and through the Word, who “enlighteneth every man coming into this
world,” and consequently casts light on everything pertaining to
humanity. The creation, destination, fall, redemption and glorification
of humanity in and through the Word, “who was made flesh and dwelt
among us,” is the object of Christian theology, to which the immediate
object of history is subordinate. The Incarnate Son of God is the
central figure in human history, its circumference is drawn around this
centre, and all its diameters pass through it.
A number of great historians have perceived this truth, and made
universal history render up its testimony, which is sometimes latent
and sometimes patent, to Christ and to his divine work of human
regeneration. Leo, for instance, having first convinced himself of the
truth of divine revelation by the study of history, made his entire
work on the universal history of mankind a splendid and irrefutable
demonstration of Christianity. The course of time and events before
Christ is a preparation for his coming. The one great event in human
history is the divine Epiphany, the visible manifestation of God in the
Person of the Word through his assumed human nature, in which he was
conceived and born of the Virgin, lived among men, died, and rose again
to an immortal and glorious life, for the fulfilment of the divine
purpose in creation and the consummation of the destiny of mankind. The
course of time and events after Christ is the successive fulfilment of
this divine purpose, to be completed in the final consummation at the
end of the present order of the world.
In the six centuries immediately preceding Christ the preparation and
convergence of events become more distinct and manifest; the features
of human evolution are more marked; the progress and tendency of the
universal movement are apparently accelerated in the direction of the
common point of convergence; all human affairs, the objects of history,
seem to rise out of its dim horizon, looming up in increasing
magnitude, like the great ships of a squadron hastening from all points
of the compass over a broad sea to their rendezvous. Before this period
the expanse of time is to our eye almost like the waste solitudes of
ocean. Confucius collected some remnants of Chinese historical
documents going back to the ninth century b.c. Some imperfect records
of Hindoo antiquity have been brought to light in modern researches.
Hieroglyphic and cuneiform inscriptions, like traces of a caravan on
the sand, present to the curious modern eye vestiges of a remote past.
Berosus wrote in the reign of Seleucus Nicator, Manetho in that of
Ptolemy Philadelphus, Herodotus four centuries and a half before
Christ. Varro, the most learned of the Romans, dates the beginning of
authentic Roman history from the first Olympiad, B.C. 776. Authentic
written history does not go back as far as Solomon, except as we find
it in the sacred writings of the Old Testament. These priceless
documents are the family records of the house of Nazareth, the
genealogy of Jesus Christ, the history of his predecessors and
precursors; of inchoate Christianity, of the prophecy and providence,
the promises and laws, the typical rites and preliminary covenants, the
elementary revelations and the other preludes, by which, in divers
places, times, and manners, the Word of God prepared the way for his
coming upon earth to fulfil all prophecy and accomplish the expectation
of all nations.
About five centuries and a half before Christ the prophet Daniel made
his celebrated prediction of the great period of seventy weeks—_i.e._,
four hundred and ninety years—from the rebuilding of the temple and
city of Jerusalem to the Messias. This period is marked as the one of
immediate expectation and preparation. As the time of the great Prophet
drew near the succession of the minor prophets in Judea ceased. The
Jewish people became less exclusively isolated, and came into relations
with other nations which were quite new and marked with a transitional
tendency. The Greek Scriptures of the second canon, like the writings
of St. Paul in the New Testament, are more like the classic works of
other nations than those of the first canon, which are marked with the
peculiar Hebrew characteristics. A diffusion of the Jews, of their
books and ideas; a general dissemination of the Greek language and
literature, a world-wide unification of civilized, and in part of
barbarous peoples under the Roman polity; a remarkable advancement of
the human mind in the great works of philosophy, poetry, literature,
art, and every species of civilization; are the principal second and
concurrent causes directed by divine Providence to fulfil a purpose,
analogous to the mission of St. John the Baptist, among the nations
predestined to a Christian vocation.
There is nothing in this view which favors rationalism. Grace supposes
nature, and God is the author of both. Natural and supernatural
providence are distinct but not separate. Rational science and revealed
doctrine are portions of the universal truth which has its measure in
the divine intelligence and its primal origin in the divine essence. It
is, moreover, characteristic of the divine operation to act on the rule
of parsimony in the use of means. Where second causes are sufficient
the first cause does not immediately intervene and supersede their
action; where natural forces are sufficient they are not supplanted by
those which are supernatural. What a long period elapsed before the
earliest of the inspired books was written! How few have been the
prophets, how comparatively few and rare miracles of the first order!
In the beginning, religion, the church, the whole spiritual order, was
identified with the common social and civil order. The special
intervention of God in the calling of Abraham, the legation of Moses,
the entire Jewish system, was a renovation of the more ancient and
universal dispensation, confined within the limits of one nation,
protected by special legislation, sanctioned by miracles, manifested in
revelations through inspired men and prophets. As the time draws near
when the church and religion were to become once more and finally
Catholic, the supernatural providence of God over the Jewish people
becomes less extraordinary, and his natural providence over the other
nations more conspicuous. The great Prophet himself, the Messias, the
Son of God in human form, performs miracles and appeals to them, as it
were, with reserve and reluctance, hides his wisdom and power from men,
refuses to exert his dominion over men and nature in defence of his own
life, discloses himself after his resurrection to a few only, and
departs, so to speak, _incognito_ from the earth to return to his
heavenly abode with the Father. The gift of inspiration, by virtue of
which the written documents of revelation are completed, is imparted to
a small number only; their writings fill but a small compass; within
fifty years from the opening of the New Testament canon by the first
Gospel it is closed by the last book of the last of the apostles, St.
John. No new David, or Isaias, or Daniel, or Paul, or John is
henceforth to appear in the church. All this shows the purpose of God
not to oppress the human by the divine in the deification of humanity,
not to supersede the natural by the supernatural, or to supplant the
activity of the human intelligence and will by an overbearing divine
power. The Spirit of God brooded over the face of chaos in the
beginning, gradually bringing it into form and order, and the same
Spirit has been waving his wings[91] over the waters of human history
during the entire period of the explication of God’s creative act in
time and space through human actions and events. Where creative power
is required—_i.e._, where it is the will of God to give being to a term
educed from non-existence and from no pre-existing subject—God acts
alone and immediately as first cause with no concurrent cause. He has
created and continues to create all simple substances. Where
supernatural power is required to bring from created substances certain
results which presuppose a new form of being in them above their
intrinsic substantial actuality, or some other augmentation of their
natural force by an immediate divine act, God intervenes directly as
the efficient cause of the effect produced. He is the author of second
causes and principles, of the first germs of evolution, of generative
powers, of all origin, and of all that is called in the German language
_Urwesen_. He preserves everything, concurs with everything, directs
everything toward proximate, remote, and final ends, bringing the
creation which proceeded from him as first cause back to himself as
final cause. And therefore, whenever there is a sufficient reason, he
intervenes directly to overrule the order of second causes and the
natural laws he has himself established. The especial reason for this
is to prevent the thwarting of the legitimate action of beings endowed
with con-creative power, through the illegitimate interference of other
beings endowed with the same power. All spiritual beings have this
con-creative power by virtue of intelligence and free-will. They may
fail to exercise it when they should; they may be hindered from
exercising it by equal or superior force. The order of moral probation
requires that great freedom of movement should be allowed to these
forces in voluntary efforts and in conflicts. But the final cause of
this probation also exacts that the predetermined plans of God shall be
infallibly executed, and that he shall overrule the wills both of men
and angels for the fulfilment of his own sovereign will.
The natural and the supernatural are, therefore, not separate, much
less disconnected, least of all hostile, in the order of divine
providence, although they are distinct and placed in logical opposition
to one another. Sacred and secular history, religion and civilization,
theology and science, the eternal and temporal interests of mankind,
cannot be separated from each other and relegated to mutually distant
or hostile kingdoms, like the kingdoms of light and darkness in the
system of the Manicheans. Any view which considers mankind as separated
into two divisions of the elect and the reprobate by an antecedent
decree, is false. The doctrine that the nature of man has become
totally depraved, and that his entire rational and physical activity
develops only sin which tends fatally to perdition, is utterly
unchristian as well as unphilosophical. It is only from this doctrine
that we could deduce a theory by which the society of the elect would
be considered as a separated, isolated tribe, a small invisible church,
without any real relation through a spiritual bond with the mass of
mankind. The Catholic doctrine is expressed by the author of the Book
of Wisdom in these beautiful words: “God created all things that they
might be: and he made the nations of the earth for health: and there is
no poison of destruction in them, nor kingdom of hell upon the earth.
For justice is perpetual and immortal.”[92]
The true philosophy of Christianity must, therefore, take into view the
providence of God over the Gentiles, their history, philosophy, polity,
and civilization, in order to appreciate the period of preparation for
the Messias who was the expected of the nations. The philosophy of
history, also, must take into view the whole cycle of special acts of
divine providence recorded in the books of the Old Testament, and
fulfilled between the epochs of the calling of Abraham and the
appearance of the Messias in the history of the peculiar people of God.
Mr. Formby, with his peculiar originality and vigor of thought, has
brought out into more striking relief than any other author we know of
the idea common to several excellent modern writers respecting the
position of the two cities, Jerusalem and Rome, in the historical order
of divine Providence. They are, as it were, the two great citadels of
God, the two great capitals of the universal kingdom of Christ. During
the thousand years immediately before the Incarnation the city of
David, the seat of the royal ancestors of Jesus Christ our Lord, was
the citadel of all the highest interests of humanity. All the hopes,
the whole future destiny, of mankind were in David’s royal line, the
sweet psalmist, the prophet, the king of Israel. For seven centuries
God was preparing Rome, first the ally, then the arbiter, and finally
the conqueror of Judea, to take the place of Jerusalem, and by its
world-wide polity to serve as a medium for the promulgation and
extension of the divine religion throughout the whole earth.
The true philosophy of history sets aside all theories which are
exclusive on the one side or on the other—those which exclude the
ordinary providence of God over all mankind under the natural law, and
those which exclude his extraordinary providence over the church under
the supernatural law—and includes both under one synthesis. The one
exclusive view proceeds from an _à priori_ theological principle
resulting in a conclusion with which a logical induction from facts
cannot be reconciled, and therefore denies or misrepresents the facts.
The other proceeds from an _à priori_ metaphysical principle with a
similar result. The one is a pseudo-supernaturalism, the other a
pseudo-naturalism. The first pretends to be the genuine spiritual
religion, or pure Christianity; the second professes to be the genuine
rational philosophy, or pure science. Both are counterfeits of the
truth. The best corrective of these theoretical tendencies is to be
found in the correct knowledge and exposition of history. Lacordaire
has well said: “_On ne brûle pas les faits_.” Facts are incombustible;
they cannot be made to evaporate in the gaseous elements of
transcendental metaphysics, or vanish in clouds of smoke from the pipes
of German neologists. Each of these make their gas or blow their clouds
from products of their own imagination adroitly substituted for facts.
Facts resist with an invincible inertia every combination with false
theories of supernatural religion. In all branches of science pure
reasoning and the investigation of facts must go together in harmony
and mutually complete each other. Even in divine revelation God is
careful to present facts with their evidence in connection with
doctrine, and a large portion of the Bible is made up of historical
records. The divine legation of Moses and the divine mission of Jesus
Christ are great historical facts, and they are in synthetical
connection with all the great events and epochs of human universal
history. In this concurrence and harmony we find the most evident and
tangible proof and corroboration in the order of natural reason of the
truth revealed by God in Jesus Christ, which is the object of divine
faith, and the soul of the complete substance of Christianity.
Jesus Christ came on the earth at the very juncture of the ages, at the
moment for crystallization, at the epoch of crisis in human affairs,
when Judaism, Grecian culture, and Roman jurisprudence combined with
Roman valor, were ready to blend in a new combination; when the three
strands spun by no blind fate, but by all-seeing Providence, were ready
to be intertwined: the pure tradition of the patriarchs, the philosophy
of the heathen sages, the organic polity of the imperial legislators—an
electric cable to bind the earth and transmit the new movement of
divine impulse. The Jews preserved and handed down the pure doctrine of
monotheism, the promise of redemption, and the moral law—the germ of
revealed doctrine and ethics, which, in the state of development, is
the faith and law of Christianity. The Greeks furnished the
intellectual human culture in philosophy, poetry, and art, of which the
Christian religion availed itself, as of a precious vase in which to
detain its subtle and sublime essence—an ideal atmosphere for the
communication of its influence to the minds and imaginations of men in
all ages and countries. Rome opened the way for diffusion and
unification. Immobility in tradition, mobility in intelligence, motive
power in organization, are the characters of Jewish, Greek, and Roman
civilization, which were united in Christianity under a higher and
controlling vital force.
They were each and all temporary and insufficient, subject to a law of
internal decay, evanescent in their nature, and about vanishing when
Jesus Christ came on the earth. That he came just in time to supersede
them and to begin the universal regeneration of mankind; that he really
did so without any purely human and natural means which were sufficient
causes of the effects produced; is a proof that the God whose
providence rules the world sent him to fulfil this mission, and that
his work was a divine operation. God’s hand alone could spin and twine
the threads of human destiny and make Time’s noiseless, incessant
shuttle weave the woof and web into the successive figures of
historical embroidery.
The miracles and resurrection of Jesus Christ, historically proved as
certain, indubitable facts, authenticate his divine mission; they stamp
a divine seal on his credentials as the Messias promised from the
beginning of the world. This divine legation gives divine authority to
his word and precepts. Whatever he teaches in the name of God is a
divine revelation, and whatever he commands is a divine law. The
authentic record of these miracles, the record of what Jesus said and
did; the authentic account of his teaching respecting his own person,
plan, doctrine, and law—that is, of the principles and the foundation
of the Christian religion—is historical; it is an authentic testimony
respecting facts. The authentic record of the actual founding of
Christianity on the principles and plan of the Master, by the disciples
to whom he entrusted the work of carrying his design into effect, is
historical. This divine design necessarily embracing all that is
contained in the idea of a continuity and development of divine
providence over human affairs and destinies from the beginning to the
end of the world, its actual carrying out through successive ages
becomes matter of history for the time present in respect to times
past. Its principles of continuity and development, in connection with
the order of providence anterior to Christ, and with the progress of
its movement from the apostolic age through the ages following, are to
be sought for in its history, not to the exclusion of reasoning from
abstract principles, but in connection with it. The historical
documents of the New Testament, considered merely as credible testimony
and apart from their inspiration, are of paramount importance in
respect to the inquiry into the nature of the genuine, authentic
Christianity promulgated and established as a world-religion by its
Founder and his apostles. After these come all other documents
containing historical record or indirect evidence respecting the
earliest age of the Christian religion. In this aspect the study of
dogmas of faith, of laws and rites, of the spirit and the organization
of Christianity, is directed toward an historical term. The object of
the inquiry is to ascertain what is Christianity, what was its
legitimate development, where is to be found through all ages the real
continuation, uninterrupted succession, perpetual life, and progressive
expansion which connote the identity of its essence and its specific
unity in all its distinct moments, as it proceeds from its beginning
towards its end. Although its intrinsic truth and authority are
established simultaneously with the exposition of its historical
character, the argument is nevertheless distinct, in respect to its
conclusive force in this direction, from the pure manifestation of the
real essence and nature of the religion. The question as to its
essential constituents and their logical connection is logically
distinct from the question as to its material truth, although they are
metaphysically one by an inseparable composition. Christ, manifesting
himself in history, is a revelation of the infinite wisdom, power, and
goodness of God in his divine works, which transcend the reach of all
created and dependent forces. It is the Eternal Word speaking
efficiently, as when he said: “Let there be light: and there was
light.” If we can only see all objects by this light, through a pure
medium, we cannot fail to be enlightened by the knowledge of the truth.
The able work of Dr. Fisher, the title of which is prefixed to this
article, and which was briefly noticed in our last number, is based on
the idea we have set forth in these preliminary remarks, although we do
not profess to have given an exposition of the learned author’s precise
thesis, or ascribe to him a view identical in all particulars with the
one we have presented. We will employ his own language for this
purpose, of showing his own individual conception of the historical
environment of Christianity, and the conclusions to which investigation
and reflection on the great facts and events connected with its
beginnings have led him.
“Christianity is an historical religion. It is made up of
events, or, to say the least, springs out of events which,
however peculiar in their origin, form a part of the history of
mankind.... The Apostle Paul refers to the birth of Christ as
having occurred ‘when the fulness of time was come’ (Gal. iv.
4).
“His thought evidently is not only that a certain measure of
time must run out, but that a train of historical events and
changes must occur which have the coming of Christ for their
proper sequence. Of the nature of these antecedents in the
previous course of history he speaks when he has occasion to
discuss the relation of the Mosaic dispensation to the
Christian, and to point out the aims of Providence in regard to
the Gentile nations. It was formerly a mistake of both orthodox
and rationalist to look upon Christianity too exclusively as a
system of doctrine addressed to the understanding. Revelation
has been thought of as a communication written on high and let
down from the skies—delivered to men as the Sibylline books
were said to have been conveyed to Tarquin. Or it has been
considered, like the philosophical system of Plato, a creation
of the human intellect, busying itself with the problems of
human life and destiny; the tacit assumption in either case
being that Christianity is merely a body of doctrine. The truth
is that revelation is at the core historical. It is embraced in
a series of transactions in which men act and participate, but
which are referable manifestly to an extraordinary agency of
God, who thus discloses or reveals himself. The supernatural
element does not exclude the natural; miracle is not magic.
Over and above teaching there are laws, institutions,
providential guidance, deliverance, and judgment. Here is the
groundwork of revelation. For the interpretation of this
extraordinary and exceptional line of historical phenomena
prophets and apostles are raised up—men inspired to lift the
veil and explain the dealings of Heaven with men. Here is the
doctrinal or theoretical side of revelation. These individuals
behold with an open eye the significance of the events of which
they are witnesses or participants. The facts of secular
history require to be illuminated by philosophy. Analogous to
this office is the authoritative exposition and comment which
we find in the Scripture along with the historical record. The
doctrinal element is not a thing independent, purely theoretic,
disconnected from the realities of life and history. These lie
at the foundation; on them everything of a didactic nature is
based. This fact will be impressively obvious to one who will
compare the Bible, as to plan and structure, with the Koran.
“The character of revelation is less likely to be misconceived
when the design of revelation is kept in view. The end is not
to satisfy the curiosity of those who ‘seek after wisdom,’ by
the solution of metaphysical problems. The good offered is not
science, but salvation. The final cause of revelation is the
recovery of men to communion with God—that is, to true
religion. Whatever knowledge is communicated is tributary to
this end.
“Hence the grand aim, under the Old Dispensation and the New,
was not the production of a book, but the training of a people.
To raise up and train up a nation that should become a fit
instrument for the moral regeneration of mankind was the aim of
the old system.... Under the new or Christian system the object
was not less the training of a people; not, however, with any
limitations of race. The fount of the system was to be a
community of men who should be ‘the light of the world,’ and
‘the salt of the earth....’
“The grand idea of the kingdom of God is the connecting thread
that runs through the entire course of divine revelation. We
behold a kingdom planted in the remote past, and carried
forward to its ripe development, by a series of transactions in
which the agency of God mingles in an altogether peculiar way
in the current of human affairs. There is a manifestation of
God in act and deed. Verbal teaching is the commentary attached
to the historic fact, ensuring to the latter its true meaning.”
This is sound and Christian philosophy, admirably expressed and
containing many fruitful germs of thought. What we have quoted may
suffice to show that the historical nature of Christianity is the
fundamental idea of Dr. Fisher’s argument in the work under review.
He recognizes also a law of historical and continuous development
through all time in Christianity as resulting from its vital force,
which differs from the previous historical stage in this: that “in the
giving of revelation, at each successive stage, and especially at the
consummation, there was an increment of its contents,” whereas “this is
not true of Christianity since the apostolic age.” The touchstone and
test of normal development, in the sense to which the signification of
the term is restricted when it is used of the post-apostolic age, is
that “it springs out of the primitive seed”—namely, the deposit of
revealed truth contained in the teaching of Christ and the apostles in
its state of ultimate completeness.
The historical method of determining the real origin and nature of
Christianity is contrasted with the method which is purely _à priori_
and exclusively metaphysical in the following passage:
“The historical basis of Christianity marks the distinction
between Christian theology and metaphysical philosophy. The
starting-point of the philosopher is the intuitions of the
mind; on them as a foundation, with the aid of logic, he builds
up his system. His only postulates are the data of
consciousness. In Christian theology, on the contrary, we begin
with facts recorded in history, and explore, with the aid of
inspired authors, their _rationale_. To reverse this course,
and seek to evolve the Christian religion out of consciousness,
to transmute its contents into a speculative system, after the
manner of the pantheistic thinkers in Germany, is not less
futile than would be the pretence to construct American history
with no reference to the Puritan emigration, the Revolutionary
war, or the Southern Rebellion. The distinctive essence of
Christianity evaporates in an effort, like that undertaken by
Schelling in his earlier system, and by Hegel, to identify it
with a process of thought.”[93]
Farther on in his argument Dr. Fisher shows how this perverse
employment of the _à priori_ method has produced the sceptical theories
of the Tübingen school of criticism:
“As regards the credibility of the Gospel history, it ought to
be clearly understood that the modern attack by Baur, Strauss,
Zeller, and others is founded upon an _à priori_ assumption. It
is taken for granted beforehand that whatever is supernatural
is unhistorical. The testimony into which a miracle enters is
stamped at once as incredible. Christianity, it was assumed,
was an evolution of thought upon the natural plane. At a later
day Strauss fell into a materialistic way of thinking, which
rendered him, if possible, more deaf to all the evidence which,
if admitted, implies the supernatural. From the point of view
taken in the sceptical school, therefore, the New Testament
histories, so far as they relate to the wonderful works of
Christ, and his resurrection and manifestation to his disciples
after his death, must be discredited. But their principle, or
prejudice, carries the negative critics farther. It must affect
their judgment as to the authorship of the narratives which
record the miracles. It is rendered difficult to believe, if
not quite improbable, that these histories emanate from
apostles, eye-witnesses of the life of Jesus. The myths, or the
consciously-invented stories, the product of a theological
‘tendency’ in the primitive church, cannot well be ascribed to
the immediate followers of Christ. The fact that the New
Testament histories contain accounts of miracles also tends to
weaken and vitiate their general authority, in the estimation
of the sceptical school. That is to say, the credulity of the
Gospel writers, or their willingness to deceive, as evinced in
the supernatural elements embraced in their books, makes them
less entitled to trust in their record of ordinary events into
which the miracle does not enter....
“Connected with the unscientific assumption first noticed,
other assumptions were adopted by the Tübingen school which are
equally unsound. It was assumed that Christianity is an
evolution of thought according to the scheme of the Hegelian
logic, where it is held as a law that a doctrine in an
undeveloped form must divaricate into two opposites, to be
recombined afterwards in a higher unity. Thus, it was assumed
that Paulinism, and the sharply-defined Judaizing system
attributed to Peter, were the antagonistic types of opinion
which sprang out of the seed of doctrine planted by Christ, and
which were reunited in the old Catholic theology, the
evangelical legalism of the fathers of the second century.”[94]
This statement is supplemented by another succinct and pregnant passage
containing the elements of an argument of great comprehension and
irrefragable conclusiveness. After affirming that “the mythical theory
is wrecked upon a variety of difficulties which it cannot evade or
surmount”—a statement which has much more force, taken in connection
with the entire context of thorough critical reasoning, than it can
show as a mere isolated quotation—the learned professor proceeds:
“What is the rationalistic theory of the origin of the
Christian religion? It is that Jesus, a carpenter of Nazareth,
with no prestige derived from birth or social standing, taught
in Galilee for about a year—for to this period the class of
whom we speak would limit his public work. From these brief
labors, made up wholly of verbal instruction, came that
profound impression of his superhuman dignity which was made
indelibly upon his disciples, and which his crucifixion as a
criminal did not weaken, and that transforming power which went
forth upon them, and, in ever-increasing measure, upon all
subsequent generations. The Apostolic Church, the conversion of
Paul, and his Epistles, the narratives of the four Gospels,
with all that they contain, and Christianity, as it appears in
the history of mankind, all spring from that one year of mere
teaching! The effect is utterly disproportionate to the cause
assigned.”[95]
We must take notice that the author, with a competent knowledge of the
theories and arguments of the German Biblical critics, has carefully
refuted them, and presented solid proofs of the genuineness and
authenticity of the historical books of the New Testament, before
arriving at this part of his argument. He is summing up his plea after
an examination and discussion of evidence. His reasoning is not,
therefore, based on mere hypothesis, but is the conclusion of a
well-sustained thesis, with all the weight derived from his precedent
proofs. And he is therefore logically entitled to make the demand that
Christianity shall be estimated by the historical measure, according to
the full value of its miraculous facts and supernatural qualities, to
the exclusion of any hypothesis which pretends to be rational but is
really only fantastic, and therefore unphilosophical as well as
unchristian.
“It is much more consistent with a sound philosophy, instead of
taking refuge in an unreasonable denial of facts historically
established, to seek to comprehend them. At the outset the
notion should be banished that miracles are repugnant to
nature; that the supernatural is anti-natural. There is one
system; and supernatural agency, however it may modify the
course of nature, does no violence to the universal order. For
there is no such unbending rigidity in the course of nature
that it cannot be modified by the interposition of voluntary
agency. A steamship, cutting its way through the billows in the
teeth of wind and tide, moves by the force of machinery which
is contrived and directed by the human will.[96] The volitions
of man produce an effect which nature, independently of this
spiritual force, could never occasion. Now, of the limits of
the possible control of matter by the power of spirit, any more
than of the essence and origin of matter itself, we cannot
speak. It is a presumptuous affirmation that there is no being
in the universe who can infinitely outdo the power of man, vast
as it is, in this direction.”[97]
In this brief and sententious manner, with a few heavy and
well-directed strokes of sound reason, the author effectually
demolishes all the brittle ware of transcendental nonsense which calls
itself rationalism. We are reminded of a sentence we once heard uttered
by that singular genius, Henry Giles, in a railway carriage, respecting
a matter quite different: “Such theories are shattered like rotten
glass by a single thump of common sense.”
We find no reason for quoting anything from Dr. Fisher’s exposition of
the historical preparation for Christianity in the propædeutic system
of Judaism. For the present we will only refer to the notice which he
takes of the dispersion of the Hebrews over the world at the epoch of
the birth of Christ, adopting the language of Mommsen, which designates
Judaism as “an effective leaven of cosmopolitanism” working in the same
direction with the imperial Roman polity toward a blending of
nationalities in the more general solidarity “the nationality of which
was really nothing but humanity.” Of the providential office of Greece
and Rome in connection with that of Judea he thus speaks:
“These were three nations of antiquity, each of which was
entrusted with a grand providential office in reference to
Christianity. The Greeks, whatever they may have learned from
Babylon, Egypt, and Tyre, excelled all other races in a
self-expanding power of intellect—in ‘the power of lighting
their own fire.’ They are the masters in science, literature,
and art. Plato, speaking of his own countrymen, made ‘the love
of knowledge’ the special characteristic of ‘our part of the
world,’ as the love of money was attributed with equal truth to
the Phœnicians and Egyptians. The robust character of the
Romans, and their sense of right, qualified them to rule, and
to originate and transmit their great system of law and their
method of political organization. Virgil lets Anchises define
the function of the Roman people in his address to Æneas, a
visitor to the abodes of the dead:
“‘Others, I know, more tenderly may beat the breathing brass,
And better from the marble block bring living looks to pass;
Others may better plead the cause, may compass heaven’s face,
And mark it out, and tell the stars their rising and their place;
But thou, O Roman! look to it the folks of earth to sway;
For this shall be thine handicraft: peace on the world to lay,
To spare the weak, to mar the proud by constant weight of war.’
“Greece and Rome had each its own place to fill; but true
religion—the spirit in which man should live—comes from the
Hebrews.”[98]
Dr. Fisher places the relation of sympathy or affinity between the
mythological religion and Christianity in three things: first, in the
stimulus and scope given to subjective religious sentiments; second, in
the impulse towards “a goal hidden from sight,” the object of “an
unfulfilled demand in the religious nature” of men seeking after God,
whom they, in the language of St. Paul on Mars’ Hill, at Athens,
“ignorantly worshipped”; third, in a growing “monotheistic
tendency.”[99]
The topic of the relation of Greek philosophy to Christianity is
handled by the learned author in a very judicious and discriminating
manner, although we are disposed to take a considerably different view
of the philosophy of Aristotle as compared with Platonism. We are
pleased to observe his high estimate of the writings of Cicero. The
chapter on this topic is thus introduced:
“The Greek philosophy was a preparation for Christianity in
three ways: it dissipated, or tended to dissipate, the
superstitions of polytheism; it awakened a sense of need which
philosophy of itself failed to meet; and it so educated the
intellect and conscience as to render the Gospel apprehensible
and, in many cases, congenial to the mind. It did more than
remove obstacles out of the way; its work was positive as well
as negative: it originated ideas and habits of thought which
had more or less direct affinity with the religion of the
Gospel, and which found in this religion their proper
counterpart. The prophetic element of the Greek philosophy lay
in the glimpses of truth which it could not fully discern, and
in the obscure and unconscious pursuit of a good which it could
not definitely grasp.”[100]
In treating of “the close relation of the Roman Empire to Christianity”
Prof. Fisher notices the extension of Roman citizenship, the
cosmopolitan polity of Cæsar, the unifying influence of Roman
jurisprudence, the assimilation of mankind in language and culture by
the spread of the Romano-Hellenic civilization and the Greek and Latin
languages, travel and intercourse, commerce and a general mingling of
mankind from various causes, the mingling of religions, and the
resuscitation of the idea of a common humanity. Without overlooking the
external agency of Rome in paving the way for Christianity, the author
more distinctly accentuates another kind of influence:
“The effect of the consolidation of so large a part of mankind
in one political body, in breaking up local and tribal
narrowness, and in awakening what may be termed a cosmopolitan
feeling, is in the highest degree interesting. The Roman
dominion was the means of a mental and moral preparation for
the Gospel; and this incidental effect is worthy of special
note. The kingdom of Christ proposed the unification of mankind
through a spiritual bond. Whatever tended to melt down the
prejudices of nation, and clan, and creed, and instil in the
room of them more liberal sentiments, opened a path for the
Gospel. Now, we find that under the political system
established by Rome a variety of agencies co-operated to effect
such a result. Powerful forces were at work whose effect was
not limited to the creation of outward advantages for the
dissemination of the religion of Christ, but tended to produce
a more or less genial soil for its reception. We have, then, to
embrace in one view the influence of the Roman Empire in both
of these relations, in shaping outward circumstances, and in
favoring a mental habit, which were propitious to the
introduction of the new faith.”[101]
What the author proposes in the last clause of this quotation he
fulfils in a very satisfactory manner in one of the most splendid
chapters of his work.
The outline of the historical basis of Christianity having been drawn,
and the principles of the sound historical construction of a true and
logical theory or philosophy of the Christian religion established, the
outline of the actual foundations, and the first course of the great
structure itself, determining its plan of architecture, next demands
our consideration. In plainer language, the actual “beginnings of
Christianity” in the apostolic age, the earliest history of the
religion of Christ, in respect to all its constitutive principles,
presents itself for examination. What is Christianity in its essence,
nature, integrity of organic constitution, its proper attributes; with
a due distinction of its substance from its accidents, of its genuine
and normal germs of future development from everything of a parasitic
nature or in any way abnormal? This is the great question to be studied
in the authentic records of the antiquities of Christianity, with all
the light and aid which can be obtained from every source accessible to
research.
The long-continued, widely-extended preparations of divine Providence
for the great event of the coming of the Messias of the Jews and
Gentiles, the immensity of the ground prepared to be the theatre of the
future Christian history, the vast and mighty instrumentalities made
ready to serve the fulfilment of the plan of Jesus and of the apostolic
mission, all point toward something proportionate in grandeur to the
grandeur of the inchoate order which preceded. The anticipation of
Christ in history demands a corresponding realization of his actual
presence and operation in the “fulness of time,” the age of the
completion and consummation of human destinies on the earth. Moreover,
the stupendous miracles, especially the crowning one of the
Resurrection, which are among the first facts and events of historical
Christianity, logically and rationally require that an ideal of
Christianity shall be presented which justifies such an outlay of
supernatural power, and the position of causes containing such infinite
potential force. The end of all previous human history being found in
the beginning of Christianity, the new beginning of all human history
must be likewise found there. If the normal, legitimate development in
later ages is tested by its origination from the primitive seed planted
in the apostolic age, the nature and qualities of that seed must be
correctly ascertained. If we would recognize the true genius of
Christianity in its real manifestations from the days of the apostles
to our own, and discriminate it from simulated apparitions, we must
know what this genius really is, or the original error will falsify all
subsequent processes of judgment and reasoning, like an ambiguous
middle in a syllogism.
But we have proceeded as far as our limits will permit in the present
article, and must postpone the consideration of what was actual
Christianity in the apostolic age, and of the learned author’s theory
on the subject, to a future opportunity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO THE WITCH-HAZEL.
“Last of their floral sisterhood,
The hazel’s yellow blossoms shine,
The tawny gold of Afric’s mind!”
J. G. WHITTIER.
I.
No mocking dream art thou of summer sun,
No fading shadow of the autumn’s gold;
Thy sunset stars their yellow light unfold
As some pale planet, when the day is done,
Giveth unfailing promise of the night
With its blessed hours of rest, its sparkling fields—
The glittering harvest that the darkness yields
Of unknown worlds far reaching out of sight.
In the year’s twilight thy pale blossoms shine
With faithful promise of the winter’s night—
The broad, white fields with nameless stars a-light,
The crystal glitter far outshining thine.
In the late daylight that about thee lies,
How soft thy radiance to sun-weary eyes!
II.
The brave arbutus fair foretold the spring
With gleam auroral of the coming slow
Of perfect summer’s full life’s noon-day glow,
With undimmed sunshine, earth illumining.
Thy stars, wan hazel, break amid the blaze
Of gold and scarlet wherewith burn the hills—
As when the pomp of royal burial fills
The clouded skies that mourn the dying days.
The gold grows spent, ashen the scarlet fires,
The night too near for any song of bird;
‘Mid voice of streams and rustling leaves, foot-stirred,
The grieving summer’s last earth-prayer expires.
Brighter thy glow as golden pomp grows sere,
O pale-hued Hesper of the westering year!
III.
No dreary harbinger art thou of woe,
Of barren days, and warm life lost in death:
On heav’n-kissed peaks is born the icy breath
Whose touch unfolds the flowers of the snow.
Spring’s buds, close-folded, lie along the bare
And shivering boughs where calls the wild-voiced wind,
And fine the leafless tracery is lined
On blue undimmed as summer heavens wear.
Hearts glow the warmer for the bitter wind,
Stars are but brighter for the frosty night,
Of earth despoiled love climbeth holy height,
New, blossoming paths her feet, untiring, find.
Thought of thy promise shining in dim skies
Fills darkest hour with lights of Paradise.
IV.
Among thy boughs almost the sound I hear
Of Christmas bells breaking on wintry gloom;
Foretelling so, the glimmer of thy bloom
The kindliest feast of all the saint-crowned year.
O happy year! that for its twilight crown
Wears the dim radiance of thy peaceful stars,
Hears song of angels, where no harsh note jars,
Filling the woods whence latest bird hath flown.
O wailing bloom! bud forth thy prophecies,
Thine earnest of a life fore’er renewed,
Thy light in darkness, with fair hope imbued,
Thy golden gift of love’s amenities.
O conjurer’s wand! thy jewelled staff bend low,
Show the bright waters living ‘neath the snow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE WOLF-TOWER.
A BRETON CHRISTMAS LEGEND.
I.
Long ago in Brittany, under the government of St. Gildas the Wise,
seventh abbot of Ruiz, there lived a young tenant of the abbey who was
blind in the right eye and lame in the left leg. His name was Sylvestre
Ker, and his mother, Josserande Ker, was the widow of Martin Ker, in
his lifetime the keeper of the great door of the Convent of Ruiz.
The mother and son lived in a tower, the ruins of which are still seen
at the foot of Mont Saint-Michel de la Trinité, in the grove of
chestnut-trees that belongs to Jean Maréchal, the mayor’s nephew. These
ruins are now called the Wolf-Tower, and the Breton peasants shudder as
they pass through the chestnut-grove; for at midnight around the
Wolf-Tower, and close to the first circle of great stones erected by
the Druids at Carnac, are seen the phantoms of a young man and a young
girl—Pol Bihan and Matheline du Coat-Dor.
The young girl is of graceful figure, with long, floating hair, but
without a face; and the young man is tall and robust, but the sleeves
of his coat hang limp and empty, for he is without arms. Round and
round the circle they pass in opposite directions, and, strange to
tell, as the legend adds, they never meet, nor do they ever speak to
each other.
Once a year, on Christmas night, instead of walking they run; and all
the Christians who cross the heath to go to the midnight Mass hear from
afar the young girl cry: “Wolf Sylvestre Ker, give me back my beauty!”
and the deep voice of the young man adds: “Wolf Sylvestre Ker, give me
back my strength!”
II.
And this has lasted for thirteen hundred years; therefore you may well
think there is a story connected with it.
When Martin Ker, the husband of Dame Josserande, died, their son
Sylvestre was only seven years old. The widow was obliged to give up
the guardianship of the great door to a man-at-arms, and retire to the
tower, which was her inheritance; but little Sylvestre Ker had
permission to follow the studies in the convent school. The boy showed
natural ability, but he studied little, except in the class of
chemistry, taught by an old monk named Thaël, who was said to have
discovered the secret of making gold out of lead by adding to it a
certain substance which no one but himself knew; for certainly, if the
fact had been communicated, all the lead in the country would have been
quickly turned into gold. As for Thaël himself, he had been careful not
to profit by his secret, for Gildas the Wise had once said to him:
“Thaël, Thaël, God does not wish you to change the work of his hands.
Lead is lead, and gold is gold. There is enough gold, and not too much
lead. Leave God’s works alone; if not, Satan will be your master.”
Most assuredly such precepts would not be well received by modern
industry; but St. Gildas knew what he said, and Thaël died of extreme
old age before he had changed the least particle of lead into gold.
This, however, was not from want of will, which was proved after his
death, as the rumor spread about that Thaël did not altogether desert
his laboratory, but at times returned to his beloved labors. Many a
time in the lonely hours of the night the fishermen, in their barks,
watched the glimmer of the light in his former cell; and Gildas the
Wise, having been warned of the fact, arose one night before Lauds, and
with quiet steps crossed the corridors, thinking to surprise his late
brother, and perhaps ask of him some details of the other side of the
dreaded door which separates life from death.
When he reached the cell he listened and heard Thaël’s great bellows
puffing and blowing, although no one had yet been appointed to succeed
him. Gildas suddenly opened the door with his master-key, and saw
before him little Sylvestre Ker actively employed in relighting Thaël’s
furnaces.
St. Gildas was not a man to give way to sudden wrath; he took the child
by the ear, drew him outside, and said to him gently:
“Ker, my little Ker, I know what you are attempting and what tempts you
to make the effort; but God does not wish it, nor I either, my little
Ker.”
“I do it,” replied the boy, “because my dear mother is so poor.”
“Your mother is what she is; she has what God gives her. Lead is lead,
and gold is gold. If you go against the will of God, Satan will be your
master.”
Little Ker returned to the tower crestfallen, and never again slipped
into the cell of the dead Thaël; but when he was eighteen years old a
modest inheritance was left him, and he bought materials for dissolving
metals and distilling the juice of plants. He gave out that his aim was
to learn the art of healing; for that great purpose he read great books
which treated of medical science and many other things besides.
He was then a youth of fine appearance, with a noble, frank face,
neither one-eyed nor lame, and led a retired life with his mother, who
ardently loved her only son. No one visited them in the tower, except
the laughing Matheline, the heiress of the tenant of Coat-Dor and
god-daughter of Josserande; and Pol Bihan, son of the successor of
Martin Ker as armed keeper of the great door.
Both Pol and Matheline often conversed together, and upon what subject,
do you think? Always of Sylvestre Ker. Was it because they loved him?
No. What Matheline loved most was her own fair self, and Pol Bihan’s
best friend was named Pol Bihan. Matheline passed long hours before her
little mirror of polished steel, which faithfully reflected her
laughing mouth, full of pearls; and Pol was proud of his great
strength, for he was the best wrestler in the Carnac country. When they
spoke of Sylvestre Ker it was to say: “What if some fine morning he
should find the secret of the fairy-stone that is the mother of gold!”
And each one mentally added:
“I must continue to be friendly with him, for if he becomes wealthy he
will enrich me.”
Josserande also knew that her beloved son sought after the fairy-stone,
and even had mentioned it to Gildas the Wise, who shook his venerable
head and said:
“What God wills will be. Be careful that your son wears a mask over his
face when he seeks the cursed thing; for what escapes from the crucible
is Satan’s breath, and the breath of Satan causes blindness.”
Josserande, meditating upon these words, went to kneel before the cross
of St. Cado, which is in front of the seventh stone of Cæsar’s camp—the
one that a little child can move by touching it with his finger, but
that twelve horses, harnessed to twelve oxen, cannot stir from its
solid foundation. Thus prostrate, she prayed: “O Lord Jesus! thou who
hast mercy for mothers on account of the Holy Virgin Mary, thy mother,
watch well over my little Sylvestre, and take from his head this
thought of making gold. Nevertheless, if it is thy will that he should
be rich, thou art the master of all things, my sweet Saviour!”
And as she rose she murmured: “What a beautiful boy he would be with a
cloak of fine cloth and a hood bordered with fur, if he only had means
to buy them!”
III.
It came to pass that as all these young people, Pol Bihan, Matheline,
and Sylvestre Ker, gained a year each time that twelve months rolled
by, they reached the age to think of marriage; and Josserande one
morning proceeded to the dwelling of the farmer of Coat-Dor to ask the
hand of Matheline for her son, Sylvestre Ker; at which proposal
Matheline opened her rosy mouth so wide, to laugh the louder, that far
back she showed two pearls which had never before been seen.
When her father asked her if the offer suited her she replied: “Yes,
father and godmother, provided that Sylvestre Ker gives me a gown of
cloth of silver embroidered with rubies, like that of the Lady of
Lannelar, and that Pol Bihan may be our groomsman.”
Pol, who was there, also laughed and said: “I will assuredly be
groomsman to my friend Sylvestre Ker, if he consents to give me a
velvet mantle striped with gold, like that of the castellan of Gâvre,
the Lord of Carnac.”
Whereupon Josserande returned to the tower and said to her son: “Ker,
my darling, I advise you to choose another friend and another bride;
for those two are not worthy of your love.”
But the young man began to sigh and groan, and answered: “No friendship
or love will I ever know, except for Pol, my dear comrade, and
Matheline, your god-daughter, my beautiful play-fellow.”
And Josserande having told him of the two new pearls that Matheline had
shown in the back of her mouth, nothing would do but he must hurry to
Coat-Dor to try and see them also.
On the road from the tower to the farm of Coat-Dor is the Point of
Hinnic, where the grass is salt, which makes the cows and rams very
fierce while they are grazing. As Sylvestre Ker walked down the path at
the end of which is the Cross of St. Cado, he saw on the summit of the
promontory Pol and Matheline strolling along, talking and laughing; so
he thought:
“I need not go far to see Matheline’s two pearls.”
And, in fact, the girl’s merry laughter could be heard below, for it
always burst forth if Pol did but open his lips; when, lo and behold! a
huge old ram which had been browsing on the salt grass tossed back his
two horns, and, fuming at the nostrils, bleated as loud as the stags
cry when chased, and rushed in the direction of Matheline’s voice; for,
as every one knows, the rams become furious if laughter is heard in
their meadow.
He ran quickly, but Sylvestre Ker ran still faster, and arrived the
first by the girl, so that he received the shock of the ram’s butting
while protecting her with his body. The injury was not very great, only
his right eye was touched by the curved end of one of the horns when
the ram raised his head, and thus Sylvestre Ker became one-eyed.
The ram, prevented from slaughtering Matheline, dashed after Pol Bihan,
who fled; reached him just at the end of the cliff, and pushed him into
the sea, that beat against the rocks fifty feet below.
Well content with his work, the ram walked off, and the story says he
laughed behind his woolly beard. But Matheline wept bitterly and cried:
“Ker, my handsome Ker, save Bihan, your sweet friend, from death, and I
pledge my faith I will be your wife without any condition.”
At the same time, amid the roaring of the waves, was heard the
imploring voice of Pol Bihan crying:
“Sylvestre, O Sylvestre Ker! my only friend, I cannot swim. Come
quickly and save me from dying without confession, and all you may ask
of me you shall have, were it the dearest treasure of my heart.”
Sylvestre Ker asked:
“Will you be my groomsman?”
And Bihan replied:
“Yes, yes, and I will give you a hundred crowns. And all that your
mother may ask of me she shall have. But hasten, hasten, dear friend,
or the waves will carry me off.”
Sylvestre Ker’s blood was pouring from the wound in his eye, and his
sight was dimmed; but he was generous of heart, and boldly leaped from
the top of the promontory. As he fell his left leg was jammed against a
jutting rock and broke, so there he was, lame as well as one-eyed;
nevertheless, he dragged Bihan to the shore and asked:
“When shall the wedding be?”
As Matheline hesitated in her answer—for Sylvestre’s brave deeds were
too recent to be forgotten—Pol Bihan came to her assistance and gaily
cried:
“You must wait, Sylvestre, my saviour, until your leg and eye are
healed.”
“Still longer,” added Matheline (and now Sylvestre Ker saw the two new
pearls, for in her laughter she opened her mouth from ear to
ear)—“still longer, as limping, one-eyed men are not to my taste—no,
no!”
“But,” cried Sylvestre Ker, “it is for your sakes that I am one-eyed
and lame.”
“That is true,” said Bihan.
“That is true,” also repeated Matheline; for she always spoke as he
did.
“Ker, my friend Ker,” resumed Bihan, “wait until to-morrow, and we will
make you happy.”
And off they went, Matheline and he, arm-in-arm, leaving Sylvestre to
go hobbling along to the tower, alone with his sad thoughts.
Would you believe it? Trudging wearily home, he consoled himself by
thinking that he had seen two new pearls behind the smile. You may,
perhaps, think you have never met such a fool. Undeceive yourself: it
is the same with all the men, who only look for laughing girls with
teeth like pearls.
But the sorrowful one was Josserande, the widow, when she saw her son
with only one eye and one sound leg.
“Where did all this happen?” she asked with tears.
And as Sylvestre Ker gently answered, “I have seen them, mother; they
are very beautiful,” Josserande divined that he spoke of her
god-daughter’s two pearls, and cried:
“By all that is holy, he has also lost his mind!”
Then, seizing her staff, she went to the Abbey of Ruiz, to consult St.
Gildas as to what could be done in this unfortunate case; and the wise
man replied:
“You should not have spoken of the two pearls; your son would have
remained at home. But now that the evil is done, nothing will happen to
him contrary to God’s holy will. At high tide the sea comes foaming
over the sands, yet see how quietly it retires. What is Sylvestre Ker
doing now?”
“He is lighting his furnaces,” replied Josserande.
The wise man paused to reflect, and after a little while said:
“In the first place, you must pray devoutly to the Lord our God, and
afterward look well before you to know where to put your feet. The weak
buy the strong, the unhappy the happy; did you know that, my good
woman? Your son will persevere in search of the fairy-stone that
changes lead into gold, to pay for Pol’s wicked friendship and for the
pearls behind the dangerous smiles of that Matheline. Since God permits
it, all is right. Yet see that your son is well protected against the
smoke of his crucible, for it is the very breath of Satan; and make him
promise to go to the midnight Mass.”
For it was near the glorious Feast of Christmas.
IV.
Josserande had no difficulty in making Sylvestre Ker promise to go to
the midnight Mass, for he was a good Christian; and she bought for him
an iron armor to put on when he worked around his crucibles, so as to
preserve him from Satan’s breath.
And it happened that, late and early, Pol Bihan now came to the tower,
bringing with him the laughing Matheline; for it was rumored around
that at last Sylvestre Ker would soon find the fairy-stone and become a
wealthy man. It was not only two new pearls that Matheline showed at
the corners of her rosy mouth, but a brilliant row, that shone, and
chattered, and laughed, from her lips down to her throat; for Pol Bihan
had said to her:
“Laugh as much as you can; for smiles attract fools, as the
turning-mirror catches larks.”
We have spoken of Matheline’s lips, of her throat, and of her smile,
but not of her heart; of that we can only say the place where it should
have been was nearly empty; so she replied to Bihan:
“As much as you will. I can afford to laugh to be rich; and when the
fool shall have given me all the gold of the earth, all the pleasures
of the world, I will be happy, happy.... I will have them all for
myself, for myself alone, and I will enjoy them.”
Pol Bihan clasped his hands in admiration, so lovely and wise was she
for her age; but he thought: “I am wiser still than you, my beauty: we
will share between us what the fool will give—one half for me, and the
other also; the rest for you. Let the water run under the bridge.”
The day before Christmas they came together to the tower—Matheline
carrying a basket of chestnuts, Pol a large jug, full of sweet cider—to
make merry with the godmother. They roasted the chestnuts in the ashes,
and heated the cider before the fire, adding to it fermented honey,
wine, sprigs of rosemary, and marjoram leaves; and so delicious was the
perfume of the beverage that even Dame Josserande longed for a taste.
On the way Pol had advised Matheline adroitly to question Sylvestre
Ker, to know when he would at last find the fairy-stone. Sylvestre Ker
neither ate chestnuts nor drank wine, so absorbed was he in the
contemplation of Matheline’s bewitching smiles; and she said to him:
“Tell me, my handsome, lame, and one-eyed bridegroom, will I soon be
the wife of a wealthy man?”
Sylvestre Ker, whose eye shot forth a lurid flame, replied:
“You would have been as rich as you are beautiful to-morrow, without
fail, if I had not promised my dear mother to accompany her to the
midnight Mass to-night. The favorable hour falls just at the first
stroke of Matins.”
“To-day?”
“Between to-day and to-morrow.”
“And can it not be put off?”
“Yes, it can be put off for seven years.”
Dame Josserande heard nothing, as Pol was relating an interesting
story, so as to distract her attention; but while talking he listened
with all his ears.
Matheline laughed no longer, and thought:
“Seven years! Can I wait seven years?” Then she continued:
“Beautiful bridegroom, how do you know that the propitious moment falls
precisely at the hour of Matins? Who told you so?”
“The stars,” replied Sylvestre Ker. “At midnight Mars and Saturn will
arrive in diametrical opposition; Venus will seek Vesta; Mercury will
disappear in the sun; and the planet without a name, that the deceased
Thaël divined by calculation, I saw last night, steering its unknown
route through space to come in conjunction with Jupiter. Ah! if I only
dared disobey my dear mother.”
He was interrupted by a distant vibration of the bells of Plouharnel,
which rang out the first signal of the midnight Mass. Josserande
instantly left her wheel.
“It would be a sin to spin one thread more,” said she. “Come, my son
Sylvestre, put on your Sunday clothes, and let us be off for the parish
church, if you please.”
Sylvestre wished to rise, for never yet had he disobeyed his mother;
but Matheline, seated at his side, detained him and murmured in silvery
tones:
“My handsome friend, you have plenty of time.”
Pol, on his side, said to Dame Josserande:
“Get your staff, neighbor, and start at once, so as to take your time.
Your god-daughter Matheline will accompany you; and I will follow with
my friend Sylvestre, for fear some accident might happen to him with
his lame leg and sightless eye.”
As he proposed, so was it done; for Josserande suspected nothing,
knowing that her son had promised, and that he would not break his
word. As they were leaving, Pol whispered to Matheline:
“Amuse the good woman well, for the fool must remain here.”
And the girl replied:
“Try and see the caldron in which our fortune is cooking. You will tell
me how it is done.”
Off the two women started; a large, kind mother’s heart, full of tender
love, and a sparrow’s little gizzard, narrow and dry, without enough
room in it for one pure tear.
For a moment Sylvestre Ker stood on the threshold of the open door to
watch them depart. On the gleaming white snow their two shadows fell;
the one bent and already tottering, the other erect, flexible, and each
step seemed a bound. The young lover sighed. Behind him Pol Bihan in a
low voice said:
“Ker, my comrade, I know what you are thinking about, and you are right
to think so; this must come to an end. She is as impatient as you are,
for her love equals yours; for both of you it is too long to wait.”
Sylvestre Ker turned pale with joy.
“Do you speak truth?” he stammered. “Am I fortunate enough to be loved
by her?”
“Yes, on my faith!” replied Pol Bihan, “she loves you too well for her
own peace. When a girl laughs too much, it is to keep from
weeping—that’s the real truth.”
V.
Well might they call him “the fool,” poor Sylvestre Ker! Not that he
had less brains than another man—on the contrary, he was now very
learned—but love crazes him who places his affections on an unworthy
object. Sylvestre Ker’s little finger was worth two dozen Pol Bihans
and fifty Mathelines; in spite of which Matheline and Pol Bihan were
perfectly just in their contempt, for he who ascends the highest falls
the lowest.
When Sylvestre had re-entered the tower Pol commenced to sigh heavily
and said:
“What a pity! What a great, great pity!”
“What is a pity?” asked Sylvestre Ker.
“It is a pity to miss such a rare opportunity.”
Sylvestre Ker exclaimed:
“What opportunity? So you were listening to my conversation with
Matheline?”
“Why, yes,” replied Pol. “I always have an ear open to hear what
concerns you, my true friend. Seven years! Shall I tell you what I
think? You would only have twelve months to wait to go with your mother
to another Christmas Mass.”
“I have promised,” said Sylvestre.
“That is nothing; if your mother loves you truly, she will forgive
you.”
“If she loves me!” cried Sylvestre Ker. “Oh! yes, she loves me with her
whole heart.”
Some chestnuts still remained, and Bihan shelled one while he said:
“Certainly, certainly, mothers always love their children; but
Matheline is not your mother. You are one-eyed, you are lame, and you
have sold your little patrimony to buy your furnaces. Nothing remains
of it. Where is the girl who can wait seven years? Nearly the half of
her age!... If I were in your place I would not throw away my luck as
you are about to do, but at the hour of Matins I would work for my
happiness.”
Sylvestre Ker was standing before the fireplace. He listened, his eyes
bent down, with a frown upon his brow.
“You have spoken well,” at last he said; “my dear mother will forgive
me. I shall remain, and will work at the hour of Matins.”
“You have decided for the best!” cried Bihan. “Rest easy; I will be
with you in case of danger. Open the door of your laboratory. We will
work together; I will cling to you like your shadow!”
Sylvestre Ker did not move, but looked fixedly upon the floor, and
then, as if thinking aloud, murmured:
“It will be the first time that I have ever caused my dear mother
sorrow!”
He opened a door, but not that of the laboratory, pushed Pol Bihan
outside, and said:
“The danger is for myself alone; the gold will be for all. Go to the
Christmas Mass in my place; say to Matheline that she will be rich, and
to my dear mother that she shall have a happy old age, since she will
live and die with her fortunate son.”
VI.
When Sylvestre Ker was alone he listened to the noise of the waves
dashing upon the beach, and the sighing of the wind among the great
oaks—two mournful sounds. And he looked at the empty seats of
Matheline, the madness of his heart; and of his dear mother,
Josserande, the holy tenderness of all his life. Little by little had
he seen the black hair of the widow become gray, then white, around her
sunken temples. That night memory carried him back even to his cradle,
over which had bent the sweet, noble face of her who had always spoken
to him of God.
But whence came those golden ringlets that mingled with Josserande’s
black hair, and which shone in the sunlight above his mother’s snowy
locks? and that laugh, ah! that silvery laugh of youth; which prevented
Sylvestre Ker from hearing in his pious recollections the calm, grave
voice of his mother. Whence did it come?
Seven years! Pol had said, “Where is the girl who can wait seven
years?” and these words floated in the air. Never had the son of Martin
Ker heard such strange voices amid the roaring of the ocean, nor in the
rushing winds of the forest of the Druids.
Suddenly the tower also commenced to speak, not only through the cracks
of the old windows when the mournful wind sighed, but with a confusion
of sounds that resembled the busy whispering of a crowd, that
penetrated through the closed doors of the laboratory, under which a
bright light streamed.
Sylvestre Ker opened the door, fearing to see all in a blaze, but there
was no fire; the light that had streamed under the door came from the
round, red eye of his furnace, and happened to strike the stone of the
threshold. No one was in the laboratory; still the noises, similar to
the chattering of an audience awaiting a promised spectacle, did not
cease. The air was full of speaking things; the spirits could be felt
swarming around, as closely packed as the wheat in the barn or the sand
on the sea-shore.
And, although not seen, they spoke all kinds of phantom-words, which
were heard right and left, before and behind, above and below, and
which penetrated through the pores of the skin like quicksilver passing
through a cloth. They said:
“The Magi have started, my friend.”
“My friend, the Star shines in the East.”
“My friend, my friend, the little King Jesus is born in the manger,
upon the straw.”
“Sylvestre Ker will surely go with the shepherds.”
“Not at all; Sylvestre Ker will not go.”
“Good Christian he was.”
“Good Christian he is no longer.”
“He has forgotten the name of Joseph, the chaste spouse.”
“And the name of Mary, the ever Virgin Mother.”
“No, no, no!”
“Yes, yes, yes!”
“He will go!”
“He will not go!”
“He will go, since he promised Dame Josserande.”
“He will not go, since Matheline told him to stay.”
“My friend, my friend, to-night Sylvestre Ker will find the golden
secret.”
“To-night, my friend, my friend, he will win the heart of the one he
loves.”
And the invisible spirits, thus disputing, sported through the air,
mounting, descending, whirling around like atoms of dust in a sunbeam,
from the flag-stones of the floor to the rafters of the roof.
Inside the furnace, in the crucible, some other thing responded, but it
could not be well heard, as the crucible had been hermetically sealed.
“Go out from here, you wicked crowd,” said Sylvestre Ker, sweeping
around with a broom of holly-branches. “What are you doing here? Go
outside, cursed spirits, damned souls—go, go!”
From all the corners of the room came laughter; Matheline seemed
everywhere.
Suddenly there was profound silence, and the wind from the sea brought
the sound of the bells of Plouharnel, ringing the second peal for the
midnight Mass.
“My friend, what are they saying?”
“They say Christmas, my friend—Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!”
“Not at all! They say, Gold, gold, gold!”
“You lie, my friend!”
“My friend, you lie!”
And the other voices, those that were grumbling in the interior of the
furnace, swelled and puffed. The fire, that no person was blowing, kept
up by itself, hot as the soul of a forge should be. The crucible became
red, and the stones of the furnace were dyed a deep scarlet.
In vain did Sylvestre Ker sweep with his holly broom; between the
branches, covered with sharp leaves, the spirits passed—nothing could
catch them; and the heat was so great the boy was bathed in
perspiration.
After the bells had finished their second peal he said: “I am stifling.
I will open the window to let out the heat as well as this herd of evil
spirits.”
But as soon as he opened the window the whole country commenced to
laugh under its white mantle of snow—barren heath, ploughed land, Druid
stones, even to the enormous oaks of the forest, with their glistening
summits, that shook their frosty branches, saying: “Sylvestre Ker will
go! Sylvestre Ker will not go!”
Not a spirit from within flew out, while all the outside spirits
entered, muttering, chattering, laughing: “Yes, yes, yes, yes! No, no,
no, no!” And I believe they fought.
At the same time the sound of a cavalcade advancing was heard on the
flinty road that passed before the tower; and Sylvestre Ker recognized
the long procession of the monks of Ruiz, led by the grand abbot,
Gildas the Wise, arrayed in cope and mitre, with his crosier in his
hand, going to the Mass of Plouharnel, as the convent-chapel was being
rebuilt.
When the head of the cavalcade approached the tower the grand abbot
cried out:
“My armed guards, sound your horns to awaken Dame Josserande’s son!”
And instantly there was a blast from the horns, which rang out until
Gildas the Wise exclaimed:
“Be silent, for there is my tenant wide awake at his window.”
When all was still the grand abbot raised his crosier and said:
“My tenant, the first hour of Christmas approaches, the glorious Feast
of the Nativity. Extinguish your furnaces and hasten to Mass, for you
have barely time.”
And on he passed, while those in the procession, as they saluted Ker,
repeated:
“Sylvestre Ker, you have barely time; make haste!”
The voices of the air kept gibbering: “He will go! He will not go!” and
the wind whistled in bitter sarcasm.
Sylvestre Ker closed his window. He sat down, his head clasped by his
trembling hands. His heart was rent by two forces that dragged him, one
to the right, the other to the left: his mother’s prayer and
Matheline’s laughter.
He was no miser; he did not covet gold for the sake of gold, but that
he might buy the row of pearls and smiles that hung from the lips of
Matheline....
“Christmas!” cried a voice in the air.
“Christmas, Christmas, Christmas!” repeated all the other voices.
Sylvestre Ker suddenly opened his eyes, and saw that the furnace was
fiery red from top to bottom, and that the crucible was surrounded with
rays so dazzling he could not even look at it. Something was boiling
inside that sounded like the roaring of a tempest.
“Mother! O my dear mother!” cried the terrified man, “I am coming. I’ll
run....”
But thousands of little voices stung his ears with the words:
“Too late, too late, too late! It is too late!”
Alas! alas! the wind from the sea brought the third peal of the bells
of Plouharnel, and they also said to him: “Too late!”
VII.
As the sound of the bells died away the last drop of water fell from
the clepsydra and marked the hour of midnight. Then the furnace opened
and showed the glowing crucible, which burst with a terrible noise, and
threw out a gigantic flame that reached the sky through the torn roof.
Sylvestre Ker, enveloped by the fire, fell prostrate on the ground,
suffocated in the burning smoke.
The silence of death followed. Suddenly an awful voice said to him:
“Arise.” And he arose.
On the spot where had stood the furnace, of which not a vestige
remained, was standing a man, or rather a colossus; and Sylvestre Ker
needed but a glance to recognize in him the demon. His body appeared to
be of iron, red-hot and transparent; for in his veins could be seen the
liquid gold, flowing into, and then in turn retreating from, his heart,
black as an extinguished coal.
The creature, who was both fearful and beautiful to behold, extended
his hand toward the side of the tower nearest the sea, and in the thick
wall a large breach was made.
“Look,” said Satan.
Sylvestre Ker obeyed. He saw, as though distance were annihilated, the
interior of the humble church of Plouharnel where the faithful were
assembled. The officiating priest had just ascended the altar,
brilliant with the Christmas candles, and there was great pomp and
splendor; for the many monks of Gildas the Wise were assisting the poor
clergy of the parish.
In a corner, under the shadow of a column, knelt Dame Josserande in
fervent prayer, but often did the dear woman turn toward the door to
watch for the coming of her son.
Not far from her was Matheline du Coat-Dor, bravely attired and very
beautiful, but lavishing the pearls of her smiles upon all who sought
them, forgetting no one but God; and close to Matheline Pol Bihan
squared his broad shoulders.
Then, even as Satan had given to Sylvestre Ker’s sight the power of
piercing the walls, so did he permit him to look into the depth of
hearts.
In his mother’s heart he saw himself as in a mirror. It was full of
him. Good Josserande prayed for him; she united Jesus, Mary, and
Joseph, the holy family, whose feast is Christmas, in the pious prayer
which fell from her lips; and ever and ever said her heart to God: “My
son, my son, my son!”
In the heart of Pol Sylvestre Ker saw pride of strength and gross
cupidity; in the spot where should have been the heart of Matheline he
saw Matheline, and nothing but Matheline, in adoration before
Matheline.
“I have seen enough,” said Sylvestre Ker.
“Then,” replied Satan, “listen!”
And immediately the sacred music resounded in the ears of the young
tenant of the tower, as plainly as though he were in the church of
Plouharnel. They were singing the _Sanctus_: “Holy, holy, holy, Lord
God of Hosts! The heavens and the earth are full of thy glory. Hosanna
in the highest! Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.
Hosanna in the highest!”
Dame Josserande repeated the words with the others, but the refrain of
her heart continued: “O Jesus, Infinite Goodness! may he be happy.
Deliver him from all evil and from all sin. I have only him to love....
Holy, holy, holy, give me all the suffering, and keep for him all the
happiness!”
Can you believe it? Even while piously inhaling the perfume of this
celestial hymn the young tenant wished to know what Matheline was
saying to God. Everything speaks to God—the wild beasts in the forest,
the birds in the air, even the plants, whose roots are in the ground.
But miserable girls who sell the pearls of their smiles are lower than
the animals and vegetables. Nothing is beneath them, Pol Bihan
excepted. Instead of speaking to God, Pol Bihan and Matheline whispered
together, and Sylvestre Ker heard them as distinctly as if he had been
between them.
“How much will the fool give me?” asked Matheline.
“The idiot will give you all,” replied Pol.
“And must I really squint with that one-eyed creature, and limp with
the lame wretch?”
Sylvestre Ker felt his heart die away within him.
Meanwhile, Josserande prayed: “O ever Virgin Mother! pray for my dear
child. As Jesus is your adorable heart, Sylvestre Ker is my poor
heart....”
“Never mind,” continued Bihan, “it is worth while limping and squinting
for a time to win all the money in the world.”
“That is true; but for how long?”
Sylvestre Ker held his breath to hear the better.
“As long as you please,” answered Pol Bihan.
There was a pause, after which the gay Matheline resumed in a lower
tone:
“But ... they say after a murder one can never laugh, and I wish to
laugh always....”
“Will I not be there?” replied Bihan. “Some time or other the idiot
will certainly seek a quarrel with me, and I will crack his bones by
only squeezing him in my arms; you can count upon my strength.”
“I have heard enough,” said Sylvestre Ker to Satan.
“And do you still love this Bihan?”
“No, I despise him.”
“And Matheline—do you love her yet?”
“Yes, oh! yes, ... but ... I hate her!”
“I see,” said Satan, “that you are a coward and wicked like all men.
Since you have heard and seen enough at a distance, listen, and look at
your feet....”
The wall closed with a loud crash of the stones as they came together,
and Sylvestre Ker saw that he was surrounded by an enormous heap of
gold-pieces, as high as his waist, which gently floated, singing the
symphony of riches. All around him was gold, and through the gap in the
roof the shower of gold fell and fell and fell.
“Am I the master of all this?” asked Sylvestre Ker.
“Yes,” replied Satan; “you have compelled me, who am gold, to come
forth from my caverns; you are therefore the master of gold, provided
you purchase it at the price of your soul. You cannot have both God and
gold. You must choose one or the other.”
“I have chosen,” said Sylvestre Ker. “I keep my soul.”
“You have firmly decided?”
“Irrevocably.”
“Once, twice, ... reflect! You have just acknowledged that you still
love the laughing Matheline.”
“And that I hate her; ... yes, ... it is so, ... but in eternity I wish
to be with my dear mother Josserande.”
“Were there no mothers,” growled Satan, “I could play my game much
better in the world!”
And he added:
“For the third time, ... adjudged!”
The heap of gold became as turbulent as the water of a cascade, and
leaped and sang; the millions of little sonorous coins clashed against
each other, then all was silent and they vanished. The room appeared as
black as a place where there had been a great fire; nothing could be
seen but the lurid gleam of Satan’s iron body.
Then said Sylvestre Ker:
“Since all is ended, retire!”
VIII.
But the demon did not stir.
“Do you think, then,” he asked, “that you have brought me hither for
nothing? There is the law. You are not altogether my slave, since you
have kept your soul; but as you have freely called me, and I have come,
you are my vassal. I have a half-claim over you. The little children
know that; I am astonished at your ignorance.... From midnight to three
o’clock in the morning you belong to me, in the form of an animal,
restless, roving, complaining, without help from God. This is what you
owe to your strong friend and beautiful bride. Let us settle the affair
before I depart. What animal do you wish to be—roaring lion, bellowing
ox, bleating sheep, crowing cock? If you become a dog you can crouch at
Matheline’s feet, and Bihan can lead you by a leash to hunt in the
woods....”
“I wish,” cried Sylvester Ker, whose anger burst forth at these
words—“I wish to be a wolf, to devour them both!”
“So be it,” said Satan; “wolf you shall be three hours of the night
during your mortal life.... Leap, wolf!”
And the wolf Sylvestre Ker leaped, and with one dash shattered the
casement of the window as he cleared it with a bound. Through the
aperture in the roof Satan escaped, and, spreading a pair of immense
wings, rapidly disappeared in an opposite direction from the steeple of
Plouharnel, whose chimes were ringing at the Elevation.
IX.
I do not know if you have ever seen a Breton village come forth after
the midnight Mass. It is a joyous sight, but a brief one, as all are in
a hurry to return home, where the midnight meal awaits them—a frugal
feast, but eaten with such cheerful hearts. The people, for a moment
massed in the cemetery, exchange hospitable invitations, kind wishes,
and friendly jokes; then divide into little caravans, which hurry along
the roads, laughing, talking, singing. If it is a clear, cold night,
the clicking of their wooden shoes may be heard for some time; but if
it is damp weather the sound is stifled, and after a few moments the
faint echo of an “adieu” or Christmas greeting is all that can be heard
around the church as the beadle closes it.
In the midst of all this cheerfulness Josserande alone returned with a
sad heart; for through the whole Mass she had in vain watched for her
beloved son. She walked fifty paces behind the cavalcade of the monks
of Ruiz, and dared not approach the Grand-Abbot Gildas, for fear of
being questioned about her boy. On her right was Matheline du Coat-Dor,
on her left Bihan—both eager to console her; for they thought that by
that time Sylvestre Ker must have learned the wonderful secret which
would secure him untold wealth, and to possess the son they should
cling to the mother; therefore there were promises and caresses, and
“will you have this, or will you have that?”
“Dear godmother, I shall always be with you,” said Matheline, “to
comfort and rejoice your old age; for your son is my heart.”
Pol Bihan continued:
“I will never marry, but always remain with my friend, Sylvestre Ker,
whom I love more than myself. And nothing must worry you; if he is weak
I am strong, and I will work for two.”
To pretend that Dame Josserande paid much attention to all these words
would be false; for her son possessed her whole soul, and she thought:
“This the first time he has ever disobeyed and deceived me. The demon
of avarice has entered into him. Why does he want so much money? Can
all the riches of the world pay for one of the tears that the
ingratitude of a beloved son draws from his mother’s eyes?”
Suddenly her thoughts were arrested, for the sound of a trumpet was
heard in the still night.
“It is the convent-horn,” said Matheline.
“And it sounds the wolf-alarm!” added Pol.
“What harm can the wolf do,” asked Josserande, “to a well-mounted troop
like the cavalry of Gildas the Wise? And, besides, cannot the holy
abbot with a single word put to flight a hundred wolves?”
They had arrived at the heath of Carnac, where are the two thousand
seven hundred and twenty-nine Druid stones, and the monks had already
passed the round point where nothing grows, neither grass nor heath,
and which resembles an enormous caldron—a caldron wherein to make oaten
porridge—or rather a race-course, to exercise horses.
On one side might be seen the town, dark and gloomy; on the other, as
far as the eye could reach, rows of rugged obelisks, half-black,
half-white, owing to the snow, which threw into bold relief each jagged
outline. Josserande, Matheline, and Pol Bihan had just turned from the
sunken road which branches toward Plouharnel; and the moon played
hide-and-go-seek behind a flock of little clouds that flitted over the
sky like lambs.
Then a strange thing happened. The cavalcade of monks was seen to
retreat from the entrance of the avenues to the middle of the circle,
while the horn sounded the signal of distress, and loud cries were
heard of “Wolf! wolf! wolf!”
At the same time could be distinguished the clashing of arms, the
stamping of horses, and all the noise of a ferocious struggle, above
which rose the majestic tones of Gildas the Wise, as he said with
calmness:
“Wolf, wicked wolf, I forbid you to touch God’s servants!”
But it seemed that the wicked wolf was in no hurry to obey, for the
cavalcade plunged hither and thither, as though shaken by convulsion;
and the moon having come forth from the clouds, there was seen an
enormous beast struggling with the staffs of the monks, the halberds of
the armed guard, the pitch-forks and spears of the peasants, who had
hastened from all directions at the trumpet-call from Ruiz.
The animal received many wounds, but it was fated not to die. Again and
again it charged upon the crowd, rushed up and down, round and round,
biting, tearing with its great teeth so fearfully that a large circle
was made around the grand abbot, who was finally left alone in face of
the wolf.
For a wolf it was.
And the grand abbot having touched it with his crosier, the wolf
crouched at his feet, panting, trembling, and bloody. Gildas the Wise
bent over it, looked at it attentively, then said:
“Nothing happens contrary to God’s holy will. Where is Dame
Josserande?”
“I am here,” replied a mournful voice full of tears, “and I dread a
great misfortune.”
She also was alone; for Matheline and Pol Bihan, seized with terror,
had rushed across the fields at the first alarm and abandoned their
precious charge. The grand abbot called Josserande and said:
“Woman, do not despair. Above you is the Infinite Goodness, who holds
in his hands the heavens and the whole earth. Meanwhile, protect your
wolf; we must return to the monastery to gain from sleep strength to
serve the Lord our God!”
And he resumed his course, followed by his escort.
The wolf did not move; his tongue lay on the snow, which was reddened
by his blood. Josserande knelt beside him and prayed fervently. For
whom? For her beloved son. Did she already know that the wolf was
Sylvestre Ker? Certainly; such a thing could scarcely be divined, but
under what form cannot a mother discover her darling child?
She defended the wolf against the peasants, who had returned to strike
him with their pitch-forks and pikes, as they believed him dead. The
two last who came were Pol Bihan and Matheline. Pol Bihan kicked him on
the head and said, “Take that, you fool!” and Matheline threw stones at
him and cried: “Idiot, take that, and that, and that!”
They had hoped for all the gold in the world, and this dead beast could
give them nothing more.
After a while two ragged beggars passed by and assisted Josserande in
carrying the wolf into the tower. Where is charity most often found?
Among the poor, who are the figures of Jesus Christ.
X.
Day dawned. A man slept in the bed of Sylvestre Ker, where widow
Josserande had laid a wolf. The room still bore the marks of a fire,
and snow fell through the hole in the roof. The young tenant’s face was
disfigured with blows, and his hair, stiffened with blood, hung in
heavy locks. In his feverish sleep he talked, and the name that escaped
his lips was Matheline’s. At his bedside the mother watched and prayed.
When Sylvestre Ker awoke he wept, for the thought of his condemnation
returned, but the remembrance of Pol and Matheline dried the tears in
his burning eyes.
“It was for those two,” said he, “that I forgot God and my mother. I
still feel my friend’s heel upon my forehead, and even to the bottom of
my heart the shock of the stones thrown at me by my betrothed!”
“Dearest,” murmured Josserande, “dearer to me than ever, I know
nothing; tell me all.”
Sylvestre Ker obeyed; and when he had finished Josserande kissed him,
took up her staff, and proceeded toward the convent of Ruiz to ask,
according to her custom, aid and counsel from Gildas the Wise. On her
way men, women, and children looked curiously at her, for throughout
the country it was already known that she was the mother of a wolf.
Even behind the hedge which enclosed the abbey orchard Matheline and
Pol were hidden to see her pass; and she heard Pol say: “Will you come
to-night to see the wolf run round?”
“Without fail,” replied Matheline; and the sting of her laughter
pierced Josserande like a poisonous thorn.
The grand abbot received her, surrounded by great books and dusty
manuscripts. When she wished to explain her son’s case he stopped her
and said:
“Widow of Martin Ker, poor, good woman, since the beginning of the
world Satan, the demon of gold and pride, has worked many such
wickednesses. Do you remember the deceased brother, Thaël, who is a
saint for having resisted the desire of making gold—he who had the
power to do it?”
“Yes,” answered Josserande; “and would to heaven my Sylvestre had
imitated him!”
“Very well,” replied Gildas the Wise, “instead of sleeping I passed the
rest of the night with St. Thaël, seeking a means to save your son,
Sylvestre Ker.”
“And have you found it, father?”
The grand abbot neither answered yes nor no, but he began to turn over
a very thick manuscript filled with pictures; and while turning the
leaves he said: “Life springs from death, according to the divine word;
death seizes the living according to the pagan law of Rome; and it is
nearly the same thing in the order of miserable temporal ambition,
whose inheritance is a strength, a life, shot forth from a coffin. This
is a book of the defunct Thaël’s, which treats of the question of
maladies caused by the breath of gold—a deadly poison.... Woman, would
you have the courage to strike your wolf a blow on his head powerful
enough to break the skull?”
At these words Josserande fell her full length upon the tiles, as if
she had been stabbed to the heart; but in the very depth of her
agony—for she thought herself dying—she replied:
“If you should order me to do it, I would.”
“You have this great confidence in me, poor woman?” cried Gildas, much
moved.
“You are a man of God,” answered Josserande, “and I have faith in God.”
Gildas the Wise prostrated himself on the ground and struck his breast,
knowing that he had felt a movement of pride. Then, standing up, he
raised Josserande, and kissed the hem of her robe, saying:
“Woman, I adore in you the most holy faith. Prepare your axe, and
sharpen it!”
XI.
In Brittany, when this legend is repeated, the relater here adds a
current proverb of the province: “Christians, there is nothing greater
than Faith, that is the mother of Hope, and thus the grandmother of
Holy Love, that carries one above to the Paradise of God.”
In the days of Gildas the Wise intense silence always reigned at night
through the dense oak forests of the Armorican country. One of the most
lonely places was Cæsar’s camp, the name given to the huge masses of
stone that encumbered the barren heath; and it was the common opinion
that the pagan giants supposed to be buried under them rose from their
graves at midnight, and roamed up and down the long avenues, watching
for the late passers-by to twist their necks.
This night, however—the night after Christmas—many persons could be
seen about eleven o’clock on the heath before the stones of Carnac, all
around the Great Basin or circle, whose irregular outline was clearly
visible by moonlight.
The enclosure was entirely empty. Outside no one was seen, it is true;
but many could be heard gabbling in the shadow of the high rocks, under
the shelter of the stumps of oaks, even in the tufts of thorny
brambles; and all this assemblage watched for something, and that
something was the wolf, Sylvestre Ker.
They had come from Plouharnel, and also from Lannelar, from Carnac,
from Kercado, even from the old town of Crach, beyond La Trinité.
Who had brought together all these people, young and old, men and
women? The legend does not say, but very probably Matheline had strewn
around the cruel pearls of her laughter, and Pol Bihan had not been
slow to relate what he had seen after the midnight Mass.
By some means or other the entire country around for five or six
leagues knew that the son of Martin Ker, the tenant of the abbey, had
become a man-wolf, and that he was doomed to expiate his crime in the
spot haunted by the phantoms—the Great Basin of the Pagans, between the
tower and the Druid stones.
Many of the watchers had never seen a man-wolf, and there reigned in
the crowd, scattered in invisible groups, a fever of curiosity, terror,
and impatience; the minutes lengthened as they passed, and it seemed as
though midnight, stopped on the way, would never come.
There were at that time no clocks in the neighborhood to mark the hour,
but the matin-bell of the convent of Ruiz gave notice that the
wished-for moment had arrived.
While waiting there was busy conversation: they spoke of the man-wolf,
of phantoms, and also of betrothals, for the rumor was spread that the
bans of Matheline du Coat-Dor, the promised bride of Sylvestre Ker,
with the strong Pol Bihan, who had never found a rival in the
wrestling-field, would be published on the following Sunday; and I
leave you to imagine how Matheline’s laughter ran in pearly cascades
when congratulated on her approaching marriage.
By the road which led up to the tower a shadow slowly descended; it was
not the wolf, but a poor woman in mourning, whose head was bent upon
her breast, and who held in her hand an object that shone like a
mirror, and the brilliant surface of which reflected the moonbeams.
“It is Josserande Ker!” was whispered around the circle, behind the
rocks, in the brambles, and under the stumps of the oaks.
“’Tis the widow of the armed keeper of the great door!”
“’Tis the mother of the wolf, Sylvestre Ker!”
“She also has come to see....”
“But what has she in her hand?”
Twenty voices asked this question. Matheline, who had good eyes, and
such beautiful ones, replied:
“It looks like an axe.... Happy am I to be rid of those two, the mother
and son! With them I could never laugh.”
But there were two or three good souls who said in low tones:
“Poor widow! her heart must be full of sorrow.”
“But what does she want with that axe?”
“It is to defend her wolf,” again replied Matheline, who carried a
pitch-fork.
Pol Bihan held an enormous holly stick which resembled a club. Every
one was armed either with threshing flails or rakes or hoes; some even
bore scythes, carried upright; for they had not only come to look on,
but to make an end of the man-wolf.
Again was heard the chime of the Matin-bells of the convent of Ruiz,
and immediately a smothered cry ran from group to group:
“Wolf! wolf! wolf!”
Josserande heard it, for she paused in her descent and cast an anxious
look around; but, seeing no one, she raised her eyes to heaven and
clasped her hands over the handle of her axe.
The wolf, in the meantime, with fuming nostrils and eyes which looked
like burning coals, leaped over the stones of the enclosure and began
to run around the circle.
“See, see!” said Pol Bihan, “he no longer limps.”
And Matheline, dazzled by the red light from his eyes, added: “It seems
he is no longer one-eyed!”
Pol brandished his club and continued:
“What are we waiting for? Why not attack him?”
“Go you first,” said the men.
“I caught cold the other day, and my leg is stiff, which keeps me from
running,” answered Pol.
“Then I will go first!” cried Matheline, raising her pitch-fork. “I
will soon show how I hate the wretch!”
Dame Josserande heard her and sighed:
“Girl, whom I blessed in baptism, may God keep me from cursing you
now!”
This Matheline, whose pearls were worth nothing, was no coward; for she
carried out her words, and marched straight up to the wolf, while Bihan
stayed behind and cried:
“Go, go, my friends; don’t be afraid! Ah! but for my stiff leg I would
soon finish the wolf, for I am the strongest and bravest.”
Round and round the circle galloped the wolf as quickly as a hunted
stag; his eyes darted fire, his tongue was hanging from his mouth.
Josserande, seeing the danger that threatened him, wept and cried out:
“O Bretons! is there among you all not one kind soul to defend the
widow’s son in the hour when he bitterly expiates his sin?”
“Let us alone, godmother,” boldly replied Matheline.
And from afar Pol Bihan added:
“Don’t listen to the old woman; go!”
But another voice was heard in answer to Dame Josserande’s appeal, and
it said:
“As last night, we are here!”
Standing in front of Matheline, and barring the passage, were two
ragged beggars with their wallets, leaning upon their staffs.
Josserande recognized the two poor men who had so charitably aided her
the night before; and one of them, who had snow-white hair and beard,
said:
“Christians, my brethren, why do you interfere in this? God rewards and
punishes. This poor man-wolf is not a damned soul, but one expiating a
great crime. Leave justice to God, if you do not wish some great
misfortune to happen to you.”
And Josserande, who was kneeling down, said imploringly:
“Listen, listen to the saint!”
But from behind Pol Bihan cried out:
“Since when have beggars been allowed to preach sermons? Ah! if it were
not for my stiff leg.... Kill him, kill him! ... wolf! wolf! wolf!”
“Wolf! wolf!” repeated Matheline, who tried to drive off the old beggar
with her pitch-fork.
But the fork broke like glass in her hands, as it touched the poor
man’s tatters, and at the same time twenty voices cried:
“The wolf! the wolf! Where has the wolf gone?”
Soon was seen where the wolf had gone. A black mass dashed through the
crowd, and Pol Bihan uttered a horrible cry:
“Help! help! Matheline!”
You have often heard the noise made by a dog when crunching a bone.
This was the noise they heard, but louder, as though there were many
dogs crunching many bones. And a strange voice, like the growling of a
wolf, said:
“The strength of a man is a dainty morsel for a wolf to eat. Bihan,
traitor, I eat your strength!”
The black mass again bounded through the terrified crowd, his bloody
tongue hanging from his mouth, his eyes darting fire.
This time it was from Matheline that a scream still more horrible than
that of Pol’s was heard; and again there was the noise of another
terrible feast, and the voice of the wild beast, which had already
spoken, growled:
“The pearls of a smile make a dainty morsel for a wolf to eat.
Matheline, serpent that stung my heart, seek for your beauty. I have
eaten it!”
XIII.
The white-haired beggar had endeavored to protect Matheline against the
wolf, but he was very old, and his limbs would not move as quickly as
his heart. He only succeeded in throwing down the wolf. It fell at
Josserande’s feet and licked her knees, uttering doleful moans. But the
people, who had come thither for entertainment, were not well pleased
with what had happened. There was now abundance of light, as men with
torches had arrived from the abbey in search of their holy saint,
Gildas the Wise, whose cell had been found empty at the hour of
Compline.
The glare from the torches shone upon two hideous wounds made by the
wolf, who had devoured Matheline’s beauty and Pol’s strength—that is to
say, the face of the one and the arms of the other: flesh and bones. It
was frightful to behold. The women wept while looking at the repulsive,
bleeding mass which had been Matheline’s smiling face; the men sought
in the double bloody gaps some traces of Pol’s arms, for the powerful
muscles, the glory of the athletic games; and every heart was filled
with wrath.
The legend says that the tenant of Coat-Dor, Matheline’s poor father,
knelt beside his daughter and felt around in the blood for the
scattered pearls, which were now as red as holly-berries.
“Alas!” said he, “of these dead stained things, which when living were
so beautiful, which were admired and envied and loved, I was so proud
and happy.”
Alas! indeed, alas! Perhaps it was not the girl’s fault that her heart
was no larger than a little bird’s; and yet for this defect was not
Matheline most cruelly punished?
“Death to the wolf! death to the wolf! death to the wolf!”
From all sides was this cry heard, and brandishing pitch-forks,
cudgels, ploughshares, and mallets, came rushing the people toward the
wolf, who still lay panting, with open jaws and pendent tongue, at the
feet of Dame Josserande. Around them the torch-bearers formed a circle:
not to throw light upon the wolf and Dame Josserande, but to render
homage to the white-haired beggar, in whom, as though the scales had
suddenly fallen from their eyes, every one recognized the Grand-Abbot
of Ruiz, Gildas the Wise.
The grand abbot raised his hand, and the armed crowd’s eager advance
was checked, as if their feet had been nailed to the ground. Calmly he
surveyed them, blessed them, and said:
“Christians, the wolf did wrong to punish, for chastisement belongs to
God alone; therefore the wolf’s fault should not be punished by you. In
whom resides the power of God? In the holy authority of fathers and
mothers. So here is my penitent Josserande, who will rightfully judge
the wolf and punish him, since she is his mother.”
When Gildas the Wise ceased speaking you could have heard a mouse run
across the heath. Each one thought to himself: “So the wolf is really
Sylvestre Ker.” But not a word was uttered, and all looked at Dame
Josserande’s axe, which glistened in the moonlight.
Josserande made the sign of the cross—ah! poor mother, very slowly, for
her heart sank within her—and she murmured:
“My beloved one, my beloved one, whom I have borne in my arms and
nourished with my milk—ah! me, can the Lord God inflict this cruel
martyrdom upon me?”
No one replied, not even Gildas the Wise, who silently adjured the
All-Powerful, and recalled to him the sacrifice of Abraham.
Josserande raised her axe, but she had the misfortune to look at the
wolf, who fixed his eyes, full of tears, upon her, and the axe fell
from her hands.
_It was the wolf who picked it up_, and when he gave it back to her he
said: “I weep for you, my mother.”
“Strike!” cried the crowd, for what remained of Pol and Matheline
uttered terrible groans. “Strike! strike!”
While Josserande again seized her axe the grand abbot had time to say:
“Do not complain, you two unhappy ones, for your suffering here below
changes your hell into purgatory.”
Three times Josserande raised the axe, three times she let it fall
without striking; but at last she said in a hoarse tone that sounded
like a death-rattle: “I have great faith in the good God!” and then,
says the legend, she struck boldly, for the wolf’s head split in two
halves.
XIV.
A sudden wind extinguished the torches, and some one prevented Dame
Josserande from falling, as she sank fainting to the ground, by
supporting her in his arms. By the light of the halo which shone around
the blessed head of Gildas the Wise, the good people saw that this
somebody was the young tenant, Sylvestre Ker, no longer lame nor
one-eyed, but with two straight legs and two perfect eyes.
At the same time there were heard voices in the clouds chanting the _Te
Deum_. Why? Because heaven and earth quivered with emotion at
witnessing this supreme act of faith soaring from the depth of anguish
in a mother’s heart.
XV.
This is the legend that for many centuries has been related at
Christmas time on the shores of the Petite-Mer, which in the Breton
tongue is called _Armor bihan_, the Celtic name of Brittany.
If you ask what moral these good people draw from this strange story, I
will answer that it contains a basketful. Pol and Matheline, condemned
to walk around the Basin of the Pagans until the end of time, one
without arms, the other without a face, offer a severe lesson to those
fellows who are too proud of their broad shoulders and brute force, and
gossiping flirts of girls with smiling faces and wicked hearts; the
case of Sylvestre Ker teaches young men not to listen to the demon of
money; the blow of Josserande’s axe shows the miraculous power of
faith; the part of Gildas the Wise proves that it is well to consult
the saints.
Still further, that you may bind together these diverse morals in one,
here is a proverb which is current in the province: “Never stoop to
pick up the pearls of a smile.” After this ask me no more.
As to the authenticity of the story, I have already said that the
chestnut-grove belongs to the mayor’s nephew, which is one guaranty;
and I will add that the spot is called Sylvestreker, and that the
ruins, hung with moss, have no other name than “The Wolf-Tower!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MR. FROUDE ON THE DECLINE OF PROTESTANTISM.[102]
We have seen what Mr. Froude thinks of the “Revival of Romanism.” Let
us now see what he has to say on a subject nearer his heart—the decline
of Protestantism.
He has much to say; and, to use an ordinary phrase, he makes no bones
about saying it. At the outset we would dispose of what seems a fair
objection. If, it may be urged, you make Mr. Froude so very
untrustworthy a witness against Catholics and the Catholic Church, why
should he not be equally untrustworthy when assailing Protestantism?
The objection is more plausible than real. Mr. Froude is a professed
Protestant. In the cause of Protestantism he is earnest even to
aggressiveness. He believes in and loves it with all his heart and
soul, as really as he disbelieves in and detests Catholicity. He can
say nothing that is too good of the early Protestant Reformers and of
their “Reform.” He doubts about nothing, apologizes for nothing,
attempts to palliate nothing either in the Reformers or their Reform.
He sees nothing in either to apologize for or to palliate. He can only
regret that, so far as Protestant belief and work and workers go, the
nineteenth century is not as the sixteenth. He is altogether on his own
ground here; and we submit that the testimony of such a man in such a
matter is of value, the more so when it is confirmed to-day by
concurrent Protestant testimony on all sides. The only difference
between Mr. Froude and the great mass of non-Catholic writers on this
subject is that he is more frank than they, and lays his finger
unshrinkingly on very tender Protestant spots.
Of the actual state of Protestantism he has little that is good or
hopeful to say, with one notable exception—North Germany—which will be
considered later on. Protestantism to-day Mr. Froude finds weak-kneed
as well as weak-headed. It has not that aggressive strength of the
early teachers and preachers of Reform. The modern teachers have lost
that pronounced faith in themselves and in their doctrines, that
burning zeal, that fierce hatred of Catholicity, of falsehood, and of
sham, that Mr. Froude is pleased to discover in the early Reformers.
“Religion speaks with command,” he says very rightly. It “lays down a
set of doctrines, and says, ‘Believe these at your soul’s peril.’ A
certain peremptoriness being thus of the essence of the thing, those
religious teachers will always command most confidence who dare most to
speak in positive tones.” All of which is, of course, most true.
Speaking “in positive tones,” however, does not necessarily imply a
divine mission, or even an erroneous sense of a divine mission. It may
be bluster; it may be calculated lying; it may be the mistaken
enthusiasm of a weak intellect and fervid imagination. To be real it
must stand the severest tests. Of a man who asserts his mission from
heaven as a teacher of religion something more than his own word is
demanded, however positive that word may be. In the preaching and the
teaching of the truth there is in all ages a unity of voice, a
community of feeling and of purpose, a singleness of eye, of aim, of
method, a union of heart and of soul, that is unmistakable and carries
conviction with it. There is no change in it; no fleck or flaw. What is
new agrees with what is old; is generally a consequence flowing out of
the old. It preaches only one God and one law from the beginning. It
never contradicts itself; it never narrows or broadens its moral lines
to suit the convenience or the whim of persons or of nationalities. It
never compromises with humanity. It enlightens the intellect while
appealing to the heart of man. It makes no divisions between men or
nations; no special code for this or for that. It is awful in its
inflexibility; majestic in its calm; eternal in its vigilance; “the
same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever.” This is living Truth; this is
God’s; and he who speaks the word of God is known by these signs.
Mr. Froude is at a loss to find this spirit now abroad in the world.
The nearest approach to it he finds, oddly enough for him, in the
Catholic Church. But, of course, that is owing to some devilish
ingenuity of which the Catholic Church alone has the secret. As for
Protestants, “it is no secret,” he says, “that of late years Protestant
divines have spoken with less boldness, with less clearness and
confidence, than their predecessors of the last generation.” “They are
not to be blamed for it,” he adds, and we quite agree with him. “Their
intellectual position has grown in many ways perplexed. Science and
historical criticism have shaken positions which used to be thought
unassailable” (p. 99). We pointed out one of those “positions”—the
Protestant Reformation in England—but that is not in the contemplation
of Mr. Froude. To him, even if to him alone, that position still
stands, “unassailable.”
“Doctrines once thought to carry their own evidence with them
in their inherent fitness for man’s needs have become, for some
reason or other, less conclusively obvious. The state of mind
to which they were addressed has been altered—altered in some
way either for the worse or for the better. And where the
evangelical theology retains its hold, it is rather as
something which it is unbecoming to doubt than as a body of
living truth which penetrates and vitalizes the heart” (p. 99).
It is to be regretted that Mr. Froude does not specify these
“doctrines.” He fails to do so in any place, and in such matters, as
indeed in all, there is nothing like accuracy in order to arrive at a
clear understanding of what is wrong. Some of them, however, may be
easily guessed at. In these days it would be hard to discover what
precise “doctrines” “evangelical” or any but Catholic theologians do
hold, if hard pushed and driven to make an explicit statement of what
they do and what they do not believe. The expression “evangelical
theology” may help to enlighten us as to Mr. Froude’s meaning. That we
take to mean a theology based on the Bible as the first, final, and
only guide to man’s knowledge of God and all implied in that knowledge.
This view of his meaning is confirmed by another passage (p. 100),
wherein, contrasting the doctrinal position of the Catholic and
Protestant, he says:
“It” (the Catholic Church) “stands precisely on the same
foundation on which the Protestant religion stands—on the truth
of the Gospel history. Before we can believe the Gospel history
we must appeal to the consciousness of God’s existence, which
is written on the hearts of us all.”
There is a mistake here which will be obvious to any instructed reader.
There is no more reason “to appeal to the consciousness of God’s
existence” for the truth of “the Gospel history” than for the truth of
any other history. As a history, history it is and no more, to be
judged as to its accuracy on the known laws of historical criticism. It
contains a written record of events, and stands or falls on the truth
of what it records, just as does Mr. Froude’s own history. If it can be
shown that it is false, there is an end of it; false it is, and no man
is bound to believe it. The foundation of Protestantism, as Mr. Froude
very rightly says, stands “on the truth of the Gospel history”—that is,
on the Bible, and the Bible alone. Christ, however, did not build his
church on the Bible, but on Peter, the chief of the apostles: “I say to
thee, Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” Those are very plain,
strong, and unmistakable words; and in their comprehension lies a
fundamental difference between Catholics and Protestants.
Out of this difference comes a singular effect, more noticeable in
these than in former days. Catholics reverence the Bible more really
because more truly than do Protestants. Over-reverence is irreverence.
They never made the mistake of accepting the Bible as the foundation of
Christ’s church, any more than in human affairs we should take a
history of a commonwealth, with the digest of its laws, the sayings of
some of its wise men, their documents to their contemporaries and to
posterity, as the commonwealth itself. Protestants withdrew from the
body of the church, which may have had, and had, sore spots and
diseased members; they took up the written record and said: Here are
the laws; here are the words of Christ; here are the sayings of the
fathers; here is truth; here let us build our church anew—each one
judging for himself as to what the church was and ought to be.
Difficulties that were essential to such a position and that are
obvious at sight arose at once and continued all the way down, until at
last, in these days of all others, there sprang up in the very bosom of
Protestantism a school of assailants of the Bible itself. This is the
school of modern scientists, which rejects revelation, rejects God,
rejects the truth of the Bible history, rejects Christ—rejects, in a
word, everything, save what approves itself to it by so-called positive
testimony. Hence arises the perplexity of the “intellectual position”
of Protestant divines, which Mr. Froude notices. The very foundation of
their creed is questioned, and questioned at every inch. So, until
everything is satisfactorily cleared up and the “scientists” absolutely
refuted, Protestantism is in a state of dissolution. It has no
foundation on which to stand, while Catholics have their living church,
to which they adhered steadfastly from the very beginning, which
existed, and was called into being, entirely independent of the Bible,
and which would have been what it is had the Bible never been written
at all. So that, _per impossibile_, even were the Bible shown to be
false, it would not affect the fundamental Catholic position. Of course
we do not intimate for a moment that the Bible is false, and that the
scientists can prove anything against it. We only bring forward this
instance of an essential difference between Catholics and Protestants,
and the effect of it on their minds, as showing the reason why
Catholics take the criticism of the new school of inquirers very
calmly, while the result of this criticism on Protestants is
disastrous.
Catholics are just as steadfast in their belief as they ever were;
Protestants are daily becoming less and less so. Inquiry, or
“criticism,” as it is called, while it strengthens, if possible,
Catholicity, destroys Protestantism. Truth can stand all things.
“Science and historical criticism _have_ shaken positions which used to
be thought unassailable” by Protestants, who find themselves in the
false position of being compelled to question or reject as false what
their fathers pinned their faith to—Germany always excepted, according
to Mr. Froude. It is a hard thing indeed to preach and teach as divine
truth a doctrine, or by our very profession to subscribe to a doctrine,
which in our heart we doubt about or disbelieve. This is a moral
phenomenon which Protestantism presents to us every day, and in no one
of its infinite branches more conspicuously than in the Anglican.
If men are preaching what they disbelieve or are in grave doubt about,
it is simply natural that “where truth” (or what was taken for truth)
“was once flashed out like lightning, and attended with oratorical
thunders, it is now uttered with comparative feebleness.”
“The most honest, perhaps, are the most uncomfortable and most
hesitating, while those who speak most boldly are often
affecting a confidence which in their hearts they do not feel”
(p. 99). “From some cause, it seems they” (Protestant
preachers) “dare not speak, they dare not think, like their
fathers. Too many of them condescend to borrow the weapons of
their adversaries. _They are not looking for what is true; they
are looking for arguments to defend positions which they know
to be indefensible._ Their sermons are sometimes sophistical,
sometimes cold and mechanical, sometimes honestly diffident.
Any way, they are without warmth and cannot give what they do
not possess” (p. 100).
This is a very heavy indictment; we leave to others to judge of its
truth. It is a mistake, however, to draw the line at “their fathers.”
These men are what their fathers have made them. The characteristics
that mark the present teachers of Protestantism run down the whole line
of the Protestant tradition. Incoherency and inconsistency, not to use
harsher terms, necessarily stamped Protestantism from the first.[103]
These characteristics are only more apparent to-day because the
constant fire of criticism has exposed and brought them more
prominently into view.
The practical results of teaching what is necessarily and inherently
contradictory scarcely need to be pointed out. “The Protestant,” says
Mr. Froude, “finding three centuries ago that the institution called
the Church was teaching falsehood, refused to pin his faith upon the
Church’s sleeve thenceforward. He has relied on his own judgment, and
times come when he is perplexed.” The whole story is told here. It was
too late in the day to find that “the Church was teaching falsehood.”
The Christian Church can err or it cannot err. There is room for no
_via media_ here. If it can err, it could have erred just as easily in
the first century as in the fifteenth or sixteenth. If it could err at
all there is no necessary reason to suppose that it ever was right;
there is no belief to be placed in the promise of Christ; there is no
belief to be placed in Christ himself more than in any other man. And
again, if it could err, who was right, and who was going to set it
right? The church being abandoned as a teacher of falsehood, there is
no hope of escape from constant perplexity to the Christian mind; for
the Bible itself, being left to private judgment, is of course open to
any interpretation that private judgment may be pleased to extract from
it. And this in itself is destruction, quite apart from the assaults of
hostile criticism. To make the church at all, or at any time, or by any
possibility a teacher of falsehood is to strike the divinity from it
and convert it into a human institution of the most monstrous
assumptions and absurd pretensions.
This is Protestantism, which never had any spiritual life in itself. It
was from the beginning, as it still is, a convenient and very powerful
political agent, as was Mahometanism. Mr. Froude says very truly, what
all men are coming to say, that “there is no real alternative between
the Catholic Church and atheism” (p. 100), which leaves Mr. Froude and
his fellow-Protestants in a pleasant position.
In the general perplexity of the Protestant mind “the Romanist,” as Mr.
Froude graciously puts it, “has availed himself of the opportunity.”
“His church stands as a visible thing, which appears [appeals?]
to the imagination as well as the reason. The vexed soul, weary
of its doubts, and too impatient to wait till it pleases God to
clear away the clouds, demands a certainty on which it can
repose—never to ask a question more. By an effort of will
which, while claiming the name of faith, is in reality a want
of faith, it seizes the Catholic system as a whole. Foregoing
the use of the natural reason for evermore, it accepts the word
of a spiritual director as an answer to every difficulty, and
finds, as it supposes, the peace for which it longed, as the
body which is drugged with opium ceases to feel pain” (p. 101).
Such is Mr. Froude’s picture of conversion to the Catholic faith. A man
is drugged into Catholicity, and remains drugged to the end of the
chapter. Whenever a gleam of his lost reason returns he hurries to the
confessional box; his “spiritual director” administers another dose,
and the drowsy patient slumbers away again content. We do not pretend
to Mr. Froude’s singular gift of prescience which enables him to read
so readily the hearts of thousands of men and women who to all the
world save Mr. Froude are intellectually and morally strong. He has
traced their secret emotions and followed them up even into the
confessional box. He has seen the opiate administered and satisfied
himself of the process. To ordinary persons the conversion of a man to
the Catholic faith is the result of a long and most painful struggle
which only the strongest conviction of right can bring about. Leaving
him there, deprived of “the use of the natural reason for evermore,”
let us see what becomes of those who retain the use of their natural
reason and all the noble gifts and faculties that accompany it.
Protestants alone see clearly the roads to heaven and hell, according
to Mr. Froude; which road do they take?
We have seen the position of their preachers. Were we not deprived of
“our natural reason for evermore,” we should describe that position as
most pitiable, where it is not dishonest and intellectually immoral.
The God of Protestantism, if we believe its expounders, is truly a
strange being. He teaches everything, or he teaches nothing, with equal
facility and pleasing variety. He teaches that there are three persons
in one God; he teaches no such doctrine. He teaches that Christ is
truly God and truly man; he is rather doubtful about the matter. He
teaches the eternity of punishment; he teaches no such monstrous
doctrine. He commands that all men be baptized in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, if they would enter the
kingdom of heaven; he does not know of the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost. His views of baptism and its necessity are rather mixed.
There is no baptism unless a man is wholly immersed. It is just as good
a baptism if a man’s feet be immersed. It is equally good if water be
poured on a man’s head. A man is just as fit for the kingdom of heaven,
and just as good a Christian, if he be not baptized at all. God teaches
that the Blessed Sacrament is really and truly the body and blood of
Christ, and to be adored. He teaches that it is only a figure of
Christ, and that to adore it is to commit the sin of idolatry. He
teaches that man has free-will; he teaches that man has not free-will,
and that all he can do is worthless, heaven or hell being portioned out
for him from all eternity quite apart from his own endeavor. He teaches
that good works as well as faith in him are necessary for salvation; he
teaches that faith alone is necessary, and that provided a man believe
right he may do wrong. And so on _ad infinitum_ down to the grossest
and most abhorrent tenets.
But this is Protestantism, or reliance on one’s “own judgment.” One’s
own judgment is very apt to favor one’s own self. One’s own judgment
makes a god of self, and right and wrong matters of whim, appetite, and
inclination. Let us see its outcome as pictured by Mr. Froude.
In section iv. of his study he considers the “Causes of Weakness in
Modern Protestant Churches.” The words “modern” and “churches” are
themselves contradictory of unity and of a church built on Christ. He
sets out by drawing a glowing picture of what the early “Reformers” did
and what they were, which we may let pass as not immediately bearing on
our present purpose. “After the middle of the seventeenth century,” he
says (p. 111), “Protestantism ceased to be aggressive.”
... “As it became established it adapted itself to the world,
laid aside its harshness, confined itself more and more to the
enforcement of particular doctrines, and abandoned, at first
tacitly and afterward deliberately, the pretence to interfere
with private life or practical business.”
Is this true? Did Protestantism cease to be aggressive after the middle
of the seventeenth century? We have already said that Mr. Froude was
generally the best refutation of Mr. Froude. He shall be his own judge.
Did Protestantism cease to be aggressive in Ireland, for instance,
after the middle of the seventeenth century? We might bring many
unimpeachable witnesses on the stand to prove our point. Mr. Froude
will suffice for us, and we quote him at some length because his words
here set forth in the strongest contrast what Protestantism can do to
degrade a people, and what Catholicity can do to lift a people out of
the slough of degradation. Herein we see the spirits of both in deadly
conflict, and the lesson of the struggle is a lesson for to-day, when
the same spirits are locked again in strife.
Writing not of the middle of the seventeenth, but of the beginning of
the eighteenth, century (1709), Mr. Froude thus describes the second
Act against Popery in Ireland:
“The code of law which was designed to transfer the entire soil
of Ireland to members of the Established Church, and reduce the
Catholics to landless dependents, was finally completed.... By
the new act every settlement, every lease on lives, every
conveyance made by a Catholic owner since 1704, by which any
Protestant or Protestants had been injured,[104] was declared
void, and the loop-holes were closed by which the act of that
year had been evaded. To defeat Protestant heirs, Catholics had
concealed the true value of their property. Children were now
enabled to compel their fathers to produce their title-deeds
and make a clear confession. Catholic gentlemen had pretended
conversion to qualify themselves for being magistrates and
sheriffs, for being admitted to the bar, or for holding a seat
in Parliament, while their children were being bred up secretly
in the old faith. The education of their families was made a
test of sincerity, and those whose sons were not brought up as
churchmen remained under the disabilities.
“Nor, if words could hinder it, were the acts directed against
the priests to be any more trifled with. Fifty pounds reward
was now offered for the conviction of any Catholic archbishop,
bishop, or vicar-general; twenty pounds reward for the
conviction of friar, Jesuit, or unregistered parish priest....
It was now made penal for a priest to officiate anywhere except
in the parish church for which he was registered, and the last
rivet was driven into the chain by the compulsory imposition of
the Abjuration Oath, which every priest was made to swear at
his registration. As if this was not enough, any two
magistrates received power to summon any or every Irish subject
above the age of sixteen, to offer him the oath, and to commit
him to prison if he refused it. They might also, if he was a
Catholic, ask him where he last heard Mass, and by whom it was
celebrated. If the priest officiating was found to have been
unregistered he was liable to be transported.
“A fatal clause was added that any Protestant whatever who
discovered and was able to prove before a Protestant jury the
existence of any purchase or lease of which a Catholic was to
have secretly the advantage, should himself be put in
possession of the property which was the subject of the fraud”
(pp. 332–334).[105]
Even Mr. Froude cannot help remarking on this last clause that “the
evasion of a law so contrived that every unscrupulous scoundrel in
Ireland was its self-constituted guardian became impossible”; and he
adds with gratifying frankness: “That it was unjust in itself never
occurred as a passing emotion to any Protestant in the two kingdoms,
not even to Swift, who speaks approvingly of what he deems must be the
inevitable result.”
Writing still of the Penal Laws, he says that “the practice of the
courts” in regard to them “was a very school of lying and a discipline
of evasion. No laws could have been invented, perhaps, more ingeniously
demoralizing” (p. 374).
Writing of a period still later in the eighteenth century, after the
Protestant emigration and the ruin of Irish trade and industry had been
brought about by English legislation, he thus describes the condition
of the Irish peasant class, who composed the bulk of the population:
“The tenants were forbidden in their leases to break or plough
the soil. The people, no longer employed, were driven away into
holes and corners, and eked out a wretched subsistence by
potato gardens, or by keeping starving cattle of their own on
the neglected bogs. Their numbers increased, for they married
early, and they were no longer liable, as in the old times, to
be killed off like dogs in forays. They grew up in compulsory
idleness, encouraged once more in their inherited dislike of
labor, and enured to wretchedness and hunger; and, on every
failure of the potato crop, hundreds of thousands were
starving.”
Horrible as such a picture is, it is but a faint sketch of the reality.
All readers of Irish history know it, and no student of English
legislation should forget or pass over that dark chapter in England’s
history. Our own readers have seen the whole system vividly sketched in
these pages recently in the series of papers on “English Rule in
Ireland.” What, in human nature and human possibilities, was to become
of a people thus submitted to so long and unbending and systematic a
course of degradation? They had nothing left but their faith, and the
eternal truth of the promise that this is the victory which overcometh
the world; and that our faith shall make us free was never more
gloriously and wondrously made manifest than in the case of the Irish
people.
Ignorance was made compulsory by this Protestant government. The
statute law of Ireland forbade Catholics to open schools or to teach in
them. The Irish people, of all peoples, have ever had a craving for
knowledge. What was left to them to do?
“The Catholics,” says Mr. Froude, “with the same steady courage
and unremitting zeal with which they had maintained and
multiplied the number of their priests, had established open
schools in places like Killarney, where the law was a
dead-letter. In the more accessible counties, where open
defiance was dangerous, they extemporized class teachers under
ruined walls or in the dry ditches by the roadside, where
ragged urchins, in the midst of their poverty, learnt English
and the elements of arithmetic, and even to read and construe
Ovid and Virgil. With institutions which showed a vitality so
singular and so spontaneous repressive acts of Parliament
contended in vain.”
Ignorance is esteemed to be the prolific mother of vice. The social
condition of the Irish people was made as bad as legislation could make
it. Where was the room for morality in such a case? In vainly trying to
explain away that most brutal project of law for the mutilation of the
Irish priests, Mr. Froude says (vol. i. p. 557): “They (the Lord
Lieutenant and Privy Council) did propose, not that all the Catholic
clergy in Ireland, as Plowden says, but that unregistered priests and
friars coming in from abroad, should be liable to castration”; and he
adds in a note:
“Not, certainly, as implying a charge of immorality. Amidst the
multitude of accusations which I have seen brought against the
Irish priests of the last century, I have never, save in a
single instance, encountered a charge of unchastity. Rather the
exceptional and signal purity of Irish Catholic women of the
lower class, unparalleled probably in the civilized world, and
not characteristic of the race, which in the sixteenth century
was no less distinguished for licentiousness, must be
attributed wholly and entirely to the influence of the Catholic
clergy.”
Mr. Froude cannot be wholly generous and honest in a matter of this
kind, but what is true in this is sufficient for our purpose without
inquiring into what is false. It is plain from his own words that the
one thing that saved the Irish people from perdition, body and soul,
was their Catholic faith. Yet this is the man who, having thus
testified to the rival effects of Catholicity and Protestantism on a
people, has the effrontery to tell us in the “Revival of Romanism” that
“If by this [conversions] or any other cause the Catholic
Church anywhere recovers her ascendency, she will again exhibit
the detestable features which have invariably attended her
supremacy. Her rule will once more be found incompatible either
with justice or intellectual growth, and our children will be
forced to recover by some fresh struggle the ground which our
forefathers conquered for us, and which we by our pusillanimity
surrendered” (p. 103).
With his own testimony before us we may well ask in amazement, Of which
church is he writing? It would seem as though Heaven, which through all
ages has looked down upon and permitted martyrdom for the faith, had in
this instance called upon, not a tender virgin or a strong youth, not
an old man tottering into the grave or an innocent child, to step into
the arena and offer up their life and blood for the cause of Christ,
but a whole people. And the martyrdom of this people was not for a day
or an hour; it was the slow torture of centuries. A legacy of martyrdom
was “bequeathed from bleeding sire to son.” Life was hopeless to the
Irish people under the Penal Laws; the world a wide prison; the earth a
grave. They could only lift their eyes and hearts to heaven and wait
patiently for merciful death to come. This was the supreme test of
faith to a noble and passionate race, as it was faith’s supremest
testimony. No work of the saints, no writings of the fathers, no
Heaven-illumined mind ever brought to the aid of faith stronger reason
for conviction than this. As words pale before deeds, as the blood of a
martyr speaks more loudly to men, and cries more clamorously to heaven,
than all that divine philosophy can utter or inspired poet sing, so the
attitude of the Irish people, so opposed to all the instincts of their
quick and passionate nature, bore the very noblest testimony to the
reality of the Christian religion. A world looked down into that dark
arena and waited for some sign of faltering in the victim, for some
sign of pity in the persecutor. Neither came. The victim refused to die
or sacrifice to the gods; the persecutor to relent. The struggle ended
at length through the sheer weariness of the latter, and brighter times
came because darker could not be devised.
Faith conquered. The Irish people arose from its grave, and at once
spread abroad over the world to preach the Gospel and to plant the
church which for two centuries it had watered with its blood. The Act
of Catholic Emancipation was the first real sign of resurrection, and
that was only passed in 1829.
So much for Protestantism having “ceased to be aggressive after the
middle of the seventeenth century.” How aggressive are certain
Protestant powers to-day all men know.
Another thing happened to Protestantism after the middle of the
seventeenth century:
“It no longer produced men conspicuously nobler and better than
Romanism,” says Mr. Froude, “and therefore it no longer made
converts. As it became established, it adapted itself to the
world, laid aside its harshness, confined itself more and more
to the enforcement of particular doctrines” (of no doctrines in
particular, we should be inclined to say), “and abandoned, at
first tacitly and afterward deliberately, the pretence to
interfere with private life or practical business.”
In plainer words, Protestantism, having secured its place in this
world, left the next world to take care of itself, and left men free to
go to the devil or not just as they pleased. Mr. Froude faithfully
pictures the result:
“Thus Protestant countries are no longer able to boast of any
special or remarkable moral standard; and the effect of the
creed on the imagination is analogously impaired. Protestant
nations show more energy than Catholic nations because the mind
is left more free, and the intellect is undisturbed by the
authoritative instilment of false principles” (p. 111).
This strikes us as a very easy manner of begging a very important
question. However, we are less concerned now with Mr. Froude’s
Catholics than with his Protestants.
“But,” he goes on, “Protestant nations have been guilty, as
nations, of enormous crimes. Protestant individuals, who
profess the soundest of creeds, seem, in their conduct, to have
no creed at all, beyond a conviction that pleasure is pleasant,
and that money will purchase it. Political corruption grows up;
sharp practice in trade grows up—dishonest speculations, short
weights and measures, and adulteration of food. The commercial
and political Protestant world, on both sides of the Atlantic,
has accepted a code of action from which morality has been
banished; and the clergy have for the most part sat silent, and
occupy themselves in carving and polishing into completeness
their schemes of doctrinal salvation. They shrink from
offending the wealthy members of their congregation.” (We
believe we heard concordant testimony to this from
distinguished members of the late Protestant Episcopalian
Convention and Congress.) “They withdraw into the affairs of
the other world, and leave the present world to the men of
business and the devil.”
Mr. Froude having thus placidly handed Protestantism over to the devil,
we might as well leave it there, as the devil is proverbially reported
to know and take care of his own. And certainly, if Protestantism be
only half what Mr. Froude depicts it, it is the devil’s, and a more
active and fruitful agent of evil he could not well desire. One thing
is beyond dispute: if Protestantism be what so ardent an advocate as
Mr. Froude says it is, it is high time for a change. It is time for
some one or something to step in and dispute the devil’s absolute
sovereignty. If this is the result of the Protestant mind being “left
more free” than the Catholic, the sooner such freedom is curtailed the
better. It is the freedom of lethargy and license which has yielded up
even the little that it had of real freedom and truth to its own child,
Materialism, the modern name for paganism.
“They” (the Protestant clergy), says Mr. Froude, “have allowed
the Gospel to be superseded by the new formulas of political
economy. This so-called science is the most barefaced attempt
that has ever yet been openly made on this earth to regulate
human society without God or recognition of the moral law. The
clergy have allowed it to grow up, to take possession of the
air, to penetrate schools and colleges, to control the actions
of legislatures, without even so much as opening their lips in
remonstrance.”
Yes, because they had nothing better to offer in its place. And this
Mr. Froude advances with much truth as one of the causes of the
“Revival of Romanism”:
“I once ventured,” he tells us, “to say to a leading
Evangelical preacher in London that I thought the clergy were
much to blame in these matters. If the diseases of society were
unapproachable by human law, the clergy might at least keep
their congregations from forgetting that there was a law of
another kind which in some shape or other would enforce itself.
He told me very plainly that he did not look on it as part of
his duty. He could not save the world, nor would he try. The
world lay in wickedness, and would lie in wickedness to the
end. His business was to save out of it individual souls by
working on their spiritual emotions, and bringing them to what
he called the truth. As to what men should do or not do, how
they should occupy themselves, how and how far they might enjoy
themselves, on what principles they should carry on their daily
work—on these and similar subjects he had nothing to say.
“I needed no more to explain to me why Evangelical preachers
were losing their hold on the more robust intellects, or why
Catholics, who at least offered something which at intervals
might remind men that they had souls, should have power to win
away into their fold many a tender conscience which needed
detailed support and guidance” (pp. 112–113).
One ray of light in the universal darkness now enshrouding
Protestantism shines before the eyes of Mr. Froude. It falls on the
present German Empire. Here at least the weary watchman crying out the
hours of heaven may call “All is well” to the sleepers. Here
Protestantism had its true birth; here it finds its true home. In this
blessed land lies hope and salvation for a lost world. But the picture
is so graphic that we give it in Mr. Froude’s own words:
“As the present state of France,” he says, “is the measure of
the value of the Catholic revival, so Northern Germany,
spiritually, socially, and politically, is the measure of the
power of consistent Protestantism. Germany was the cradle of
the Reformation. In Germany it moves forward to its manhood;
and there, and not elsewhere, will be found the intellectual
solution of the speculative perplexities which are now dividing
and bewildering us” (pp. 130–131).
“Luther was the root in which the intellect of the modern
Germans took its rise. In the spirit of Luther this mental
development has gone forward ever since. The seed changes its
form when it develops leaves and flowers. But the leaves and
flowers are in the seed, and the thoughts of the Germany of
to-day lay in germs in the great reformer. Thus Luther has
remained through later history the idol of the nation whom he
saved. The disputes between religion and science, so baneful in
their effects elsewhere, have risen into differences there, but
never into quarrels” (p. 132).
“Protestant Germany stands almost alone, with hands and head
alike clear. Her theology is undergoing change. Her piety
remains unshaken. Protestant she is, Protestant she means to
be.... By the mere weight of superior worth the Protestant
states have established their ascendency over Catholic Austria
and Bavaria, and compel them, whether they will or not, to turn
their faces from darkness to light.[106] ... German religion
may be summed up in the word which is at once the foundation
and the superstructure of all religion—Duty! No people anywhere
or at any time have understood better the meaning of duty; and
to say that is to say all” (pp. 134–135).
These glowing periods are very tempting to the critic; but it is a mark
of cruelty and savagery to gloat over an easy prey. We forbear all
verbal criticism, then, and simply deny _in toto_ the truth of Mr.
Froude’s statement. It is so very wrong that we can only think he wrote
from his imagination—a weakness from which he suffers oftenest when he
wishes most to be effective. Had he searched the world he could not
have found a worse instance to prove his point than North Germany.
Prussia is the leading North German and Protestant state, and in
various passages Mr. Froude shows that he takes it as his beau-ideal of
a Protestant power. How stands Protestantism in Prussia to-day?
The indications for more than a quarter of a century past have been
that Protestantism in Prussia was little more than the shadow of a once
mighty name. These indications have become more marked of late years,
especially since the consolidation of the new German Empire. Earnest
German Protestants are continually deploring the fact; the press
proclaims it; the Protestant ministers avow it, and all the world knew
of it, save, apparently, Mr. Froude. “Protestantism in Prussia” formed
the subject of a letter from the Berlin correspondent of the London
_Times_ as recently as Sept. 7, 1877. His testimony on such a subject
could scarcely be called in question, but even if it could be the facts
narrated speak for themselves.
“Forty years ago,” he says, “the clergy of the Established
Church of this country, including the leading divines and the
members of the ecclesiastical government, almost to a man were
under the influence of free-thinking theories.
“It was the time when German criticism first undertook to
dissect the Bible. History seemed to have surpassed theology,
and divines had recourse to ‘interpreting’ what they thought
they could no longer maintain according to the letter. The
movement extended from the clergy to the educated classes,
gradually reaching the lower orders, and ultimately pervaded
the entire nation. At this juncture atheism sprang forward to
reap the harvest sown by latitudinarians. Then reaction set in.
The clergy reverted to orthodoxy, and their conversion to the
old faith happening to coincide with the return of the
government to political conservatism, subsequent to the
troublous period of 1848, the stricter principles embraced by
the cloth were systematically enforced by consistory and
school....
“The clergy turned orthodox twenty-five years ago; _the laity
did not_. The servants of the altar, having realized the
melancholy effect of opposite tenets, resolutely fell back upon
the ancient dogmas of Christianity; _the congregations declined
to follow suit_. Hence the few ‘liberal’ clergymen remaining
after the advent of the orthodox period had the consolation of
knowing themselves to be in accord, if not with their clerical
brethren, at least with the majority of the educated, and,
perhaps, even the uneducated, classes.”
He proceeds to mention various cases of prominent Lutheran clergymen
who denied the divinity of Christ, or other doctrines equally necessary
to be maintained by men professing to be Christians, and of the
unsuccessful attempts made to silence them. As the correspondent says
“irreverent liberal opinion on the case is well reflected in an article
in the Berlin _Volks-Zeitung_,” which is so instructive that we quote
it for the especial benefit of Mr. Froude:
“As long as Protestant clergymen are appointed by provincial
consistories officiating in behalf of the crown our
congregations will have to put up with any candidates that may
be forced upon them. They may, perhaps, be allowed to nominate
their pastors, but they will be impotent to exact the
confirmation of their choice from the ecclesiastical
authorities. Nor do we experience any particular curiosity as
to the result of the inquiry instituted against Herr Hossbach.
In matters of this delicate nature judicious evasions have been
too often resorted to by clever accused, and visibly favored by
ordained judges of the faith, for us to care much for the
result of the suit opened. A sort of fanciful and imaginative
prevarication has always flourished in theological debate, and
the old artifice, it is to be foreseen, will be employed with
fresh versatility in the present instance. Should the election
of Herr Hossbach be confirmed, the consistorial decree will be
garnished with so many ‘ifs’ and ‘althoughs’ that the brilliant
ray of truth will be dimmed by screening assumptions, like a
candle placed behind a colored glass. Similarly, should the
consistory decline to ratify the choice of the vestry, the
refusal is sure to be rendered palatable by the employment of
particularly mild and euphonious language. In either case the
triumph of the victorious party will be but half a triumph....
It is not a little remarkable that the Protestant Church in
this country should be kept under the control of superimposed
authorities, while Roman Catholics and Jews are free to preach
what they like. The power of the Catholic hierarchy has been
broken by the new laws. _Catholic clergymen deviating from the
approved doctrine of the Church are protected by the Government
from the persecution of their bishops. Catholic congregations
are positively urged and instigated to profit by the privileges
accorded them, and assert their independence against bishop and
priest._ Jewish rabbis, too, are free to disseminate any
doctrine without being responsible for their teaching to
spiritual or secular judges. Only Protestant congregations
enjoy the doubtful advantage of having the election of their
clergy controlled, and the candor of their clergy made the
theme of penal inquiry.... And yet Protestant congregations
have a ready means of escape at their disposal. Let them leave
the church, and they are free to elect whomsoever they may
choose as their minister. As it is, the indecision of the
congregations maintains the _status quo_ by forcing liberal
clergymen into the dogmatic straight-waistcoat of the
consistories.”
“In the above argument one important fact is overlooked,” says the
_Times_’ correspondent.
“Among the liberals opposed to the consistories there are many
atheists, but few sufficiently religious to care for reform.
Hence the course taken by the consistories may be resented, but
the preaching of the liberal clergy is not popular enough to
create a new denomination or to compel innovation within the
pale of the church. The fashionable metaphysical systems of
Germany are pessimist.”
A week previous to the date of this letter the Lutheran pastors held
their annual meeting at Berlin. The Rev. Dr. Grau, who is referred to
as “a distinguished professor of theology,” speaking of the task of the
clergy in modern times—certainly a most important subject for
consideration—said:
“These are serious times for the church. The protection of the
temporal power is no longer awarded to us to anything like the
extent it formerly was. _The great mass of the people is either
indifferent or openly hostile to doctrinal teaching._ Not a few
listen to those striving to combine Christ with Belial, and to
reconcile redeeming truth with modern science and culture.
_There are those who dream of a future church erected on the
ruins of the Lutheran establishment, which by these
enterprising neophytes is already regarded as dead and gone.”_
“The meeting,” observes the correspondent, “by passing the resolutions
proposed by Dr. Grau, endorsed the opinions of the principal speaker.”
And he adds:
“While giving this unmitigated verdict upon the state of
religion among the people, the meeting displayed open
antagonism to the leading authorities of the church. To the
orthodox pastors the sober and sedative policy pursued by the
Ober Kirchen Rath is a dereliction even more offensive than the
downright apostasy of the liberals. To render their opposition
intelligible the change that has recently supervened in high
quarters should be adverted to in a few words. Soon after his
accession to the throne the reigning sovereign, in his capacity
as _summus episcopus_, recommended a lenient treatment of
liberal views. Though himself strictly orthodox, as he has
repeatedly taken occasion to announce, the emperor is tolerant
in religion, and too much of a statesman to overlook the
undesirable consequences that must ensue from permanent warfare
between church and people. He therefore appointed a few
moderate liberals members of the supreme council, accorded an
extensive degree of self-government to the synods, at the
expense of his own episcopal prerogative, and finally
sanctioned civil marriage and ‘civil baptism,’ as registration
is sarcastically called in this country, to the intense
astonishment and dismay of the orthodox. The last two measures,
it is true, were aimed at the priests of the Roman Catholic
Church, who were to be deprived of the power of punishing those
of their flock siding with the state in the ecclesiastical war;
but, as the operation of the law could not be restricted to one
denomination, Protestants were made amenable to a measure
which, to the orthodox among them, was quite as objectionable
as to the believing adherents of the Pope. The supreme council
of the Protestant Church, having to approve these several
innovations adopted by the crown, gradually accustomed itself
to regard compromise and bland pacification as one of the
principal duties imposed upon it.”
The correspondent ends his letter thus:
“When all was over orthodoxy was at feud with the people as
well as with the authoritative guardians of the church. Yet
neither people nor guardians remonstrated. For opposite reasons
both were equally convinced they could afford to ignore the
charges made.”
So important was the letter that the London _Times_ made it the subject
of an editorial article, wherein it speaks of “the singular revival of
theological and ecclesiastical controversy, which is observable in all
directions,” having “at last reached the slumbering Protestantism of
Prussia.” It confesses that
“The state of things as described by our correspondent is
certainly a very anomalous one. The Prussian Protestant Church
has, of late years at least, had but little hold on the respect
and affections of the great majority of the people; they are at
best but indifferent to it when they are not actively hostile.
We are not concerned to investigate the causes of this lack of
popularity; we are content to take it as a fact manifest to all
who know the country and acknowledged by all observers alike.”
“German Protestantism _was_ a power and an influence,” it says,
“To which the modern world is deeply indebted, and with which,
now that ultramontanism is triumphant in the Church of Rome and
priestcraft is again striving in all quarters to exert its
sway, the friends of freedom and toleration can ill afford to
dispense. There is no more ominous sign in the history of an
established church than a divorce between intelligence and
orthodoxy. This is what, to all appearances, has happened in
Prussia.”
We could corroborate this by abundance of testimony from all quarters;
but surely the evidence here given is sufficient to convince any man of
the deplorable state of Protestantism in Prussia. Why Mr. Froude should
have chosen that country of all others for his Protestant paradise we
cannot conceive, unless on the ground that he is Mr. Froude. “The world
on one side, and Popery on the other,” he says, “are dividing the
practical control over life and conduct. North Germany, manful in word
and deed, sustains the fight against both enemies and carries the old
flag to victory. A few years ago another Thirty Years’ War was feared
for Germany. A single campaign sufficed to bring Austria on her knees.
_Protestantism, as expressed in the leadership of Prussia_, assumed the
direction of the German Confederation” (pp. 135–136).
And whither does this leadership tend? To the devil, if the London
_Times_, if Dr. Grau, if every observant man who has written or spoken
on this subject, is to be believed. The only religion in Prussia to-day
is the Catholic; Protestantism has yielded to atheism or nothingism.
The persecution has only proved and tempered the Catholic Church; not
even a strong and favoring government can infuse a faint breath of life
into the dead carcase of Prussian Protestantism. It is much the same
story all the world over. Mr. Froude sees clearly enough what is
coming. Protestantism as a religious power is dead. It has lost all
semblance of reality. It had no religious reality from the beginning.
It will still continue to be used as an agent by political schemers and
conspirators; but in the fight between religion and irreligion it is of
little worth. The fight is not here, but where Mr. Froude rightly
places it—between the irreligious world and Catholicity, which “are
dividing the practical control over life and conduct.”
And thus heresies die out; they expire of their own corruption. Their
very offspring rise up against them. Their children cry for bread and
they give them a stone. The fragments of truth on which they first
build are sooner or later crushed out by the great mass of falsehood.
The few good seeds are choked up by the harvest of the bad, and only
the ill weeds thrive, until all the space around them is desolate of
fruit or light or sweetness, or anything fair under heaven. Then comes
the husbandman in his own good time, and curses the barren fig-tree and
clears the desolate waste. It will be with Protestantism as it has been
with all the heresies; Christians will wonder, and the time would seem
not to be very far distant when they will wonder that Protestantism
ever should have been. It will go to its grave, the same wide grave
that has swallowed up heresy after heresy. Gnosticism, Arianism,
Pelagianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Protestantism, all the isms,
are children of the same family, live the same life, die the same
death. The everlasting church buries them all, and no man mourns their
loss.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A RAMBLE AFTER THE WAITS.
“CHRISTMAS comes but once a year,
So let us all be merry,”
saith the old song. And now, as the festal season draws nigh, everybody
seems bent on fulfilling the behest to the uttermost. The streets are
gay with lights and laughter; the shops are all a-glitter with precious
things; the markets are bursting with good cheer. The air vibrates with
a babble of merry voices, until the very stars seem to catch the
infection and twinkle a thought more brightly. The faces of those you
meet beam with joyous expectation; huge baskets on their arms, loaded
with good things for the morrow, jostle and thump you at every turn,
but no one dreams of being ill-natured on Christmas Eve; mysterious
bundles in each hand contain unimagined treasures for the little ones
at home. And hark! do you not catch a jingle of distant sleigh-bells, a
faint, far-off patter and scrunching of tiny hoofs upon the snow? It is
the good St. Nicholas setting out upon his merry round; it is Dasher
and Slasher and Prancer and Vixen scurrying like the wind over the
house-tops. And high over all—“the poor man’s music”—the merry, merry
bells of Yule, the solemn, the sacred bells, peal forth the tidings of
great joy. Is it not hard to conceive that the time should have been
when Christmas was not? impossible to conceive that any in a Christian
land should have wished to do away with it—should have been willing,
having had it, ever to forego a festival so fraught with all holy and
happy memories?
Yet once such men were found, and but little more than two centuries
ago. It was on the 24th day of December, 1652—day for ever to be marked
with the blackest of black stones, nay, with a bowlder of Plutonian
nigritude—that the British House of Commons, being moved thereto “by a
terrible remonstrance against Christmas day grounded upon divine
Scripture, wherein Christmas is called Antichrists masse, and those
masse-mongers and Papists who observe it,” and after much time “spent
in consultation about the abolition of Christmas day, passed order to
that effect, and resolved to sit upon the following day, which was
commonly called Christmas day.” Whether this latter resolution was
carried into effect we do not know. If so, let us hope that their
Christmas dinners disagreed with them horribly, and that the foul fiend
Nightmare kept hideous vigil by every Parliamentary pillow.
But think of such an atrocious sentiment being heard at all in
Westminster! How must the very echoes of the hall have shrunk from
repeating that monstrous proposition—how shuddered and fled away into
remotest corners and crevices as that
“Hideous hum
Ran through the arch’d roof in words deceiving”!
How must they have disbelieved their ears, and tossed the impious
utterance back and forth from one to another in agonized questioning,
growing feebler and fainter at each repulse, until their voices,
faltering through doubt into dismay, grew dumb with horror! How must
“Rufus’ Roaring Hall”[107] have roared again outright with rage and
grief over that strange, that unhallowed profanation! What wan phantoms
of old-time mummeries and maskings, what dusty and crumbling memories
of royal feast and junketing, must have hovered about the heads of
those audacious innovators, shrieking at them what unsyllabled
reproaches from voiceless lips, shaking at them what shadowy fingers of
entreaty or menace! And if the proverb about ill words and burning ears
be true, how those crop-ears must have tingled!
Within those very walls England’s kings for generations had kept their
Christmas-tide most royally with revelry and dance and wassail. There
Henry III. on New Year’s day, 1236, to celebrate the coronation of
Eleanor, his queen, entertained 6,000 of his poorer subjects of all
degrees; and there twelve years later, though he himself ate his
plum-pudding at Winchester, he was graciously pleased to bid his
treasurer “fill the king’s Great Hall from Christmas day to the Day of
Circumcision with poor people and feast them.” There, too, at a later
date Edward III. had for sauce to his Christmas turkey—not to mention
all sorts of cates and confections, tarts and pasties of most cunning
device, rare liquors and spiced wines—no less than two captive kings,
to wit, David of Scotland and John of France. Poor captive kings!
_Their_ turkey—though no doubt their princely entertainer was careful
to help them to the daintiest tidbits, and to see that they had plenty
of stuffing and cranberry sauce—must have been but a tasteless morsel,
and their sweetbreads bitter indeed. Another Scottish king, the first
James, of tuneful and unhappy memory, had even worse (pot) luck soon
after. Fate, and that hospitable _penchant_ of our English cousins in
the remoter centuries for quietly confiscating all stray Scotch princes
who fell in their way, as though they had been contraband of war, gave
him the enviable opportunity of eating no less than a score of
Christmas dinners on English soil. But he seems to have been left to
eat them alone or with his jailer in “bowery Windsor’s calm retreat” or
the less cheerful solitude of the Tower. It does not appear that either
the fourth or the fifth Henry, his enforced hosts, ever asked him to
put his royal Scotch legs under their royal English mahogany. Had
Richard II. been in the place of “the ingrate and cankered
Bolingbroke,” we may be sure that his northern guest would not have
been treated so shabbily. In his time Westminster and his two thousand
French cooks (shades of Lucullus! what an appetite he must have had,
and what a broiling and a baking and a basting must they have kept up
among them; the proverb of “busier than an English oven at Christmas”
had reason then, at least) were not long left idle; for it was their
sovereign’s jovial custom to keep open house in the holidays for as
many as ten thousand a day—a comfortable tableful. It was his motto
plainly to
“Be merry, for our time of stay is short.”
Such a device, however, the third Richard might have made his own with
still greater reason. That ill-used prince, who was no doubt a much
better fellow at bottom than it has pleased Master Shakspeare to
represent him—if Richmond had not been Queen Bess’ grandpapa, we should
like enough have had a different story and altogether less about humps
and barking dogs—made the most of a limited opportunity to show what he
could do in the way of holiday dinner-giving. The only two Christmases
he had to spend as king at Westminster—for him but a royal stage on his
way to a more permanent residence at Bosworth Field—he celebrated with
extraordinary magnificence, as became a prince “reigning,” says Philip
de Comines, “in greater splendor than any king of England for the last
hundred years.” On the second and last Christmas of his reign and life
the revelry was kept up till the Epiphany, when “the king himself,
wearing his crown, held a splendid feast in the Great Hall similar to
his coronation.” Wearing his crown, poor wretch! He seems to have felt
that his time was short for wearing it, and that he must put it to use
while he had it. Already, indeed, as he feasted, rapacious Fortune,
swooping implacable, was clawing it with skinny, insatiable claws,
estimating its value and the probable cost of altering it to fit
another wearer, and thinking how much better it would look on the long
head of her good friend Richmond, who had privately bespoken it. No
doubt some cold shadow of that awful, unseen presence fell across the
banquet-table and poisoned the royal porridge.
What need to tell over the long roll of Christmas jollities, whose
memory from those historic walls might have pleaded with or rebuked the
sour iconoclasts planning gloomily to put an end to all such for ever;
how even close-fisted Henry VII.—no fear of his losing a crown, if
gripping tight could keep it—feasted there the lord-mayor and aldermen
of London on the ninth Christmas of his reign, sitting down himself,
with his queen and court and the rest of the nobility and gentry, to
one hundred and twenty dishes served by as many knights, while the
mayor, who sat at a side-table, no doubt, had to his own share no fewer
than twenty-four dishes, followed, it is to be feared, if he ate them
all, by as many nightmares; how that meek and exemplary Christian
monarch, Henry VIII., “welcomed the coming, sped the parting” wife at
successive Christmas banquets of as much splendor as the spoils of
something over a thousand monasteries could furnish forth;[108] how
good Queen Bess, who had her own private reading of the doctrine “it is
more blessed to give than to receive,” sat in state there at this
festival season to accept the offerings of her loyal lieges, high and
low, gentle and simple, from prime minister to kitchen scullion, until
she was able to add to the terrors of death by having to leave behind
her something like three thousand dresses and some trunkfuls of jewels
in Christmas gifts; or what gorgeous revels and masques—Inigo Jones
(Inigo Marquis Would-be), Ben Jonson, and Master Henry Lawes (he of
“the tuneful and well-measured song”) thereto conspiring—made the
holidays joyous under James and Charles. Some ghostly savor of those
bygone banquets might, one would think, have made even Praise-God
Barebone’s mouth water, and melted his surly virtue into tolerance of
other folks’ cakes and ale—what virtue, however ascetic, could resist
the onslaught of two thousand French cooks? Some faint, far echo of all
these vanished jollities should have won the ear, if not the heart, of
the grimmest “saint” among them. Or if they were proof against the
blandishments of the world’s people, if they fled from the abominations
of Baal, could not their own George Wither move them to spare the
cheery, harmless frivolities, the merry pranks of Yule? Jovially as any
Cavalier, shamelessly as any Malignant of them all, he sings their
praises in his
“CHRISTMAS CAROL.
“So now is come our joyful’st feast,
Let every man be jolly;
Each room with ivy leaves is drest,
And every post with holly.
Though some churls at our mirth repine,
Round your foreheads garlands twine,
Drown sorrow in a cup of wine,
And let us all be merry.
“Now all our neighbors’ chimneys smoke,
And Christmas blocks are burning;
Their ovens they with bak’d meats choke,
And all their spits are turning.
Without the door let sorrow lie;
And if for cold it hap to die,
We’ll bury’t in a Christmas pye.
And evermore be merry.
“Now every lad is wondrous trim,
And no man minds his labor;
Our lasses have provided them
A bagpipe and a tabor.
Young men and maids, and girls and boys,
Give life to one another’s joys;
And you anon shall by their noise
Perceive that they are merry....
“Now poor men to the justices
With capons make their errants;
And if they hap to fail of these,
They plague them with their warrants:
But now they feed them with good cheer,
And what they want they take in beer;
For Christmas comes but once a year,
And then they shall be merry....
“The client now his suit forbears,
The prisoner’s heart is eased,
The debtor drinks away his cares,
And for the time is pleased.
Though others’ purses be more fat,
Why should we pine or grieve at that?
Hang sorrow! care will kill a cat,
And therefore let’s be merry....
“Hark! now the wags abroad do call
Each other forth to rambling;
Anon you’ll see them in the hall,
For nuts and apples scrambling.
Hark! how the roofs with laughter sound;
Anon they’ll think the house goes round,
For they the cellar’s depths have found.
And there they will be merry.
“The wenches with the wassail-bowls
About the streets are singing;
The boys are come to catch the owls,
The wild mare[109] in is bringing.
Our kitchen-boy hath broke his box,
And to the kneeling of the ox
Our honest neighbors come by flocks,
And here they will be merry.
“Now kings and queens poor sheep-cotes have,
And mate with everybody;
The honest now may play the knave,
And wise men play at noddy.
Some youths will now a-mumming go,
Some others play at Rowland-boe,
And twenty other gambols moe,
Because they will be merry.
“Then wherefore, in these merry days,
Should we, I pray, be duller?
No, let us sing some roundelays,
To make our mirth the fuller;
And, while we thus inspired sing,
Let all the streets with echoes ring—
Woods and hills and everything
Bear witness we are merry.”
Or Master Milton, again, Latin secretary to the council, author of the
famous _Iconoclastes_, shield (or, as some would have put it, official
scold) of the Commonwealth, the scourge of prelacy and conqueror of
Salmasius—he was orthodox surely; yet what of _Arcades_ and _Cornus_?
Master Milton, too, had written holiday masques, and, what is more,
they had been acted; nay, he had even been known more than once, on no
less authority than his worshipful nephew, Master Philips, “to make so
bold with his body as to take a gaudy-day” with the gay sparks of
Gray’s Inn. Alas! such carnal-minded effusions belonged to the
unregenerate days of both these worthy brethren, when they still dwelt
in the tents of the ungodly, before they had girded on the sword of
Gideon and gone forth to smite the Amalekite hip and thigh. Vainly
might the menaced festival look for aid in that direction. So far from
saying a word in its favor, they would now have been fiercest in
condemnation, if only to cover their early backsliding; if only to
avert any suspicion that they still hankered after the fleshpots. Poor
Christmas was doomed.
So, by act of Parliament, “our joyful’st feast” was solemnly stricken
out of the calendar, cashiered from its high pre-eminence among the
holidays of the year, and degraded to the ranks of common days. All its
quaint bravery of holly-berries and ivy-leaves was stripped from it,
its jolly retinue of boars’ heads and wassail-bowls, of Yule-clogs and
mistletoe-boughs, of maskers and mummers, of waits and carols, Lords of
Misrule and Princes of Christmas, sent packing. Then began “the fiery
persecution of poor mince-pie throughout the land; plum-porridge was
denounced as mere popery, and roast-beef as anti-Christian.” ’Twas a
fatal, a perfidious, a short-lived triumph. The nation, shocked in its
most cherished traditions, repudiated the hideous doctrine; the British
stomach, deprived of its holiday beef and pudding, so to speak,
revolted. The reign of the righteous was speedily at an end. History,
with her usual shallowness, ascribes to General Monk the chief part in
the Restoration; it was really brought about by that short-sighted
edict of the 24th of December, 1652. Charles or Cromwell, king or
protector—what cared honest Hodge who ruled and robbed him? But to
forego his Christmas porridge—that was a different matter; and Britons
never should be slaves. So, just eight years after it had been
banished, Christmas was brought back again with manifold rejoicing and
bigger wassail-bowls and Yule-clogs than ever; and, as if to make
honorable amends for its brief exile, the Lord of Misrule himself was
crowned and seated on the throne, where, as we all know, to do justice
to his office, if he never said a foolish thing he never did a wise
one.
And from that time to this Christmas has remained a thoroughly British
institution, as firmly entrenched in the national affections, as
generally respected, and perhaps as widely appreciated as Magna Charta
itself. Sit on Christmas day! A British Parliament now would as soon
think of sitting on the Derby day. To how many of their constituents
have the two festivals any widely differing significance perhaps it
would be wise not to inquire too closely. Each is a holiday—that is, a
day off work, a synonym for “a good time,” a little better dinner than
usual, and considerably more beer. Like the children, “they reflect
nothing at all about the matter, nor understand anything in it beyond
the cake and orange.” “La justice elle-même,” says Balzac, “se traduit
aux yeux de la halle par le commissaire—personage avec lequel elle se
familiarise.” His epigram the author of _Ginx’s Baby_ may translate for
us—English epigrams, like English plays, being for the most part matter
of importation free of duty; _e.g._, that famous one in _Lothair_ about
the critic being a man who has failed in literature or art, another
consignment from Balzac—when he makes Ginx’s theory of government
epitomize itself as a policeman. So Ginx’s notion of Christmas, we
suspect, is apt to be beef and beer and Boxing-night—with perhaps a
little more beer.
Certainly the attachment of the British public to these features of the
day—we are considering it for the moment in the light in which a
majority of non-Catholics look upon it, apparently, as a merely social
festival, and not at all in its religious aspect (though to a Catholic,
of course, the two are as indistinguishably blended as the rose and the
perfume of the rose)—has never been shaken. If one may judge from a
large amount of the English fiction which at this season finds its way
to the American market—and the novels of to-day, among a novel-reading
people, are as straight and sure a guide to its heart as were ever its
ballads in the time of old Fletcher of Saltoun—if one may judge from
much of English Christmas literature, these incidents of the day are,
if not the most important, certainly the most prominent and popular.
What we may call the Beef and Beer aspect of the season these stories
are never tired of glorifying and exalting. Dickens is the archpriest
of this idolatry, which, indeed, he in a measure invented, or at least
brought into vogue; and his _Christmas Stories_, as most of his
stories, fairly reek with the odors of the kitchen and the tap-room.
Material comfort, and that, too, usually of a rather coarse kind, is
the universal theme, and even the charity they are supposed to
inculcate can scarcely be called a moral impulse, so much as the
instinct of a physical good-nature, well-fed and content with itself
and the world—of a good-humored selfishness willing to make others
comfortable, because thereby it puts away from itself the discomfort of
seeing them otherwise. It is a kind of charity which, in another sense
than that of Scripture, has to cover a multitude of sins.
One may say this of Dickens, without at all detracting from his many
great qualities as a writer, that he has done more, perhaps, than any
other writer to demoralize and coarsen the popular notion of what
Christmas is and means; to make of his readers at best but good-humored
pagans with lusty appetites for all manner of victuals and an
open-handed readiness to share their good things with the first comer.
These are no doubt admirable traits; but one gets a little tired of
having them for ever set forth as the crown and completion of Christian
excellence, the sum and substance of all that is noble and exalted in
the sentiment of the season. Let us enjoy our Christmas dinner by all
means; let the plum-pudding be properly boiled and the turkey done to a
turn, and may we all have enough to spare a slice or two for a poorer
neighbor! But must we therefore sit down and gobble turkey and pudding
from morning till night? Should we hang up a sirloin and fall down and
worship it? Is that all that Christmas means? Turn from the best of
these books to this exquisite little picture of Christmas Eve in a
Catholic land:
“Christmas is come—the beautiful festival, the one I love most,
and which gives me the same joy as it gave the shepherds of
Bethlehem. In real truth, one’s whole soul sings with joy at
this beautiful coming of God upon earth—a coming which here is
announced on all sides of us by music and by our charming
_nadalet_[110] Nothing at Paris can give you a notion of what
Christmas is with us. You have not even the midnight Mass. We
all of us went to it, papa at our head, on the most perfect
night possible. Never was there a finer sky than ours was that
midnight—so fine that papa kept perpetually throwing back the
hood of his cloak, that he might look up at the sky. The ground
was white with hoar-frost, but we were not cold; besides, the
air, as we met it, was warmed by the bundles of blazing
torchwood which our servants carried in front of us to light us
on our way. It was delightful, I do assure you; and I should
like you to have seen us there on our road to church, in those
lanes with the bushes along their banks as white as if they
were in flower. The hoar-frost makes the most lovely flowers.
We saw a long spray so beautiful that we wanted to take it with
us as a garland for the communion-table, but it melted in our
hands; all flowers fade so soon! I was very sorry about my
garland; it was mournful to see it drop away and get smaller
and smaller every minute.”
It is Eugénie de Guérin who writes thus—that pure and delicate spirit
so well fitted to feel and value all that is beautiful and touching in
this most beautiful and touching service of the church. To come from
the one reading to the other is like being lifted suddenly out of a
narrow valley to the free air and boundless views of a mountain-top;
like coming from the gaslight into the starlight; it is like hearing
the song of the skylark after the twitter of the robin—a sound pleasant
and cheery enough in itself, but not elevating, not inspiring, not in
any way satisfying to that hunger after ideal excellence which is the
true life of the spirit, and which strikes the true key-note of this
festal time.
But Eugénie de Guérin is perhaps too habitual a dweller on those serene
heights to furnish a fair comparison; let us take a homelier picture
from a lower level. It is still in France; this time in Burgundy, as
the other was in Languedoc:
“Every year, at the approach of Advent, people refresh their
memories, clear their throats, and begin preluding, in the long
evenings by the fireside, those carols whose invariable and
eternal theme is the coming of the Messias. They take from old
pamphlets little collections begrimed with dust and smoke, ...
and as soon as the first Sunday of Advent sounds they gossip,
they gad about, they sit together by the fireside, sometimes at
one house, sometimes at another, taking turns in paying for the
chestnuts and white wine, but singing with one common voice the
praises of the _Little Jesus_. There are very few villages,
even, which during all the evenings of Advent do not hear some
of these curious canticles shouted in their streets to the
nasal drone of bagpipes.
“More or less, until Christmas Eve, all goes on in this way
among our devout singers, with the difference of some gallons
of wine or some hundreds of chestnuts. But this famous eve once
come, the scale is pitched upon a higher key; the closing
evening must be a memorable one.... The supper finished, a
circle gathers around the hearth, which is arranged and set in
order this evening after a particular fashion, and which at a
later hour of the night is to become the object of special
interest to the children. On the burning brands an enormous log
has been placed; ... it is called the _Suche_ (the Yule-log).
‘Look you,’ say they to the children, ‘if you are good this
evening Noel will rain down sugar-plums in the night.’ And the
children sit demurely, keeping as quiet as their turbulent
little natures will permit. The groups of older persons, not
always as orderly as the children, seize this good opportunity
to surrender themselves with merry hearts and boisterous voices
to the chanted worship of the miraculous Noel. For this final
solemnity they have kept the most powerful, the most
enthusiastic, the most electrifying carols.
“This last evening the merry-making is prolonged. Instead of
retiring at ten or eleven o’clock, as is generally done on all
the preceding evenings, they wait for the stroke of midnight;
this word sufficiently proclaims to what ceremony they are
going to repair. For ten minutes or a quarter of an hour the
bells have been calling the faithful with a triple-bob-major;
and each one, furnished with a little taper streaked with
various colors (the Christmas candle), goes through the crowded
streets, where the lanterns are dancing like will-o’-the-wisps
at the impatient summons of the multitudinous chimes. It is the
midnight Mass.”
There you have fun, feasting, and frolic, as, indeed, there may fitly
be to all innocent degrees of merriment, on the day which brought
redemption to mankind. But there is also, behind and pervading all this
rejoicing and harmless household gayety, the religious sentiment which
elevates and inspires it, which chastens it from commonplace and
grossness, which gives it a meaning and a soul. The English are fond of
calling the French an irreligious people, because French literature,
especially French fiction, from which they judge, takes its tone from
Paris, which is to a great extent irreligious. But outside of the large
cities, if a balance were struck on this point between the two
countries, it would scarcely be in favor of England.
This, however, by way of episode and as a protest against this
grovelling, material treatment of the most glorious festival of the
Christian year. As we were about to say when interrupted, though
Christmas regained its foothold as a national holiday at the
Restoration, it came back sadly denuded of its following and shorn of
most of its old-time attractions. So it fared in old England. In New
England it can scarcely be said ever to have won a foothold at all, or
at best no more than a foothold and a sullen toleration. Almost the
first act of those excellent Pilgrim Fathers who did _not_ land at
Plymouth Rock was to anticipate by thirty years or so the action of
their Parliamentary brethren at home in abolishing the sacred
anniversary, which must, indeed, have been a tacit rebuke to the spirit
of their creed. They landed on the 16th of December, and “on ye 25th
day,” writes William Bradford, “began to erect ye first house for
comone use to receive them and their goods.” And lest this might seem
an exception made under stress, we find it recorded next year that “on
ye day caled Christmas day ye Gov’r caled them out to worke.” So it is
clear New England began with a calendar from which Christmas was
expunged. In New England affections Thanksgiving day replaces it—an
“institution” peculiarly acceptable, we must suppose, to the thrift
which can thus wipe out its debt of gratitude to Heaven by giving one
day for three hundred and sixty-four—liquidating its liabilities, so to
speak, at the rate of about three mills in the dollar. In the Middle
States and in the South the day has more of its time-old observance,
but neither here nor elsewhere may we hope to encounter many of the
quaint and cheery customs with which our fathers loved to honor it, and
which made it for them the pivot of the year. Wither has told us
something of these; let a later minstrel give us a fuller picture of
what Merry Christmas was in days of yore:
“And well our Christian sires of old
Loved, when the year its course had rolled,
And brought blithe Christmas back again,
With all its hospitable train.
Domestic and religious rite
Gave honor to the holy night:
On Christmas Eve the bells were rung;
On Christmas Eve the Mass was sung;
That only night of all the year
Saw the stoled priest the chalice rear.
The damsel donned her kirtle sheen;
The hall was dressed with holly green;
Forth to the wood did merry men go
To gather in the mistletoe.
Then opened wide the baron’s hall
To vassals, tenants, serf, and all.
The heir, with roses in his shoes,
That night might village partner choose;
The lord, underogating, share
The vulgar game of ‘post and pair.’
All hailed with uncontrolled delight,
And general voice, the happy night
That to the cottage, as the crown,
Brought tidings of salvation down.
The fire, with well-dried logs supplied,
Went roaring up the chimney wide;
The huge hall-table’s oaken face,
Scrubbed till it shone, the day to grace,
Bore then upon its massive board
No mark to part the squire and lord.
Then was brought in the lusty brawn
By old blue-coated serving-man;
Then the grim boar’s head frowned on high,
Crested with bays and rosemary....
The wassail round in good brown bowls,
Garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.
There the huge sirloin reeked; hard by
Plum-porridge stood and Christmas pye.
Then came the merry masquers in
And carols roared with blithesome din;
If unmelodious was the song,
It was a hearty note and strong.
Who lists may in their mumming see
Traces of ancient mystery....
England was merry England then—
Old Christmas brought his sports again;
’Twas Christmas broached the mightiest ale;
’Twas Christmas told the merriest tale;
A Christmas gambol oft would cheer
A poor man’s heart through half the year.”
Let Herrick supplement the picture with his
“CEREMONIES FOR CHRISTMASSE.
“Come, bring with a noise,
My merrie, merrie boyes,
The Christmas log to the firing;
While my good dame, she
Bids ye all be free
And drink to your hearts’ desiring.
“With the last yeeres brand
Light the new block, and
For good successe in his spending
On your psaltries play,
That sweet luck may
Come while the log is a-teending.
“Drink now the strong beere,
Cut the white loafe here,
The while the meate is a-shredding
For the rare mince-pie,
And the plums stand by
To fill the paste that’s a-kneading.”
Does the picture please you? Would you fain be a guest at the baron’s
table, or lend a hand with jovial Herrick to fetch in the mighty
Yule-log? Are you longing for a cut of that boar’s head or a draught of
the wassail, or curious to explore the contents of that mysterious
“Christmas pye,” which seems to differ so much from all other pies that
it has to be spelled with a _y_? Well, well, we must not repine. Fate,
which has denied us these joys, has given us compensations. No doubt
the baron, for all his Yule-logs, would sometimes have given his
baronial head (when he happened to have a cold in it) for such a
fire—let it be of sea-coal in a low grate and the curtains drawn—as the
reader and his humble servant are this very minute toasting their toes
at. Those huge open fireplaces are admirably effective in poetry, but
not altogether satisfactory of a cold winter’s night, when half the
heat goes up the chimney and all the winds of heaven are shrieking in
through the chinks in your baronial hall and playing the very mischief
with your baronial rheumatism. Or do we believe that boar’s head was
such a mighty fascinating dish after all, or much, if anything,
superior to the soused pig’s head with which good old Squire
Bracebridge replaced it? No, every age to its own customs; we may be
sure that each finds out what is best for it and for its people.
Yet one custom we do begrudge a little to the past, or rather to the
other lands where it still lingers here and there in the present. That
is the graceful and kindly custom of the waits. These were Christmas
carols, as the reader no doubt knows, chanted by singers from house to
house in the rural districts during the season of Advent. In France
they were called noels, and in Longfellow’s translation of one of these
we may see what they were like:
“I hear along our street
Pass the minstrel throngs;
Hark! they play so sweet.
On their hautboys, Christmas songs!
Let us by the fire
Ever higher
Sing them till the night expire!...
“Shepherds at the grange
Where the Babe was born
Sang with many a change
Christmas carols until morn.
Let us, etc.
“These good people sang
Songs devout and sweet;
While the rafters rang,
There they stood with freezing feet.
Let us, etc.
“Who by the fireside stands
Stamps his feet and sings;
But he who blows his hands
Not so gay a carol brings.
Let us, etc.”
In some parts of rural England, too, the custom is still to some extent
kept up, and the reader may find a pleasant, and we dare say faithful,
description of it in a charming English story called _Under the
Greenwood Tree_, by Mr. Thomas Hardy, a writer whose closeness of
observation and precision and delicacy of touch give him a leading
place among the younger writers of fiction.
Very pleasant, we fancy, it must be of a Christmas Eve when one is, as
aforesaid, toasting one’s toes at the fire over a favorite book, or
hanging up the children’s stockings, let us say, or peering through the
curtains out over the moonlit snow, and wondering how cold it is
out-doors with that little perfunctory shiver which is comfort’s homage
to itself—there should always be snow upon the ground at Christmas, for
then Nature
“With speeches fair
Woos the gentle air
To hide her guilty front with innocent snow”;
but let us have no wind, since
“Peaceful was the night
Wherein the Prince of Light
His reign of peace upon the world began.
The winds, with wonder whist,
Smoothly the waters kist,
Whispering new joys to the wild ocean,
Who now hath quite forgot to rave,
While birds of calm sit brooding on the charméd wave”—
at such a time, we say, it would be pleasant to hear the shrill voices
of the Waits cleaving the cold, starlit air in some such quaint old
ditty as the “Cherry-tree Carol” or “The Three Ships.” No doubt, too,
would we but confess it, there would come to us a little wicked
enhancement of pleasure in the reflection that the artists without were
a trifle less comfortable than the hearer within. That rogue Tibullus
had a shrewd notion of what constitutes true comfort when he wrote,
_Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem_—which, freely translated,
means, How jolly it is to sit by the fireside and listen to other
fellows singing for your benefit in the cold without! But that idea we
should dismiss as unworthy, and even try to feel a little uncomfortable
by way of penance; and then, when their song was ended, and we heard
their departing footsteps scrunching fainter and fainter in the snow,
and their voices dying away until they became the merest suggestion of
an echo, we should perhaps find—for these are to be ideal Waits—that
their song had left behind it in the listener’s soul a starlit silence
like that of the night without, but the stars should be heavenly
thoughts.
These are ideal Waits; the real ones might be less agreeable or
salutary. But have we far to look for such? Are there not on the
shelves yonder a score of immortal minstrels only waiting our bidding
to sing the sacred glories of the time? Shall we ask grave John Milton
to tune his harp for us, or gentle Father Southworth, or impassioned
Crashaw, or tender Faber? These are Waits we need not scruple to listen
to, nor fail to hear with profit.
Milton’s _Ode on the Nativity_ is, no doubt, the finest in the
language. Considering the difficulties of a subject to which, short of
inspiration, it is next to impossible to do any justice at all, it is
very fine indeed. It is not all equal, however; there are in it stanzas
which remind one that he was but twenty-one when he wrote it. Yet other
stanzas are scarcely surpassed by anything he has written.
“Yea, Truth and Justice then
Will down return to men,
Orb’d in a rainbow; and, like glories wearing
Mercy will sit between,
Thron’d in celestial sheen,
With radiant feet the tissued clouds down steering,
And heaven, as at some festival,
Will open wide the gates of her high palace hall.
“But wisest Fate says, No,
It must not yet be so;
The Babe yet lies in smiling infancy
That on the bitter cross
Must redeem our loss,
So both himself and us to glorify;
Yet first to those ychained in sleep
The wakeful trump of doom must thunder thro’ the deep,
“With such a horrid clang
As on Mount Sinai rang,
While the red fire and smould’ring clouds out-brake.
The aged earth, aghast
With terror of that blast,
Shall from the surface to the centre shake;
When at the world’s last session
The dreadful Judge in middle air shall spread his throne.
—————
“The oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance or breathèd spell
Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.
“The lonely mountains o’er,
And the resounding shore,
A voice of weeping heard and loud lament.
From haunted spring, and dale
Edg’d with poplar pale,
The parting genius is with sighing sent.
With flower-inwoven tresses torn,
The Nymphs in twilight shade of tangled thicket mourn.”
Seldom has Milton sung in loftier strains than this. What a magnificent
line is that:
“The wakeful trump of doom shall thunder through the deep.”
The poet evidently had his eye on that wonderful verse of the _Dies
Iræ_:
“Tuba mirum spargens sonum
Per sepulchra regionum,
Cogit omnes ante thronum,”
but the imitation falls little short of the original. Dr. Johnson
characteristically passes this ode over in silence—perhaps because of
his opinion that sacred poetry was a contradiction in terms. His great
namesake, and in some respects curious antitype, was more generous to
another poem we shall quote—Father Southwell’s “Burning Babe.” “So he
had written it,” he told Drummond, “he would have been content to
destroy many of his.”
“As I, in hoary winter’s night, stood shivering in the snow,
Surprised I was with sudden heat which made my heart to glow;
And lifting up a fearful eye to view what fire was near,
A pretty Babe all burning bright did in the air appear,
Who, scorchéd with exceeding heat, such floods of tears did shed
As though his floods should quench his flames with what his tears
were fed;
‘Alas!’ quoth he, ‘but newly born, in fiery heats I fry,
Yet none approach to warm their hearts or feel my fire but I.
My faultless breast the furnace is, the fuel wounding thorns;
Love is the fire, and sighs the smoke, the ashes shames and scorns;
The fuel Justice layeth on, and Mercy blows the coals;
The metal in this furnace wrought are men’s defiléd souls;
For which, as now in fire I am to work them to their good,
So will I melt into a bath to wash them in my blood.’
With this he vanished out of sight, and swiftly shrank away,
And straight I calléd unto mind that it was Christmas day.”
The fire is getting low in the grate, the stars are twinkling pale, and
though the minstrels are many we should have been glad to introduce to
the reader—grand old St. Thomas of Aquin; silver-tongued Giacopone,
whose lately-discovered _Stabat Mater Speciosa_ is one of the loveliest
of the mediæval hymns; rapturous St. Bernard—they must wait a fitter
time. We can hear but another of our Christmas waits—one of the most
effective English poems on the Nativity, considered as mere poetry, it
has been our fortune to meet. The author is the hero of Browning’s
verses, “What’s become of Waring?”—Alfred H. Dommett; a poet who,
perhaps, would be better known had he been a worse poet. And with this
we must wish our readers “Merry Christmas to all, and to all a
good-night.”
“It was the calm and silent night!
Seven hundred years and fifty-three
Had Rome been growing up to might,
And now was queen of land and sea.
No sound was heard of clashing wars;
Peace brooded o’er the hushed domain;
Apollo, Pallas, Jove, and Mars
Held undisturbed their ancient reign
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago.
“’Twas in the calm and silent night!
The senator of haughty Rome
Impatient urged his chariot’s flight,
From lonely revel rolling home.
Triumphal arches, gleaming, swell
His breast with thoughts of boundless sway;
What recked the Roman what befell
A paltry province far away
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago?
“Within that province far away
Went plodding home a weary boor;
A streak of light before him lay,
Fallen through a half-shut stable-door,
Across his path. He passed; for naught
Told what was going on within.
How keen the stars! his only thought;
The air how calm and cold, and thin!
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago.
“O strange indifference! Low and high
Drowsed over common joys and cares;
The earth was still, but knew not why;
The world was listening unawares.
How calm a moment may precede
One that shall thrill the world for ever!
To that still moment none would heed;
Man’s doom was linked, no more to sever,
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago.
“It is the calm and solemn night!
A thousand bells ring out and throw
Their joyous peals abroad, and smite
The darkness, charmed and holy now!
The night, that erst no name had worn,
To it a happy name is given;
For in that stable lay, new-born,
The peaceful Prince of earth and heaven,
In the solemn midnight
Centuries ago.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE DESCENT OF MAN.
Mr. Charles Darwin, in his _Descent of Man_, proposes to himself to
show that man is nothing more than a modified beast, and that his
remote ancestors are to be found among some tribes of brutes. A paradox
of this kind, in a work of fiction such as Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_,
would not offend an intelligent reader; but in a work which professes
to be serious and scientific it is extremely offensive, for it amounts
to a deliberate insult to all humanity in general and to every human
being in particular. Mr. Darwin’s work violates the dignity of human
nature, blots out of our souls the image and likeness of our Creator,
and totally perverts the notions most cherished by civil and Christian
society. This effort does certainly not entitle him to credit for
wisdom. A man of ordinary prudence, before he undertakes to maintain in
the face of the public a theory which conflicts with a doctrine
thoroughly established and universally received, would examine both
sides of the case, and ascertain that he is in possession of sufficient
evidence to make good his assertions and to defend them against the
arguments of the opposite side. Mr. Darwin, on the contrary, seems to
have satisfied himself that a man of his eminence in natural history
had a right to be believed, whatever he might venture to say, even
though he was to give no satisfactory evidence in support of his views,
and no answer to the objections which he ought to refute.
We do not say that Mr. Darwin did not do his best to prove his new
doctrine on man; we only say that he has signally failed in his
attempt, and that his failure is as inexcusable as it is ignominious. A
man of his ability should have seen that the origin of man was not a
problem to be solved by physiology; and he ought also to have
considered that a man of science could only stultify himself by
submitting to the test of science a historical fact of which science,
as such, is entirely incompetent to speak. Indeed, we scarcely know
which to admire most in Mr. Darwin, the serenity with which he ignores
the difficulty of his philosophic position, or the audacity with which
he affirms things which he cannot prove. What a pity that a man so
richly endowed by nature has been so entirely absorbed by the study of
material organisms as to find no time for the more important study of
philosophy, especially of psychology, without which it is impossible to
form a rational theory respecting the origin and the destiny of man!
Shall we add that a sound scientific theory cannot be the outcome of
illogical reasoning? And yet it is a plain fact, though our advanced
thinkers will deny it, that Mr. Darwin’s logic, to judge from his
_Descent of Man_, is as mischievous as most of his assumptions are
reckless.
It would be impossible within the limits of our space to enter into a
detailed examination of the logical and metaphysical blunders to which
the Darwinian theory owes its existence. We shall, therefore, at
present confine ourselves to a short criticism of the first chapter of
the work in question; for, if we are not mistaken, every impartial
reader will be able, after a sufficient analysis of this first chapter,
to judge of the kind of logic that characterizes the whole treatise.
Mr. Darwin begins thus:
“He who wishes to decide whether man is the modified descendant
of some pre-existing form would probably first inquire whether
man varies, however slightly, in bodily structure and in mental
faculties; and, if so, whether the variations are transmitted
to his offspring in accordance with the laws which prevail with
the lower animals. Again, are the variations the result, as far
as our ignorance permits us to judge, of the same general
causes, and are they governed by the same general laws, as in
the case of other organisms—for instance, by correlation, the
inherited effects of use and disuse, etc.? Is man subject to
similar malconformations, the result of arrested development,
of reduplication of parts, etc., and does he display in any of
his anomalies reversion to some former and ancient type of
structure? It might also naturally be inquired whether man,
like so many other animals, has given rise to varieties and
sub-races, differing but slightly from each other, or to races
differing so much that they must be classed as doubtful
species? How are such races distributed over the world; and
how, when crossed, do they react on each other in the first and
succeeding generations? And so with many other points.”
This preamble, which superficial readers may have considered perfectly
harmless, contains the seed of all the mischievous reasonings scattered
through the rest of the work. It comes to this: “If we find that man
varies, however slightly, according to the same laws which prevail with
the lower animals, we shall be justified in concluding that man is a
modified descendant of some pre-existing form.” Now, this assertion is
evidently nothing but clap-trap for the ignorant. In the first place,
Mr. Darwin takes for granted that mankind wishes to decide whether man
is the modified descendant of some pre-existing form. This gratuitous
supposition implies that mankind is still ignorant or doubtful of its
true origin; which is by no means the case. We have an authentic record
of the origin of man; and we know that the first man and the first
woman were not the descendants of any lower pre-existing form. The
Bible tells us very clearly that God created them to his own image and
likeness; and so long as Mr. Darwin does not demolish the Biblical
history of creation he has no right to assume that there may be the
least reasonable doubt regarding the origin of man. Mr. Darwin, it is
true, makes light of the Biblical history; but contempt is no argument.
On the other hand, philosophy and common sense, and science, if not
perverted, unanimously agree with the Mosaic record in proclaiming that
the origin of man must be traced to a special creation. Thus there has
never been, nor is there at present, among thinking men, any real doubt
as to the origin of our race; whence we infer that the question raised
by the _Descent of Man_ is a mere fiction which would deserve no answer
but a smile of pity.
In the second place, granting for the sake of argument that there may
be an honest doubt about the origin of man, and that physiology and
other kindred sciences are competent to answer it, would the inquiry
suggested by Mr. Darwin convince an honest doubter that man is the
descendant of a lower animal? Suppose that “man varies, however
slightly, in bodily structure and in mental faculties”; suppose that
“such variations are transmitted to his offspring in accordance with
the laws which prevail with the lower animals”; and suppose that all
the other conditions enumerated by Mr. Darwin are verified—would we
then be justified in concluding that “man is a modified descendant of
some pre-existing form”? Evidently not. The utmost that logic would
allow us to grant is that the present form of human beings, owing to
the slight variations transmitted to us by our human ancestors, may
exhibit some accidental features slightly different from those which
were possessed by the primitive men, yet without any change of the
specific form, which must always remain essentially the same. But Mr.
Darwin is not content with this. His peculiar logic allows him to
confound the accidental and unimportant variations that occur within
the limits of any single species with a gradual transition from one
species to another—a transition which science no less than philosophy
utterly rejects. Nowhere in nature do we find an instance of such a
pretended transition. Varieties are indeed very numerous, but none of
them show the least departure from the species to which they belong.
The oak emits every year thousands of leaves, of which each one differs
from every other in some accidental feature; but who has ever seen the
oak-leaves change into fir-leaves, or fig-leaves, or maple-leaves, or
any other leaves? If nature admitted such a specific change, a thousand
indications would awaken our attention to the fact. The transition,
being gradual, would leave everywhere innumerable traces of its
reality. There would be all around us a host of transitional forms from
the fish to the lizard, from the lizard to the bird, from the bird to
the ape, and from the ape to man. But where do we find such
transitional forms? Science itself proclaims that they have no
existence. Hence to affirm the transition from one species to another
is a gross scientific blunder, whatever Mr. Darwin and his eminent
associates may say to the contrary.
In the third place, even admitting that a gradual transition from one
species to another were not rejected by science, Mr. Darwin’s view
would still remain a ludicrous absurdity. In fact, the pretended
transition from a form of a lower to a form of a higher species would
be an open violation of the principle of causality; and therefore, if
any transition were to be admitted at all, it could only be a
transition from a higher to a lower species. Thus, the transition from
a human to a brutish form by continual deterioration and degradation,
though repugnant to other principles, would not conflict with the
principle of causality, inasmuch as deterioration and degradation are
negative results, which may be brought about by mere lack of
intellectual, moral, and social development. But the transition from a
brutish to a human form would be a positive effect without a positive
proportionate cause. The lower cannot generate the higher, because to
constitute the higher something is necessary which the lower cannot
impart. Just as a force = 10 cannot produce an effect = 20, so cannot
the irrational brute produce the rational man. To assume the contrary
is to assume that the less contains the greater, that emptiness begets
fulness—in a word, that nature is a standing contradiction.
A full development of this last consideration would lead us too far
from our line of argument, as it would require a psychological
treatment of the subject. We will merely remark that _rational_ and
_irrational_ differ not only in degree but in kind; that the human soul
is not produced by the forces of nature, but proceeds directly and
immediately from God’s creative action; and that Darwinism, which
ignores the soul’s spirituality and immortality, is, on this account
also, a monument of philosophical ignorance.
But let us proceed. The author considers it an important point to
ascertain “whether man tends to increase at so rapid a rate as to lead
to occasional severe struggles for existence, and consequently to
beneficial variations, whether in body or in mind, being preserved, and
injurious ones eliminated.” This is another of Mr. Darwin’s delusions.
It is not in the nature of man that the stronger should murder the
weaker. Man, as a rule, is benevolent towards his kind, and even
savages respect the life of the weak; whereas it is always the stronger
that go to battle and fall in the struggle. Thus a struggle for
existence, occasioned by a too rapid increase, would deprive the race
of its best men and mar its further development. On the other hand, if
at any time or in any place there has been a struggle for existence, it
is in our large cities that we can best study the nature of its
results. Is it in London, Paris, Berlin, or Vienna that we meet the
best specimens of the race? Surely, if there is a tremendous struggle
for existence anywhere, it is in such capitals as these; and yet no one
is ignorant that such proud cities would, in a few generations, sink
into insignificance, were they not continually refurnished with new
blood from the country, where the best propagators of the race are
brought up in great numbers and without any apparent struggle for
existence. But we need not dwell any further on this point. A struggle
for existence presupposes existence; and if man existed before
struggling, the origin of man does not depend on his struggle. Hence
the so-called “important point” has really no importance whatever.
Then he asks: “Do the races or species of men, whichever term may be
applied, encroach on and replace one another, so that some finally
become extinct?” and he answers the question in the affirmative. To
this we have no objection. We only remark that “races” and “species”
are not synonymous; hence it is surprising how a naturalist of Mr.
Darwin’s celebrity could show the least hesitation which of the two
terms he ought to apply to mankind.
He proceeds to examine “how far the bodily structure of man shows
traces, more or less plain, of his descent from some lower form,” and
he contends that the existence of such “traces” can be proved, first,
from the similarity of bodily structure in men and beasts; secondly,
from the similarity of their embryonic development; thirdly, from the
existence of rudimentary organs, which show that man and all other
vertebrate animals have been constructed on the same general model.
Bearing in mind that Mr. Darwin’s object is to prove that there are
“traces,” more or less plain, of man’s descent from some lower form, we
cannot help expressing our astonishment when we find that he has failed
to see the necessity of grounding his proofs on a secure foundation.
That the bodily structure of man has some resemblance to the structure
of other mammals; that all the bones of his skeleton can be compared
with corresponding bones in a monkey, bat, or seal; that this
comparison may be extended to his muscles, nerves, blood-vessels, and
internal viscera; that the brain, the most important of all organs,
follows the same law, etc., etc., are indeed well-known facts, from
which we rightly infer that man is constructed on the same _general_
type as other mammals. But can these same facts be considered as
“traces,” more or less plain, of man’s descent from any lower form? Mr.
Darwin says _Yes_; but instead of giving any conclusive reason for his
assertion, he loses his time in accumulating superfluous anatomical and
physiological details which, however instructive, have no bearing upon
the thesis he has engaged to prove.
To prove his assumption he ought to have made a syllogism somewhat like
the following:
Wherever there is similarity of bodily structure or development there
are “traces” of a common origin or descent;
But man and other mammals have similar bodily structures and a similar
development;
Therefore man and other mammals show “traces” of a common origin or
descent.
This argument would have left no escape to the most decided adversary
of the Darwinian view, if its first proposition had been susceptible of
demonstration. But Mr. Darwin, seeing the utter impossibility of
demonstrating it, and yet being unable to dispense with it, resorted to
the ordinary trick of his school, which consists in assuming latently
what they dare not openly maintain; and thus he turned the whole
attention of his reader to the second proposition, which had no need of
demonstration, as it was not questioned by instructed men. Thus the
twenty pages of physiologic lore with which Mr. Darwin in this chapter
distracts and amuses his readers may be styled, in a logical point of
view, a prolonged _ignoratio elenchi_—an effort to prove that which is
conceded instead of that which is denied—a blunder into which men of
science of the modern type are sure to fall when they presume to meddle
with matters above their reach.
There is one sense only in which it may be affirmed that the similarity
of bodily structure in men and lower animals proves their common
origin, and it is this: that men and animals have been made by the same
Creator on a similar ideal type of homogeneous organic arrangements; in
other terms, that their organic similarity proves them to be the work
of the same Maker. Man was destined to live on this earth among other
inferior animals and surrounded by like conditions. His animal life was
therefore to be dependent on similar means of support, exposed to
similar influences, and subject to similar needs. It is not surprising,
then, that he should have received from a wise Creator an organic
constitution similar to that of the inferior creatures that were placed
around him. This fully accounts for the similarity of the human
organism with that of other mammals. But to say that because the bodily
structure of man is similar to that of the ape, therefore man is the
descendant of the ape, is as nonsensical as to say that because the
bodily structure of the ape is similar to that of man, therefore the
ape is the descendant of man. How was it possible for Mr. Darwin to lay
down such an absurd principle, and not foresee how easily it might be
turned against his own conclusion?
Thus the argument drawn from the similarity of bodily structure is a
mere delusion. It avails nothing to say that man is liable to receive
from the lower animals, and to communicate to them, certain diseases,
as hydrophobia, variola, the glanders, syphilis, cholera, herpes, etc.
This fact, says Mr. Darwin, “proves the similarity of their tissues and
blood, both in minute structure and composition, far more plainly than
does their comparison under the best microscope or by the aid of the
best chemical analysis.” But this is a mistake; for the evidence
afforded by the microscope as to existing diversities cannot be
negatived by any guesses of ours respecting the communication of
diseases and its conditions; it being evident that what is obscure and
mysterious is not calculated to weaken the certitude of a fact which we
see with our own eyes. Nor does it matter that “medicines produce the
same effect on them [monkeys] as on us,” or that many monkeys “have a
strong taste for tea, coffee, and spirituous liquors,” or even that a
certain monkey “smoked tobacco with pleasure” in Mr. Darwin’s presence.
These and other details of the same nature may be interesting, but they
are no indication of a common origin, except in the sense which we have
pointed out—viz., that they are the work of the same Maker.
But, says Mr. Darwin, “the homological construction of the whole frame
in the members of the same class is intelligible, if we admit their
descent from a common progenitor, together with their subsequent
adaptation to diversified conditions. On any other view the similarity
of pattern between the hand of a man or monkey, the foot of a horse,
the flipper of a seal, the wing of a bat, etc., is utterly
inexplicable. It is no scientific explanation to assert that they have
all been formed on the same ideal plan.” These words, which occur at
the end of the chapter we are examining, show how little Mr. Darwin
understands the duty of his position as author of a new theory. To say
that an explanation is not _scientific_ is a very poor excuse for
setting it aside. Science, if not perverted, is an excellent thing, but
it does not profess to give an explanation of every subject we may
think of. Its range is co-extensive with the material world, but only
with respect to matter and its modifications as known by observation
and experiment. This means that there are numberless things about which
science is altogether incompetent to speak, because such things do not
fall under observation and experiment. To pretend, therefore, that an
explanation which is not scientific has no claim to be heeded by a man
of science, is like pretending that a man of science, as such, must
remain in blissful ignorance of everything which transcends experiment
and observation. Will Mr. Darwin reject historical explanations of
historical events, philosophical explanations of philosophical
conclusions, mathematical explanations of mathematical questions? The
origin of things is not a scientific but a philosophic problem. Science
cannot speak of creation, of which it can have no experimental
knowledge; it gives it up to the philosopher and the theologian, who
alone know the grounds on which it must be demonstrated. The question,
then, whether mammals have all been formed on the same _ideal_ plan, is
not scientific, and therefore it needs no scientific explanation. The
plea that the explanation is not scientific might be held valid, if Mr.
Darwin had humbly acknowledged his inability to rise above matter, and
his incompetency to give a judgment in philosophic matters; but his
disregard of the explanation shows that, when he calls it _not
scientific_, he desires his reader to believe that it is
_anti-scientific_ or irreconcilable with science; and this is as absurd
as if he pretended that reason and science destroy one another.
On the other hand, what shall we say of the pretended “scientific”
explanation offered by Mr. Darwin? “The homological construction of the
whole frame in the members of the same class is intelligible, if we
admit their descent from a common progenitor.” Is this appeal to a
common progenitor a scientific explanation of the fact in question? If
a common progenitor accounts scientifically for the fact, why should
not a common Creator account scientifically for it? Science—that is,
Mr. Darwin’s science—does not know a common Creator; it knows even less
of a common progenitor; and yet it sets up the latter to exclude the
former, and boasts that its gratuitous and degrading hypothesis is a
“scientific” explanation! Yet all true scientists aver that no instance
has ever been found of a transition from one species to another;
philosophers go even further, and show that such a transition is
against nature. Hence Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis, far from being
scientific, contradicts science and philosophy, observation and
experiment, reason and fact. The descent from a common progenitor, even
if it made “intelligible” the similarity of different mammals, would
still be unscientific. The ancients accounted for the movement of the
heavenly bodies by putting them under the control of intellectual
agents. This hypothesis made the astronomical phenomena intelligible.
The fall of heavy bodies was accounted for by assuming that all such
bodies had a natural intrinsic tendency to a central point. This
hypothesis, too, made the fall of bodies intelligible. Even in modern
physics a number of hypotheses have been proposed regarding light,
magnetism, electricity, chemical changes, etc., to make phenomena
intelligible. But hypotheses, however satisfactory at first, are soon
discarded when a deeper study of the facts reveals new features and new
relations for which such hypotheses cannot account. This is why the
hypothesis of the descent of all mammals from a common progenitor, even
if it seems to make their homological construction intelligible in a
manner, must be rejected. For in every species of mammals we find
features for which the hypothesis cannot account, and relations of
genetic opposition by which the hypothesis is reduced to nothing.
Mr. Darwin says that, “on any other view, the similarity of pattern
between the hand of a man or monkey, the foot of a horse, the flipper
of a seal, the wing of a bat, etc., is utterly inexplicable.” We do not
see any great similarity between the hand of a man and the foot of a
horse or the flipper of a seal, etc. We would rather say, with Mr.
Darwin’s permission, that we see in all such organs a great
dissimilarity. Each of them has a special adaptation to a special end,
and each of them is constructed on a different specific pattern. Their
similarity is therefore generic, not specific; and, accordingly, each
species must have its own distinct progenitors. We might make other
remarks, but we are afraid that we have already taxed the patience of
the reader to a greater extent than the case requires; and therefore we
will now pass to the second argument of the author.
This second argument is drawn from the consideration of the embryonic
development. “Man,” says Mr. Darwin, “is developed from an ovule about
the 125th of an inch in diameter, which differs in no respect from the
ovules of other animals.” This is a very reckless assertion. For how
does Mr. Darwin happen to know that the human ovule “differs in no
respect” from the ovules of other animals? When a man of science lays
down an assertion as the groundwork of his doctrine, he must be able to
show that the assertion is true. Hence we are entitled to ask on what
foundation our great scientist can maintain his proposition. Will he
appeal to the microscope? Probably he will, but to no purpose; for he
has just declared, as we have seen, that the best microscope does not
reveal everything with sufficient distinction. On the other hand, if he
resorts to the mode of reasoning which he has just employed while
speaking of diseases—that is, if he argues from the effects to the
causes—he cannot but defeat himself; for, as similarity of diseases
was, in his judgment, a proof of similar organic structure, so now the
dissimilarity of the final development of two ovules will be a proof
that the two ovules are really dissimilar. One ovule constantly
develops into a monkey, another constantly develops into a dog, and a
third constantly develops into a man. Is it conceivable that the three
ovules are identically the same, so as to “differ in no respect”? We do
not know what Mr. Darwin will reply. At any rate he cannot reply on
scientific grounds; for science neither knows the intimate constitution
of the ovules, nor is it likely ever to know it, as the primordial
organic molecules baffle the best microscopic investigations.
“The embryo itself,” he adds, “at a very early period can
hardly be distinguished from that of other members of the
vertebrate kingdom.... At a somewhat later period, when the
extremities are developed, ‘the feet of lizards and mammals,’
as the illustrious Von Baer remarks, ‘the wings and feet of
birds, no less than the hands and feet of man, all arise from
the same fundamental form.’ It is, says Prof. Huxley, ‘quite in
the later stages of development that the young human being
presents marked differences from the young ape.’”
If these assertions and quotations are intended as a proof that the
human ovule “differs in no respect” from the ovules of lower animals,
we must confess that our advanced scientific thinkers are endowed with
a wonderful power of blinding themselves. We have two ovules: the one
develops into hands and feet; the other develops into wings and
feathers; and yet we are told that they are both “_the same_
fundamental form”! What is the fundamental form? Who has seen it? We
are sure that neither Prof. Huxley nor the illustrious Von Baer has had
the privilege of inspecting and determining the proper form of the
mysterious organism known under the name of ovule. Much less have they,
or has Mr. Darwin, discerned what is fundamental and what is not in its
constitution. They are, therefore, not more competent to judge of the
fundamental sameness of two ovules than is the blind to judge of
colors; and their view, as founded on nothing but presumption and
ignorance, must be considered altogether unscientific.
The same view is also, as we have already shown, eminently
unphilosophic. If two ovules are essentially the same and “differ in no
respect” from one another, what is it that causes them invariably to
develop into different specific organisms? Does a constant difference
in the effects countenance the idea that they proceed from identical
causes? It is evident that a theory which resorts to such absurdities
for its support has no claim to be accepted, or even tolerated, by
lovers of reason and truth. The very boldness of its affirmations, its
air of dogmatism, its allegation of partisan authorities, and its
contempt of fundamental principles prove it to be nothing but a
flippant attempt at imposition.
Although Mr. Darwin has insisted so strongly on the similarity between
our bodily structure and that of the lower animals, and although he has
endeavored to convince us that the human ovule differs in no respect
from the ovules of other animals, yet he is compelled by abundant
evidence to admit that there is something in man which does not exist
in the lower animals, and something in the lower animals which does not
exist in man. How does he account for these organic differences? Men of
science, only twenty years ago, would have explained the fact by the
old philosophical and scientific axiom, _Omne animal generat simile
sibi_, which means that each species of animals has progenitors of the
same species; whence they would have inferred by legitimate deduction
that animals of different species owe their specific differences to
their having issued from progenitors of different species. This
explanation was universally received, as it was supported by an
induction based on centuries of observation, without a single example
to the contrary. It was, therefore, a truly scientific explanation. But
twenty years are passed, and with them (if we believe Mr. Darwin) the
axioms, the logic, and the experimental knowledge of all centuries have
disappeared from the world of science, to make room for higher and
deeper conceptions. It was not an easy task, that of giving the lie to
a uniform and perpetual experience; but to Mr. Darwin nothing is
difficult. He needs only a word. With one word, “Rudiments,” he is
confident that he will transform the objections of the old science into
arguments in his favor, just as King Midas by the touch of his hand
transmuted everything into shining gold.
The world has hitherto believed that man has only two hands, whereas
the monkey has four. But we must not say this in Mr. Darwin’s face. If
we did, he would inform us that we are strangely mistaken. Man, he
pretends, belongs to the order of quadrumana; hence he has four hands
no less than the monkey, though two of them are used as feet, which may
be considered as rudimentary or undeveloped hands. If we were to remark
in his presence that monkeys have a tail, whilst man can boast of no
such elegant appendage, he would immediately confound our ignorance by
informing us that we all possess a rudimentary tail, which might be
made to develop and grow by mere local irritation.
In this way he explains all the organic differences which separate one
species from another. Every difference is made to depend either on the
development in man of an organ which is undeveloped and rudimentary in
lower animals, or on the development in lower animals of some organ
which is rudimentary and undeveloped in man. To explain this theory he
reasons as follows:
“The chief agents in causing organs to become rudimentary seem
to have been disuse at that period of life when the organ is
chiefly used (and this is generally during maturity), and also
inheritance at a corresponding period of life. The term
‘disuse’ does not relate merely to the lessened action of
muscles, but includes a diminished flow of blood to a part or
organ from being subjected to fewer alterations of pressure, or
from becoming in any way less habitually active. Rudiments,
however, may occur in one sex of those parts which are normally
present in the other sex; and such rudiments, as we shall
hereafter see, have often originated in a way distinct from
those here referred to. In some cases organs have been reduced
by means of natural selection, from having become injurious to
the species under changed habits of life. The process of
reduction is probably often aided through the two principles of
compensation and economy of growth; but the later stages of
reduction, after disuse has done all that can fairly be
attributed to it, and when the saving to be effected by the
economy of growth would be very small, are difficult to
understand. The final and complete suppression of a part
already useless and much reduced in size, in which case neither
compensation nor economy can come into play, is perhaps
intelligible by the aid of the hypothesis of pangenesis.”
On this passage, which forms the main foundation of the Darwinian
theory of rudiments, much might be said; but we must limit ourselves to
the following obvious remark. Science and philosophy reason on
ascertained facts, but do not invent them; whereas Mr. Darwin in this
very passage, as in many others, not only invents with poetic liberty
all the facts which he needs to build up his theory, but also violates
the laws of reasoning by drawing from his imaginary facts such
conclusions as even real facts would not warrant. Philosophy would
certainly not allow him to assume without proof that “organs _become_
rudimentary”; for this is not an ascertained fact. Nor would philosophy
permit the gratuitous introduction of rudiments derived “from the
corresponding organs of other more developed animals”; for there is no
evidence that such has ever been the case. Nor would philosophy
sanction “the final and complete suppression of a part already
useless”; for on the one hand we have no means of knowing whether a
part be really useless, and on the other no total suppression of
organic parts has ever been known to occur (except in monsters) within
the range of any given species. Nor would philosophy permit an appeal
to the hypothesis of pangenesis or to the principle of compensation to
evade the difficulties of which the new theory cannot give a solution;
for the hypothesis of pangenesis is itself in need of proof, and the
principle of compensation involves, in our case, a begging of the
question, inasmuch as it assumes the mutability of species—the very
thing which the theory is intended to demonstrate.
But, says Mr. Darwin, perhaps the hypothesis of pangenesis would make
“intelligible” the suppression of a useless part. Let it be so, though
we hold the contrary to be true; what then? Is all hypothesis to be
accepted which would make a thing “intelligible”? The succession of
days and nights was intelligible in the Ptolemaic hypothesis; the loss
of a battle becomes intelligible by the hypothesis of treason; the
death of an old woman is intelligible by the hypothesis of starvation;
but no man of sense would mistake the hypothesis for a fact. The truth
is that Mr. Darwin, before attempting the explanation of what he calls
“the final and complete suppression of a part,” was bound to prove that
the absence of such a part was a _real suppression_ of the pre-existing
part. This he has not done; in fact, he had no means of doing it. Hence
all his reasonings on this subject are paralogistic, and his theory of
rudiments is a rope of sand.
The preceding remarks are fully applicable to the other examples of
rudiments given by the author in the fourteen remaining pages of the
chapter. Thus, “rudiments of various muscles have been observed in many
parts of the human body.” We flatly deny the assertion. “Not a few
muscles which are regularly present in some of the lower animals can
occasionally be detected in man in a greatly-reduced condition.” We
answer that such muscles are not at all in a _reduced_ condition, but
in the condition originally required by the nature of the individual.
“Remnants of the _panniculus carnosus_ in an efficient state are found
in various parts of our bodies; for instance, the muscle on the
forehead by which the eyebrows are raised.” On what ground can this
muscle be called a _remnant_? “The muscles which serve to move the
external ear are in a rudimentary condition in man.... The whole
external shell (of the ear) may be considered a rudiment, together with
the various folds and prominences which in the lower animals strengthen
and support the ear when erect.” Where is the proof of such rudimentary
condition? “The nictitating membrane is especially well developed in
birds, ... but in man it exists as a mere rudiment, called the
semilunar fold.” How is it proved that the semilunar fold is a mere
rudiment, and not a special organism, purposely contrived by the hand
of the Creator at the first production of man?
Mr. Darwin goes on making any number of assertions of the same kind,
not one of which is or can be substantiated, and yet at the end of the
chapter closes his argumentation in the following triumphant words:
“Consequently, we ought frankly to admit their community of
descent [of man and other vertebrate animals]. To take any
other view is to admit that our own structure, and that of all
the animals around us, is a mere snare laid to entrap our
judgment. This conclusion is greatly strengthened, if we look
to the members of the whole animal series, and consider the
evidence derived from their affinities or classification, their
geographical distribution and geological succession. It is only
our natural prejudice, and that arrogance which made our
forefathers declare that they were descended from demi-gods,
which leads us to demur to this conclusion. But the time will
before long come when it will be thought wonderful that
naturalists who were well acquainted with the comparative
structure and development of man and other mammals should have
believed that each was the work of a separate act of creation.”
This conclusion, though well known, and already famous throughout the
scientific world, is here given in the proper words of the great
naturalist, that the reader may see what unbounded confidence a man of
science can place in himself and in his speculations. All the
scientific world, excepting a few sectarian unbelievers, is against
him; he knows it, and he is not dismayed. If you listen to him, his
opponents are “arrogant”; they demur to his conclusion only because
they pretend to be “the descendants of demi-gods.” He alone is right,
he alone understands science. Buffon, Cuvier, Quatrefages, Agassiz,
Elam, Frédault, and a host of other naturalists are evidently wrong. In
fact, all philosophers are wrong; Mr. Darwin alone knows how to
interpret scientific results; and he is so sure of this that he
ventures to prophesy his approaching triumph over those benighted
naturalists who, though “well acquainted with the comparative structure
and development of man and other mammals,” are nevertheless so foolish
as to believe that each species is the work of a separate act of
creation. Such is his modesty!
Perhaps we, too, may be allowed to venture a little prophecy. Mr.
Darwin is not young, and before many years, we are sorry to say, death
will snatch him from us; his scientific friends in England and in
Germany will shed a cold tear on his dead “mammalian structure,” while
his spiritual and immortal soul will be summoned before the God he has
insulted in the noblest of his creatures, to account for the abuse of
his talents, and to receive the sentence due to those who know and
disregard truth. Then the _Descent of Man_ will soon be a thing of the
past; and those who now sing its praises in all tunes, and feign such
an enthusiastic conviction of its coming triumph, will become the
laughing stock of cultivated society, unless they put a timely end to
their “scientific” jugglery. This is the fate which the common sense of
mankind keeps in store for the Darwinian theory.
Mr. Darwin, in formulating his conclusion, sums up the whole discussion
in a single sentence: “To take any other view is to admit that our own
structure, and that of all the animals around us, is a mere snare laid
to entrap our judgment.” No doubt a “snare” is laid; not, however, by
the Author of nature, but by the author of the _Descent of Man_. The
homologousness of animal structures does not prove a common genetic
descent: it only proves, as we have shown, that all such structures are
the work of the same Maker; hence the arbitrary substitution of a
common progenitor for a common Creator is “a mere snare” laid by Mr.
Darwin to entrap the judgment of the ignorant. We say _of the
ignorant_; for he who knows anything about philosophy will simply
wonder at the audacity of a writer who derives reason from unreason,
and intellect from organism; and he who knows anything about divine
revelation will rebuke him for his disregard of the Mosaic history,
than which no document has greater antiquity or higher authority;
whereas he who knows anything of zoölogy will be scandalized at the
impudence of a man who dares to contradict in the name of science what
he knows to be an unquestionable fact and a fundamental principle of
science—viz., the unchangeableness of species.
To “strengthen” his worthless conclusion Mr. Darwin bids us look to
“the members of the whole animal series” and consider “the evidence
derived from their affinities or classification, their geographical
distribution and geological succession.” But it must be evident to
every intelligent reader that the considerations here suggested by Mr.
Darwin are not calculated to “strengthen” his position. Between the
members of the animal series there are not only affinities, but also
specific differences and incompatibilities, which a man of science
ought not to ignore, were they ever so embarrassing to his inventive
genius. And as to the “geological succession” of animal forms, need we
remind Mr. Darwin that the geological remains and their succession
afford the most peremptory refutation of his theory? He himself
acknowledges that no transitional forms from one species to another
have been dug up from the bowels of the earth; whereas his theory
requires a succession of animal remains of all transitional forms and
in all stages of development. It would have been wiser for him to have
kept back all mention of geology; but, alas! those who lay snares for
others sometimes succeed also in entrapping themselves.
This may suffice to give an idea of the first chapter of the _Descent
of Man_, and even of the whole work. Everywhere we find the same want
of rigorous logic, the same absence of method, the same disregard of
principles, and the same abundance of fanciful assumptions. Such is not
the proceeding of science. “I believe,” says Prof. Agassiz, “that the
Darwinian system is pernicious and fatal to the progress of the
sciences.” “This system,” says Dr. Constantin James, “starts from the
unknown, appeals to evidences which are nowhere to be found, and falls
into consequences which are simply absurd and impossible. One would say
that Darwin merely undertook to blot out creation and bring back
chaos.”[111] We cannot, without trespassing on the limits prescribed to
this article, give the scientific arguments by which these and other
eminent writers set at naught the assumptions, the reasonings, and the
conclusions of our eccentric “mammalian,” but we venture to say that if
the reader procures a copy of Dr. James’ work, and examines the
Darwinian theory in the light of the facts that the learned author has
culled from physiology, palæontology, and other branches of science
connected with the history of the animal world, he will be fully
satisfied that the _Descent of Man_ is nothing but a congeries of
blunders.
But we may be asked: How is it possible to admit that a theory so
manifestly absurd should have been received with enthusiasm and lauded
to the skies by men of recognized ability and scientific eminence? The
answer is obvious. Scientific eminence, as now understood, means only
acquaintance with the materials of science, and is no warrant against
false reasoning. “There can be fools in science as well as in any other
walk in life,” says a well-known English writer: “in fact, in
proportion to the small aggregate number of scientific men, I should be
disposed to think that there is a greater percentage in that class than
in any other.” But the same writer gives us another remarkable
explanation of the fact.
“I have read,” says he, “the writings of Mr. Darwin and Prof.
Huxley and others, and had the advantage of personal talk with
an eminent friend of theirs who shares their views, and I have
read without prejudice, but failed to find that they advanced
one solid argument in support of their views. I am quite
certain that, if this controversy could be turned into a law
suit, any judge on the bench would dismiss the case against the
evolutionists with costs, without calling for a reply. The
eminent friend I allude to, himself one of the first of living
mathematicians, and an intimate associate of Tyndall, Huxley,
Spencer, etc., and sharing their views, was candid enough to
admit that the theory was beset with difficulties, that quite
as many facts were against it as for it, that it hardly seemed
susceptible of proof. And when I asked why he held the theory
under such a condition of the evidence; why, on the assumption
of this law, Dr. Tyndall chaffed and derided prayer, and Prof.
Huxley gnashed his teeth at dogma and chuckled over the base
descent of man, his reply was: ‘We are bound to hold it,
because it is the only theory yet propounded which can account
for life, all we see of life, without the intervention of a
God. Nature must be held to be capable of producing everything
by herself and within herself, with no interference _ab extra_,
and this theory explains how she may have done it. Hence we
feel bound to hold it, and to teach it.’ Shade of Bacon! here
is science!”[112]
These words need no comment of ours. We knew already from other
evidences that a conspiracy had been formed with the aim of turning
science against religion, and we now see its work. We have here a
candid avowal that the enthusiasm of certain scientists for the new
theory has its root in malice, not in reason, and is kept up, though
with ever-increased difficulty, in the interest not of science but of a
brutal atheism. In fact, science has nothing to do with the origin of
man; and the very attempt at transforming a historical event into a
scientific speculation clearly reveals the wicked determination of
obscuring, corrupting, and discrediting truth. To carry out their
object the leaders of the conspiracy organized a body of infidel
scientists, doctors, professors, lecturers, and journalists; they took
hold of the scientific press, which was to illustrate the names and
magnify the merits of such men as Moleschott, Louis Büchner, Wolff, Von
Baer, or such men as Clausius, Tyndall, Spencer, and Comte, or as
Huxley, Draper, and Häckel—a task not at all difficult, as these men,
and others whom we might name, were all bound together in a
mutual-admiration society, in which the celebrity of each member was an
honor and an encouragement for all the other members, and the praises
lavished upon each one were repaid with interest to all the others.
Thus they have become great scientific oracles, each and all; and by
ignoring as completely as possible the writings, the discoveries, and
even the existence of those men of science who did not fall on their
knees before the new ideas, they succeeded in creating a belief that
they alone were in possession of scientific truth, and they alone were
enlightened enough to point out with infallible certainty the hidden
path of progress.
Their success, to judge from the number and tone of their scientific
publications, must have been very flattering to their vanity. It is
probable, however, that their noise is greater than their success. The
profligate and the sceptic may, of course, relish a theory which
assimilates them to the ape or the hog, makes the soul a modification
of matter, and suppresses God; but the honest, the pure, the thoughtful
are not easily duped by the low hypotheses of these modern thinkers.
Society in general rejects with disgust a doctrine which aims at
degrading humanity and destroying the bases of morality, religion, and
civilization. If there is no God, rights and duties, the main ties of
the social body, must be given up; justice will become an unmeaning
word, and civil and criminal courts a tyrannical institution. If man is
only a modified beast, if his soul is not immortal, if his end is like
that of the dog, then why should the stronger refrain from hunting and
devouring the weaker? Do we not hunt and kill and eat other animals?
Alas! the progress of humanity towards barbarism and cannibalism is so
intimately and inevitably connected with Darwinism that even the most
uncivilized of human beings would protest against its admission.
That society is still unwilling to submit to the dictation of this
advanced science, and that common sense is yet strong enough to silence
the present scientific blustering, is a fact of which we find an
implicit confession in the writings and addresses of anti-Christian
thinkers. _Nature_, a weekly illustrated journal of science, the
_Popular Science Monthly_, and other publications of the infidel party,
do not cease to inculcate the introduction of science (materialism,
evolution, pantheism, etc.) into the schools frequented by our
children. They have found that our schools are not godless enough to
secure the triumph of unbelief: they are godless in a negative sense
only, inasmuch as they ignore God; but now they must be made positively
godless by teaching theories which do away with creation, which deny
providence, which leave no hope of reward, and ridicule all fear of
punishment in an after-life; and they must be made positively immoral
by teaching that man is always right in following his animal
proclivities, as all other animals do, and that no human being can be
justly called to account for his doings, it being demonstrated by
science that what we call “free-will” is an organic function subject to
invariable laws, like everything else in the material world, with no
greater freedom to choose its course than a stone has under terrestrial
attraction. These doctrines are widely circulated in printed works, but
make few converts, owing to the fact that they come too late, and find
the minds of men already imbued with principles of an opposite nature;
and, therefore, it is now proposed to instil all this poison into the
minds of the young, who have no antidote at hand to counteract its
destructive action. We hope that this new attempt will be defeated; but
when we see that the attempt is considered necessary for a successful
diffusion of the false scientific theories of the day, we cannot be
much mistaken if we infer that the success of such theories up to the
present time has been less satisfactory to the infidel schemers than
their publications pretend.
As for the _Descent of Man_, however, no amount of sophistry, in our
opinion, will succeed in making it fashionable. The Darwinian theory is
utterly unscientific and unphilosophical. Common sense, geology, and
history condemn it; logic proclaims it a fraud; and human dignity
throws upon it a look of pity and dismisses it with ineffable contempt.
Mr. Darwin may yet live long enough to see his theory totally eclipsed
and forgotten, when he will ask himself whether it would not have been
better to devote his talents, his time, and his labor to striving to
elevate rather than striving to debase his kind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MICKEY CASEY’S CHRISTMAS DINNER-PARTY.
In a large, gloomy, bald-looking house in Merrion Street, Dublin, lived
a red-faced, red-haired little attorney rejoicing in the name of Mickey
Casey. There is no man better known in Green Street than Mickey, and no
member of the profession whose services are more eagerly retained by
the luckless ones whose “misfortunes” have brought them within range of
the “blessing of the recorder.” Mickey knows the exact moment to bully,
concede, or back out; and as for the law, it has been said of him that
there is not a dirty lane or alley in the whole of the Acts of
Parliament in which he has not mentally resided for the benefit of his
_clientèle_, as well as to his own especial emolument. When Mr. Casey
was put up for membership of the Law Club, there was much muttering and
considerable frowning in the smoking-room of that legally exclusive
establishment while his chances of success were being weighed in the
balance and found wanting; but the election being judiciously set down
for the long vacation, and Mickey having offered several of the leading
members unlimited shooting over his trifle of property in the
neighborhood of Derrymachulish—which, as all well-informed people are
aware, lies in the very heart of the County Tipperary—somehow or other
he pulled through by the “skin of his teeth,” and became socially, as
he was by act of Parliament, a _gentleman_ in the profession.
Mickey was a cheery little man, who loved a drop of the “crayture” not
wisely but too well, and whose whole soul was wrapped up in his only
child, a daughter, a mincing young lady, who was now close upon her
nineteenth birthday, and who bore a most unmistakable resemblance to
her sire in the color of her hair, her “chaney blue” eyes, and a
bulbous-shaped—vulgarly termed thumbottle—nose.
“I’ve spent oceans of money on me daughter’s education, sir,” Mickey
would exclaim. “Oceans—Atlantic and Pacific. She’s had masters and
mistresses, and tutors and governesses, and short lessons and long
lessons, some at a guinea apiece, sir—yes, begar, a guinea for thirty
minutes jingling on a piana. But she’s come out of it well; I’ve got
her through, and the sentence of the court is that she’s as fine a
performer as there is in Dublin in the way of an amatewer.”
Mrs. Casey was a very stout, very florid, very untidy lady, whose face
never bore traces of any recent lavatory process, and whose garments
appeared to have dropped upon her from the ceiling by chance, retaining
their original _pose_. The parting of her hair bore a strong
resemblance to forked lightning, and her nails reminded the visitor of
family bereavement, so deep the mourning in which they were invariably
enshrined. She, in common with her husband, was wrapped up in her
daughter, and lost to every consideration other than the advancement of
her child’s welfare and happiness.
Matilda Casey was spoiled in her cradle, spoiled at school, spoiled at
home. Her word was law, her every whim gratified, her every wish
anticipated. Her parents were her slaves. Dressed by Mrs. Manning, the
Worth of Dublin, at fancy prices, the newest Parisian toilettes were
flaunted upon Miss Casey’s neat little figure, whilst her mother went
in greasy gowns of antiquated date and old-world pattern. The brougham
was at her beck, and Mrs. Casey was flattered beyond measure when
offered a seat in it. She asked whom she pleased to Merrion Street, and
many people came and went whom her mother never even saw. In
furtherance of her musical talents she had boxes at the Theatre Royal
and Gaiety for any performance it pleased her Serene Highness to
select, while she forced her father to run the gauntlet of musical
societies in order to ensure the necessary vouchers of admission.
And yet Matilda Casey was by no means a bad sort of girl. Her heart was
in the right place, but her brains were blown out—to use a homely
metaphor—by the flattery and incense which were being perpetually
offered up at her shrine, until she was seized with a mad craving to
enter the portals of the best society.
Hitherto she had but stood at the gate, like the Peri, gazing through
the golden bars, and was more or less inclined to accept her position;
but there came a time when she resolved upon endeavoring to _force_ her
way through.
The task that lay before her was a terrible one—a task full of weeping,
and wailing, and mortification, and heart-burning, and gnashing of
teeth. Society in Dublin is as exclusive as in the Faubourg St.
Germain. The line is so distinctly drawn that no person can cross it by
mere accident. “No trespassers admitted” is written up in letters of
cold steel. The viceregal “set” won’t have the professional set, save
those whose offices entitle them to the _entrèe_, and then they are but
tolerated. The professional set won’t know the mercantile set, and here
society stops short. A shopkeeper, be his store as large as Stewart’s
and be he as wealthy as Rothschild, has no chance. He is a Pariah, and
must pitch his tent out in that wilderness peopled by nobodies. The
great struggle lies with the mercantile people to become blended with
the professionals. This is done by money. Of course there are
exceptional cases, but such a case is _rara avis in terris_.
Matilda Casey was in no set. The people with whom she was acquainted,
though not amongst the outcasts, held no position whatsoever. Clerks in
the Bank of Ireland residing at Rathmines; commercial travellers;
custom-house employés; attorneys of cadaverous practice, or of a
practice that meant no weight in the profession; needy barristers
perpetually kotowing to her father for business, and obsequiously civil
to her _as business_—these people with their wives formed her
surroundings, and she was sick of them, tired, disgusted, bored to
death. Why should she not be acquainted with the daughter of Mr.
Bigwig, Q.C., who resided next door? Surely she played better than Miss
Bigwig, and dressed better, and rode in her brougham, while Miss B.
trudged in thick-soled boots in the mud. She had left cards on the
Bigwigs upon their coming to Merrion Street, but her visit had never
been returned, while that shabby little girl, Miss Oliver, was for ever
in and out there; and what was Miss Oliver’s papa but an attorney?
Why was she not at some of the balls perpetually going on around
her?—the rattling of the cabs to and from which, during the night and
morning, kept her awake upon her tear-bedewed pillow.
Why did the Serges, of the firm of Serge & Twist, the linen-drapers in
Sackville Street, leave her out of their invitations to their afternoon
teas? Assuredly they were no great swells, and she had driven Miss
Serge on more than one occasion in her brougham, and had sent Mrs.
Serge a bouquet of hot-house flowers when that lady was laid up with
the measles.
How came it that their social circle never increased save in the wrong
direction? Had she not persuaded her papa to give a brief to young Mr.
Bronsbill, who was possessed of as much brains as a nutmeg-grater, and
whose advocacy cost Mr. Casey’s client his cause, in order to become
acquainted with his family?—Mr. B. having informed her—the treacherous
villain!—that his mother and sisters intended to call upon her.
Had she not thrown open the house to Mr. and Mrs. Minnion, whom she had
met at the Victoria Hotel, Killarney, the preceding summer, in the hope
of those delightful introductions which the artful Mrs. M. had held out
like a glittering jewel before her entranced and eager gaze? Had not
Mr. and Mrs. Minnion eaten, drunk, and slept in Merrion Street? And
whom did they introduce? A little drunken captain of militia, who
insisted upon coming there at unlawful hours of the night, and in
calling for brandy and soda-water, as if the establishment was a
public-house, and not even a respectable hotel!
But Fortune is not for ever cruel, and the wheel will turn up a prize
at possibly the least expected moment.
Mickey Casey knew his daughter’s heart-burning, and strove might and
main to ease it by even one throb. He gave dinner-parties to the best
class of men with whom he was acquainted, feeding them like
“fighting-cocks” upon _petit dîners_ served by Mitchell, of Grafton
Street, and giving them wines of the rarest vintages from the cellars
of Turbot & Redmond.
“Ye’ll come to see us again, won’t ye?” he would say to his guest. “And
I say, just bring your wife the next time. Me daughter will send the
brougham—cost a hundred and fifty at Hutton’s—say Monday next.”
The guest would declare how delighted his wife would be to make the
acquaintance of so charming a young lady as Miss Casey; but when the
Monday came round, and with it a dinner fit for the viceroy, the guest
would arrive wifeless, the lady being laid up with a cold, or “that
dreadful baby, you know,” or “visitors from the country,” and the
banquet would be served in a lugubrious silence, save when the daughter
of the house ventured upon some cutting sarcasm anent snobbery and
stuck-up people.
Matilda Casey could make such a guest wish himself over a mutton-chop
in his own establishment, instead of the salmi of partridge or plover’s
eggs served in silver dishes at Number 190 Merrion Street: and she did
it, too.
“I’ve news for ye, Matilda,” exclaimed Casey one evening as he took his
seat at the dinner-table. “I’ve news for ye, pet. I defended old
Colonel Bowdler in a case in which a servant sued him for wages, and
got him off at half-price. He’s on half-pay, lives with his wife in
Stephen’s Green, and is a tip-topper, mixing with the lord-lieutenant’s
household as if they were his own.”
“Well, and what is that to me?” exclaimed Miss Casey with considerable
asperity.
“This, me darling: he was so pleased at the way I got him out on
half-pay—ha! ha! ha!—that he and his wife—wife, mind ye—are coming to
call on you to-morrow.”
Mrs. Casey was never taken into account, Matilda being the central
figure.
“Pshaw! I wonder you can be such a fool, papa. It’s the old story,”
retorted his daughter. “This colonel will come here, eat our dinners,
drink our wine, and perhaps drop his wife’s card without her knowledge,
as Mr. Neligan did—as we found out to our mortification when we went to
return a visit that was never paid, and were politely told by Mrs.
Neligan that her husband had never even mentioned our names to her.”
“Never fear, Matilda. We’re in the right box this time. They’ll be here
to-morrow, you may depend upon it.”
Casey had his own good reasons for believing that the colonel would
bide tryste—of which more anon. The morrow came, and with it Colonel
and Mrs. Bowdler.
The colonel was a chatty, elderly gentleman of imposing aspect and dyed
hair; his wife a tall, gaunt female, with a vulture-like appearance,
and a sort of sergeant-major-in-petticoats look—the outcome of many a
hard-fought campaign. The colonel had sketched Casey and Casey’s social
desires, and Mrs. Bowdler, like the shrewd veteran that she was, took
in the situation at a glance.
The flutter of excitement at 190 Merrion Street was intense when the
thundering knock came to the door, accompanied by a crashing pull at
the bell.
“Be awfully civil to these people, Jemima,” whispered the colonel as he
entered, “and we can forage here three times a week. Promise them the
moon.”
Mrs. Casey fled to her bedroom for the purpose of arranging her person
in a gorgeous mauve moire-antique all over grease-spots, and Matilda
rushed frantically to the drawing-room, in order to be _en pose_ to
receive the welcome visitors.
The coachman, who acted also in the capacity of butler, was feverishly
hurried from his den at the back of the house, bearing with him a
gentle aroma of the stable, and, even while opening the hall-door, was
engaged in thrusting his arms into the sleeves of a coat—a perfect suit
of mail in buttons.
“Mrs. Casey at home?” asked Mrs. Bowdler.
“I dunno whether the misthris is convaynient, ma’am, but Miss Casey is
above in the dhrawin’-room. Won’t yez come in anyhow?” And the man
motioned them to ascend with considerable cordiality and welcome.
“Take these cards, please.”
“Well, ma’am, me hands is a thrifle dirty; but av it obliges ye—” and
hastily brushing the fingers of his right hand upon the legs of his
trowsers, he took the extended pasteboard in as gingerly a manner as if
he expected it to explode there and then.
The visitors stood in the hall, and so did Luke Fogarty.
“What am I for to do wud this ma’am?” he asked, eyeing it with a glance
full of concern.
“Hand it to Miss Casey,” replied Mrs. Bowdler.
“Oh! that’s it, is it?” And he darted up-stairs with an alarming
alacrity.
“This is a charming _ménage_,” said Mrs. Bowdler.
“A fine open country, my dear; no concealed enemy.”
“Yez are for to folly me,” shouted Fogarty from the top of the stairs.
Matilda was enchanted to see them, and ordered sherry and cake. Mrs.
Bowdler professed herself charmed to make Miss Casey’s acquaintance,
and declared she quite resembled the lord-lieutenant’s youngest
daughter “And in manner, too, Miss Casey, you quite remind me of her.
We are perpetually at the Viceregal Lodge, and _very_ intimate with the
Abercorns. We are asked to everything, and—he! he! he!—it costs us a
small fortune for cabs.”
“You can have my brougham, Mrs. Bowdler.”
“Oh! dear, no, my dear young lady, that would never do; but if you lend
it to me occasionally to take out _dear_ Lady Maude Laseilles, who is
_such_ an invalid. Do you know her?”
Matilda replied in the negative.
As a matter of fact, no such person existed, but it suited Mrs. Bowdler
to create her, Mrs. B. being a lady who would make a shilling do duty
for half a crown. She was a veteran of infinite resources, who had
borne the burden and heat of the day, and who was now bent upon taking
her change out of the world. She had heard of the craving to enter the
portals of society that was devouring Matilda Casey—the attorney had
openly confided the fact to the colonel—and was resolved upon making
the most of the situation. The Bowdlers were hangers-on at the Castle,
mere hacks, who attended the drawing-rooms, the solitary state ball to
which they were annually invited, and St. Patrick’s ball with
undeviating punctuality. They resided in a pinched-looking house in
Stephen’s Green, where Mrs. Bowdler “operated” the colonel’s half-pay
with the financial ability of a Dudelac, stretching every sixpence and
racking the silver coin to its final gasp. They went everywhere,
accepting every invitation, “foraging on the enemy” as the colonel
expressed it, giving no return. Trading upon his military rank, they
managed to go about a good deal amongst very third-rate people, who
were glad to have a colonel to dinner, and a lady who could talk so
familiarly of half the peerage as his wife. A more singularly worthless
or selfish pair was not to be found, or a pair who better knew how “to
work the oracle,” than Colonel Brownlow Bowdler, late of Her Majesty’s
Fifty-ninth Regiment of Infantry, and Jemima, his consort.
Mrs. Casey came smilingly into the drawing-room and almost embraced
Mrs. Bowdler.
“What will ye take, now? Sure ye must take something. Matilda, make
Mrs. Colonel Bowdler take something. Colonel, you’ll take a bottle of
champagne—do, now, that’s right; and I’ll get a little jelly for Mrs.
Colonel Bowdler, and then Matilda will play for ye. She plays lovely.”
“O mamma!” exclaimed Matilda.
“Now, ye know ye do, darling.” And Mrs. Casey, who is the soul of
hospitality, joyously descended to the lower regions, in order to send
up the delicacies she so temptingly set forth.
“Are you going to the ball the Twelfth are giving at the Royal
Barracks?” asked Mrs. Bowdler.
“I am not, Mrs. Bowdler, but I wish I was,” replied Matilda.
“Colonel, do you hear that? Miss Casey has not received a card for the
Twelfth ball. _You_ must take care that she gets one.”
“I’ll go to Major McVickers at once—the old rascal and I served in
India together—and see what can be done.”
He had been to Major McVickers five times already to secure invitations
for himself and wife, but without success.
Luke Fogarty entered with an enormous silver salver bearing the
champagne, jelly, fruit, and cake. He would have preferred to have been
behind a runaway horse, ay, and down-hill to boot. He regarded the
jelly with a savage eye, muttering “Woa! woa!” in an undertone as it
shook from the movement of the tray, accompanying the exclamation by
that purring sound so dear to grooms when closely applying the
curry-comb.
“Open the champagne, Fogarty,” said Matilda in a tone of lofty command.
“To be shure I will, miss,” replied the willing retainer, diving into
the pockets of his trowsers in search of an iron-moulded corkscrew,
which he eventually brought to the surface after considerable effort.
“I’ll open it in a jiffy.”
He tortured and twisted the wires until he was nearly black in the face
from sheer exertion, but, although yielding to his pressure, they still
clung perplexingly to the cork.
“Bad cess to thim for wires! but they have the fingers nearly cut aff
o’ me. Curse o’ the crows on them!” making another despairing effort;
“but I’m not bet yit.”
The wire, slipping suddenly aside, gave freedom to the cork, which
bounded gaily against the colonel’s nose, and, ricochetting, lodged in
the bosom of Mrs. Bowdler’s dress, while the froth spurted high in the
air, descending in seething showers upon the gallant warrior’s head,
disarranging the few brown hairs which were carefully laid across his
bald, shining pate, resembling cracks upon an inverted china bowl, and
causing him to utter maledictions strong and deep.
“See that, now!” exclaimed Fogarty, clapping his hand on the opening of
the bottle. “It’s livelier nor spirits. Hould yer glass, colonel, or
the lickher ‘ill be lost intirely.”
“Champagne is my favorite wine,” said Mrs. Bowdler, tossing off her
glass without winking.
“And mine,” added the colonel, filling it for her again, and then
replenishing his own.
“Oh! dear me, I’m so glad to know that. Fogarty, bring another bottle.
We’ve heaps of it in the cellar at ninety-six shillings a dozen—a top
price. You’ll always get good wine here,” said Mrs. Casey.
“The man who would give his guest bad wine ought to be blown from the
muzzle of a gun,” observed the colonel, plunging at the jelly.
This came strangely from an individual who, whenever he gave a visitor
a drink, gave it of a liquor warranted to kill at fifty yards. Young
Bangs, of the Tenth, whose father instructed him to visit Bowdler, was
laid up for an entire week after a teaspoonful of the colonel’s tap.
The second bottle of champagne appeared.
“Ye’d betther open this combusticle yerself, gineral,” suggested
Fogarty; “an mind ye hould on to the cork, or it ‘ill give ye the slip
as shure as there’s a bill on a crow.”
“I must introduce your dear daughter here to the Dayrolles,” exclaimed
Mrs. Bowdler, “and to the Fitzmaurices. You will like Lady Fitzmaurice,
Miss Casey, and I _know_ she will like _you_.”
“Do you hear that, Matilda? Now, won’t ye play for Mrs. Colonel
Bowdler?”
“I’m a very poor player,” simpered Matilda.
Nevertheless, she proceeded to the piano and dashed off a _morceau_ of
Chopin with considerable vigor, during which the colonel improved the
occasion by pocketing a bunch of grapes and a good-sized cut of
seed-cake.
“_Bravissima!_” he cried, as if in rapture. “Lord St. Lawrence must
hear that, Jemima; we must try and get him to name a night.”
“We can reckon on Lady Howth.”
“Certainly. She’s always too glad to be asked.”
“And the Powerscourts?”
“By the way, that reminds me: we owe a visit at Powerscourt, do we
not?”
“I can’t say, colonel, until I look at my list. We have such an
enormous visiting list, Mrs. Casey,” turning to that lady, who was
nearly caught in a feeble attempt at winking at her daughter, in order
to beget that young person’s special attention to the delightful
conversation going on between the visitors, and who was perfectly
overwhelmed with dismay and apprehension lest she should have been
perceived. “I put my engagements down alphabetically, and—he! he!
he!—I’m so glad to think that _you_ are so high on our list.”
The Bowdlers took their departure, after having promised to dine in
Merrion Street on the following day.
“To-morrow will be Thursday, and we dine with the Commander of the
Forces. Friday we dine at Lord Newry’s.”
“Never mind, my dear,” interposed the colonel, “I’ll come _here_. I’m
heartily sick of those fearfully ceremonious banquets; besides,” he
added, “we are not asked here every day, and Newry or Strathnairn will
be glad to get us when they can.”
When Mickey Casey returned that evening from his office he found his
wife and daughter in ecstasies over their newly-made acquaintances.
There were no words in the English language sufficiently strong to
convey a tithe of the admiration they entertained for them. Such
elegance, such urbanity, such distinguished manners, such amiability!
“I’m going to the Twelfth ball,” cried Matilda, “and to be introduced
to Lady Fitzmaurice and the Dayrolles, and dear Mrs. Bowdler is going
to give a party for me, and to ask Lady Howth and Lord St. Lawrence and
Lord Powerscourt all to hear me play. What _shall_ I play? I must begin
to practise at once. I’ll go to Pigott’s to-morrow for something
new—_the_ newest thing—and I’ll get Mrs. Joseph Robinson to give me six
lessons.”
“I’ve asked them to dinner here,” said Mrs. Casey; “and only to think,
Mick, I—”
“I _do_ wish you’d say Mr. Casey, or at all events Michael, mamma,”
burst in Matilda. “You see how _dear_ Mrs. Bowdler addressed her
husband. You’ll find it much more genteel.”
“Whatever you say, me darling. Well, _Mister_ Casey—oh! I can’t do that
after Micking him for twenty years,” she cried. “Well, Mick, what do
you think, but the colonel gave up a dinner at the Commander of the
Forces’ to come to us on Thursday.”
“Thursday, did ye say, Mary?”
“Yes.”
“That’s awkward; that’s to-morrow, and your brother Tim Rooney comes up
in the morning to stop for a month.”
Mrs. Casey glanced timidly at her daughter, who gave a little shriek.
“It will never do, mamma. Uncle Timothy is too rough, too vulgar, and
too careless of what he says and does, to meet Colonel and Mrs.
Bowdler. It would destroy us at once. You must telegraph him, papa, not
to come till Friday or Saturday.”
“I can’t, me honey, for he started this morning; and may be it’s in
Tullamore he is while I’d be wiring to Inchanappa.”
Matilda clasped her hands in a sort of mute despair.
“He _cannot_ dine at this table to-morrow,” she cried. “I’d rather put
off the Bowdlers, first.”
“Suppose ye give him an early dinner and plenty of liquor, and send him
with Fogarty to the play.”
“We will want Fogarty, papa. His livery opening the door looks very
genteel.”
“It won’t do to insult him. Tim has twenty thousand pounds, and you’re
his god-daughter, me darling,” said Casey.
“I wonder, if we told him that these people were very ceremonious and
very grand, if he’d consent to dine alone,” suggested Matilda.
“That would only rouse Tim, my pet,” observed Mrs. Casey. “He’d just
come in on purpose then, and if he got a sup in there would be no
holding him.”
“What _is_ to be done?” cried Matilda, starting from her chair and
pacing the floor with long and hasty strides.
At this moment a short, sharp double knock was heard at the hall-door.
“That’s Tim,” groaned Mrs. Casey.
“A telegraph!” roared Fogarty, bursting into the room as if a human
life depended upon his celerity.
“Yer in luck, Matilda, my pet; it’s from your uncle. Read it.”
It ran thus:
“_From Tim Rooney, ‘The Ram’s Tail,’ Inchanappa, County
Tipperary, to Mickey Casey, 190 Merrion Street, Dublin_:
“I can’t stir for a couple of days. I have to bolus a horse,
and Phil Dempsey is after drinking a cow on me, the
blackguard!”
“What a relief!” cried Matilda Casey, throwing herself into an
easy-chair.
The dinner at 190 was supplied by Murphy, of Clare Street, the Gunter,
the Delmonico of Dublin.
“I don’t care a farden about the price,” said Mickey to the smiling
caterer. “I want it done tip-top, and let the ongtrays be something
quite out of the common; for Colonel and Mrs. Colonel Bowdler are to
dine with us, and me wife is very anxious to have everything spiffy.”
Mrs. Casey was in a fever of preparation the livelong day, washing
glasses, getting out wine, laying the table, while Matilda with her own
fair hands fitted up the _épergne_ with rare hot-house plants and
crystallized fruits.
“Papa will take Mrs. Colonel Bowdler in to dinner, and Colonel Bowdler
will take you, mamma.”
“Oh! no, me pet; I’d rather he’d take you.”
“But it’s not etiquette.”
“Oh! bother etiquette,” exclaimed Mrs. Casey, wiping her face in a
napkin.
“It’s all very fine to say bother etiquette; but if we do not show it
now, what will Colonel and Mrs. Colonel Bowdler think of us?”
The appalling consequences attendant upon her refusal to be led to the
banquet by the gallant colonel smote the mind of Mrs. Casey with such
considerable force that she at once assented to the proposal, lauding
her daughter’s foresight to the very skies.
“You’re a wonderful child, dear; ‘pon me word, you think of
everything.”
“The colonel will sit here, and I’ll put this bouquet opposite his
chair with the menoo card; and Mrs. Bowdler will sit here, Fogarty,”
addressing Luke, who was standing by with a portion of harness about
his neck. “Take care that Colonel Bowdler gets enough of champagne.”
“Be me faix, thin, Miss Matilda, ye’d betther lave out a dozen anyhow,
for he lapped it up yistherda like wather,” replied that functionary
with a broad grin.
“And see that Mrs. Colonel Bowdler’s glass is always full.”
“I’m thinkin’ she’ll see to that herself wudout thrubblin’ me,”
muttered Fogarty.
“Ask Colonel Bowdler if he’ll take sherry or Madeira with his soup.”
“To be sure he will, miss.”
“I say ask him which he’ll take.”
“I’ll make bould to say he’ll take the both o’ thim,” grinned Fogarty,
who, with that quick perception characteristic of his race, had already
“measured his man.”
“Be very particular about the ongtray.”
“I will, miss, an’ the tay-thray too.”
“And above all things keep sober, Fogarty.”
“He’s a teetotaler,” chimed in Mrs. Casey. “Aren’t ye a teetotaler,
Luke?”
There was a comical expression upon Luke’s face as he stoutly replied:
“I am, ma’am; but _I’m not a bigoted wan_.”
At about four o’clock a note arrived from Mrs. Bowdler.
“Oh! my gracious, I hope there’s no disappointment,” cried Matilda,
turning very pale, while dire apprehension was written in the pallid
features of her mamma.
“I hope not; that would be awful, me pet.”
The note ran thus:
“292 STEPHEN’S GREEN, 3.30 o’clock.
“MY DEAREST MISS CASEY: Our dear friend Major Beamish and his
_charming_ daughter, nearly related to the Beamishes of Cork,
have just written to say that they will dine with us to-day. I
must, therefore, with the MOST _painful reluctance_, ask of you
to allow us to cancel our engagement to you. I cannot tell you
how sincerely this grieves me, but the B.’s, though _very old_
friends, are people of that _haute distinction_ that one cannot
treat as one possibly could wish.
“With kindest regards to your _dear_ mamma, and with united
kind regards from the colonel to all _chez vous_, I am, my
dearest Miss Casey, yours affectionately,
JEMIMA BOWDLER.”
“This is agonizing!” cried Matilda, ready to burst into tears.
“Our lovely dinner!” moaned Mrs. Casey.
“There is some fatality about us.”
“Wan pound five a head without wine, and seventeen and six extra for a
pineapple.”
“Was ever anything so provoking? It’s enough to drive one mad!”
“I suppose Mick must ask in the apprentice to eat the dinner, as we’ve
to pay for it. Such food for to cock up an apprentice with!” sighed
Mrs. Casey.
Miss Casey perused the letter again, and finding P. T. O. in the
corner, turned the page and read a postscript as follows:
“P. S.—The colonel has just come in, and what do you think he
has the audacity to suggest?—that we ask your permission to
bring the Beamishes to your dinner to-day. The colonel has
taken such a fancy to you, _dearest young friend_, that he
treats you as if he had been on intimate terms for years. He
insists upon my writing this, but please to blame _him_ for
this piece of audacity.
J. B.”
Miss Casey’s joy knew no bounds. The Beamishes of Cork, one of the
oldest families in Ireland—such a charming addition to the party. She
would order round the brougham, and drive over to dear Mrs. Colonel
Bowdler’s at once to thank her for such a signal mark of kindness; as
for the colonel, she could have hugged the gallant veteran from sheer
gratitude.
_She_ did not know that the Bowdlers wished to shelve the hungry major
and his daughter in a polite way, and provide them with a sumptuous
repast at the expense of Mickey Casey. Not she, indeed; so she stepped
into her carriage, and having driven, first, round to the caterer’s to
order reinforcements, proceeded to Stephen’s Green, where she was
received by Mrs. Bowdler in a small, dingy front room _minus_ a fire,
although it was late in December and bitterly raw and cold.
Mrs. Bowdler kissed her, and gushed over her, and begged to be excused
for hurrying her away for the tyrant post, as she was compelled to
finish a letter to her _dearest_ friend, the wife of the
governor-general of India. Miss Casey cut short her stay, as in duty
bound, and Mrs. Bowdler ascended to the drawing-room, where three or
four visitors were assembled around a fairly decent fire—one of the
ladies, during the temporary absence of the hostess, having
surreptitiously stirred it up—to whom she imparted the intelligence
that she had just parted from the governess to Mrs. Geoffrey Ponsonby,
whom that aristocratic personage had sent over in the Ponsonby brougham
with a request that she and the colonel would dine in Fitzwilliam Place
upon that day, whereat the visitors declared that Mrs. Geoffrey
Ponsonby was evidently very desirous of Mrs. Bowdler’s company, and
that it was a very remarkable instance of her esteem and regard.
At 6.30, military time, the company arrived, and were ushered into
Mickey Casey’s study in order to uncloak. Major Beamish wore a short
brown wig on the top of a very high, a very bald, and very shiny head.
His eyes were small and watery, and his moustache, greased with a cheap
ointment, lay like a solid cushion of hair beneath a nose with nostrils
as expansive as those of a rocking-horse. He was attired in a faded
suit of evening clothes, his shirt-bosom bearing the indelible imprint
not only of the hand of Time, but of the hand of a reckless laundress,
who hesitated not to use her nails upon the sierras of its coy and
threadbare folds.
Miss Beamish was a gushing maiden of twenty anything, possessed of a
profusion of frizzly fair hair, done in a simple and childlike fashion,
and bound by a fillet of blue ribbon over a vast expanse of forehead.
Her eyes were greenish gray, and not quite free from a suspicion of a
squint. Her nose resembled that of her sire, and her mouth was almost
concealed by her thin and bloodless lips. Her gaunt frame was enveloped
in a gauzy substance over a pink silk, which betrayed the recent
presence of the smoothing-iron. Bog-oak ornaments rattled around her
neck, at her ears, and upon her lean and sinewy arms.
“Colonel an’ Missis Bowhowdler,” roared Fogarty, as the guests entered
the drawing-room. “Major an’ Missis Baymish.”
“Miss, fellow, Miss,” impatiently cried the major.
“Miss Baymish, I mane,” adding in an undertone: “It’s not but she’s
ould enough and tough enough for to be a missis tin times over.”
“This is _so_ good of you,” said Matilda, shaking hands all round, “and
_so_ good of _dear_ Mrs. Bowdler to give us the pleasure of having
you.”
“Monstrous fine gal. Right good quarters,” observed the major to the
colonel, glancing round the room at the superb mirrors, buhl cabinets,
inlaid tables, rich hangings, and furniture upholstered in yellow
satin.
“You might do worse than take this girl. Casey’s good for twenty
thousand,” suggested the colonel.
“If Tibie was once quartered on the enemy I’d enlist again—I would,
sir, by George! I’d take the shilling from that seductive and dangerous
recruiting sergeant, Hymen,” exclaimed the major, wagging one soiled
white glove and posing himself after a gratified and prolonged glance
in the mirror.
“Miss Matilda,” whispered Fogarty, who had just entered, and who was
endeavoring to attract her attention. “Miss Matilda! Miss Tilly!”
“What is it, Fogarty?” asked Miss Casey at length; and upon perceiving
him, “What _is_ it?” she repeated somewhat testily, as Mrs. Bowdler was
engaged in narrating a delightful conversation with the
lady-lieutenant.
“The masther’s clanin’ himself, an’ he wants a lind av yer soap, miss,
as there’s not a screed in the house, be raisin’ av the misthris
washin’ the glass an’ chany wild the rest av it.”
The guests filed down in the order prescribed by Matilda, save that she
fell to the arm of Major Beamish, who overwhelmed her with compliments,
which only lasted until the soup was served, as from that moment his
attention became concentrated upon the delicacies placed before him, on
which he opened so murderous and effective a fire as almost to paralyze
the energies of the ubiquitous and perspiring Fogarty, and the
solicitous attentions of a young lady from the kitchen, whose
stertorous breathing made itself heard above the din and clatter of
knives, forks, and conversation, in a distinct and somewhat alarming
manner.
“Hi! some more soup. Another cut of fish. I’ll try that _entrée_ again.
Let me have that last _entrée_ once more. Some turkey and ham. Why
don’t you look alive with the champagne? A slice of roast
beef—underdone. Some pheasant; ay, I’ll try the woodcock. Jelly, of
course.” And the gallant major kept the servants pretty busily engaged
during the entire repast.
Matilda was in a shimmer of delight. Her darling hopes were being
realized at last, and society was budding for her. A colonel and his
wife, a major and his daughter—why, what higher rank need any person
desire? How friendly, how gracious, and how charmingly they ate and
drank and praised everything! This was life—a life worth living; this
was that delicious glow of which she had read in _Lothair_ and other
novels portraying fashionable existence.
While these rosy thoughts were coursing through her brain a noise was
heard in the direction of the hall, and a man’s voice in tones of angry
expostulation.
“Your servants are quarrelling, Mrs. Casey,” observed Mrs. Bowdler,
holding up her hand to enjoin silence.
“It’s that Luke Fogarty; he can’t keep his fingers off the dishes, and
the girl is—”
At this moment the individual in question burst into the apartment with
an expression as if some fearful catastrophe had just happened.
“What is the matter, Fogarty?” demanded Mrs. Casey, glancing at her
retainer with an inquiring eye.
“We’re bet, ma’am,” responded Fogarty in a half-whisper.
“What do you mean?”
“We’re bet up intirely. Misther Tim has came.”
Mrs. Casey felt as if she would have fainted, while Matilda bit her
lips till the blood came; and as they were still gazing at each other
in the direst consternation, Mr. Timothy Rooney entered the apartment,
clad in a bulgy Ulster that had known fairs and markets and
race-courses for several previous years, a felt hat of an essentially
rakish and vulgar description, his pants shoved into his muddy boots
after the fashion of a Texas ranger, while his hands were swollen and
the color of beet-root.
“Company, be the hokey crikey!” he exclaimed, as he advanced to embrace
the reluctant hostess. “Ah! Mary, ye didn’t expect me,” giving her a
kiss that made the glass drops upon the chandelier jingle again.
“No, we didn’t expect you, Tim,” gasped his sister.
“No, of course not. Shure I sent ye a telegraph that that villyan of a
Phil Dempsey drank me best cow on me—tellin’ ye that—”
“Won’t you take some dinner in your own room?” interposed his niece,
now the color of a peony.
“Come over here and kiss your uncle, ye young rogue. Up-stairs, indeed!
What would I do that for?”
“You are not exactly dressed for dinner.”
“Oh! I’ve a shirt on under this Ulster, and I’ll show a bit of the
bussom, as the man said, never fear. Well, Mickey, me hearty, how goes
it? Put it there,” extending his beet-root fist to his brother-in-law.
“My brother, a regular character, immensely wealthy; obliged to put up
with his ways,” explained Mrs. Casey, while her daughter retired with
Mr. Rooney, with a view to inducing that gentleman to refrain from
again putting in an appearance.
“A very fine, joyous son of the Emerald Isle,” cried the colonel,
helping himself to champagne.
“When I was quartered at Dum Dum,” observed the major, following the
good example of his senior officer, “we had just such a joyous,
devil-may-care fellow in the Tenth. He resided in the bungalow with me,
the compound being in common. One morning, while enjoying
chotohassary—the major aired his Indian experiences and Hindoo
acquirements upon all occasions— I happened to call my kitmagar as well
as my consumar, who was—”
The narrative was interrupted by the entrance of Mr. Rooney and his
despairing niece. Tim had given his face what is commonly known as a
“Scotch lick,” causing it to shine again. He was about forty years of
age, rough-looking as a Shetland pony, and a “warm man”—_i.e._, the
possessor of a few thousands in the bank and of a well-to-do,
well-stocked farm.
“I’m tidy enough now, I think; at all events, yer friends will be aisy
on a traveller. Why don’t ye introduce us, Mick? Where are yer
manners?”
He was presented in due form by the abashed Casey, and, after having
shaken hands with all round, commenced a vigorous attack upon a slice
of turbot with his knife, plunging that useful instrument two or three
inches into his mouth at every helping, until Miss Beamish, who was
seated opposite, shuddered with apprehension.
“Is there anything the matter with ye, ma’am?” he demanded, upon
observing a ghastly contraction of the muscles of her face.
“N-nothing,” she stammered.
“Ye haven’t got a pain?”
“Uncle, help yourself to champagne,” shrilly interposed Matilda.
“Pshaw! get me some whiskey, me pet,” adding, as he winked facetiously
upon Mrs. Bowdler, “_champagne is taydious_.”
“By and by, uncle,” said the agonized girl.
“A little drop wouldn’t harm Miss Baymish there, Matty; she looks as
if—”
“Take some more beef, Tim,” put in Mrs. Casey.
“Well, just wan skelp more, Mary. Room for wan inside, as the man
said.”
When the ladies had retired Mr. Rooney stretched his legs beneath the
table and his body on the chair until his chin was nearly on a level
with the table.
“Now, Mickey, in with the hot water, and let the girl put a kettle
under the pump. Are ye fond of sperrits, major?”
“Well, the fact is that spirits don’t agree with me.”
“Oh, then, Mickey Casey has some that will oil the curls of yer wig for
ye.”
“When I was quartered at Dum Dum,” observed the major hastily, “there
happened to be a very rollicking, gay, charming fellow of our mess, who
shared my bungalow with me—the compound being in common. One morning I
was engaged at chotohassary and—”
“What the dickens is chotohassary?”
“Breakfast, Mr. Rooney.”
“I never heard it called by that name before. Go on, you old son of a
gun.”
“Well, sir,” continued the major somewhat stiffly, “I had occasion to
call my kitmagar.”
“Kit who?” asked Tim.
“Kitmagar, one of my servants.”
“An Irishman, of course.”
“No, sir, a Hindoo.”
“Well, this flogs; are ye listening to this, Mickey?” addressing Casey,
who had drawn off the colonel.
“Am I listening to what?” asked the host rather gruffly.
“To this old fogy here.”
“Really, Mr. Rooney—” began the offended major.
“Don’t mind him, Major Beamish,” cried Casey, “but pitch into the
claret; it’s Château Lafitte of a comet vintage. At least, Redmond told
me so, and he ought to know.”
“It’s a very fine wine, Casey—a soft wine, sir, in superb condition,
and heated to perfection,” observed the major, tossing off a glassful
and quickly replacing the goblet.
“Goes down like mother’s milk,” added the colonel, following suit.
“Well, major, go on about Kit Megar,” urged Rooney.
“Coffee is in the dhrawin’-room, jintlemin,” yelled Fogarty, entering.
“Well, let it stay there, Luke.”
“Shall we join the ladies?” asked Casey, with a society air.
The colonel looked at the major, the major looked at the colonel, and
both looked at the claret jugs.
“Oh! hang it all, no,” responded the major; “this wine is too good—much
too good.”
“More power to yer elbow, Baymish! An old dog for a hard road,” laughed
Tim Rooney. “Eh, Luke, this is a knowing old codger.”
Mr. Fogarty, being thus appealed to, gave a willing assent: “Up to
every trick in the box.”
After the gallant warriors had sufficiently punished Casey’s cellar
they repaired to the drawing-room. As they ascended the stairs they
compared notes.
“Did you ever meet such a queer customer as this brother-in-law?”
“Never. He’s the most vulgar, insolent blackguard I ever encountered.”
“He has lots of money.”
“I wonder does he play loo?”
“We can ask him.”
“He’d play a lively game.”
“And could be plucked like a green gosling.”
To the intense relief of the Casey family, Mr. Rooney stoutly refused
to adjourn to the upper regions, but remained in the dining-room
smoking a short clay pipe and drinking whiskey-punch.
Miss Beamish, upon hearing that he was enormously wealthy and unmarried
to boot, began to build a castle in Spain, in which she figured as
châtelaine, while the uncultured proprietor was gradually toned down by
those feminine influences which smooth the angles of the most rugged
natures.
“I _do_ like this child of nature, Miss Casey,” she gushed; “it is
sweet to hear the wild bird in the full, untutored sweetness of its
note. Shall we see your uncle again to-night?”
“I hope not,” was Matilda’s reply.
“Oh! why? He reminds me so much of an _arrière pensée_, a bright oasis
in the desert of my life, that I feel as if I could—but why recall
recollections that are fraught with bitterness, why strike a chord
which produces but—discord?” letting her pointed chin drop upon the
bog-oak necklet, which responded by a dull rattle.
Matilda played for the major—who marked her as the successor of the
late Mrs. B——, wagging his be-wigged pate to the music and applauding
with maudlin vigor.
“Exquisite! Divine! When I was quartered at Dum Dum—” And he jogged
over the same road, to arrive as far as the consumar, when Mrs. Bowdler
intimated that it was time to leave.
“But ye won’t go without supper? Just a sandwich and a glass of wine,”
entreated Mrs. Casey.
Of course they wouldn’t go, and they didn’t go until they had partaken
largely of both.
“Never was more charmed in my life,” exclaimed the colonel, as he bade
good-night. “Right glad I refused Lord Howth.”
“I thought it was the commander-in-chief,” said Mrs. Casey artlessly.
“Ahem! of course, and so it was; but I have so many invites, you see,
that I forget.”
Gentlemen who draw upon their imagination for their facts must needs
possess accurate memories.
“You’ll all dine with us on Christmas day,” said Mrs. Casey.
“Oh! yes, _do_, please,” added Matilda.
“Do, colonel; do, major, like good fellows,” urged Casey.
“Well, really, my dear, I don’t know what to say,” exclaimed Mrs.
Bowdler, “but I fear we cannot get out of going to Lady Meath’s.”
“Oh! hang Lady Meath; _you_ may go to her, I’ll come here,” laughed the
colonel.
“It’s fixed,” said Casey; “and you, major?”
“I couldn’t say no to such a good offer. When I was quartered in Dum
Dum—”
“Is this old fogy at it still?” asked Tim Rooney, emerging from the
dining-room into the hall where they were now all assembled.
“We are coming to dine here on Christmas day, Mr. Rooney,” said Miss
Beamish, casting a languishing look at him.
“Are ye? Thin upon me conscience ye’ll git a tail end of beef that will
feed you for a fortnight—wan of me own cows. And all Mary here has to
do is see that the wisps of cabbage is plenty.”
With great hand-shaking, and a general buzz of pleased excitement, the
guests took their departure.
“What a success!” exclaimed Matilda, throwing herself on a sofa that
had been wheeled out of the dining-room into the hall in order to make
room, “except for”—nodding towards Tim, who was endeavoring to light a
bedroom candlestick with a singularly unsteady hand.
“They all took to him,” whispered Mrs. Casey.
“I never got such a turn as when he came in. O mamma! I thought I
should have died.”
“Well, aren’t the Bowdlers nice, agreeable people, Matilda?” demanded
Mr. Casey.
“Delightful, exquisite! Such elegant refinement. And the Beamishes are
equally well bred.”
“That major is a downy old bird.”
“He is a most perfect gentleman. How he did praise my playing!”
The Caseys did not see much of the Bowdlers during the next few days,
the colonel having over-eaten himself, and his wife being laid up with
an attack of bronchitis; but Major Beamish and his daughter were most
constant in their attentions, calling, staying to dinner, going to the
theatre—Casey paying for all, cabs included—coming home to supper, and
other attentions equally delicate and one-sided. The major was very
_prononcé_ in his manner toward Matilda, who, while she accepted his
homage, did not for a moment imagine it meant more than that excessive
and chivalrous politeness which distinguishes the _vieux militaire_ of
any nationality.
Miss Beamish lay in wait for Tim Rooney, and spun her web as deftly as
the uncouth movements of this desirable fly permitted. She adroitly
learned his hours for going out, and invariably intercepted him.
“I’m always meeting that wan,” he observed to his sister. “She’s for
ever in the street.”
“She’s a very elegant lady, Tim.”
“Elegant enough, but, as tough as shoe-leather.”
By degrees, however, the fair Circe interested him, and when the others
were engaged in listening with rapt attention to the major’s
oft-repeated story commencing, “When I was quartered at Dum Dum,” Tibie
Beamish, eyes plunged into those of the Tipperary farmer, would hang
upon his accents as he detailed his own “cuteness” in the purchase of a
drove of heifers at the great fair of Ballinasloe, or how he palmed off
a spavined pony upon a neighboring but less wide-awake grazier.
If a woman wants to win a man, let her listen to him, if he be fond of
narrating his personal experiences; and what man does not revel in
_ego_?”
“She _is_ a nice little girl, Mary, and is not above learning a trifle.
I’ll be bail she could go into Ballinasloe fair next October and finger
a baste as well as that villyan Phil Dempsey, from the knowledge I give
her.”
The spell was working.
* * * * *
Christmas day came, bright, crisp, and joyous. Snow had fallen for the
previous few days, and was now hard and shining in the streets,
rendering walking somewhat hazardous and sliding almost unavoidable.
Colonel and Mrs. Bowdler arrived very early at Merrion Street—in fact,
just in time for luncheon—and by a strange coincidence Major Beamish
and his daughter dropped in almost at the same moment. A walk was
proposed, but abandoned, and the party, broken up into two camps, sat
chatting around the fires in the back and front drawing-rooms.
Everybody is hungry on Christmas day. Everybody thinks of the boiled
turkey, Limerick ham, roast beef, plum-pudding, and mince-pies. Why,
then, should the guests of Mickey Casey prove an exception to the rule?
Fogarty announced the dinner in a voice that savored of a joyous
anticipation. He had had a private and confidential snack with the
cook, but merely enough to make him wish for more.
“That’s me tail end of beef,” exclaimed Tim Rooney, as the huge mound
of golden fatted meat was uncovered, behind which the host sat in a
state of total eclipse—“that’s me tail end, and a lovelier baste never
nipped grass, nor the—”
“Will you carve this turkey, Tim?” interrupted his sister.
“To be sure I will, Mary; but ye must let me do it me own way,”
divesting himself of his coat and proceeding to work with a will.
“O Tim!”
“O uncle!”
“Let him alone,” exclaimed Mrs. Bowdler, whose teeth were watering for
a slice of the breast. “Such a gigantic bird requires to be carved
_sans cérémonie_.”
“When I was quartered at Dum Dum—” began the major.
“See here, now, me ould codger, we’ve had enough of that singsong.”
The major smiled grimly and tossed off a glass of Amontillado.
“You _are_ a character, Rooney,” he said.
Tim acquitted himself admirably, cutting the bird and innumerable jokes
at the same time, many of them of a personal nature, such as allusions
to the gallant major’s wig, which he called a “jasey,” the scragginess
of Mrs. Bowdler, and the rosy tip at the extremity of the colonel’s
nasal appendage. However, as everybody was in good-humor, his _facetiæ_
passed off without exciting ill-feeling, and all went as merry as a
marriage-bell.
The dinner had disappeared, and the company sat tranquilly over the
dessert. Tim, having resigned his post of honor, returned to his chair
beside Miss Beamish, to whom he whispered a good deal, to the intense
amusement of his brother-in-law, who declared that Tim Rooney had been
hit at last.
“There’s many a true word said in jest, Mick,” retorted Tim. Miss
Beamish hung down her head and tried to blush, and, failing in this,
essayed a cough, which proved more successful.
“Oh! Tim is an old bachelor,” cried Mrs. Casey, “and a most determined
one.”
“It’s never too late to mend, Mary.”
“_You’ll_ never mend, Tim.”
“Don’t be too sure of that,” ogling his fair neighbor, who again tried
a cough, which, however, terminated in a hoarse gurgle.
Tim Rooney was possessor of twenty thousand pounds, all in the Bank of
Ireland. His farm was valued at ten thousand, and his stock at five
thousand more. He was Matilda’s godfather, and, as a matter of course,
all these good things would revert to her in time. It was a standing
joke at Merrion Street that Tim should get married without delay.
“Not a bit of it,” he would retort. “I’ll keep looking at them during
the winter, and I’ll take another summer out of myself.”
His joking now on the subject of Miss Beamish was exquisite fun to the
family of Casey, who enjoyed it only as family jokes _can_ be enjoyed.
“You’ll ask me to the wedding, uncle?” said Matilda.
“Sure you’ll be a bridesmaid, Matty.”
“And you’ll have to give me a new dress, a real Parisian one; won’t he,
Miss Beamish?”
Miss Beamish bashfully tittered.
“When is it to be, Tim?” asked Mr. Casey.
“Next Thursday, then,” he grinned.
“That’s mighty quick.”
“Delays is dangerous.”
“Right, Tim,” cried Casey. “If I hadn’t asked your sister on the
Friday, Joe Mulligan, the tailor would have—”
“Papa, _do_ see that Colonel Bowdler takes his wine,” almost shrieked
Matilda.
O agony! he was about informing their patrician guests that his rival
had been a—tailor!
“Well, see here, Mickey, and see here, Mary, and see here, Matty,” said
Mr. Rooney, rising, “I’ll give ye all a toast.”
“Oh! toasts are vulgar; are they not, Colonel Bowdler?” interposed
Matilda.
“Well, ahem! except upon special occasions they are not in vogue,”
replied that gallant warrior.
“Well this _is_ a special occasion, and a _very_ special
occasion”—Hear! hear! from the host—“and wan that calls for particular
mention; an’ it’s health, long life, and happiness to Mrs. Tim Rooney
that is for to be. Ye must all drink it on yer legs.”
Anything to humor Tim, now that the Bowdlers and Beamishes tolerated
him. So with much laughing on the part of the gentlemen, and much
giggling on the part of the ladies, the toast was drunk with all honor.
“And now, Mick, Mary and Matty,” cried Tim, “I may as well let the cat
out of the bag. Me and Miss Tibie is to be married on Thursday.”
Had a bombshell fallen in their midst greater consternation could not
have shown itself upon the countenances of the Casey family.
“Yer not in airnest, Tim,” said Casey, endeavoring to smile a sickly
smile.
“Tim must have his joke,” observed Mrs. Casey, her face as white as a
sheet.
“Uncle is _so_ full of fun,” tittered Matilda, dire apprehension in
every lineament.
“It’s no jest; is it, Tibie?” asked Tim of his _fiancée_.
“No, Timothy, I am proud to say it is not,” responded Miss Beamish,
placing her hand in the arm of her lover.
* * * * *
“And to think I gave that Bowdler a hundred pounds for to lose us forty
thousand,” groaned Casey, as, seated with his weeping wife and
daughter, he grimly surveyed the wedding-cards of Mr. and Mrs. T.
Rooney. “This comes of yer infernal tomfoolery wantin’ to get into
society that wouldn’t touch ye with a forty-foot pole. Serve ye right.”
“Serve us right indeed!” echoed the two ladies.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CATHOLIC “CIRCLES” FOR WORKING-MEN IN FRANCE.
Immediately after the German invasion and the Paris Commune there
existed already at Paris a Catholic “Circle” of working-men, distinct,
if not in appearance, yet in reality, from the associations of young
apprentices called by this name, or under the more appropriate one of
_Patronages_. It was, in fact, a working-men’s association—a little
Christian republic; self-governing, by means of a council chosen from
among its own number, the members of which council were considered as
irremovable. On its festivals the whole association assembled in the
chapel belonging to the circle; there its elected functionaries were
received into office at the foot of the altar, there they made frequent
communions, and thence, in accordance with the customs of the ancient
confraternities of craftsmen, they bore in procession the banners of
their patron saints. There were formed earnest men, accustomed to hear
the language of duty, and ready to make the sacrifices it demands, as
those of their number who died in the war had testified, as well as the
many more who did not cease to incur, with patience and steadfastness,
the persecutions of their scoffing companions in the ateliers.
This association was the work of a religious of the Institute of St.
Vincent de Paul—M. Maignen, Director of the Circle of Montparnasse. The
subscriptions of the circle, however, which had previously sufficed for
its support, were unequal to the burden incurred by its installation,
and the external subscriptions which had hitherto aided it had become
few in number and small in amount.
M. Maignen then resolved to assemble in council, on the evening of
Christmas day, a group of capitalists, among whom were three deputies,
three well-known writers, and three military officers, scarcely known
to each other except by name; but they were all good and earnest
Catholics, and had, moreover, suffered and fought for their country.
After uniting in prayer they resolved to seek, in the definitions of
the church in regard to her relations to civil society, the germ of the
sole social force capable of saving France from the consequences of her
errors; and this force, they decided, should be constituted in the form
of Catholic Circles for Working-men, similar to the one in which they
were met together.
They began, in the first place, by addressing to the Holy Father the
expression of their resolution, to which he granted his benediction. In
the next they sent, by thousands of copies, an energetic appeal to all
“men of good-will.” “The revolution,” they said, “has descended from
the brains of (so-called) philosophers into the minds of the people.
Are we to leave our misguided working-men to perdition—a perdition in
which they will also involve their country—or, by drawing a
supernatural strength from the heart of Jesus—himself a
working-man—shall we not oppose the associations of men who love
darkness rather than light by the Catholic Association, and meet the
lessons of materialism by those of the Gospel, and a cold
cosmopolitanism by the love of our country?”
Then the little group of men who signed the engagement further united
themselves by a religious bond—the daily recital of a prayer, and an
annual communion for the intentions of the work, the duties of which
the members distributed among themselves according to their respective
facilities.
Each section set to work under the direction of a chief: the first for
the general promulgation of the work, the second for its foundations,
the third for the creation of resources, and the fourth for the popular
diffusion of its teaching. The sections worked independently of each
other, but met in committee when there was any need for arranging or
deciding as to any general plan of action. For the purpose of directing
and controlling the action of the fourth section the committee also
appointed a council under the name of _Jésus-Ouvrier_. Thus the work
was constituted in its first _committee_—that is to say, the first
association of the directing class—on the principle of its first
“circle,” the Catholic declaration and the division of
responsibilities, and, lastly, as a sign and pledge of the union of the
active members of the work, the religious bond.
The association thus organized bore marvellous fruit, and in a few
months the committee found itself able to relieve the Cercle
Montparnasse by creating two similar ones in the quarters (of evil
notoriety) of Belleville and Montmartre, which were chosen with the
intention of a public expiation, and to furnish each of the circles
with a council of its quarter.
This was the golden age of the work, which was, as it were, crowned by
the high testimony it received at the Congress of Directors of the
Catholic Working-men’s Associations assembled at Poitiers under the
auspices of Mgr. Pie. It obtained also an exceptional _éclat_ from the
remarkable eloquence of one of its initiators at the Cercle
Montparnasse—the intrepid Count Albert de Mun—as well as from the fact
of there being several other military officers among them. The work
appeared to be marked with a providential character, having at its
outset the stamp of trial, followed by that of rapid expansion, and
possessing another in the saintly character of its first founder; for,
although God may be pleased to employ unworthy instruments to promote
his merciful designs, it will always be found that, in the first
instance, they have been deposited, as in a chalice, in a holy and
devoted soul.
The impetus was given. The large towns of France answered the appeal by
requesting the initiators to form, within them, committees like the
Directing Committee at Paris. The principles of the constitution never
varied; _i.e._, Catholic affirmation by the acceptance of the religious
bond, and the general bases of the work, division of labor among the
members of the local association, and periodic communication with the
secretariate general.
This in a short time was carried out at Lyons, Bordeaux, Marseilles,
Lille, and many other places of importance, numerous smaller towns, and
even villages, asking for the same institution. And everywhere it bore
fruit, the formation of a committee being in every instance followed by
the opening of a circle.
At the same time the Council of _Jésus-Ouvrier_, and, following its
example, the committees of the large towns, opened public conferences
in popular quarters, where the people were addressed in frank and
energetic language, inspired by the intimate union of religious and
social faith, and the doctrines of liberalism boldly denounced, which
substitute for the precepts “Love one another” and “Bear ye one
another’s burdens” that of “To each according to his work”—a maxim good
enough in itself, but which the employer translates into “Each one for
himself,” and the employed into “My turn next for enjoyment.” These
declarations, repeated simultaneously in all parts of France, gave the
work a remarkable unity of spirit, which was amply manifested at the
first general assembly of its members, held in the spring of 1873.
Difficulties, however, arose in proportion to the progress made. Few
adherents were obtained from among the manufacturing chiefs, on whom
depends the whole economy of the working-classes; while the committees,
formed of men little accustomed to study the laws of labor, did not
well observe its divisions, and thus dwindled away. That of Paris, to
which had been allotted the most complete autonomy, and which was more
especially devoted to the general propagation of the work, gave way
beneath its accumulated burden.
“We then” (to quote the words of one of the members in his address to
the Congress at Rheims)—“We then turned our eyes with confidence to her
who is the help of Christians, our ever Blessed Lady, resolving to go
all together and invoke her aid in one of the sanctuaries of France
where she has most anciently manifested her power, and where formerly
the kingdom was dedicated to her by a solemn vow—Notre Dame de Liesse.
The funds of the Paris committee were already exhausted and the year
only half over. We collected ten thousand francs, and unhesitatingly
devoted them to defray the expenses of this distant pilgrimage.
“The committees of the north were invited to join it at the head of the
circles they had formed, and on the 17th of August, 1873, twenty-five
hundred pilgrims arrived from their respective towns to form one
procession to Notre Dame de Liesse. Half of the number, in spite of the
fatigues of the way, there received Holy Communion, and we returned
with renewed strength and confidence to our posts.”
We will not here give a detailed account of the toils and progress of
the year which succeeded the pilgrimage. A brief of the Holy Father
confirmed the constitution of the work by the grant of duly specified
indulgences attached to it; it also received the canonical protection
of a cardinal of the church.
These favors brought a timely encouragement to the promoters of the
work; for with its progress its trials also increased. Among the most
painful were those of seeing it misunderstood by many persons who might
have been expected to prove its warmest advocates. Some of these lost
sight of its social character, and preferred to seek the good of a few
individual souls instead of helping forward a Christian restoration of
society; while others, again, mistook the part to be taken in the
committees by the upper classes. “Of what use,” they asked, “is a
committee, unless to provide resources for an ecclesiastical director?”
This is a question which has been frequently asked. But it must be
borne in mind that if the circle establishes among its members social
_fraternity_, the director could not himself alone represent its
_paternity_. To do this would be to deter other Christians of the upper
classes from the unmistakable command they have received to exercise
this social paternity which they have from God in the very advantages
of their social condition.
For why are riches and honors bestowed upon the few—why the benefits of
education, of leisure, of cultivation of the mind—unless it be that
they are to be consecrated to the moral guidance and material
assistance of the classes who are deprived of such advantages? In
regard to this social paternity, as in regard to that which creates the
family, the priest must be the consecrator: but, in his turn, the
father who would abandon to the priest the charges and responsibilities
of the dignity which, by divine right, is his own, would only disappear
from among his fellow-men to be confounded before the Eternal Father—he
and the two complaisant accomplices of his culpable abdication.
After establishing social fraternity by the _circles_, and social
paternity by the committees, it remained to restore the social
_family_—that is, to associate Christian families in the benefits of
the work, after having associated in it the _heads_ of families of
various conditions.
The family is, in fact, the first association by natural right, and
therefore every constitution which embraces it and does not take it for
its foundation is vitiated and sterile. The founders of the work knew
this, and were, moreover, not allowed to forget it by the daily
reproaches they received—“You are destroying the family; you are
destroying the parish!”—and what not. But how to reach the family so as
to be of service to it instead of injurious was not for some time made
clear. The Circle of Montparnasse, the prototype of the rest, had
avoided rather than faced the difficulty by disposing of its active
functions in favor only of its unmarried members. But this was plainly
not the solution.
The solution had, however, been discovered, at no great distance from
Rheims, in the great manufacturing region which has for the motive
power of its machines the waters of the Suippe, for its boundary the
extensive woods which form an oasis of verdure in the burning plains of
Champagne, and for its population factory-men, who wander, at the
bidding of the industrial fluctuations of the time, to and from the
looms of the north, of Rheims, or of St. Quentin—a population
exceptionally indigent, since the struggle between capital and wages,
inaugurated by liberalism, has become the normal condition of the
producer and the consumer.
In the hamlet of Val-des-Bois, in the centre of this district, an
industrial family settled about half a century ago, and brought with it
the example of every Christian virtue. Kind towards their workmen,
generous even beyond their gains, Messieurs Harmel assembled around
their vast establishment all the religious and philanthropic
institutions by means of which it has hitherto been attempted to
re-establish harmony in the world of labor.
As is but too frequently the case, they failed in this attempt
completely. But they were not daunted, nor did they rest satisfied with
their past endeavors; for, if they loved the working-men, they loved
their Lord still more, and desired as earnestly as ever that he should
reign in the hearts of those in their employ.
Not many years ago it occurred to one of them to introduce among the
population of their factories—which did not count a single practising
Christian—the principle of the Catholic Association. He determined to
ask four men to join together to form the nucleus of a circle, and
three young girls to be received as _Enfants de Marie_ and wear the
badge. In proportion as the associations developed themselves he
multiplied them according to the sex, age, and condition of each
individual; and this with such success that at the present time the
twelve hundred souls who people Val-des-Bois are united in a marvellous
aggregation of pious confraternities, among whose members are made, in
the course of a year, more than ten thousand communions, in the
intention of making reparation to our Lord for the outrages he receives
in the modern factory.
Then, also, as earthly goods are often increased abundantly to those
who seek first the kingdom of God, the principle of Catholic
Association applied to the families of the Factory of the Sacred Heart
(l’Usine du Sacrè-Cœur)—for it bears this name—has realized there
innumerable economical benefits, a fact which will not surprise those
who know the power of this principle. Assistance of every kind,
clothing, food, and fuel at very reasonable prices, schools free of
expense to the parents, and occasional holidays for recreation, have
brought with them, together with economy, the comfort also and
prosperity of the families. All these institutions, economic,
charitable, and religious, are governed by those personally interested.
The _circle_, which brings together the fathers of families, is, as it
were, the centre of this machinery; and the master, who is its motive
power, associates with himself not only all the members of his own
family and the chaplain of the factory, but also his principal
employés, to fulfil the paternal function of a protecting and directing
committee, and so to secure to the association the chances of
continuance as well as the fruits of example. To this end delegates are
annually appointed, who, under the presidency of the master, are the
guardians of the corporation.
We will give the result of all these well-considered combinations in M.
Harmel’s own words:[113]
“By the persevering endeavors of many years we have attained the end at
which we aimed. Families are reconstituted, peace and love have taken
the place of quarrels and disorder around the domestic hearth; the
mother rejoices at the change wrought in her husband and children; the
father finds in a new life the courage and happiness of labor; his home
is delightful to him from the respect of his children, the ready
cheerfulness of his wife, and the love of all. Economy has put an end
to debts and created savings; the anniversary festivals of the family
bring back that affectionate gayety and warmth which give repose amid
the fatigues of life, and inspire fresh ardor to go bravely on the way.
When we are in the midst of these good and honest faces transformed by
Christian influences, we read there confidence and love, and thank the
good God who has made the large family of Val-des-Bois.” Such are the
experiences there obtained, as if to complete those of the Cercle
Montparnasse.
Alone among the many excellent men who, after the war and Commune,
arose to attempt some means of healing the internal wounds of France,
the members of the _Œuvre Ouvrière_ took a solemn engagement, the terms
of which were marked out with precision. Each member affixes his
signature to an individual and public act of devoted adhesion to the
doctrines defined by the _Syllabus of the Errors of Modern Society_.
Preserved, therefore, from the liberalism which in reality puts
oppression into the hands of the strongest, and the socialism which
demands it for the masses, they will pursue more efficaciously than
either of these the vindication of the popular interests, such as the
due observance of the Sunday and the protection of the family and home,
and, guided by grace and supported by prayer, will find Christian
solutions for all the social questions of labor.
The work of the Catholic circles has set on foot a periodical for the
study and discussion of these questions—namely, the review which
borrows its title from one of the principles of the work:
_L’Association Catholique_. It is open to all questions, but not to all
doctrines, for a work which, at the head of its statutes, invokes the
definitions of the Catholic Church cannot admit the errors which she
has condemned. It numbers among its contributors some of the best
social economists and solid Christian writers of the time, and thus
provides weapons of proof to the polemics of the Catholic press,
besides furthering the great social effort made by the association,
which now reckons three hundred circles in all parts of France.
In conclusion, we would mention that it must be borne in mind that the
important part in this good work is not the exclusive institution of
circles, this being only the first and one of the different forms under
which the principle is brought to act. That principle is the direction
and protection of the working-classes by the higher and more educated,
and the association of the interests of both, as opposed to the
lamentable antagonism of the same different classes which is, in our
times, the great difficulty of social government and the source of
increasing disorder and conflict. These associations are intended to
react, by every possible means, against the erroneous social theories
so numerous and so impotent for good, and to bring into practice the
only true and effectual social law—namely, conformity to the social
duties of Catholics. Our religion has remedies for all evils; its
practice is supreme political and social wisdom, and in the alarming
state of society among the working-classes there cannot be, nor ever
will be, found any other course to be adopted than to return to the
rules of Christian life. It is evident, then, how wide a field is
opened by such a desire breaking forth in the hearts and minds of
fervent Christians such as M. de Mun and his friends, and it would be
impossible to show in few words all that it has produced and is
producing by the grace of God; and although this work of charity has
originated in France, and at present exists only in France, it may, it
is to be hoped, give rise to similar laudable efforts in all countries,
where also, among their associations of Catholic circles for the
working-classes, shall, as in this country, be raised the _labarum_ of
Constantine and its sacred motto: “In hoc signo vinces.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE RIVER’S VOICE.
I.
Through the long hours the day’s strong life had flowed
In sunshine, working good deeds silently,
In clouds whose shadows set new harmony
Among the hills—God’s justice’ old abode.
Through mountain hollows had the wind swept down,
Turning green leaves to silver in the sun,
Winning the meadows in broad waves to run
Where still unlevelled shone their grassy crown.
The troubled river had no vision borne
Of gleaming hill and tree-o’ershadowed shore;
The birches, bending their lost mirror o’er,
Met but the driven waves’ unwilling scorn;
Yet heaven’s blue the broken waters bore,
The breeze but strengthened as it hurried o’er.
II.
Lightening their labor with a careless song,
Birds o’er the meadow swept with busy wing,
Flashed in and out the forests’ sheltering,
While clamorous council held the crickets’ throng.
Swift fell the grass beneath the mower’s stroke
To win its perfect ripeness ‘ere day’s end,
When should, the harvest bearing, meekly bend
The mild-eyed oxen ‘neath the unwieldy yoke.
Broken with sound was even the noonday rest—
Shrill-piping locust called imperiously,
Impetuous bee proclaimed its industry,
And blue-mailed flies pursued an endless quest;
Only from throbbing river rose no song
Blending its music with life’s murmuring throng.
III.
Day closed, and busy life lay down to rest.
A shade that moved not held in cold embrace
The yielding meadows and the hills’ calm face,
About whose silence burned the cloudless west.
No leafy murmur rose from darkening wood,
Hushed the pure gladness of the robins’ trill;
Called from low covert some lone whip-poor-will
Only to heighten eve’s still solitude.
The wind asleep, the quiet waters bore
Vision of sky and mountains’ deepening shade,
And touch of bending birches, softly laid,
As the still stream gave back their glance once more.
Clear, through the silence, drifted rippling tones—
The patient river singing to the stones.
IV.
So, through the day, had flowed the river’s song,
So borne the stream its burden of strong life
Spite of its troubled waters’ windy strife—
Heaven in its breast—and, as it sped along,
Bearing its loyal service to the sea,
Praising the stones that gave it voice to sing,
With constant sweetness, whose soft murmuring,
Unwearying ever in its melody,
Was hidden in life’s song that filled the day
With chords confused of labor manifold.
Only with evening’s peaceful skies of gold
Came the lost music of the river’s lay—
Like some brave life whose sweetness but is known
When holy silence doth world-sounds dethrone.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAPAL ELECTIONS.
I.
The succession of the Roman pontiffs rests on the word of God; other
lines of princes may fail, their line shall last until the end of the
world. Still, although there will ever be a series of legitimate
successors in the Papacy, the manner of succession has varied, being
left to human prudence, which accommodates itself to times and places,
yet ever under an overruling Providence that directs to its own ends no
less the vices than the virtues of men.
The election of a pope is the most important event that takes place in
the world. It affects immediately several hundred millions of Catholics
in their dearest hopes of religion, and it touches indirectly the
interests of all other people on the earth besides. In the pope the
world receives a vicar of Christ, a successor of St. Peter, and an
infallible judge in matters of faith and morals. The Papacy was always
conferred regularly by way of election—from the chief of the apostles,
chosen by our Lord himself, to Pius IX., now reigning, who was selected
by the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church on the 17th of June, 1846.
Between these there have been two hundred and sixty popes, if we follow
the number given by the _Gerarchia Cattolica_, which is published
annually at Rome.
On the 25th of July, 1876, our Holy Father, in a discourse to the
students of the several colleges in Rome subject to the Propaganda,
took occasion to speak quite earnestly of attempts that were being made
in Italy to unsettle the minds of Catholics on papal elections by
teaching that they were originally _popular_ ones, and that the natural
right of the laity in them (which, it was asserted, had been exercised
without question for twelve hundred years) was arbitrarily and
unlawfully taken away by Pope Alexander III. The errors of this new
schismatical party may be reduced to two points—viz., that the share
which the people were once usually allowed to take in the election of
sacred ministers was a right and not a privilege accorded by the
visible head of the church to ages of faith and fervor; and that
Alexander III. deprived the Romans of this right in the election of
their chief pastor.
Let us state, in the first place, that it is heretical to maintain that
the laity have a strict—_i.e._, inherent or divine—right to elect their
pastors, and historically false to assert that such a right was ever
allowed by the rulers of the church or was ever exercised by the
Christian people. The authorities to confirm our statement are so
numerous as to cause almost an _embarras de richesses_. Besides the
great collections which are the common sources of ecclesiastical
erudition—the Fathers, the councils, annals, papal bulls; the
Bollandists, and particularly, as regards papal elections, the
_Propylæum ad septem tomos Maji_; the works of Thomassin, Gretser,
Bellarmine, and others—we may cite here Selvaggio’s _Antiquitatum
Christianarum Institutiones_, lib. i. par. i. cap. xxi.; Mamacchi’s
_Origines et Antiquitates Christianæ_, tom. iv. lib. iv.; and
Colenzio’s _Dissertationi intorno varie Controversie di Storia ed
Archeologia Ecclesiastica_, diss. vi. _Del preteso dritto del popolo
cristiano nell’ clezione dei Sacri Ministri_.
The earliest manner of electing the popes was by the votes of the Roman
clergy cast in the presence of the faithful, who assisted as witnesses
to the godliness of the subject proposed, and to testify that besides
his personal merits he was an acceptable person on account, perhaps, of
his birth, his nationality, his appearance, or of some other
adventitious circumstance which enhanced his popularity with the great
body of the people, and would cause him, also, to be looked upon with
less disfavor _by them who are without_.[114] Although these elections
belonged to the clergy and laity of the Roman Church—or we should say,
rather, to the higher clergy and the representatives of the laity—the
relative rights or parts of each class of electors were not apparently
determined by express enactment, but upon grounds of common sense and
equity; such, for instance, as that _Episcopus deligatur, plebe
præsente, quæ singulorum vitam plenissime norit, et uniuscujusque actum
de ejus conversatione prospexit_,[115] or that _Nullus invitis detur
episcopus_.[116] Bellarmine,[117] Sixtus Senensis,[118] Petrus de
Marca,[119] and Thomassin[120] prove that the people’s part in such
elections was more perfunctory than real, since testimony of a man’s
good repute could be otherwise obtained, and that even an expression of
preference was not always heeded; as we learn from the same Pope
Celestine, who wrote to the bishops of Apulia and Calabria: _Docendus
est populus, non sequendus; nosque si nesciunt, eosquid liceat quidve
non liceat, commonere non his consensum præbere debemus._[121] The
Roman people, then, did not and could not have, except by usurpation
and abuse, a decisive voice in the election of the pope; for such an
act is by God’s ordinance placed beyond the jurisdiction of the laity.
After the martyrdom of St. Fabian, in January, A.D. 250, the Holy See
remained vacant for a year and a half, until in the month of June, 251,
Cornelius was raised to that post of perilous dignity under a tyrant
like Decius, who had declared that he would sooner see a new pretender
to the empire than another bishop of Rome. This election, although made
almost unanimously by all orders, gave rise to the first schism,
because Novatian, who headed the rigorous party in the affair of the
_Lapsi_, was consecrated bishop and set himself up as anti-pope. We
have an invaluable testimony to the election of St. Cornelius from the
pen of St. Cyprian: _Factus est autem Cornelius episcopus de Dei et
Christi ejus judicio, de clericorum pæne omnium testimonio, de plebis,
quæ tunc adfuit, suffragio et de sacerdotum antiquorum et bonorum
virorum collegio, cum nemo ante se factus esset, cum Fabiani locus id
est cum locus Petri et gradus cathedræ sacerdotalis vacaret._[122] From
this passage of the great Bishop of Carthage we can obtain, says
Baronius,[123] a tolerably good idea of a papal election in the early
ages. Prayers were first offered up to God to obtain his assistance in
making a choice; the desire of the faithful, or rather of their
representatives, and such testimony to the worth of the subjects
proposed as they were prepared to give was heard; the wish of the Roman
clergy, and their willing assent to the proceedings, were inquired into
and sought; and after maturely weighing the for and against, the
bishops of the vicinity, with any others in communion with the Holy See
who happened to be in Rome at the time, went into executive session and
gave the decisive votes—_in commitiis suffragia ferebant_. With regard
to those among the laity who took part in these elections, we must
observe that in the beginning, as long as the majority of Christians
was composed of persons who had embraced the faith from pure and
unworldly motives, whose aim was to behold the church prosperous and
glorious, and whose charity, being yet warm, sought not their own end
_but that which is another’s_,[124] the whole body of Christians who
had reached mature years and belonged to that sex which alone had a
voice in the church[125] gave their testimony and assent in favor of
that one whom it was proposed to elect;[126] but the evils of anything
like a popular election in a great city were so manifest[127] that
attempts were soon made to leave the choice of such on the part both of
clergy and laity—but earlier in the case of the latter order—to a
select body or committee, a general suffrage being gradually superseded
by the votes of approval given by the rich only and the high in
station.
We find, perhaps, a germ of this even in the earliest times.[128] The
Council of Laodicea (A.D. 365) clearly desired that the choice should
be made by some definitely-organized body, and not by a mere
mass-meeting; St. Leo and the Roman council of A.D. 442, and again the
former in Epist. lxxxix.cvi., expressly mention the “_Honorati_,” the
magnates at such elections.[129] The influence of the principal
personages in a city was not to be ignored through the clamor of those
who too often formed only a mob.[130] A letter of Pope Cornelius to
Fabius, Bishop of Antioch, has fortunately been preserved by
Eusebius,[131] which gives us the exact number of the Roman clergy of
every grade, and a clue[132] to what may have been the Christian
population of Rome, in the middle of the third century. According to
these precious statistics, there were then belonging to the Roman
clergy 46 priests, 7 deacons, 7 subdeacons, 42 acolytes, 52 exorcists,
readers, and _ostiarii_. Fifteen hundred widows and orphans were
provided for by the church, whose children composed an immense
population in the capital of the empire. Hence we may rest assured that
deliberations for the election of the Roman pontiff could not have been
open to all of either clergy or laity, but must necessarily, in the
interests of good order, and by reason of the small size of places of
public meetings then possessed by the Christians, have been confined to
a select number.
The ancient records of the Roman Church reaching back to the beginning
of the early middle ages, which have been published by Mabillon and
Galletti, show us its clergy divided into three distinct classes—viz.,
priests, dignitaries, and inferior ministers. The priests were the
seven cardinal suburbican bishops and the twenty-eight
cardinal-priests; the dignitaries were the archdeacon and the seven
palatine judges (prothonotaries-apostolic); the inferior ministers were
the subdeacons, acolytes, and notaries without office at court. The
laity was likewise divided into three classes—viz., citizens, soldiers,
and commoners; _i.e._, the nobility, the army, and the Third
Estate.[133]
After the death of Pope Zozimus, on the 26th of December, 418, a
majority of the clergy and people elected the cardinal-priest Boniface
to succeed him. A serious dispute immediately arose. Eulalius, the
archdeacon, who, as such, had been practically the most important
personage of the Holy See after the pontiff himself, and felt indignant
at having been passed over in the election, held possession of the
Lateran Palace, where he was chosen pope by a few of the clergy, to
whose faction, however, _all_ the deacons and three bishops
belonged.[134] The fear of future contests suggested to Pope Boniface
I., who is described by Anastasius as unambitious, of mild character;
and devoted to good works, to obtain from the Emperor Honorius, in the
year 420, a rescript by which it was decreed that, in the contingency
of a double election, neither rival should be pope, but that the clergy
and people should proceed to another choice. The decree was almost
textually inserted in the canon law.[135] This difference between St.
Boniface and Eulalius, or rather the latter’s schism, gave occasion to
the first interference of the secular arm in the election of the Roman
pontiffs. St. Hilary, who was elected in the year 461, convened a
council of forty-eight bishops at Rome, and, among other provisions for
filling worthily the Holy See, declared that _no pope should ever
appoint his own successor_. Despite this recent enactment, Boniface
II.—in whose favor, however, it must be said that he sought to
preclude, as even a greater evil than a passing violation of the
canons, the threatened interference of the Gothic king, who wanted to
put a partisan on the papal throne—called a council at St. Peter’s in
the year 531, and there designated the celebrated deacon Vigilius as
his coadjutor with future succession. Subsequently, repenting his
action, he called another council, and with his own hand burned the
paper appointing him.[136]
Although the actual naming of his successor by the pope has never been
tolerated, there have been several, and some very opportune, cases in
which a pope on the point of death has recommended a particular person,
more or less efficaciously, to the body of electors as one well fitted
to succeed to the vacant throne. This was done by St. Gregory VII., who
proposed three candidates to the cardinals—namely, Desiderius,
Cardinal-Abbot of Monte Casino; Otho, Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia; and
Hugh, Archbishop of Lyons—and particularly recommended the election of
the first as the only one of the three who was in Italy at the time.
Desiderius became Pope Victor III. Other similar, but not always
equally successful, recommendations were made by popes of that era. In
order finally to put the strongest official check upon the election of
his own successor by a pope, Pius IV., after exposing in consistory his
age and infirmities, reminded the cardinals that he was well aware how
under his predecessor, Paul IV., the question was mooted whether this
could be done, and that some theologians and cardinals held to the
affirmative,[137] but that he would pronounce in the negative, and
intended to issue a bull—as in fact he did, on the 22d of September,
1561[138]—declaring that no pope could do so, even with the consent of
the Sacred College. His immediate predecessor had reaffirmed in 1558 an
ordinance increasing the penalties of its violation, which had
originally been passed over a thousand years before by Pope Symmachus
in a council of seventy-two bishops convened at Rome in the year 499,
forbidding, under pain of excommunication and loss of all dignities, to
treat of a successor during the lifetime of the reigning pontiff.[139]
From this we learn how some of the best and greatest popes have tried
to frame such wise provisions as might assure an untainted election to
the Papacy; yet they could not succeed in every case, because even the
most stringent laws must be well executed to be effective, and must
find docile subjects to obey them. The Romans do certainly appear to
have been a stiff-necked people during many generations; and while we
think it ungenerous continually to throw in their teeth the wretched
opinion St. Bernard must have had of them, as we see by his treatise
_De Consideratione_, addressed to Pope Eugene III., and hardly fair in
the annalist Muratori to transfer so much of the blame for factious
elections from the German emperors to the Roman populace, the least
that even their best friend can honestly say is _that they might have
done better_.[140]
The election of the pope, says Cardinal Borgia,[141] was perfectly free
during the first four centuries, being made by the clergy in presence
of the people; but in process of time, as the papal dignity increased
in wealth and splendor of temporal authority, it often became an object
of human ambition, of which secular rulers were not slow to avail
themselves, that by iniquitous bargains and preconcerted plans they
might bind, if possible, the priesthood to the empire, and derive the
immense advantage of the spiritual power administered by a subject or a
dependant. The first instance of direct interference by the state in a
papal election—for the decision in the case of Boniface and the
anti-pope was an arbitration invited by the church—appears towards the
close of the fifth century. Odoacer, a Gothic chief of the tribe of the
Heruli, having deposed Romulus Augustulus, in whom the Western Empire
came to an end, was proclaimed King of Italy, rejecting the imperial
style of Cæsar and Augustus for a title which he expressly created for
himself. It would seem—although even this is not beyond dispute—that
Pope Simplicius had requested Odoacer, in whom the powers of the state
were now vested, to stand ready, in the common interests of order and
good government, to repress the civil commotions which he foresaw were
likely to arise after his death on the election of a successor. However
this may be, the king went beyond a merely repressive measure, and,
pretending that Simplicius had commissioned him to do so, published an
edict on the pope’s death in 483, forbidding the clergy and people of
Rome to elect a successor without his intervention or that of his
lieutenant, the prefect of the prætorium. When, therefore, the elective
assembly met in St. Peter’s to fill the vacant see, Basil the patrician
came forward and claimed in his master’s name, and by virtue of the
dying wish and even command of Simplicius, the right of regulating its
acts and of confirming the election it might make. This pretension was
firmly repelled, and, disregarding the tyrant, Felix III. was elected
on March 8, 483. Baronius is of opinion that Simplicius never addressed
such a requisition to the king, but that the story of his having done
so was fabricated a few years later by the party of Lawrence, the
anti-pope. The document purporting to emanate from Simplicius was
rejected by a Roman council in 502 without further investigating its
genuineness, than by exposing that it lacked the pope’s signature, and
was in any case opposed to the sacred canons and _ipso facto_ null and
void.[142] On November 22, 498, St. Symmachus was elected pope, but a
minority set up a certain Lawrence, and both were consecrated on the
same day. Civil strife was imminent, and, although the most regular
mode of action would have been to call a council of the provincial
bishops, delay was too dangerous, and the prompt interference of
Theodoric was asked and submitted to.
Although this monarch was an Arian, he had protected the Catholics on
many occasions, and had for prime minister the celebrated Cassiodorus,
whose virtues, justice, and wisdom were renowned throughout Italy. Such
considerations as these must have led the Roman clergy to submit a
purely ecclesiastical matter to the court of Ravenna. On the advice of
his minister the king decided that the one who had been first elected
and had received the greatest number of votes should be recognized as
the legitimate pope. Both conditions were verified in Symmachus. His
first pontifical act was to summon a council in the basilica of St.
Peter on March 1, 499, to regulate more effectively the mode of future
elections. Seventy-two bishops, sixty-seven priests, and five deacons
composed the council. Three canons were drawn up relative to this
matter. By the first it was ordained that if any clergyman be convicted
of having given or promised his suffrage for the pontificate to any
aspirant during the pope’s lifetime he shall be deposed from his
office; by the second it was provided that if the pope die suddenly,
and a unanimous election cannot be reached, the candidate receiving a
majority of the votes shall be declared elected; by the third immunity
from prosecution was promised to accomplices who should reveal the
intrigues of their principals to obtain an unfair election.[143]
Theodoric the Goth, having once been appealed to, now thought to take
the initiative in the election of a successor to John I., whom he had
left to die of starvation and neglect on his return from
Constantinople, where he had spoken rather according to his conscience
than in favor of the Arians, as the king expected. On his
recommendation St. Felix IV. was elected pope on the 12th of July, 526.
The Roman clergy and senate protested against this stretch of royal
authority, although they had no objection to the nominee, who was
simple, mild, and charitable. The affair was not adjusted until a
compromise was effected under Athalaric, whereby the Roman clergy by
their votes, and the Roman people by their assent, were to elect the
Roman pontiff, who would then be confirmed by the king as a matter of
course. The popes were elected in this way until the extinction of the
Gothic kingdom of Italy in the person of Teias, who was defeated and
killed by Narses, general of Justinian, in the year 553. The Greek
emperor, having recovered his sway in Italy, continued the abuse, to
which the Romans had submitted only through fear of the barbarians, and
arrogated to himself and successors the right of confirming the
election of the pope. Hence, as Baronius remarks, arose the prudent
custom at Rome of electing to the Papacy those members of the clergy
who had been _Apocrisiarii_—_i.e._, agents or _nuncios_ of the Holy See
at Constantinople, where it was presumed they had won the favor of the
court and become versed in matters of state. Thus the right of
confirmation was reduced in practice to a mere formality, although in
principle ever so wrong. In this way were elected Vigilius in 550, St.
Gregory I. in 590, Sabinian in 604, Boniface III. in 607, and others
who were personally known to the Byzantine rulers.
Avarice, or a love of money under some pretext or another, was a
besetting sin of the Greeks, and from it arose a new and more degrading
condition imposed on papal elections. The imperial sanction was given
only on payment by the Holy See of a tax of 3,000 golden _solidi_, a
sum equal to thirteen thousand dollars of our money.[144] The Emperor
Constantine Pogonatus, at the request of the papal legates to the
Fourth General Council of Constantinople in 681, exempted the Holy See
from the further payment of the tax. He was moved to do so by the
sanctity of St. Agatho; but he still retained the assumed right of
forbidding the pope’s consecration until his election had been
confirmed. A few years later, however, he granted a constitution to
Benedict II., his personal friend, and to whose guardianship he left
his two sons, Justinian (II.) and Heraclius, in which he for ever
abrogated this arbitrary law. The concession was ungratefully revoked
by Justinian; and Conon, who was elected on October 21, 686, was
obliged to ask the consent of the exarch of Ravenna, viceroy of the
emperor, to his consecration. This necessity generally occasioned a
delay of from six weeks to two months. The exarchs of Ravenna, having
command of the troops and the key to the imperial treasury in the west,
felt themselves in a position to abuse authority and try to set up
creatures of their own in Rome. Often did the Roman clergy and many
popes protest against their irregular acts. The choice of Pelagius II.,
in 578, was not submitted to the customary ratification, because the
Lombards around Rome had cut off all communication with the outer
world.
The historian Novaes says that although the Holy See resisted the
interference of secular princes, yet the turbulent spirit of the
Romans, often stirred up by unscrupulous ministers or by the sovereigns
themselves, obliged the popes to have recourse to these same princes to
maintain order at their consecration. Nothing, we think, better
confirms the necessity of a temporal dominion whereby the popes can
exclude the exercise of foreign influence in Rome, and themselves
vindicate the character of good government for which they are
responsible. Papal elections were of an absolutely peaceful nature only
after Goths, Lombards, Greeks, and Germans ceased to support an armed
force in Rome or its vicinity. Guarantees are deceitful; and a mere
personal sovereignty of the pope without a territory attached would be
insufficient to assure the independence of the Holy See.
A very remarkable law found its way into Gratian’s decree, under the
name of Pope Stephen, by which it is ordained that the newly-elected
pontiff shall be consecrated in presence of the imperial
ambassadors.[145] The learned are divided in their opinion about which
pope passed this law. Baronius, Papebroch, Natalis Alexander, and
others attribute it to Stephen IV., elected in 816; Pagi inclines to
Stephen VI., _alias_ VII.; Mansi to Deusdedit, elected in 615; while
some think that it belongs to John IX., because it is found among the
acts of a council held by him in 898. Novaes suggests that this council
may only have given a more solemn sanction to an older law. When Eugene
II. was elected on the 5th of June, 824, he concerted with Lothair, son
of the Emperor Louis, who had named him King of Italy and his colleague
in the empire, to put a stop to cabals and disorders among the Roman
people. He issued a decree enjoining upon the Roman clergy to swear
fealty to the Frankish emperors, but with this significant reservation:
“saving the faith that I have pledged to the successor of St.
Peter”—_Salva fide quam repromisi Domino Apostolico_[146]—and not to
consent to an uncanonical or factious election of a pope. The same pope
also voluntarily offered to bind the Roman pontiffs to be consecrated
in the presence of the so-called _Rex Romanorum_, if he were in the
city, otherwise of his envoy.[147] Pagi thinks that this was done to
propitiate in advance these growing monarchs of the north, and distract
them from the idea of continuing the policy of the Eastern emperors,
who, as we have seen, would not allow the popes to proceed to
consecration until their election had been confirmed. Eugene’s act
seems to us to have been a subtle stroke of diplomacy. While it
flattered, by conveying the impression that the presence of Cæsar (as
he was pompously called) or of his legates gave splendor and
magnificence to the ceremony of consecration, it disarmed the emperor
by implying the right of the popes to be consecrated at their own
convenience; for if his meaning had been that the presence of the king
or of his ambassadors were a necessary condition to the legality of the
act, he would have deliberately placed himself and successors in the
same relation to these new rulers that his predecessors had been
obliged, though under protest, to assume toward the emperors of the
East—which is manifestly absurd.
Nevertheless, both the Frank and Saxon emperors frequently claimed the
right to something more than a mere honorary part in papal elections,
which led to long years of party strife and discord between church and
state. Leo IV., in 847, confirmed the decree of Eugene, although, on
account of the Saracens around Rome, he was consecrated without waiting
for the imperial ambassadors; and the same was the case, but without
any ostensible reason, with Stephen V., _alias_ VI. This shows that the
presence of the envoys was an honorary privilege, which conferred no
authority to go back of or revise the election itself, as Hadrian III.,
Stephen’s immediate predecessor, expressly affirmed in a decree given
by Martinus Polonus,[148] Mabillon,[149] and Pagi.[150]
It is but fair to confess that this decree is not considered authentic
by all; but what historical document has not been called in question by
some hypercritic or other, especially in Germany? That it is not
apocryphal is shown by the fact that one of Hadrian’s successors—John
IX., elected in 898—annulled it in view of the peace ensured by the
presence of the ambassadors, and restored the earlier ordinance of
Eugene.
The text of the canon law, and especially the passage _Canonico ritu et
consuetudine_, has been often appealed to by Cæsarists and Protestant
historians, as though it demonstrated that a papal election not made
according to its requirements was uncanonical and invalid. In the first
place, Cardinal Garampi[151] remarks that Eugene’s decree was a
personal privilege _Advocatiæ_ given to the princes of the Carlovingian
line; and in the second place Thomassin observes upon John’s
decree[152] that the imperial ambassadors were not admitted to the
election, but only to the subsequent consecration; that they were there
to overawe the turbulent; and that in time their presence became a
custom and was looked on as a part, so to speak, of the external rite
of consecration. It had, besides, become so useful as a repressive
measure against the enemies of the Holy See that it received the high
sanction of being countenanced by the canon law itself. Pope Nicholas
II., in the eleventh century, explained the text _Quia Sancta_ in the
same sense. It must be said, to the discredit of the Othos and the
Henrys, that they too often slipped from the _inch_ of privilege to the
_ell_ of (pretended) right, and went so far as to interfere in a direct
and absolute sense at papal elections, intruding some less worthy
subjects into the Papacy; but when once these occupied the seat of
Peter they were to be recognized and respected on the same principle
that the high-priests were in the irregular age of the Seleucidæ and
the Romans when they sat upon the chair of Moses. Yet even the imperial
influence, says Kenrick,[153] was beneficially exercised in several
instances, particularly those of Clement II. and St. Leo IX. Dr.
Constantine Höfler has written a work[154] replete with information
about the German popes and the physical aspect, the morals, manners,
and customs of the Romans in their time. Charles Hemans’ books (we
cannot seriously call them works) on _Ancient and Mediæval Christianity
and Sacred Art in Italy_, while they show considerable acquaintance
with the best authorities on the subject, manifest a detestable animus
against the Holy See, which shows their writer to be as great an adept
in the “art of putting things” as the far more learned author of the
eight-volume _History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages_,
Ferdinand Gregorovius. While the corruption of some popes and the
depravity of the tenth century have been exaggerated by many
historians, the condition of the Papacy at that time is certainly a
warning against the interference of secular princes in the elections;
for, as the great Baronius remarks (ad an. 900), _Nihil penitus
Ecclesiæ Romanæ contingere potest funestius, tetrius nihil atque
lugubrius, quam si principes seculares in Romanorum Pontificum
electiones manus immittant._[155]
In the middle of the eleventh century a movement was begun to reform
the method of conducting papal elections, which eventually limited them
within the legitimate circle of ecclesiastical prerogatives, totally
excluding the direct influence of the inferior clergy and the
aristocratic and popular element of the laity. Pope Nicholas II.,
having assembled a synod of one hundred and thirteen bishops in the
Lateran Palace in the month of April, 1059, passed a law to the
following effect: On the death of the pope the cardinal-bishops shall
first meet in council and with the utmost diligence treat of a
successor; they shall next take joint action with the cardinal-priests,
and finally consider the wishes of the rest of the clergy and of the
Roman people. If a worthy subject can be found among the members of the
Roman (higher) clergy itself, he is to be preferred, otherwise a
foreigner shall be elected; so that, however, the honor and regard due
to our beloved son Henry, now king, and soon, God grant, to be emperor,
which we have seen proper to show to him and to his successors who may
personally apply for it, be not diminished. If a proper election cannot
take place in Rome, it may be held anywhere else.[156] In the year 1061
another synod was held, in which it was distinctly stated that the mere
fact of election in the foregoing manner placed the elect in possession
of plenary apostolic authority; consequently, the emperor’s
confirmation was excluded, in the sense that without it the election
was invalid. From this period, although the struggle was not yet over,
the Papacy was completely emancipated from any kind of subjection to
the empire. Alexander II., successor to Nicholas, did not communicate
his election to the court; and although St. Gregory VII., glorious
Hildebrand, did do so, it was partly from prudence in view of the
excitement in Germany occasioned by the setting up of the anti-pope
Cadolaus in resentment for his predecessor’s neglect, and partly from
his sense of honor, lest it should be thought (since he had taken a
principal part in enacting the statute of Pope Nicholas) that he
availed himself of an advantage which he had himself created—artfully,
as suspicious-minded persons might think—in anticipation of one day
ascending the papal chair. He was the last pope who ever informed the
emperor of his election before proceeding to be consecrated and
enthroned. The great Catholic powers still continue to exercise a
measure of influence in these elections, but of a purely advisory
character, except in the case of those few which enjoy the privilege of
veto, or the _esclusiva_, as the Romans say. At the Third General
Council of the Lateran, held in the year 1179 by Alexander III., a most
important advance was made in the manner of holding the elections. The
right of the cardinals to elect, without reference to the rest of the
Roman clergy or of the people, was affirmed, and a majority of
two-thirds of their votes required for a valid election. This law was
readily approved by the bishops and members of the council, and
incorporated in the canon law, where it is found among the decretals of
Gregory IX.[157]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOW STEENWYKERWOLD WAS SAVED.
I.
A few straggling lights gleamed pale and fitfully through the stormy
mist as the travellers came to the foot of the principal street in
Steenwykerwold on the night of December 23, 1831. The wind howled
fiercely and the place was apparently deserted; no one was found to
brave the force of the sleety tempest save Floog and his companion, and
the weather-beaten, broken-nosed “Admiral” that once did duty as
figure-head for a Baltic trader of that name, and now stood sentinel at
the door of Mathias Pilzer, the innkeeper, scowling defiance at the
elements. The hail had drifted and accumulated in heaps against
outlying angles of walls, and filled the narrow gutters. The progress
of the travellers, which the storm had impeded, was now interrupted
altogether and they came to a dead halt. The prospect was indeed
discouraging, and the cheerless gloom of the situation seemed to enter
into the soul of the boy; for he made a sudden movement towards a
street doorway which afforded a little shelter, and, pulling his
woollen cap tightly down over his eyes, began to cry.
“Ferret,” said his companion, “if you don’t stop that blubbering I’ll
take you back again to-morrow to paint dolls at Mme. Gemmel’s; and
see,” he added somewhat more soothingly, as he caught the flicker of a
candle through Pilzer’s window, “here we are at the inn.”
The Ferret, thus threatened and consoled, brushed away his tears with
his sleeve, emitting a muffled grunt. He had commenced with a howl,
but, as if finding the pitch too high, he lowered it suddenly and ended
with a sort of guttural, fractured sob; then seizing the other by the
skirt, in this order of procession they reached Pilzer’s.
Boreas, Euroclydon, Eolus! whew, you gusty deities, your rude
familiarities are the reverse of endearing, and we, alas! have not
discovered the secret of propitiating you. Yet you deepen the enchanted
halo encircling the ruddy fireside by the very force of contrast, as
you wail dismally at the door, rattle the window-pane, or shriek down
the chimney in your baffled efforts to effect an entrance.
The fatigue of their journey was soon forgotten by the wayfarers, their
misery giving way to the placid emotions caused by an anticipated
enjoyment of the warmth and well-earned repose so near at hand.
There was much to study in these two, _because_ there was so little to
discover. The elder was a man whose appearance guarded with sphinx-like
obstinacy the secret of his age. He might be thirty or he might be
sixty—no one could tell, and it was abundantly evident that few cared.
He was tall and spare, with features which, if remarkable at all, were
rendered negatively so by the absence of all salient characteristics,
except a certain peculiarity about the eyes, one of which was brown,
and the other, the left, a weak, watery gray. Such was Floog, the only
name by which he was known; if he ever had any other it is buried with
him.
The other member of the _duo_, of whom you have had a glimpse already,
was nicknamed “The Ferret,” by what authority I cannot say—probably
according to the accommodating law of contrariety, for there was
nothing pertaining to him at all suggestive of that sprightly little
quadruped. The ideal curve of beauty was straightened and flattened
into obtuse angles in his contour in a way to make old Apelles or
Phidias lament, however prized he might be as a subject for the pencil
of Teniers. His features, too, were wanting in the seraphic beam of Fra
Bartolomeo’s cherubs. Nevertheless, in form and feature he was
sufficiently quaint to make one laugh at and love him. At a little
distance he resembled a well-stuffed pillow on short legs. On closer
view a head was discernible, something like those sometimes seen on
old-fashioned door-knockers. Large, puffy cheeks, half-hiding a pretty
little turn-up nose, a pair of small but bright blue eyes, no eyebrows,
but an enormous mouth, and still more enormous chin—these belonged to a
face in hue and texture very like putty, and formed altogether a
combination which, if not very beautiful, had this counterbalancing
attraction: that it was somewhat out of the commonplace.
But no delineation of pen or pencil could do justice to his expression.
The wells of laughter and of tears, assuredly close beneath the
surface, were for ever commingling in his organization; and so evenly
were the external symptoms balanced that my grandaunt, a close
observer, who had seen him often (and from whom, by the way, we had
most of these details), could not for the life of her tell whether he
was going to laugh or to cry at times when, in fact, he had no desire
or intention to do either, so indeterminate was his habitual and
passive expression.
The wooden hands of Pilzer’s Dutch clock pointed twenty-five minutes
past eleven as these itinerants entered. Mine host was half-sitting,
half-reclining in a large, square, straw-bottomed chair just inside of
and facing the glass door that separated the travellers’ parlor from
the front part of his premises. On hearing them enter he slowly roused
from his semi-lethargy, and, taking his long pipe from between his
lips, eyed the new-comers with a dubious glance, as if not quite
satisfied whether they were customers or cut-throats, when Floog,
drawing nearer to the glass door, brought him within range of that
gentleman’s mild eye and reassured him. Floog on his part hesitated
with an embarrassed air, and looked cautiously around, as if he had got
into a coffin-maker’s shop by mistake. Presently he plucked up courage,
and beckoning The Ferret, who stood sniffling at the front door, to
follow him, advanced and knocked timidly at the dividing door.
The presiding genius of the “Admiral” was a very Machiavel of
innkeepers. An experience of twenty-seven years had taught him a system
of deportment toward, and treatment of, his customers measured and
regulated—a sort of mental gradient, of which the gauge was the
prospective length of his guest’s purse; and, to do him justice, he
seldom erred in his calculations. On opening the door and confronting
the strangers it was plainly visible that he was about to commence at
zero in his welcome; for there was little prospect of pecuniary reward
in the appearance of the man, his speculative gains being rendered
still more doubtful by the additional allowance of a liberal discount
for the appearance of the boy. His first word of chilly greeting
removed all misgiving at one fell swoop; for, true to his system, at
zero he began.
“What do you want at this time o’ night?” Just then he caught sight of
a large portmanteau or travelling-wallet which Floog on entering had
deposited on the floor. It was a favorable diversion, for no sooner had
Pilzer espied it than his scale ascended two or three degrees, and,
without waiting for an answer to his first inquiry, he added in a
slightly altered tone: “What can I do for you?”
“I want lodging for me and my nephew,” said Floog bravely, and with a
cheerful disregard of syntax. “We can pay for it; we’re not tramps.”
“This is a lovely night, and a pretty hour of this lovely night to come
looking for lodging,” said the innkeeper, with facile irony, at which
he was an adept; “but if ye are respectable, and can prove it, and let
me know what brings ye here when all honest folk is abed, I’ll see what
I can do.”
If Floog considered the last part of this speech with reference to its
applicability to the maker of it, he kept his thoughts discreetly to
himself.
“We are strangers in the town. We arrived from Arnhem an hour ago, and
this is the only public-house we can find open. This boy’s father,
Mynheer Underdonk, the merchant, died in Amsterdam last Thursday, and
they sent me a letter to bring the boy, and make no delay, as they want
to make a settlement for him. You see,” he went on, growing
confidential, “my brother left home eight years ago and no one knew
what became of him. His poor forsaken wife died, and I took care of the
orphan.”
All this he uttered rapidly, with few pauses, as if he had learnt it by
heart. So he had. Alas! poor Floog, thou wert no hero, not even
morally; but shall we, entrenched in a castle of virtue, thrown stones
at thee? No, albeit there was no more truth in thy story than suited
thy own purposes.
II.
The Ferret was of ancient and noble lineage. There, that secret is out.
Frank like himself, his historian scorns the subterfuge of keeping it
till the end for the purpose of giving _éclat_ to his exit, as they do
in romances and on the stage. He was descended from Adam and Eve. This
I am prepared to maintain in the face of the world, learned or
unlearned. If any one wishes to be considered as descended from an
oyster or an atom, we who are not so ambitious shall not cavil at their
genealogy, but hope they find their protoplasms subjects of pleasant
reflection. As for my hero, he was of a different breed. Whether the
bars in his escutcheon were dexter or sinister did not concern him and
need not concern us. Heraldry, in fact, disowned him; therein, however,
heraldry was no worse than his own father. In his tenth year he was
taken from the Asylum for Foundlings and indentured to Mme. Gemmel, who
kept a manufactory of toys at Arnhem. On the day of his departure he
went out into the large paved yard surrounded by an unbroken line of
low stone buildings—his well-known and familiar playground, the only
_Arcadia_ he had ever known. Now that he was to bid it and his childish
companions a long good-by, he felt irresolute and the farewell stuck in
his throat. He tried hard to be brave, while little Hans, his
inseparable playmate and bedfellow, stood regarding him with a sullen
scowl, as if he considered it a personal insult to be thus suddenly
left alone. The poor Ferret was entirely at his wits’ end and quite
dumbfounded. Another look at Hans broke the unutterable spell; for he
saw stealing down the chubby cheek of that smirched cherub a big tear,
marking its course by a light streak on his smutty little face. Gulping
down his sobs and forcing back the tears that now suffused his own
eyes, he laid his hand lovingly on the shoulder of little Hans, and,
bending down until their faces were on a level, he looked at him, and
said in a voice broken by varying emotions and the poignant sorrow of
childhood:
“Don’t—don’t cry, Hans; and when—and when I earn a hundred guilders I
will come back for you, and we will have lots of puddin’ and new
clothes, and I will buy you a pair of new skates.”
Then taking from his trousers’ pocket all his treasures—a large piece
of gingerbread and a small old knife with a broken blade—he pressed his
little friend to take them, forcing them into his unresisting hand,
looked around once by way of final adieu, and ran through the passage
that led to the front hall, where Mme. Gemmel’s man was waiting for
him, and left poor little Hans bellowing as if his heart would break.
The moral supervision exercised by Mme. Gemmel over her new charge was
radical. Its cardinal principles were, first, the duty of obedience and
gratitude, and, secondly, the healthfulness of abstinence. These
principles she inculcated by precept and enforced in practice by
prescribing due penalties for their infraction. The good lady taught
her apprentice, by every means within her power, that his life-long
devotion to her service would ill repay her for the inestimable
blessing she conferred in removing him from the Foundling Asylum and
taking him under her own fostering roof. She was mindful of his health,
too, for among her sanitary tenets was one to the effect that butter is
injurious to immature years; and this she was in the habit of
persistently enforcing for the special benefit of her charge. Inasmuch
as temptation is dangerous, especially to the weak, she prudently
adopted preventive measures by removing at once the temptation and the
butter whenever he appeared at meals. So well did he profit by her
discipline that after six months’ involuntary practice of it he
determined to run away.
In spite of these drawbacks, in spite of the discipline and the dry
bread, he made famous progress at his trade, and felt an artist’s glow
of enthusiasm whenever he finished to his satisfaction the staring blue
eyes and carmine cheeks of his waxen beauties. He felt, Pygmalion like,
able to fall in love with them, could he but find the Promethean
secret—not, indeed, that his thoughts ever took the classic shape, for
he had never heard of the old Grecian fable; these were only the vague
and undefined feelings of his heart. True it is he had little else to
love, so that his affections, being narrowed down to the dolls,
increased for them in the ratio that it diminished for their owner.
Yet there was one golden hour in his leaden existence—the hour of nine
_post meridian_, when he was dismissed to bed. Although behind her back
he sometimes made faces at madame, and even went so far as to set up an
image of her for the perverse pleasure of sticking pins in it, he
forgave all at bedtime. After saying his prayers he would, with all the
ecstasy of which his phlegmatic nature was capable, jump into his straw
pallet, bound to solve an abstruse but agreeable problem which had
engaged his thoughts nightly since his advent in his new home—viz.,
What to do with his first hundred guilders when he had earned them? But
he never got much beyond the disposal of a twentieth part of the sum.
That much he generously devoted to little Hans; but before he could
decide whether the latter should have the skates, a miniature ship, a
new jacket, or unlimited gingerbread, or all of these good things
together, his fancies and finances became entangled. Hans’ face shone
with guilders; gingerbread sailors, in blue jackets, floated serenely
away in a big ship till quite out of sight; anon they trooped rapidly
past his entranced eyes, now scurrying all together, now slowly one by
one; then there was a blank; again starting into view, the last
fleeting image swept softly down the dim vista, fading—fading—gone! and
he was a king in happy oblivion.
Thus time passed tardily enough with The Ferret, the all-absorbing
thought of his waking hours now being how to escape.
Among the customers of Mme. Gemmel was one who had had several business
transactions with her. This was a peripatetic showman, the delight of
gaping children at country fairs. His entertainment consisted of music
(mangled fragments of opera airs on a weazened key-bugle) and his
wonderful and versatile puppets. These latter, when they had become too
well known as hunters and huzzars, he would transform into knights and
ladies, or Chinese mandarins, as circumstances might require or fancy
suggest. The transforming process was very simple; it consisted merely
of supplying them with new costumes and coats—of paint—at Mme.
Gemmel’s.
This worthy was none other than our friend Floog. Even such as he have
their place in art. They are pioneers who lead to the base of an
æsthetic temple whose dome is elevated in circling azure, surrounded by
golden stars.
In the practice of his art, The Ferret it was on whom now devolved the
duty of transforming Floog’s automatons and kindred jobs. Whether owing
to the satisfaction he gave, or to the occult, and often unaccountable,
influences governing our sympathies and antipathies, certain it is that
Floog had taken a violent fancy to him, and determined to entice him
away at the first opportunity. The showman’s moral sensibilities were,
as has already been intimated, somewhat flexible, and yielded too
readily, I am afraid, to the exigencies of the situation.
Alas! how rigid are the inexorable verities of history. I cannot
picture him as I would—not even as a half-formed Bayard, who, if not
quite _sans peur_, might be at least _sans reproche_; but as I had no
hand in the formation of his character, I am not the apologist of his
delinquencies. Did he recognize the violation of a right in his
contemplated procedure? Oh! no; he placed his motive on a high moral
pedestal, triumphant, unassailable—the interests of humanity, the
welfare of the boy. He never told us how far _his own welfare_ entered
into his calculations. He felt, therefore, no scrupulous qualms as to
the rectitude of his determination. What puzzled him was the _how_. Of
that, however, he had no notion. Indeed, his thoughts upon the subject,
so far from assuming a practical shape, were rather the pleasant
emotions experienced in the contemplation of a cherished project,
leaving out of sight the means of its attainment, even the possibility
of its realization. A few days previous to his appearance in
Steenwijkerwold he left his puppets to undergo the customary
metamorphosis at Mme. Gemmel’s, his head full of the pleasing fancy of
securing The Ferret as a travelling companion and assistant. More than
all this, he came to regard him with a rapture akin to that of an
enamored lover for the mistress of his heart.
The short winter day was closing in misty and chill around Arnhem. Away
in the northwest the sun was setting through yellowish fog into the
gray cold sea; the restless wail of the wind was heard now and again,
presaging a storm. It was about half-past four o’clock in the afternoon
of this same day that Floog, undaunted by the threatening aspect of the
weather, and pensively whistling his musical programme by way of
rehearsal, arrived at Mme. Gemmel’s. He found, upon inquiry, that his
puppets were not quite finished. Wouldn’t he wait? She expected them
ready in a few minutes, and escorted him to the workshop in the third
story, where they found The Ferret as busily engaged as his chill nose,
his numb fingers, and the light of two tallow candles would allow. His
mistress, after an authoritative command to her subordinate to make
haste and finish his work, went down-stairs, leaving Floog to direct
the work as he might see fit. The Ferret was shy by nature and by
reason of his forced seclusion, and though the interruption
disconcerted him a good deal, he made pretence of continuing labor
without appearing to notice his visitor, whom he had several times
seen, but never spoken to. Floog, after eyeing him a moment, asked if
he was cold. The answer, though not quite courtly, was sufficiently
explicit: “Yes, I am.” “Why don’t you work down-stairs in the back
room, where ’tis warmer?” A frown passed over the boy’s face, but he
made no reply. “Here,” said Floog in a kindlier tone, and, taking from
his pocket a handful of lozenges, offered them to The Ferret, who
hesitated a moment, looking at the donor, and then took them with a
“Thank you, sir.” In that moment the child’s heart was gained and a
deep sympathy established between the two, reciprocal, self-satisfying.
Floog was no more a diplomat than a hero; for his next proposal was
illogical, and would have been startling but for the peculiar
circumstances that rendered it acceptable. “Run away from Mme. Gemmel
and come with me,” he said. The Ferret did not hesitate this time, but
answered eagerly: “I will; I hate Mme. Gemmel. Let us go away now.”
This ready acquiescence staggered Floog, who, not being prepared for
it, was at a loss how to proceed. Gathering all his faculties to meet
the requirements of the crisis, he tried to devise some means of escape
for The Ferret; but the more he pondered the more undecided he became,
till at length, in sheer desperation, he said: “When Mme. Gemmel sends
you home with the puppets to-night we will go away together.” With that
he hurried down-stairs, paid for the puppets, asked Mme. Gemmel if she
would send them to his lodging, stating that he would want them for an
exhibition early the next day. This the obliging lady promised to do,
whereupon Floog took his departure, his agitated manner escaping the
notice of the doll-maker, who, although she had the vision of a lynx
for money, to everything into which money did not enter as a factor was
as blind as Cupid. Less than two hours after The Ferret, Floog, and the
precious puppets were all in the mail-coach, rattling along for freedom
and Steenwykerwold.
As not unfrequently happens, mere chance afforded a better opportunity
than elaborately-concocted plans would have done; for when, by
appointment, The Ferret came, Floog precipitately, and without taking
time to think of their destination, hurried with him to the coach-yard,
where he learned that the night coach going north was ready to start,
and secured passage for Steenwykerwold, whither Mme. Gemmel would be
little likely to follow. So they arrived in the manner already related,
amid hail and storm.
III.
After a storm comes a calm. Who was it that enshrined that remark in
the sanctity of a proverb? This is like saying that day comes after
night—a truism that most of us will believe without the aid of any
proverbial philosophy. If the calm comes not _after_ the storm, a
person disposed to be critical might ask, _When_ does it come? We will
leave the solution of this problem to interpreters as profound as the
proverb-maker, and follow the fortunes of Floog and The Ferret.
Calm _had_ succeeded storm as they turned their backs to the hostelry
of Mijnheer Pilzer and bade adieu to its professional hospitalities.
Not the listless calm of summer skies, of dreamy fields and waters.
Clear and cutting, the icy air of morning quickened the nerves and
caused the blood in livelier currents to tingle in the veins, so that
even the sluggish Ferret, wincing, heightened his pace to a sturdy trot
to keep abreast of Floog. The sun was up, burnishing the chimney-pots
and sharp gables of the tall, bistre-colored houses, and converting
into rare jewelry the fantastic frost-wreaths that adorned their eaves.
Early as it was, the _Nieu Strasse_ was astir with pedestrians. The
shop-windows, already unshuttered, were decorated gaily with ivy and
palm. Unusual bustle and activity were everywhere discernible; and why
not? Was it not Christmas Eve and fête-day at Van der Meer Castle?
It was a beautiful and time-honored custom at Van der Meer Castle on
every Christmas Eve to give a party to all the children of the
neighborhood. Rich and poor, lofty and lowly, all were welcome. But
although all were welcome, all did not come. The children of the rich,
and those who had the means of indulging in the season’s festivities at
home, mostly kept aloof, or were made to keep aloof, lest they should
incur by implication a suspicion of that fearful malady, poverty; for
the light of nineteenth-century civilization had penetrated the by-ways
of the world, and even Steenwykerwold had caught some of its oblique
rays—those that distort instead of illuminating, by which poverty is
made to appear as the sum of all social crime. Well, then, the poor
children for many years had had the party and banquet all to
themselves, and such, in fact, was the desire of their present
entertainer.
The proprietor of the place and inheritor of its wealth and traditions
was Leopoldine Van der Meer, who had been left an orphan in early
childhood. I saw her once, and can never forget that sweet, serene
face; for it is ineffaceably stamped on my memory. Although time had
then added another score of years to her term of life, and sprinkled
with silver the bands of dark-brown hair smoothed on either side of her
placid forehead, still it dealt gently with that gentle lady, as if the
old reaper had thrown down his reluctant sickle, unwilling to mark his
passage by any tell-tale furrow, but softly breathed on her in passing,
lulling her into a more perfect repose. At the time when the incidents
I am relating took place, however, she was young and fresh and fair
beyond expression. Her features, clear and well defined, possessed the
delicate tracery and perfection of outline that sculptors dream of. Her
air and carriage, her every gesture, from the movement of her shapely
head to the light footfall, all queenly yet unaffected, might have
inspired the genius of Buonarotti when he painted his wonderful Sibyls,
while the gentle, half-shy, liquid gray eyes, tenderly glancing from
behind their silken-fringed lids, would have graced the canvas of
Murillo.
These external graces were but tokens of a kindly heart and true soul—a
nature that imparted a breath of its own sweet essence to all who came
within the charmed sphere of its influence. The festival looked forward
to with such ardent longings by the young ones was now near at hand. It
was Christmas Eve.
The festival was held in the spacious banqueting-hall of the castle—an
oblong apartment, across the upper end of which extended a gallery for
musicians, reached by a balustraded stairway on either side. The walls
were gracefully festooned with wreaths of bright evergreens gemmed with
haws and scarlet berries. In the centre stood a large table, upon which
was placed a gigantic Christmas tree, sparkling with a thousand colored
crystals and loaded with every variety of toy.
Floog, who was acquainted with the annual custom, desirous of
recompensing his youthful friend, made haste to conduct him thither.
The Ferret needed neither introduction nor credential, his age and
appearance being sufficient passports. He was kindly welcomed and
ushered in. The grand hall, beaming with lustrous lamps and adorned
with varied decorations, dazzled his eyes. The splendor, the music, and
the toys nearly overpowered him, and he stood as if fixed in a trance,
so like a brilliant dream did it all seem, which a stir, a breath might
dispel. Gradually recovering his dazed faculties, he began to revel in
the thrilling sense of its reality—yes, real for himself as well as for
the rest.
When the children were all assembled they were marshalled into ranks
two deep, the girls first, and marched twice round the room, singing.
It was a simple Christmas carol, the refrain familiar to most of them;
for it had been sung on similar occasions by similar choirs from time
immemorial, and is, I hope, sung there yet:
“Christmas time at Van der Meer,
Love, and mirth, and pleasant cheer;
Happy hearts from year to year
Hail each coming Christmas.”
If any misgivings had crept into their minds that they were to undergo
the trying ordeal of a regular school drill for the delectation of
patronizing visitors, their apprehensions were soon quieted. With the
song ended all the formality. They appreciated their freedom, made the
most of it, and abandoned themselves to unrestrained fun in uproarious
hilarity. The Ferret caught the infection. Though not quite recovered
from the fatigue of the last twenty-four hours, he forgot it, forgot
his little cares, forgot his solitude, forgot all in the blessed
dissipation of the hour. Unfortunately, he outdid himself.
Floog had meanwhile betaken himself to the nearest tavern, intending to
come for his little friend when the festivities were over. He did not
retire to bed, but paid for a lodging on a settee in the tap-room. In a
few minutes he was sound asleep. How long he slept he did not know, but
some time during the night he awoke with a sudden start. A bell was
pealing wildly in the still night air. A man partially dressed, his
heavy shoes in his hand, dashed past and out into the street.
Immediately there was commotion, and the sound of voices was heard in
loud and eager discussion. In another moment the tap-room was full of
men. Floog hurriedly arose, and, joining the excited group, they all
went out. When they came to the triangular opening formed by the
confluence of three streets—The Square, as it was rather
inappropriately called—they were met by a crowd of men and women as
anxious and excited as themselves, and all evidently at a loss what to
do or whither to proceed.
Louder and more clamorous the bell rang out its portentous notes;
fitfully and frantically it rang in the ears of the now aroused
populace. All at once it would stop suddenly, but for a moment only, as
if pausing to take breath and gather fresh strength; then it would
recommence wilder than before, producing an effect weird and
terrifying. It was the old alarm-bell at Van der Meer Castle.
This bell was very ancient, and it hung in a tower behind the castle,
connected with it by an arched causeway. It was placed there in feudal
times to call together the vassals and adherents of the place in cases
of raid or invasion, if for no worthier purpose; and in later times a
superstition attached to it that its reawakening portended some
calamity, the nature of which, not being specifically stated, was left
to conjecture, and gave scope to the prognostications of the
wise-acres. Yes, these would say, with the self-complacent air of
oracles, when the bell rings it will ring the death-knell of our
liberties, and Holland will pass to an alien race. This was the
interpretation generally received and accredited by those who had faith
in the tradition—a goodly number, which included almost all the old
inhabitants. On the other hand, many among the junior members of the
community ridiculed the whole thing, scoffed at the prophetic legend as
an old woman’s tale, and, spurred perhaps by what they termed the
foolish credulity of the elders, who professed an abiding belief in it,
they rushed to the opposite extreme, even to the extent of doubting, at
least of denying, the very existence of the bell. At any rate it had
long ago fallen into disuse, and those who heard it now heard it for
the first time.
In the market square this old civic story was anxiously revived and
earnestly discussed, while the ominous import of the ringing was
speculated upon with troublous forebodings, even by the sceptical, and
its inharmonious clangor added tenfold significance to its history. In
the midst of the tumult the crowd swayed with a sudden movement, and
presently began to waver and divide, as a stalwart form appeared,
forcing a passage, and shouting with a persuasive vigor heard above the
din: “To the dike! to the dike!” It was Peter Artveldt, the
ship-carpenter. His words and example had the effect of an electric
shock on the panic-stricken multitude. Shaking off their stupor, they
followed him through the town, echoing his cry, “To the dike! to the
dike!” and, gathering strength as they proceeded, soon reached the
dike, half a mile beyond the northern limit of the town.
Imagination had diverted their fears, not allayed them; and, singular
as it seems, no one thought of the dike until the voice of the
ship-carpenter like a thunder-clap sounded a warning of the real
danger. Up to that moment the dike was to them, as it had been for
generations, the firm and effective bulwark of the land.
Their worst fears were realized. The water was flowing through several
fissures in the dike, noiselessly stealing in upon the land, until it
had flooded the ground up to the cemetery palings. This was not all nor
the worst. A hasty survey disclosed the appalling fact that at one
point the force of the storm had sapped the foundation; some of its
stones, having been displaced, were lying loose in the soft sand and
ooze. An instant revealed their peril and the imminence of the danger;
had they been but half an hour later nothing could have averted their
fate—Steenwykerwold would have been as effectually and irretrievably
swallowed up by water as old Herculaneum was by fire, and sadder the
story of its chroniclers.
However, it was not a time for reflection, but for action. With such
implements as in their haste they had been able to provide themselves
after the real nature of the danger became known, they set to work with
a will, aided by the invigorating example of Artveldt, who with heroic
energy put forth his strenuous powers and directed all their movements.
In less than ten minutes they had felled four or five of the cemetery
trees; breaking through the gate, they dragged these to the dike,
making an effective temporary barrier to the advance of the cruel
waters. Yet to guard against a possible recurrence of danger from a
renewal of the storm or any untoward accident, until the damage should
be permanently repaired, an organized force was appointed, divided into
squads of eight, whose duty it was to watch constantly, relieving each
other every six hours. These precautions completed, the multitude, in
the delirious joy of their deliverance, grew wild with delight and
manifested symptoms of frantic disorder. Here again the ascendent
spirit of Artveldt made itself felt. “Brothers,” said he, “we have
finished a brave night’s work; let us not undo it by making fools of
ourselves. No; we will go peaceably to our homes, and a grateful
country will say: ‘They were as orderly in the hour of triumph as they
were brave in the hour of peril.’ Posterity will keep sacred your
memory and look back with grateful eyes to this day, and every future
Christmas will be happier for your deed.”
After this speech they were ready and willing to obey him. He now
ranged the men in line of march, requesting them not to break rank
until they reached Van der Meer Castle, where it was agreed they should
disperse; then, with a long, full cheer, they returned triumphantly
through the town, and _Steenwykerwold was saved_.
After having been hospitably entertained at the castle, and thanking
Lady Leopoldine for the timely warning whereby the threatened disaster
was averted, they gave a parting salute—three hearty cheers—and then,
as agreed upon, quietly dispersed.
At that very time there was commotion within the castle. The eventful
night was yet to be made memorable by another incident, as yet known
only to its inmates, having been wisely withheld from the knowledge of
the men who stemmed the fateful waters.
The ringing had some time ceased. Now, every one supposed that Lady
Leopoldine had caused the bell to be rung, knowing or divining their
danger; but such, in fact, was not the case. She no more than the rest
mistrusted the safety of the dike. You may imagine, then, her terror
when first she heard the appalling sound. Like a summons from the grave
it smote her ear. Was it a summons from the grave? At first she could
scarce refrain from thinking that it was, so strange and startling on
the pulseless air of night fell the unfamiliar peal. Again she believed
herself the victim of some wild hallucination. She rose at once and
summoned the servants.
It was no illusion—they had all heard it; they could not choose but
hear, and it was while listening in agonizing suspense that the summons
of their mistress reached them. It was obeyed with more than customary
alacrity. They all rushed pell-mell into the hall. Lady Leopoldine
instantly dismissed her own fears and allayed theirs, and caused a
vigorous search to be made.
The astonishment and alarm of the household will perhaps be more
readily understood when it is remembered that the bell was entirely
inaccessible. The tower was about sixty-five feet high, of somewhat
rude construction. Walls of large, rough stones to an altitude of
sixteen feet formed the base. Inside of these walls heavy oaken
buttresses were placed, which had the appearance of strengthening them,
but which in reality formed the support of the bell suspended above and
hidden in a curious network of trellised beams. No appliances for
reaching it were visible; and how it got there was a mystery. Indeed,
the ringing of the bell on that night, as well as the bell itself and
all its appurtenances, were regarded as very mysterious; and we may
well excuse the simple-minded people, not yet imbued with modern
materialism, if they conceived the whole affair to be the work of
superhuman agency.
No one had entered the causeway from the house, it was evident; no
trace of disturbance could anywhere be discovered. Two of the men, the
coachman and his assistant, braver than the rest, volunteered to go
into the passage and thoroughly examine the premises. Providing
themselves with lanterns, they went round to the old door in the rear
of the tower. One glance convinced them that no one had recently gone
in that way. The bolts were firm in the sockets, wedged tight by the
rust of a century. With much exertion they were forced back, the door
was unfastened, and the men entered. The damp, chill air caused them to
shudder, and their first impulse was to beat a precipitate retreat.
Pausing in doubtful perplexity of their next movement, afraid to
advance, and ashamed to go back, they stood near the door, which they
had considerately left ajar, fearing, yet hoping for some perceptible
excuse to run. None came. The silence was broken only by the flutter of
some startled bats aloft; the dingy walls alone met their scrutinizing
gaze as they peered cautiously around, the glare of the lanterns
shooting sharply-defined rays of yellowish gray light through the humid
gloom. The first feeling of nervous trepidation past, reason asserted
itself; they grew accustomed to the gloom and began to explore the
passage deliberately and carefully. After having traversed it the
entire length without making any discovery, they were about to retrace
their steps when their attention was arrested by some fragments of
mortar or plaster lying loosely on the flagged pavement about four feet
from the further end next the house. These had the appearance of having
recently fallen from the wall. Here was a probable clue. With renewed
interest they now proceeded to examine the wall, and were rewarded by
finding a small door, level with its surface and nearly concealed by a
thin coating of plaster. On forcing it open they were surprised to find
another passage, parallel with the main one, but so narrow as to admit
of entrance only by single file. Another door, as secret as the first,
opened from this narrow passage into a sort of recess behind the
stairway, which, it will be remembered, led to the gallery in the
banqueting-hall. The recess was known to the occupants of the castle,
but never used by them. Its original purpose may have been a subject of
momentary conjecture, but they did not trouble themselves much about
it, being content, if they thought of it at all, to consider it an
eccentricity of some former proprietor. Least of all did they dream of
its communication with a hidden passage to the bell-tower. Following
the passage back to the other end, their surprise was greatly augmented
by the further discovery that, instead of opening into the main
enclosure, like the large passage, as they naturally expected, it
terminated in a sort of square sentry-box, enclosed at all sides except
the top—in reality a large wooden shaft. It was no other than what
appeared from without to be a combination of four solid beams. In it
hung the bell-rope. _At the bottom lay the bell-ringer_, The Ferret,
exhausted and insensible.
They carried him out into the hall. The mistress of the mansion sent at
once for a physician, and, gently lifting his head, with delicate hand
she chafed the poor pale brow and applied restoratives. Soon the doctor
came, but his services were not needed.
Another morning dawned. Again the slanting daybeams pierced the misty
levels. The vapor of earth, as it felt the ray, was dissolved into
purest ether, and, restoring to earth its grosser particles, ascended
calmly to its native sky. Thus, too, The Ferret’s Christmas carol,
begun on earth, was finished in heaven, and another voice on that happy
Christmas morning was added to the celestial choir singing, “Glory to
God on high, and on earth peace to men of good will.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1877.
There is little beyond the Russo-Turkish war that will mark this year
apart from others in the annals of universal history. Questions,
national and international, that we have touched upon time and again
come up now unsettled as ever. It is tedious and profitless to go over
well-trodden ground; to repeat reflections that have already been
repeated; and to attempt a solution of problems, social, political, and
religious, that are still working themselves out. We purpose,
therefore, in the present review to follow up a few of the broad lines
that have marked the year and given to it something of an individual
and special character. If these are very few, perhaps it is the better
for mankind. The more nations are occupied with their own affairs the
better it is for the world at large.
To begin with ourselves. We had a very vexed and very delicate problem
to solve—no less than to determine, on the turn of a single disputed
electoral vote, who was to be our President. The circumstances that
created this difficulty were dealt within our last year’s review; they
are in the recollection of our readers. On the casting of a single
disputed vote lay the election to the Presidency of the United States.
Such a contingency, accompanied as it was by peculiarly aggravating
circumstances, had never before arisen in the history of this country.
The wisest were in doubt what to do; the country was in a fever of
expectation. The republic was on trial in itself and before the world.
The written lines of the Constitution were found inadequate to meet so
unlooked-for and peculiar a matter. It was not the mere fact of one
disputed vote that was to turn the scale. There were many disputed
votes, which rested with States whose administration was not above
suspicion. Only in the event of all of these turning in favor of one of
the candidates could the Presidency be awarded to him. Any one of them
going to his opponent—who, as far as the votes of the people went, had
a decided and unmistakable majority—would have settled the question at
once. There was room and occasion for grave doubt on both sides. By
mutual agreement of the representatives of the two parties that divide
the country, a national court of arbitration, supposed to be, and
doubtless with reason, above suspicion, was appointed to inquire into
and decide upon the electoral returns. The court was chosen from both
parties. It so turned out that a preponderating vote lay with one
party. It might have rested with the other. It was a matter of
accident; and it is to be hoped that, if not exactly a matter of
accident, it was a matter of honesty that divided the court on each
moot point into strict party lines, with, as final result, an award of
the Presidency to Mr. Hayes, the Republican candidate. There the matter
rested. The court had discharged itself of the very delicate task
imposed upon it, and there was nothing left the country and the rival
parties to do but accept a decision of its own creation, which might
have gone the other way, but did not. It was the shortest way, perhaps,
out of an immediate and pressing difficulty. It was none the less a
strain on the Constitution and on the conscience of the people—a strain
that could not well be stood again. The republic cannot afford to hand
this settlement down to posterity as a lawful and satisfactory
precedent. The right way in which to regard it is as one of those
unforeseen accidents that occur in the history of all peoples, that
adjust themselves somehow for the time being, and that stand as a
warning rather than a guide to future conduct.
The country honestly and wisely accepted the decision. Of course there
were sore feelings; there would have been sore feelings in any case;
yet men breathed freely when what was a real, a painful, and a
dangerous crisis was over. There are men—sensible and patriotic men,
too, as well as a vast multitude neither patriotic nor sensible—who are
ever ready to despair of the republic when events do not turn out
exactly as they had predicted or desired. Let them take comfort. The
republic is not yet dead; and it seems to us very far from dying. In
other days, and perhaps in other peoples to-day who enjoy the privilege
of a monarchical government, such a question would have resulted in a
war of dynasties. The dynasty of Mr. Hayes or of Mr. Tilden troubles us
but little. The disaffected may bide their time. They still hold their
votes, and it is for them to see that they are not robbed of them. Mr.
Hayes has taken to heart the lesson of the last elections, which
pronounced not so much against a party as against the administration of
his predecessor. The present administration has thus far, in the main,
contrasted well with that which went before it. The President seems to
be a man of right impulses and feeling and possessed of a good
judgment. He has discarded many embarrassing associates and evil
allies—political parasites who battened on the life-blood of the state.
If his moral vision is only broad enough to see that he is the
President not of a party, but of a great people, with varied wants and
some sore troubles and internal difficulties that need very cautious
and delicate adjusting; if he honestly and persistently aims at doing
right, the people, regardless of party, will be with him and support
him. Thus far he has manifestly striven to do well. His beginning has
been good. Trials will doubtless come. He has already shown himself too
good for many influential men in the party that voted for him. If he
only continues to disregard and brave all pettiness, he can safely turn
from partisans to the people, and the people know how to judge and
value honesty—a quality that it was coming to be thought had almost
died out of politics.
There have been some indications of a revival of business; but such a
revival, to be sure and general, must be slow. Our people have not yet
recovered from the demoralizing effect of the rush of good-fortune
which they so foolishly squandered. They look for miracles in finance
and business, for a revival in a day. This cannot well come. The way
for general prosperity, and that even of very moderate dimensions, must
be paved by a return to general honesty in commercial dealings and in
private life. Public honesty can alone restore public confidence, and
public honesty is a matter of growth, education, and the apprehension
and following of right principles. It can only come from faith in God
and a sense of personal responsibility to God, as true faith in man can
only come from true faith in God. The religion that constantly
impresses this upon men’s minds is the religion that will preserve and
save from all dangers not this republic only but every government.
These feelings, penetrating the hearts of the people, will best solve
the vexed questions between labor and capital, between black and white
and red and yellow. For a right sense of personal responsibility to God
necessarily involves a right sense of personal responsibility to one
another, of the duties we owe to society, of the duties we owe to the
state. This country of all others is open to the free workings of
religion. Indeed, it is as open to the devil as to God; and if the
devil, according to some, seems to get the best of the battle, it can
only be because “the children of darkness are wiser in their generation
than the children of light”; because Christians are not really and
wholly true to Christ, and by their lives do not show forth the faith
that is in them.
THE RUSSO-TURKISH WAR.
In Europe the event of the year that calls for most attention is the
war between Russia and Turkey. On this subject we can say little or
nothing probably that will not have already suggested itself to others.
All have watched the progress of the painful struggle from day to day;
have formed their own conclusions as to the manner in which it has been
carried on on both sides; as to the necessity of such a war having
taken place at all; as to its probable results to both parties and to
Europe at large.
At the time of our last review war between Russia and Turkey was
thought imminent. We then wrote—and we may be pardoned for quoting our
own words, as some of them, at least, seem to us to apply equally well
to the present situation—as follows:
“If we may hazard an opinion, we believe that there will be no war, at
least this winter. As for the alarm at the anticipated occupation of
Constantinople by Russia, while—if the Russian Empire be not dissolved
before the close of the present century by one of the most terrific
social and political convulsions that has ever yet come to pass—that
occupation seems to lie very much within the order of possibilities, we
doubt much whether it will occur so soon as people think.... It would
seem to us difficult for Russia to occupy Constantinople without first
mastering and garrisoning Turkey, and Turkey is an empire of many
millions, whom fanaticism can still rouse to something like heroic, as
well as to the most cruel and repulsive deeds.”
Those words seem to us to have forecast fairly enough the general
aspects of the war. The war was declared because Russia burned to go to
war—Russia, or the Russian administration. The invasion of Turkey by
Russia was not a thing of the past year. It was foreordained. It was
dreaded from the close of the war in the Crimea. The only question with
the other powers was how long or by what means could it be staved off.
That Russia would invade Turkey as soon as she thought she could do so
without much danger of outward interference and with good prospects of
success was probably a fixed thought in the minds of all men who chose
to give a thought to the matter. For almost a quarter of a century has
Russia been girding herself for a fight that had become an essential
part of her national policy. Within that period, under the wise
guidance of Prince Gortschakoff, she has more than repaired the
terrible losses sustained in the Crimean war. She grew stealthily up to
a power and a status unexampled in her history. She guarded her
finances, lived within her means, prospered, refused steadily to enter
into any embarrassing European complications. She saw the European
alliance that had crushed her in 1854 hopelessly dissolve, and a new
and friendly power rise up and take the lead in European affairs. As a
military power she was looked upon as having only one superior, or
rival perhaps, in the world, and that her friendly neighbor. So strong
was she, and so singularly had every change in European politics told
in her favor, that when her opportunity came, with a word, a beck, a
stroke of her chancellor’s pen, she snapped asunder the iron gyves
forged for her and laid on her by a united Europe, and no power dared
whisper a protest. All the world saw whither she was drifting. She was
drifting to the sea, stretching out her giant arms to clasp for ever
those golden shores that she claimed as hers by destiny. The hour of
destiny struck at last. The strifes of exhausted nations and the
jealousies of others left her alone to deal with the power that held
those shores and that to Russia was an hereditary foe. She proceeded
cautiously to the last. She did all things with becoming decorum. She
invited the nations to a conference, held in the Turkish capital, to
determine once for all what was to be done with the Turk, while she
mobilized her armies in order to give effect to her peaceful protest.
What the conference of European diplomatists did, or rather did not do,
is now matter of picturesque history. “Death before dishonor!” was the
ultimatum of the Turk. “Death, then, be it,” said Russia, and the new
“crusade” began.
It has been a sad “crusade” for both parties, a disastrous one for
Russia and the Romanoffs, even though there can be little doubt as to
the final victory of Russia. What we may call the great Russian
illusion has been dispelled by this war. It was speedily discovered
that the feet of the giant who was running so swiftly and surely to the
goal of his ambition were of clay. Why, victory invited him, danced
before him, strewed flowers in his path. It was a very race with
fortune. To a great military power half the battle was won before a
single engagement worthy of the name had been fought. But it has
stopped at that half. Russia is still knocking at the gates of Plevna,
and even when Plevna is opened, as it will be probably soon, the
inglorious victory will have been so dearly won that Russia herself
may, with too much reason, be anxious for the peace which she wantonly
broke.
Fortune was too good to Russia at the opening of the war. Her smiles
begat an overweening confidence. The destruction of a stubborn and
warlike race was looked upon as a thing of a few months, as a game of
war. Reverses came fast and thick—reverses that were invited.
Comparative handfuls of splendid soldiers were sent to destroy armies
entrenched in natural fortresses. Then leaked out a fatal secret.
Russia had everything but generals and competent military officers, or,
if she had them, they were not with her armies, or were not allowed to
take the lead. The dress parade to Constantinople was speedily and
effectually checked, and Russia is to all intents and purposes as far
from that city to-day as she was in the summer.
The details of the campaigns must be looked for elsewhere. We can here
only look at results. There are two or three reflections regarding the
war itself which seem to us worthy of attention as affecting other
interests than those immediately engaged in the contest.
In the first place, the fact of the war having been declared at all
showed the powerlessness of Europe to shape or deal with grave
questions of international interest when any one strong power chooses
not to be advised, coerced, or led. This practically places the peace
of Europe in the hands of any power. For instance, there is no means of
preventing Germany from declaring war against France to-morrow, should
the German government so will. Early in the year, and at the invitation
of Russia, the leading European powers sent their representatives to
Constantinople to prevent, if possible, the outbreak of this war. These
were doubtless experienced diplomatists. There is no reason to doubt
that all of them—save, perhaps, the Russian representative, General
Ignatieff—wished honestly and strove by every means in their power to
prevent, or at least stave off, the war. They failed, because it was
meant by the strongest there that they should fail. The only argument
to sway Europe to-day is the sword.
Thus the representatives of united Europe, backed by all the vast
resources of their empires, could do nothing to prevent a war which at
the outset looked as though it incurred the gravest consequences to
Europe; and it may incur them still. Why was this? Simply because there
is no such thing as a united Europe. The family and comity of European
nations was, as we pointed out last year in dealing with this very
subject, broken up by the Protestant Reformation. The catholicity of
nations, which in the order of events would have become an accomplished
and saving fact, from that date yielded to selfish and narrow
nationalities which made a separate world of each people, bounded by
their own domain. But humanity is greater than nationality, and the
world wider than a kingdom—a truth that will never be felt until one
religion plants again in the leading nations of the world the great
unity of heart and soul that God alone can give.
As for Russia, however, the tide of events may turn; she has lost more
than she will probably gain even by victory. Not in men and money and
material alone has she lost, but in _morale_ and _prestige_. The czar
may return in triumph to St. Petersburg, but his victorious ranks will
show a grim and ominous gap of something like a hundred thousand of his
bravest men, lost in less than a year against a foe whom Russia
despised, and thousands of whom were sacrificed to incapacity. A
careful estimate made in September last set the daily cost of the
Russian army at about $750,000. That figure must have since increased;
but take it as an average, and spread it over eight months, and we have
the enormous sum of $184,500,000 as the cost of the campaign from May
to December. Loans must be raised to meet such expenditure, and loans
are only obtained at high interest.
Victories bought at such prices are dear indeed. Taking the Russian
victory for granted, it is likely after all to prove a barren one. The
Turk is an impracticable foe, and, though the signs of his exhaustion
are multiplying, he has made such a fight as, by force of arms at
least, to vindicate his title to national existence. Indeed, his terms
are apt to go up instead of down. Loss of money is nothing to him, for
he has none to lose. His empire was bankrupt before the war. For trade
or commerce he cares little. His life is easy and simple. He cares for
little more than enough to eat, and a little of that seems to satisfy
him. His fatalism robs life of the charm it has for other men. He would
as lief die fighting as not, and he would sooner fight the Russian than
any other foe. You cannot reason with men of this kind. They see one
thing: that single-handed they made a very good fight against a most
powerful antagonist; that they have hurt him badly, even if they have
been worsted. The whole struggle can only be likened to an attack by a
giant on a poor little wretch who was thought to be half-dead. If it
takes the giant six months to thrash such an antagonist; and if during
the fight the giant gets something very like a sound thrashing himself
from his puny foe; and if, when both are pretty well exhausted, he
succeeds in throttling the pugnacious little chap at last, the verdict
of the world will be that there is something the matter with the giant,
and the self esteem of the little fellow will rise proportionately.
Of course it is idle to speculate on the end. Russia has lost so
heavily that she may insist upon very tangible fruits of victory. On
the other hand, the war has been such a butchery that humanity cries
out against it, and the European powers will undoubtedly strive at the
first opportunity to make a more effectual appeal than before to both
the combatants. Peace rests on this: How much will Russia ask? How much
will Turkey concede? How much will the jealousies of other powers allow
Russia to take?—questions all of them that are sure to be asked, but
which we confess our inability to answer.
FRANCE.
The armed struggle in the East has scarcely attracted more universal
attention than the civil struggle in France. France is trying to solve
problems that touch her very life, and they are problems in which all
men have a personal interest. The French questions are eminently
questions of the day and of the age. The struggle going on there is one
between the elements of society. MacMahon, Gambetta, “Henri Cinq,”
“Napoléon Quatre”—these are but names. The fight is not on them and
their personal merits or demerits. It is at bottom between the men who
find the “be-all and the end-all here” in this world, and the men who
believe that there is a God who made this world for his own purposes,
who is to be obeyed, loved, and served, and according to whose law
human society must conform itself, if it would fulfil the end for which
it was created, have happiness in this world, and eternal happiness in
the next.
The first class is not restricted to the men and women who figured in
the _Commune_. These only compose its rank and file, and their sin is
less, for multitudes of them sin through ignorance. It embraces also
the men of the new science, the professors in the atheistic
universities; statesmen of the Falk and Lasker type; preachers of the
Gospel as expounded by Dean Stanley; philosophers and scientists, like
Darwin or Herbert Spencer, like Huxley and Tyndall, like, descending a
grade, Professor Fisk or Youmans; women like some we know here at home,
who tread the platform with so masculine a stride; the men of
“progress” such as Brigham Young was, such as, in a more intellectual
sense, John Stuart Mill was, such as “tribunes of the people” like
Charles Bradlaugh, or his friend M. Gambetta, or Garibaldi, are; poets
like Victor Hugo or Algernon Swinburne. The men who have the teaching
power in the secularized and secular universities of the day, who shape
a purely secular education, who edit too many of our leading
newspapers, who preach atheism or blasphemy from pulpits supposed to be
consecrated to the service of Christ, are equally members of this party
with the outcasts of society and the avowed conspirators against order.
This it was that gave its significance to the late French elections;
that induced men to study so carefully the name, character,
antecedents, and political color of each man elected; that caused to be
telegraphed on the very day of the elections the long files of the
deputies to England, to Germany, to Austria, to Italy, even to these
distant shores. Why, such a fact as that last mentioned is unexampled.
For the time being the world centred in France.
This is a dangerous pre-eminence for France. The country is for ever in
a fever. It is in a constant state of crisis. Ministry after ministry
is tried, found wanting, and thrown aside. The truth is the parties
cannot coalesce. There is a barrier between them that it seems cannot
be overthrown. The elections decided nothing. They left the country and
parties in much the same condition as before. As a matter of fact the
conservatives, if any, gained, but the gain was too small to indicate
the will of the country. We doubt if the country has a will beyond the
desire to be at peace, which the contentions of its own parties alone
threaten. M. Gambetta, the leader of the radicals, is for ever
clamoring for a republic. Well, he has a republic; why not make the
most of it? He has certainly as good a republic as he could make. The
difficulty with him is that the republic which he wishes to lead must
be founded on the negation of Christianity. In France the dividing
lines between creeds are very clearly drawn. Protestantism counts for
nothing there, and the little that there was of it has gone to pieces.
Gambetta’s _bête-noir_ is “clericalism”—_i.e._, Catholicity. He would
abolish the Catholic Church, not merely as an adjunct of the state but
altogether. No Catholicity must be taught in the schools; that is a
vital principle with him. The pope must have nothing to say to
Catholics in France. The clergy must receive no pay, scanty as it is,
from the state. No such thing as a free Catholic university is to be
tolerated. The children of France are to be brought up and educated
free-thinkers, and be made to turn out true Gambettists. In a word, the
foundation of M. Gambetta’s scheme for the regeneration of France is to
abolish the Christian religion there. Irreligion is to be the
corner-stone of his republic.
This is a pleasing prospect for French Catholics, and it may be
necessary to remind our able editors who denounce “clericalism” so
lustily, and see no hope for France but in the republic of M. Gambetta,
that there are still Catholics in France; that the bulk of the nation
is Catholic. It is a pleasing prospect, we say, for them to contemplate
the suppression of their religion at the word of M. Gambetta. Is it
very surprising that the oracle of the new republic should only bring
hatred on the very name of republic to men who can see in it, as
expounded by its oracle, nothing but the most odious tyranny? It was
John Lemoinne, if we remember rightly, who in the anti-Christian
_Journal des Debats_ said, on the retirement of Mr. Gladstone from
office, that religion lay at the bottom of all the great questions that
move the world. If that be so, and it is so, why not recognize the
fact? Must the French republic which M. Gambetta advocates and our
republican editors on this side advocate be first and above all an
irreligious despotism? Must it begin with religious persecution? M.
Gambetta says that it must.
We are not accusing him wrongfully. His own words express his meaning
plainly enough. It must be borne in mind that the epithet
“clericalism,” in the mouths of French radicals, means Catholicity.
Every French Catholic who believes in and practises his religion is a
“clerical”; so every Catholic who believes and does the same all the
world over is, in the mouths of anti-Catholics, an “ultramontane.” If
there is one lurid page in all history that sears the eyes of humane
and sensible men, it is that of the French Revolution—the most awful
revolt, save its offspring, the _Commune_, against all order, human and
divine, that the world has witnessed. Yet “the French Revolution,” and
none other, is M. Gambetta’s _oriflamme_.
Just on the eve of the elections he addressed an immense meeting at the
_Cirque Américain_ in Paris. “Amongst those present,” says the
correspondent of the London _Daily Telegraph_, “I observed the most
prominent members of the various groups of the Left. When the great
orator of the evening (M. Gambetta) appeared, he was received with a
shout of welcome, renewed and continued for several minutes. There were
only two cries issued from every lip: ‘_Vive la République!_’ and
‘_Vive Gambetta!_’ ... On the latter rising to speak he was received
with another storm of cheers.”
Well, and what had he to say to this enthusiastic assembly and to the
leading deputies of the Left? We can only find space for a few
sentences, though the whole speech is instructive, as giving the
character and aims of the man:
“What is at stake?” he asked. “The question is the existence of
universal suffrage _and of the French Revolution_ (Loud cheers). That
is the question.” This declaration, which was so uproariously cheered,
needs no comment. He made a little prophecy, that was unfortunate for
him, regarding the returns of the elections. The prophecy turned out to
be false, even though M. Gambetta assured his friends by saying: “I
should not risk my credit with you five days before the event on a rash
statement.” “The country will say,” he thundered on, “at the
forthcoming elections that she wants the republic administered by
republicans, and not by those who obey the voice of the Vatican.” He
appealed to the example of this country, where he said, with brilliant
vagueness, “law has taken the place of personal vanity, and conscience
that of intrigue.” We accept the example. There are millions of good
enough republicans in this country who certainly “obey the voice of the
Vatican” as faithfully as any “clerical” in all France, and who find
that voice agreeing admirably with their republicanism. Indeed, that
same voice has recently, with justice and openly, proclaimed that in
the republic the Pope is more Pope than in any other country; and we
have yet to learn that the republic has suffered any hurt from that
declaration.
“There is no principle,” said M. Gambetta, “that binds together the
three parties which are now opposed to us, and the nation will do
justice to their monstrous alliance. There is but one binding force,
and that is called clericalism. Those parties wanted a word of order to
rally a formidable army against us; they found it in Jesuitism.” And he
closed his speech by saying:
“I feel that what Europe fears most is that France should again fall
into the hands of the Ultramontane agents. I fear that the universal
suffrage may not take sufficient account of surprise and intimidation.
We must look this question in the face, and be able to say to Europe,
pointing to clericalism, Behold the vanquished!”
As we said, M. Gambetta made a little mistake in his prophecy.
Catholicity is not dead in France; Catholics are not a small fraction
of the people, and in the government of the country of which they form
so important a part they must be taken into account. They will not and
cannot submit to have convictions which are sacred to them disregarded,
to have necessary and national rights trampled under foot at the will
either of M. Gambetta or of anybody else. He assumes altogether too
much. What did the figures of the election show? As M. de Fourtou
pointed out in his speech in the Chamber of Deputies, November 14,
1877: The Opposition had flattered itself that it would return with
four hundred, and yet it lost fifty votes. “It required an astonishing
amount of assurance for the Opposition, after such a check, to pretend
to claim power in defiance of the rights of the Senate.”
“The Opposition,” he continued, “had obtained 4,300,000 and the
Government 3,600,000 votes, France thus dividing herself into two
almost equal parties. Instead of striving to oppress the one by the
other, it would be better to seek a common link to bind themselves
together. Candidates presented themselves to be elected in the name of
a menaced Constitution, the public peace in jeopardy, and in the name
of modern liberties and civil societies. But if the Opposition only
asked for that, it had no adversaries; if it asked for something else
it had no mandate. (Applause from the Right.)”
There is no denying the force of this reasoning. The parties in France
show themselves almost equal, and the only hope of governing the
country is by mutual concession and good-will. M. Gambetta must let the
church alone, if he is so very anxious for peace.
Frenchmen not blinded by passion might have taken warning from the
attitude of Germany and Italy previous to and during the elections.
These two powers—for Italy has now become a sort of tender to
Germany—were earnest for the success of the party led by Gambetta. Why
so? What sympathy can Prince Bismarck possibly have with Gambetta? What
sympathy could he be supposed to have with a republic of the Gambetta
stripe, of the red revolutionary stripe, as his next-door neighbor,
while he so dreads his own socialists? The cause of his new-born
sympathy for a red republic, or a republic of any color, is not far to
find. It was the same sympathy that he had with the _Commune_ during
the siege of Paris. He knows Gambetta, and has had a taste of “the
tribune’s” effective generalship and governing qualities. He was in
France when M. Gambetta made that famous “pact with death” of which we
heard so much and so little came. He knows thoroughly the elements that
make up the strength, the very explosive strength, of M. Gambetta’s
party, and there is probably nothing he would better enjoy than to see
the _fou furieux_ at the helm of state once more. A few months of the
Gambetta _régime_, and Prince Bismarck might say of France, as he said
of Paris, “Let it fry in its own fat.” France is now a most dangerous
foe to Germany—negatively so, at least. She is growing more dangerous
every year. Every year of quiet is an enormous gain to her. She is
vastly richer than Germany. She can stand the strain of her immense
army far more easily than Germany. She is winning back something of the
old love and admiration of the outer world, which she had lost on
entering into the war with Germany. She is patient, laborious,
industrious, desirous of peace with all the world, and day by day
becoming more able to maintain that peace even against Germany. But a
revolution in France would destroy all this and throw the nation years
behind. And so sure as Gambetta attained to power a revolution would
follow; _i.e._, if he adhered—and there is no doubt that he would—to
the programme of a republic which he has sketched in such bold colors.
Once in power, once the strong but quiet hand of Marshal MacMahon was
removed from the helm, the ship of the French state, with or without
Gambetta’s will, would go to speedy wreck.
That is why Prince Bismarck so carefully encouraged the Gambetta
faction. That is why his press thundered against a “clerical”
government in France. That is why the Italian press took up the cry, as
it explains in great measure the mysterious comings and goings between
the courts of Berlin and the Quirinal. That is why, if France would
abide in safety, she must retain her soldier at the head of affairs,
and hasten during the next few years of his term to heal her internal
discords and become one heart and one soul. Marshal MacMahon has
attempted nothing against the republic that was confided to his
safe-keeping. There is yet time, before his term of office expires, for
all Frenchmen to come together and shape their government so as to
ensure peace, freedom, and order in the future. If they cannot do this,
the republic is hopeless in France. It will go out as its predecessors
have gone out within a century, only to make room for a new usurper.
GERMANY.
There is every year less likelihood of a renewal of the dreaded war
between Germany and France. France does not want to fight. Even if
Germany did want to fight she must reckon on a far stronger and more
dangerous foe than she encountered in 1870. Competent military critics,
like the writer in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, whose articles on the French
army attracted such wide and deserved attention, assert that France,
though probably unequal to an attack on Germany, is rather more than
able to hold her own against attack. A stronger critic yet establishes
this fact. In his famous speech in the German Parliament last April, in
favor of the increase of one hundred and five captaincies in the
army—an increase that was bitterly opposed—Count Von Moltke said:
“What the French press does not speak out, but what really exists, is
the fear lest, since France has so often attacked weaker Germany,
strong Germany should now for once fall upon France without
provocation. This accounts for the gigantic efforts France has made in
carrying through within a few years the reorganization of her army with
so much practical intelligence and energy. This explains why, from the
recent conclusion of peace till to-day, an unproportionately large part
of the French army, chiefly artillery and cavalry, is posted, in
excellent condition, between Paris and the German frontier—a
circumstance which must sooner or later lead to an equalizing measure
on our part. It must also be taken into consideration that in France,
where the contrast of political parties is even stronger than with us,
all parties are agreed on one point—viz., in voting all that is asked
for the army. In France the army is the favorite of the nation, its
pride, its hope; the recent defeats of the army have been condoned long
since.”
“The total strength of all these [the French] battalions,” he said in
the same speech, “in times of peace amounts to 487,000 men; whilst
Germany, with a much larger population, has but little over 400,000
under arms. The French budget exceeds the German by more than
150,000,000 marks (shillings), not including considerable supplementary
sums that are there required. Even so wealthy a nation as the French
are will not be able to bear such a burden permanently. Whether this is
done at present for a distinct purpose, in order to reach a certain
goal placed at not too great a distance, I must leave undecided.”
That speech alarmed Europe at the time. Yet it was only a plain
statement of facts which it is as well for Europe to look in the face.
It may seem strange that under the circumstances we should feel so
sanguine about the preservation of peace between these two armed and
hostile nations. But both want peace, and both are too strong to fight.
Of course the unexpected may always occur. France does not disguise her
purpose of revenge, and she means to “mak siccer” next time. But the
gentle hand of Time softens the deepest hatreds; and if even this
enforced peace can only be prolonged the war-fever may die away.
Politics and administrations will change in both countries. Prince
Bismarck will not live for ever. The French had just as bitter a
resentment against England after Waterloo. The resentment died with the
generation that bore it; and only for the evil legacy left by Prince
Bismarck to the empire—the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine—we could
fairly hope for better feeling between the two peoples at least within
a generation.
The smoke of battle cleared away, Germans are beginning to look around
them and investigate civil affairs in a spirit not at all pleasing to a
military administration. The word of command is no longer obeyed so
blindly as before. Even the cabinet does not move to the tap of Prince
Bismarck’s drum as promptly as it was wont. Perhaps, after all, the
chancellor did not gain so very much by his bitter prosecution of Count
Arnim. There have been some notable resignations within the year, and
rumors even, partially confirmed, and again renewed, of the
chancellor’s own resignation. The opposition increases at every
election; and the response of Catholics to the men who make vacant the
sees of their bishops is to return a stronger number of representatives
to the Parliament at each new election. The social democrats do the
same, and altogether the policy of blood and iron appears to be in
strong disfavor.
Even the “orthodox Protestants” have at last openly revolted against
the Falk laws, which were good enough for Catholics, and right in
themselves so long as the orthodox Protestants did not feel them pinch.
They see at last that such laws strike at all religion; that a
generation brought up under them would have no religion at all; and
that if they would retain the congregations who are so rapidly slipping
from their grasp and melting away, they must strike out those laws from
the calendar.
The persecution of the Catholics goes on unrelentingly, but we have no
doubt that better times are in store. The Catholics, as we pointed out,
are gaining in the Parliament. The administration is weakening in unity
and in the confidence of the country. Poverty is pressing upon the
people. The emperor, in his speech from the throne early in the year,
was compelled to allude to the continued depression of trade and
industry. He might very easily have given one great reason for a large
share of that depression in the vast armaments which he finds it
necessary to maintain at a ruinous cost of men, money, and labor to the
country. As recently as last November the London _Times_, which is
certainly a friendly critic, in treating of “Prussian Finance,” took
occasion to say: “The exaction of the five milliards was thought to
crush for ever the growing wealth of France, and to be almost a
superfluous addition to the abundant exchequer of Germany.... At least
the state was rich for a generation to come. Five years have not yet
passed since this huge mass of wealth was transferred, and already we
find bankruptcy almost the rule among German traders, and hear cries
rising on all sides of the hardness of the times and the impossibility
of bearing much longer the crushing weight of taxation. In the hands of
the government the French milliards seem for the most part to have
melted away and left budgets which vary only in the shifts by which
expenses are coaxed into an equality with receipts.”
The conclusion at which the writer arrives is a very suggestive one,
and one that it would be well for Germany to take to heart:
“It would be better that Germany should be content to remain for a year
or two not quite prepared to meet the world in arms rather than that
her citizens should find that the country so impregnably fortified
offers them no life worth living. A man does not buy Chubb’s locks for
his stable-door when his steed is starving.”
Granting that the general peace of Europe is preserved during the next
year, it would not surprise us at all to see a complete change of
administration in Germany, and a consequent relaxation in the laws
against Catholics. We do hope for this. Even Prince Bismarck must now
see that the persecution of the Catholics was, in its lowest aspect, a
political blunder. He miscalculated the faith of these German
Catholics. The beating of his iron hammer has only welded and proved
and tempered that faith, while the world resounded with his blows and
all men saw that they were ineffectual. Thus has the very cradle of the
Protestant Reformation borne noblest witness in our unbelieving age to
the greatness, the strength, the invincibility of the faith and the
church that Luther dreamed he had destroyed, out of Germany at least.
Here is the result, as pictured by an adversary of the Catholic faith,
within the past year: “It pleased Prince Bismarck—whether, as he
himself alleged, in consequence of the council or not—to undertake a
crusade against the Roman Catholic bishops and clergy which, to the
vast body of their co-religionists all the world over, and to many
others also, had all the look of downright persecution. They were
challenged, not for submitting to the Vatican dogma, but for
maintaining what they had always been accustomed to regard, before just
as well as after the council, as the inalienable rights and liberties
of their church. Only one course was open to them as ecclesiastics or
as men of honor—to resist and take the consequences. Some half-dozen
bishops have accordingly been fined, imprisoned, or deprived; and
several hundred—we believe over a thousand—priests have incurred
similar penalties. Whether the policy embodied in the Falk laws was or
was not a wise and a just policy in itself is not the point. If we
assume for argument’s sake that it has all the justification which its
promoters claim for it, the fact remains equally certain that no
greater service could well have been rendered to the cause of
Vaticanism than this opportune rehabilitation of the German bishops.
The bitterness of the antagonism provoked by the Falk legislation may
be measured by the startling news recently given in the German papers,
that an alliance, offensive and defensive, is being formed between the
Catholics and democratic socialists, who can have hardly a single idea
in common beyond hostility to the existing state.”—_Saturday Review_,
February 24, 1877.
THE CATHOLIC OUTLOOK.
Of other states there is little that calls for special attention here.
Italy is linked with Germany, but Italy can scarcely be regarded as a
very strong ally. Its alliance, however, is useful and necessary to the
leader of the conspiracy against the Catholic Church—the conspiracy of
the kings, into which some have entered in a half-hearted way like the
Emperor of Austria, others with the most determined resolve like Prince
Bismarck and the German emperor. These powerful men are doing all they
can to destroy the Catholic Church; and undoubtedly they impede her
growth, and harry and harass her in a thousand ways. It is easy to say
that this is the best thing that could possibly happen to the church;
that persecution is her very soul; that suffering begets repentance,
and chastisement purity of life. That is all very well and true, but
there is another aspect to the matter. Catholics have worldly rights as
well as heavenly. They are here to live in this world, and to live
happily and freely, and to do their work in it. No prince or government
introduced them into life; no prince or government escorts them out of
life. No prince, or government, or state can absolutely claim human
life as theirs. Life is a free gift of God, to be used freely.
Government is not divine, save in so far as it conforms to the
divinity. Men are not chattels and tools to be used as things of no
volition. The government of a people is only a human institution
erected for the people, by the people, and of the people. It cannot lay
claim to superhuman power, and where it does it is an infamous
assumption. The _numen imperatorum_ is more than a myth; it is a devil.
The “divine Cæsar” is but a man, and generally a very disreputable man.
The assumptions of many modern states to absolute rule over man—states
that for the wickedness of those ruling them have been turned
topsy-turvy time and again by the subjects whom they absolutely
ruled—is a return to paganism, and a very artful return. Obey us, it
says, and we will set you free—free from the Christian God and the laws
that go against your nature. Obey us, and you need bow the knee to no
God; you need have no religious belief or practice; we will abolish sin
for you; you shall marry and unmarry as you please, and as often as you
please; you shall do what you like and have no one to gainsay you. Fall
down and worship us, and all the kingdoms of the world are yours.
This is only a true reading of the pet measures of modern governments:
of the divorce court, of civil marriage, of civil baptism, of schools
into which everything but God may enter. And this is the drifting of
the age: the Gambetta party in France, the revolutionary party in
Italy, of which Victor Emanuel is the regal tool and ornament; the
Bismarckian and Falk party in Germany; the Josephism of Austria; the
“free” thought of all lands. It is this that is in conflict, eternal
conflict, with the Catholic Church. It calls itself liberalism; it is
the tyranny of paganism. It does not threaten the Catholic Church
alone. It only threatens that openly, because it feels it its necessary
foe; it threatens the world and carries in its right hand the social
and moral ruin of nations. There is no possible _modus vivendi_ between
it and men who believe in Christ; and men who believe in Christ form
the bulk of all civilized peoples. There will be no peace in the world,
no peace among nations, until religion is free to assert itself. While
the creeds of Christendom are still divided there must be freedom for
all—freedom to adjust their differences and come back once again to the
lost unity for which all honest men sigh. Politics are the affairs of a
day; religion an affair of Eternity to be settled in Time. It must have
freedom to work; and the attempt to restrict and restrain that freedom
is the secret of more than half the troubles that afflict mankind.
This freedom is all that the head of the Catholic Church demands. He
has no other quarrels with princes than this. He blesses and loves
Protestant England, for it recognizes this freedom; he blesses and
loves this country, for it also recognizes this freedom. The wonderful
reign of Pius IX. will, in after-time, be most memorable for this: that
in a deafening and confused time, in a time when all things were called
in question and all rights invaded, his voice and vision were for ever
clear in upholding the most sacred rights of man, in detecting and
exposing what threatened them, and in maintaining the truth by which
the world lives, at all hazard and in the face of all sacrifice. The
truth of which he is the oracle is the faith in God that makes men
free—faith in the undying church founded by the Son of God, in its work
and its mission among men, in the present and the future of a human
society spreading over the world and built upon that faith. And the
world has recognized this. It recognizes in the Pope, not because he is
Pius the Ninth, but because he is Pope and head of the Church Catholic,
the centre of this society, the head of Christendom; for Christendom is
wider than nations; it embraces them in its arms; they are children of
it, and the Pope is their spiritual father. Is not this truth plain?
Whither have the eyes of the world been turned during the year? Less to
the bloody battle-fields of the East, less to the hearts of European
nations and the courts and cabinets of kings, than to the sick bed in
the Vatican. The gaze of many has been that of brutal intensity; the
gaze of many more, and those not all Catholics, has been one of
affectionate and tender regard. Speculations as to the future are not
in place here. The Pope, of course, will die some day. He has stood the
brunt of the battle. He has lived a great life, given a great example,
and done great things for the church of God. Not a stain, not a breath
or whisper of reproach, mars that long career of mingled triumph and
suffering. He has witnessed strange events. He has seen the church
discarded by all the powers that were once her faithful children. He
has seen the sacred territory of the church invaded and torn from his
grasp. He sees himself in his old age and at the close of a stormy life
imprisoned in his own palace. He has seen the world and the princes of
the world do their worst against the church of which he is the earthly
guardian. And yet he sees the church spreading abroad, growing in
numbers and in virtue, borne on the wings of commerce and carrying its
message of peace and good-will to all lands. There is no faltering in
the faith. His eyes have been gladdened, even if saddened, by as noble
confessors, of all grades, rising up to testify to it as the church in
her history of nineteen centuries has ever known. When he obeys the
last call of the Master he has served so well, there will pass from
this world the greatest figure of the age, and as holy a man as the
ages ever knew. But his work will not pass with him. That will remain,
and the lesson of his life will remain to the successor, on whom we
believe that brighter times will dawn—a brightness won out of the
darkness, and the sacrifice, and the storm braved by the good and
gentle man who so resolutely bore Christ’s cross to the very hill of
Calvary and lay down on it and died there.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
MONOTHEISM. The Primitive Religion of Rome. By Rev. Henry Formby. 1
vol. 8vo. London: Williams & Norgate; New York: Scribner, Welford &
Co. 1877.
This is a very interesting and, in some respects, a learned work; but
we are fain to confess that we have been disappointed in it. If the
author, instead of attempting to show that the worship of the one true
God was the early religion of Rome, had contented himself with proving
it to have been professed by the primitive Gentile nations in general,
we should agree with him, and thank him for unfolding in our English
language the incontrovertible truth that polytheism and idolatry are
but corruptions of great primeval traditions collected, preserved, and
handed down by Noe, and that heathen mythology can be made to bear
witness to the original idea of the unity and spirituality of God. This
view of the religious errors of the ancients has been held up by
several eminent writers, and particularly by two who deserve to be
rescued from an unjust oblivion—by Monsignor Bianchini (1697) in _La
Storia Universale provata con Monumenti e figurata con Simboli
Antichi_; and by Abbé Bergier (1773) in his _Origine des Dieux du
Paganisme_. While we do not accuse our reverend author of a want of
modesty precisely in stating his prime opinion about the monotheism of
the second king of Rome, we do think that he writes a little too
dogmatically and as though he had discovered some historical
treasure-trove wherewith to enrich his arguments; whereas no new
documents or monuments whatever have been brought to light to throw a
different or brighter ray upon the character of Numa Pompilius, in
connection with whom, moreover, he seems to us to confound idolatry and
polytheism. We confidently believe that the _Cœleste Numen_ of Numa, on
which so great stress is laid, like the _Deus Optimus Maximus_ of
Tully, or the _Divûm pater atque hominum rex_ of Virgil, was nothing
more than another form of man’s continual, almost involuntary, protest
against the falling away of the human race from the worship of the
Creator, but practically did not betoken more than a recognition of one
among many greater than his fellow-gods. While Numa forbade the worship
of _idols_ in Rome, and consequently professed a less corrupt error
than did many contemporary rulers, he never asserted the unity or, we
prefer to say, the _oneness_ of God. He was a prolific polytheist,
multiplying divinities and introducing new superstitions among his
people. Father Formby has brought up nothing in his favor unknown to
Arnobius, Orosius, St. Augustine, and Tertullian. This last writer,
although he absolves Numa from the crime of idolatry, distinctly
charges upon him a many-parted god: “Nam a Numa concepta est curiositas
superstitiosa” (_Apol._ xxv.)
Our author’s present work is an amplification of a smaller one
published in pamphlet form two years ago, in which he shows the “city
of ancient Rome” to have been “the divinely-sent pioneer of the way for
the Catholic Church.” On this subject we cannot too closely agree with
him, or sufficiently thank him for turning towards our students and
illustrating for them a side of Roman history which is so important.
Our own studies have always pointed in the same direction, and we
cannot better conclude this notice of Father Formby’s work and show our
sympathy with him than by a brief extract from our commonplace book,
made up many years ago in Rome itself:
“The celebrated Gallo-Roman poet and statesman, Rutilius Numatianus,
was much attached to the false ancient divinities of Rome and no small
help to the political party of Symmachus, which so stubbornly fought
St. Ambrose and the Christians. The following lines from his
_Itinerarium_ (i. 62 _et seq._) are truly beautiful and express a grand
idea, but one that is still grander in another sense than his; for if a
heathen understood it to be a blessing in disguise upon the conquered
peoples of the earth to be brought under the domination of Rome on
account of the prosperity and civilization that accompanied her rule,
how shall not a Christian admire the action of divine Providence,
preparing the world for the New Law, and applaud those triumphs that
brought so many countries through the Roman Empire into the Church of
Christ. Of Christian less than of pagan Rome we shall interpret the
poet’s sentiment:
“‘Fecisti patriam diversis gentibus unam;
Profuit invitis, te dominante, capi;
Dumque offers victis patrii consortia juris
Urbem fecisti quod prius orbis erat.’”
THE ILLUSTRATED CATHOLIC FAMILY ALMANAC for 1878. New York: The
Catholic Publication Society Co.
This annual, neat, compact, and perfect in all its mechanical
arrangements—the labor of many busy and well-stored minds condensed
into a portable form—has just been issued. To say that it equals its
predecessors, which have found so much favor with the public, would be
doing it great injustice. In every respect it is far superior, and
shows palpable evidence that its conductors, appreciating the growth in
public taste as well as the increasing desire for reliable information
on important Catholic subjects, have left no effort untried to satisfy
the wishes of their readers. This is particularly noticeable in the
illustrations, which we consider to be not only good pictures but
genuine works of art. The portraits of Archbishop Bayley, Bishops Von
Ketteler and De St. Palais, and the venerable Jesuit Father McElroy are
not only excellent likenesses of those deceased prelates, but the best
specimens of wood-cut portraiture we have yet seen on this side of the
Atlantic. The other engravings, of which there are about a dozen, are
alike creditable to the artist and suitable for the pages of such a
publication. The reading matter, however, will probably most attract
the attention of the majority of purchasers, many of whom will
doubtless wonder where a great portion of it could possibly have been
discovered. Thus, in addition to the lives of the ecclesiastics above
mentioned, and biographical sketches of the venerable Sister Mary
Margaret Bourgeois, Frederic Ozanam, Columbus, and others, we have an
elaborate History of Printing, a description (with fac-similes) of “The
Earliest Irish Madonna,” accounts of the Libraries of the Bollandists
and of the Eremites of York; an archæological sketch of the oldest
churches of the world, an explanation of the antique Cross of St.
Zachary, a _résumé_ of the labors of the Franciscans in California, and
a well-digested mass of astronomical, chronological, and statistical
information which cannot help proving of incalculable value as matters
of reference.
EVIDENCES OF RELIGION. By Louis Jouin, S.J. New York: P. O’Shea. 1877.
There is nothing more gratifying to Catholics who watch the progress of
their religion in this country than to find that the church in the
United States is beginning to supply her own literature, and more
especially her polemical literature, which she needs most of all.
Within the last few years several controversial works and books of
instruction have been written in this country which are far better
adapted to our people than the standard works of foreign authors; and
the time, we trust, is not far distant when we shall be fully supplied
with a well-adapted course of polemics of our own, and be no longer
dependent on the writings of men in lands which are often more or less
out of harmony with the American mind. _The Evidences of Religion_ is
one of the books of which we stood most in need, and the wonder is that
it was not written long before. Perhaps, however, it is as well that no
one attempted it before Father Jouin; for we doubt if any other attempt
could have been so entirely successful.
The book is a marvel of condensed matter and thought and argument. In
its 380 octavo pages are summed up the philosophical treatise _De
Certitudine_ and theological tract _De Locis Theologicis_; and it
contains in addition a refutation, short, sharp, and decisive, of the
latest errors in philosophy, politics, and religion.
Christianity rests on facts, not on mere theories. The science of the
day pretends to deal with facts, and in every case to accept them, so
that in our controversies with the pseudo-science of the times there is
nothing more important than to bring out clearly and strongly the facts
on which the certainty of the Christian faith rests. This Father Jouin
has done, and in his book we have the whole groundwork on which
Christianity is based spread out before us in perspective; the outline
is complete, though of course, in the limited space which he allowed
himself, he has not been able to bring out each detail in full. Yet he
assures us in his preface that nothing essential has been left out, and
we have verified his assertion. Altogether this is just the sort of
book, in our opinion, that is needed to combat the errors of the age,
and to serve as an antidote to the poison of rank infidelity and
materialism with which the very atmosphere around us is charged.
The author tells us that he designs the work more especially as a
text-book for students in the higher classes of our Catholic colleges,
and we sincerely hope that it may be adopted in every Catholic college
throughout the country. Our Catholic instructors fully realize the
importance of giving their students a thorough grounding in the
evidences of their religion, and Father Jouin’s book in the hands of a
good professor can be made the basis of a thorough course of such
instruction.
Not alone to students in colleges do we recommend the study of this
work, but to every intelligent educated Catholic, who should
investigate the reasons on which his religion is founded, and be able
to answer for the faith that is in him. Let our Catholic lawyers and
doctors and business men take it up, and they will find in it
sufficient to convince them of the reasonableness of their creed. It
will furnish them, moreover, with conclusive arguments against the
absurd theories and false views of religion which are being advanced
every day in their hearing.
The greatest enemy that the Catholic Church has to contend with, both
without and within, at the present day, is ignorance of her true
position and teaching, and we eagerly invite and encourage every study
and investigation that may in any way help to dispel it.
It is to be regretted that so valuable a work has not been brought out
in a worthy manner. It is neither well printed nor well put together.
THE NEW VESPER HYMN-BOOK: A companion to _The New Vesper Psalter_;
containing a collection of all the hymns sung at Vespers throughout
the year (classified according to metre), set to music, either for
unison or four voices, with accompaniment, and including the best of
the plain chant melodies, together with the words in full, and the
versicles and responses proper to each hymn. The whole compiled and
edited by Charles Lewis, Director of the Cathedral Choir, Boston,
Mass. Boston: Thos. B. Noonan & Co.
At the present stage of the revival of Gregorian Chant, the true song
of the church, we can commend this little work as one which will
doubtless be found useful in many churches whose organists are unable
to harmonize the chant or the singers to read its proper notation. We
wish, however, that the editor had given all the hymns as found in the
_Vesperale_, as the musical airs which are substituted are not worthy
to supplant the original melodies. The style of notation is that
usually adopted in translations from the old form of four lines and
square notes. Could not the editor have done better, so as to give to
those unaccustomed to plain chant some idea of its movement and
expression? There is no mark given to designate accented from
unaccented notes, and, lacking this, we defy any one who is not
familiar with the traditional movement of a phrase to give its true
expression.
We think the spacing of notes and phrases as given in the old style
should be preserved—that is, the notes upon each syllable should be
printed close together, and a wider and distinct space left between
syllables and words. An intelligent system of writing plain chant upon
the modern musical staff is yet to be invented. We have been told that
in some places the Tonic Sol-Fa system is being attempted, with what
success we have not learned.
LOTOS FLOWERS, GATHERED IN SUN AND SHADOW. By Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum.
New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1877.
Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum is already known to the readers of THE CATHOLIC
WORLD through her poems, “Advent” and “A Birthday Wish” (appearing
under the name of “Twenty-one” in the present collection), published in
its pages during the present year. Her verse is pure in thought and
written out of a woman’s heart full of love and enthusiasm. With true
Southern fervor she revels in the luxuriant flora of her home, and in
the landscape of all her pictures she takes a dear delight. Even so
unsightly an object as a Mississippi steamboat-landing grows
picturesque under her hand, and do we not feel soft Italian air as we
read?—
“Peaceful stand
The sentinel poplars in their gold-green plumes
Beside the Enzo bridge. Where late the hoofs
Of flying squadrons scared th’affrighted land
The soft cloud-shadows chase each other now
O’er violet gardens.”
As with many another poet, the ease with which Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum
writes is at times a snare, leading her to accept too readily a
hackneyed term or word, surrendering after too slight a struggle to the
tyranny of rhyme. In her verse, also, there is sometimes a lack of
smoothness that would set despair in the heart of the faithful scanner.
Was it because our ears were sick with a certain slang of “culture”
that, when we stumbled over Krishna in the “Christian Legend,” we felt
a strong desire to banish these Indian immortals to that Hades where
languished the gods of Greece until Schiller called them forth to run
riot in the field of religion as well as of art? And is not the term
“legend” a strange misnomer, for the New Testament narrative of the
raising of Lazarus? For Mrs. Chambers-Ketchum’s verse is essentially
Christian and womanly, and even so short a notice of it would scarcely
be complete without a mention of “Benny,” who, with his kitten and his
“baby’s sense of right,” is already dear and familiar to the mothers
and children of our whole country, whose kindly hearts will surely give
to Benny’s mother their sympathy in his loss.
SURLY TIM, AND OTHER STORIES. By Francis Hodgson Burnett. New York:
Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.
Unfortunately for our first impression of the merit of the little
volume of which “Surly Tim” is the initial story, we began our reading
with “Lodusky,” attracted to it by the locality of the tale, its hill
people and dialect being a loadstone to us, but lately returned from
similar surroundings. But as even in our mountain Edens we find the
trail of the serpent, so in “Lodusky” we seemed to be treading the
familiar path of moral irresponsibility and the tyranny of personal
magnetism, and we craved the flaming sword of the archangel to put the
evil to flight.
Nor did our impression grow fairer on turning to “Le Monsieur de la
Petite Dame.” But in “One Day at Arle” and in “Seth” we welcomed truly
the author’s strong and exquisite pathos. In these pictures of the
sorrow of the laboring classes the author draws with a pencil full of
feeling, working under a sky whose hue is the leaden monotone of modern
French landscape painting; a break of sunshine here and there, but the
light seems to fall, after all, on earthly stubble and the dumb, almost
soulless faces of patient cattle that know nothing beyond their daily
furrow and the mute, faithful service they bear a kindly hand at the
plough.
We are reminded of the pathos of Robert Buchanan’s North-Coast verse,
and we close the little volume sadly, almost as if all human sorrow
wherein is no Christian joy stood at our threshold, asking from us an
alms we had no power to give.
REPERTORIUM ORATORIS SACRI: Containing Outlines of Six Hundred Sermons
for all the Sundays and Holidays of the Ecclesiastical Year; also
for other solemn occasions. Compiled from the works of eminent
preachers of various ages and nations by a secular priest. With an
introduction by the Rt. Rev. Joseph Dwenger, D.D., Bishop of Fort
Wayne. New York and Cincinnati: Fr. Pustet, Typographus Sedis
Apostolicæ. 1877.
This publication is to be continued in monthly parts, each part
containing the outlines of two sermons for each Sunday and holiday for
one quarter of the year. There will be four volumes of four parts each,
so that when the work is completed there will be eight sermons for each
occasion.
It will, if it fulfils the promise of this first number, be the best
and most complete collection of the kind ever published so far as we
are aware. It hardly needs to be said that plans of sermons such as are
here given are very much more valuable to a preacher than the actual
sermons themselves; for there are few who can give with much effect the
words of another, to say nothing of the trouble involved in committing
them to memory. The sermons of great pulpit orators are indeed
extremely useful and deserving of study as models of style; but a few
will answer that purpose as well as a thousand.
The work is in English, being designed principally for use in this
country. It is most earnestly to be hoped that it will receive the
liberal support which it certainly deserves.
NICHOLAS MINTURN. A Study in a Story. By J. G. Holland. 1 vol. 12mo.
New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.
We prefer Dr. Holland’s stories to his essays. He possesses fine
descriptive powers; his genial humor captivates the reader; his power
of analysis is searching. No one can read _Nicholas Minturn_ without
recognizing the author’s ability to lay bare the vices and follies of
the various classes with whom his hero is brought in contact. In doing
this, however, Dr. Holland is apt to forget their redeeming virtues.
This is his great fault as a novelist. He lacks the power to vitalize
the subtle traits that appeal to our humanity. There is no bond of
union between his people and us. He is unable to centralize our
interest. When disaster overtakes the ocean steamer there is not a
single figure to start out from the group and wring a groan of
compassion from us. We listen to the wailing of despair and the shriek
of terror with as much apathy as if it arose from a distant
battle-field. In all other respects the story is far superior to the
great mass of light literature.
THE ETERNAL YEARS. By the Hon. Mrs. A. Montgomery, author of _The
Divine Sequence_, also _The Bucklyn Shaig_, _Mine Own Familiar
Friend_, _The Wrong Man_, _On the Wing_, etc. With an introduction
by the Rev. S. Porter, S.J. London: Burns & Oates. 1877.
_The Eternal Years_ is a republication of a series of articles from THE
CATHOLIC WORLD. A number of thoughtful readers of our magazine have
expressed the great interest with which they have read those articles
and their desire to know the name of the author. They will be pleased
to see that they are now published in a volume under their author’s
name. _On the Wing_ will be remembered as having been one of the most
popular of the series of sketches taken from scenes in European life
and incidents of travel which we have from time to time published. Mrs.
Montgomery possesses a very versatile talent as a writer, and passes
with facility “from grave to gay, from lively to severe.” Whatever she
writes is always both instructive and pleasing.
THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TEACHER’S MANUAL; or, The Art of Teaching Catechism.
For the use of teachers and parents. By the Rev. A. A. Lambing,
author of _The Orphan’s Friend_. New York: Benziger Brothers. 1877.
Father Lambing has done for Sunday-school teachers what M. Amond, the
curé of St. Sulpice, and Father Porter have done for those engaged in
the sacred ministry of the pulpit.
This manual, written in a clear and popular style, supplies a need that
should have been more felt than it was. It gives those in charge of
Sunday-schools a true idea of their very important mission, a deep
sense of the responsibility that rests upon them, points out the
various qualifications necessary for the faithful discharge of their
duties, and contains many useful instructions which will aid them in
becoming effective catechisers.
IZA: A STORY OF LIFE IN RUSSIAN POLAND. By Kathleen O’Meara. London:
Burns & Oates. 1877. (New York: The Catholic Publication Society
Co.)
This book, by a lady who since its first appearance has become
distinguished in the higher walks of literature, has been republished
at a very seasonable time, when the Eastern war, and the novel
pretensions of Russia to be considered the friend and protector of
oppressed nationalities, have once more called public attention to her
barbarous treatment of the gallant Poles. The scenes are laid in
Poland; the characters, which are few and clearly drawn, are Polish or
Muscovite, and the plot, though simple and natural, is well and
artistically wrought out. The theme of the whole story is the
oppression of the Polish nobility by the shrewd, keen, and unscrupulous
agents of the czar, wherein the generous, high-spirited and confiding
patriotism of the one class is strongly contrasted with the
accomplished villainy of the other. Though the superstructure is, of
course, a work of pure fiction, it is based on well known historical
facts. The entire work is written with great care and accuracy as to
names, places, costumes, and local customs, the situations are highly
dramatic, and the moral effect produced on the reader is healthful and
salutary.
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THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
The attention of readers will be directed to the advertisement of
complete sets of THE CATHOLIC WORLD and THE YOUNG CATHOLIC as suitable
and valuable Christmas presents. Bound volumes of THE YOUNG CATHOLIC
make the very best present that could be offered to children. The
reading matter is interesting, the illustrations are really excellent,
and the puzzles and charades afford unfailing amusement for the long
winter evenings.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD is now in its twenty-sixth volume. It constitutes a
library, and a most valuable and varied library, in itself. In it is
everything that could be desired. Theology and philosophy have their
departments, filled by men of known and recognized competence, master
minds indeed in those higher sciences. The literary articles and
reviews are acknowledged by the secular press to be unsurpassed in
power, grace, and strength. The polemics of the day find their true
solution in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, which has told upon the non-Catholic
mind in this country as no other magazine or publication has been able
to tell. There is an abundance of fiction and light literature in its
pages, a fiction that has known how to be interesting without being
dangerous, and good without being dull. Many stories that have already
made their mark in the literary world and won deserved fame for their
authors began by passing through the columns of this magazine. All the
leading and absorbing questions of the day are taken up and discussed
in it by men thoroughly equipped and fitted for so important a task.
Indeed THE CATHOLIC WORLD may fairly claim to be a channel through
which the very best Catholic literature of the day, in all its forms,
passes, a guide to and in all the questions of the day, and a
compendium from year to year of all that is best and most worthy of
attention in the higher sciences, in physical science, in politics, in
literature, and in art. His Eminence the Cardinal has recently kindly
taken occasion to “congratulate the Catholics in America on possessing
a magazine of which they may be justly proud,” and trusts “that they
will contribute their share to make THE CATHOLIC WORLD still more
useful to themselves and to the Church at large.” No words could add
strength to this commendation and appeal; and it is to be hoped that
Catholics will take both to heart. No intelligent Catholic in this
country should be without a magazine that is peculiarly and designedly
his own. Yet are there thousands of intelligent persons who are without
it, who probably do not know of its existence. It is for those who do
know it and appreciate it to make it known among their friends. Taken
in the very lowest sense, no man has yet complained that in THE
CATHOLIC WORLD he did not receive the full, and more than the full,
value of his money.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXVI., No. 155.—FEBRUARY, 1878.
CEADMON THE COW-HERD, ENGLAND’S FIRST POET.
BY AUBREY DE VERE.
The Venerable Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation_
contains nothing more touching than its record of Ceadmon, the earliest
English poet, whose gift came to him in a manner so extraordinary. It
occurs in the 24th chapter: “By his verses the minds of many were often
excited to despise the world, and to aspire to heaven. Others after him
attempted in the English nation to compose religious poems, but none
could ever compare with him; for he did not learn the art of poetry
from man, but from God, for which reason he never would compose any
vain or trivial poem.” ... “Being sometimes at entertainments, when it
was agreed, for the sake of mirth, that all present should sing in
their turns, when he saw the instrument come towards him he rose from
the table and retired home. Having done so on a certain occasion, ... a
Person appeared to him in his sleep, and, saluting him by his name,
said, ‘Ceadmon, sing some song for me.’ He answered, ‘I cannot sing.’”
Ceadmon’s song is next described: “How he, being the Eternal God,
became the author of all miracles, Who first, as Almighty Preserver of
the human race, created heaven for the sons of men, _as the roof of the
house_, and _next_ the earth.” ... “He sang the Creation of the world,
the origin of man, and all the history of Genesis, ... the Incarnation,
Passion, Resurrection of our Lord, and His Ascension.”[158] Ceadmon’s
poetry is referred to also in Sharon Turner’s _History of the
Anglo-Saxons_; and Sir Francis Palgrave points out the singular
resemblance of passages in _Paradise Lost_ to corresponding passages in
its surviving fragments. To the history of Ceadmon Montalembert has
devoted some of the most eloquent paragraphs in his admirable work,
_Les Moines d’Occident_—see chapter ii., vol. iv., page 68.
Sole stood upon the pleasant bank of Esk
Ceadmon the Cow-herd, while the sinking sun
Reddened the bay, and fired the river-bank
With pomp beside of golden Iris lit,
And flamed upon the ruddy herds that strayed
Along the marge, clear-imaged. None was nigh:—
For that cause spake the Cow-herd, “Praise to God!
He made the worlds; and now, by Hilda’s hand
He plants a fair crown upon Whitby’s height:
Daily her convent towers more high aspire;
Daily ascend her Vespers. Hark that strain!”
He stood and listened. Soon the flame-touched herds
Sent forth their lowings, and the cliffs replied,
And Ceadmon thus resumed: “The music note
Rings through their lowings dull, though heard by few!
Poor kine, ye do your best! Ye know not God,
Yet man, his likeness, unto you is God,
And him ye worship with obedience sage,
A grateful, sober, much-enduring race
That o’er the vernal clover sigh for joy,
With winter snows contend not. Patient kine,
What thought is yours, deep-musing? Haply this—
‘God’s help! how narrow are our thoughts, and few!
Not so the thoughts of that slight human child
Who daily drives us with her blossomed rod
From lowland valleys to the pails long-ranged!’
Take comfort, kine! God also made your race!
If praise from man surceased, from your broad chests
That God would perfect praise, and, when ye died,
Resound it from yon rocks that gird the bay:
God knoweth all things. Let that thought suffice!”
Thus spake the ruler of the deep-mouthed kine:
They were not his; the man and they alike
A neighbor’s wealth. He was contented thus:
Humble he was in station, meek of soul,
Unlettered, yet heart-wise. His face was pale;
Stately his frame, though slightly bent by age:
Slow were his eyes, and slow his speech, and slow
His musing step; and slow his hand to wrath,
A massive hand, but soft, that many a time
Had succored man and woman, child and beast;
Ay, yet could fiercely grasp the sword! At times
As mightily it clutched his ashen goad
When like an eagle on him swooped some thought:
Then stood he as in dream, his pallid front
Brightening like eastern sea-cliffs when a moon
Unrisen is near its rising.
Round the bay Meantime with deepening eve
full many a fire Up-sprung, and horns were heard. Around the steep With
bannered pomp and many a dancing plume Ere long a cavalcade made way.
Whence came it? Oswy, Northumbria’s king, the foremost rode, Oswy
triumphant o’er the Mercian host, To sue for blessing on his sceptre
new; With him an Anglian prince, student long time In Bangor of the
Irish, and a monk Of Gallic race far wandering from the Marne: They
came to look on Hilda, hear her words Of far-famed wisdom on the
Interior Life: For Hilda thus discoursed: “True life of man Is life
within: inward immeasurably The being winds of all who walk the earth;
But he whom sense hath blinded nothing knows Of that wide greatness:
like a boy is he That clambers round some castle’s wall extern In
search of nests—the outward wall of seven— Yet nothing knows of those
great courts within, The hall where princes banquet, or the bower Where
royal maidens touch the lyre and lute, Much less its central church,
and sacred shrine Wherein God dwells alone.”[159] Thus Hilda spake; And
they that gazed upon her widening eyes Low whispered, each to each,
“She speaks of things Which she hath seen and known.”
On Whitby’s crest The royal feast was
holden: far below, A noisier revel dinned the shore; therein The
humbler guests partook. Full many a tent Glimmered upon the white
sands, ripple-kissed; Full many a savory dish sent up its steam; The
farmer from the field had driven his calf; The fisher brought the
harvest of the sea; And Jock, the woodsman, from his oaken glades The
tall stag, arrow-pierced. In gay attire Now green, now crimson, matron
sat and maid: Each had her due: the elder, reverence most, The lovelier
that and love. Beside the board The beggar lacked not place.
When hunger’s rage, Sharpened by fresh
sea-air, was quelled, the jest Succeeded, and the tale of foreign
lands; But, boast who might of distant chief renowned, His battle-axe,
or fist that felled an ox, The Anglian’s answer was “our Hilda” still:
“Is not her prayer puissant as sworded hosts? Her insight more than
wisdom of the seers? What birth like hers illustrious? Edwin’s self,
Dëira’s exile, next Northumbria’s king, Her kinsman was. Together bowed
they not When he of holy hand, missioned from Rome, Paulinus, poured
o’er both the absolving wave And knit to Christ? Kingliest was she,
that maid Who spurned earth-crowns!” The night advanced, he rose That
ruled the feast, the miller old, yet blithe, And cried, “A song!” So
song succeeded song, For each man knew that time to chant his stave,
But no man yet sang nobly. Last the harp Made way to Ceadmon, lowest at
the board: He pushed it back, answering, “I cannot sing:” Around him
many gathered clamoring, “Sing!” And one among them, voluble and small,
Shot out a splenetic speech: “This lord of kine, Our herdsman, grows to
ox! Behold, his eyes Move slow, like eyes of oxen!”
Sudden rose
Ceadmon, and spake: “I note full oft young men
Quick-eyed, but small-eyed, darting glances round
Now here, now there, like glance of some poor bird,
That light on all things and can rest on none:
As ready are they with their tongues as eyes;
But all their songs are chirpings backward blown
On winds that sing God’s song, by them unheard:
My oxen wait my service: I depart.”
Then strode he to his cow-house in the mead,
Displeased though meek, and muttered, “Slow of eye!
My kine are slow: if I were swift my hand
Might tend them worse.” Hearing his steps the kine
Turned round their hornèd foreheads: angry thoughts
Went from him as a vapor. Straw he brought,
And strewed their beds; and they, contented well,
Down laid ere long their great bulks, breathing deep
Amid the glimmering moonlight. He, with head
Propped on the white flank of a heifer mild,
Rested, his deer-skin o’er him drawn. Hard days
Bring slumber soon. His latest thought was this:
“Though witless things we are, my kine and I,
Yet God it was who made us.”
As he slept,
Beside him stood a Man Divine and spake;
“Ceadmon, arise, and sing.” Ceadmon replied,
“My Lord, I cannot sing, and for that cause
Forth from the revel came I. Once, in youth,
I willed to sing the bright face of a maid,
And failed, and once a gold-faced harvest-field,
And failed, and once the flame-eyed face of war,
And failed once more.” To him the Man Divine,
“Those themes were earthly. Sing!” And Ceadmon said,
“What shall I sing, my Lord?” Then answer came,
“Ceadmon, stand up, and sing thy song of God.”
At once obedient, Ceadmon rose, and sang,
And help was with him from great thoughts of old
Within his silent nature yearly stored,
That swelled, collecting like a flood that bursts
In spring its icy bar. The Lord of all
He sang; that God beneath whose hand eterne,
Then when he willed forth-stretched athwart the abyss,
Creation like a fiery chariot ran,
Inwoven wheels of ever-living stars.
Him first he sang. The builder, here below,
From fair foundations rears at last the roof,
But Song, a child of heaven, begins with heaven,
The archetype divine, and end of all,
More late descends to earth. He sang that hymn,
“Let there be light, and there was light”; and lo!
On the void deep came down the seal of God
And stamped immortal form. Clear laughed the skies,
While from crystalline seas the strong earth brake,
Both continent and isle; and downward rolled
The sea-surge summoned to his home remote.
Then came a second vision to the man
There standing ‘mid his oxen. Darkness sweet,
He sang, of pleasant frondage clothed the vales,
Ambrosial bowers rich-fruited which the sun,
A glory new-created in his place,
All day made golden, and the moon by night
Silvered with virgin beam, while sang the bird
Her first of love-songs on the branch first-flower’d—
Not yet the lion stalked. And Ceadmon sang
O’er-awed, the Father of all humankind
Standing in garden planted by God’s hand,
And girt by murmurs of the rivers four,
Between the trees of Knowledge and of Life,
With eastward face. In worship mute of God,
Eden’s Contemplative he stood that hour,
Not her Ascetic, since, where sin is none,
No need for spirit severe.
And Ceadmon sang
God’s Daughter, Adam’s Sister, Child, and Bride,
Our Mother Eve. Lit by the matin star,
That nearer drew to earth, and brighter flashed
To meet her gaze, that snowy Innocence
Stood up with queenly port. She turned: she saw
Earth’s King, mankind’s great Father. Taught by God,
Immaculate, unastonished, undismayed,
In love and reverence to her Lord she drew,
And, kneeling, kissed his hand: and Adam laid
That hand, made holier, on that kneeler’s head,
And spake; “For this shall man his parents leave,
And to his wife cleave fast.”
When Ceadmon ceased
Thus spake the Man Divine: “At break of day
Seek thou some prudent man, and say that God
Hath loosed thy tongue; nor hide henceforth thy gift.”
Then Ceadmon turned, and slept among his kine
Dreamless. Ere dawn he stood upon the shore
In doubt: but when at last o’er eastern seas
The sun, long wished for, like a god upsprang,
Once more he found God’s song upon his mouth
Murmuring high joy; and sought a prudent man,
And told him all the vision. At the word
He to the Abbess with the tidings fled,
And she made answer, “Bring me Ceadmon here.”
Then clomb the pair that sea-beat mount of God
Fanned by sea-gale, nor trod, as others used,
The curving way, but faced the abrupt ascent,
And halted not, so worked in both her will,
Till now between the unfinished towers they stood
Panting and spent. The portals open stood:
Ceadmon passed in alone. Nor ivory decked,
Nor gold, the walls. That convent was a keep
Strong ’gainst invading storm or demon hosts,
And naked as the rock whereon it stood,
Yet, as a church, august. Dark, high-arched roofs
Slowly let go the distant hymn. Each cell
Cinctured its statued saint, the peace of God
On every stony face. Like caverned grot
Far off the western window frowned: beyond,
Close by, there shook an autumn-blazoned tree:
No need for gems beside of storied glass.
He entered last that hall where Hilda sat
Begirt with a great company, the chiefs
Down either side far ranged. Three stalls, cross-crowned,
Stood side by side, the midmost hers. The years
Had laid upon her brows a hand serene,
And left alone their blessing. Levelled eyes
Sable, and keen, with meditative strength
Conjoined the instinct and the claim to rule;
Firm were her lips and rigid. At her right
Sat Finan, Aidan’s successor, with head
Snow-white, and beard that rolled adown a breast
Never by mortal passion heaved in storm,
A cloister of majestic thoughts that walked,
Humbly with God. High in the left-hand stall
Oswy was throned, a man in prime, with brow
Less youthful than his years. Exile long past,
Or deepening thought of one disastrous deed,
Had left a shadow in his eyes. The strength
Of passion held in check looked lordly forth
From head and hand: tawny his beard; his hair
Thick-curled and dense. Alert the monarch sat
Half turned, like one on horseback set that hears,
And he alone, the advancing trump of war.
Down the long gallery strangers thronged in mass,
Dane or Norwegian, huge of arm through weight
Of billows oar-subdued, with stormy looks
Wild as their waves and crags; Southerns keen-browed;
Pure Saxon youths, fair-fronted, with mild eyes
(These less than others strove for nobler place),
And Pilgrim travel-worn. Behind the rest,
And higher-ranged in marble-arched arcade,
Sat Hilda’s sisterhood. Clustering they shone,
White-veiled, and pale of face, and still and meek,
An inly-bending curve, like some young moon
Whose crescent glitters o’er a dusky strait.
In front were monks dark-stoled: for Hilda ruled,
Though feminine, two houses, one of men:
Upon two chasm-divided rocks they stood,
To various service vowed, though single. Faith;
Nor ever, save at rarest festival,
Their holy inmates met.
“Is this the man
Favored, though late, with gift of song?” Thus spake
Hilda with placid smile. Severer then
She added: “Son, the commonest gifts of God
He counts his best, and oft temptation blends
With powers more rare. Yet sing! That God who lifts
The violet from the grass as well could draw
Music from stones hard by. That song thou sang’st,
Sing it once more.”
Then Ceadmon from his knees
Arose and stood. With princely instinct first
The strong man to the abbess bowed, and next
To that great twain, the bishop and the king,
Last to that stately concourse ranged each side
Down the long hall; and, dubious, answered thus:
“Great Mother, if that God who sent the song
Vouchsafe me to recall it, I will sing;
But I misdoubt it lost.” Slowly his face
Down-drooped, and all his body forward bent
As brooding memory, step by step, retracked
Its backward way. Vainly long time it sought
The starting-point. Then Ceadmon’s large, soft hands
Opening and closing worked; for wont were they,
In musings when he stood, to clasp his goad,
And plant its point far from him, thereupon
Propping his stalwart weight. Customed support
Now finding not, unwittingly those hands
Reached forth, and on Saint Finan’s crosier-staff
Settling, withdrew it from the old bishop’s grasp;
And Ceadmon leant thereon, while passed a smile
Down the long hall to see earth’s meekest man
The spiritual sceptre claim of Lindisfarne.
They smiled; he triumphed: soon the Cow-herd found
That first fair corner-stone of all his song;
Then rose the fabric heavenward. Lifting hands,
Once more his lordly music he rehearsed,
The void abyss at God’s command forth-flinging
Creation like a Thought:—where night had reigned,
The universe of God.
The singing stars
Which with the Angels sang when earth was made
Sang in his song. From highest shrill of lark
To ocean’s deepest under cliffs low-browed,
And pine-woods’ vastest on the topmost hills,
No tone was wanting; while to them that heard
Strange images looked forth of worlds new-born,
Fair, phantom mountains, and, with forests plumed,
The marvelling headlands, for the first time glassed
In waters ever calm. O’er sapphire seas
Green islands laughed. Fairer, the wide earth’s flower,
Eden, on airs unshaken yet by sighs
From bosom still inviolate forth poured
Immortal sweets. With sense to spirit turned
Who heard the song inhaled those sweets. Their eyes
Flashing, their passionate hands and heaving breasts,
Tumult self-stilled, and mute, expectant trance,
’Twas these that gave their bard his twofold might,
That might denied to poets later born
Who, singing to soft brains and hearts ice-hard,
Applauded or contemned, alike roll round
A vainly-seeking eye, and, famished, drop
A hand clay-cold upon the unechoing shell,
Missing their inspiration’s human half.
Thus Ceadmon sang, and ceased. Silent awhile
The concourse stood (for all had risen), as though
Waiting from heaven its echo. Each on each
Gazed hard and caught his hands. Fiercely ere long
Their gratulating shout aloft had leaped
But Hilda laid her finger on her lip,
Or provident lest praise might stain the pure,
Or deeming song a gift too high for praise.
She spake: “Through help of God thy song is sound:
Now hear His Holy Word, and shape therefrom
A second hymn, and worthier than the first.”
Then Finan stood, and bent his hoary head
Above the Scripture tome in reverence stayed
Upon his kneeling deacon’s hands and brow,
And sweetly sang five verses, thus beginning,
“_Cum esset desponsata_,” and was still;
And next rehearsed them in the Anglian tongue:
Then Ceadmon took God’s Word into his heart,
And ruminating stood, as when the kine,
Their flowery pasture ended, ruminate;
And was a man in thought. At last the light
Shone from his dubious countenance, and he spake:
“Great Mother, lo! I saw a second Song!
T’wards me it came; but with averted face,
And borne on shifting winds. A man am I
Sluggish and slow, that needs must muse and brood;
Therefore that Scripture till the sun goes down
Will I revolve. If song from God be mine
Expect me here at morn.”
The morrow morn
In that high presence Ceadmon stood and sang
A second song, and manlier than his first;
And Hilda said, “From God it came, not man;
Thou therefore live a monk among my monks,
And sing to God.” Doubtful he stood—“From youth
My place hath been with kine; their ways I know,
And how to cure their griefs.” Smiling she answered,
“Our convent hath its meads, and kine; with these
Consort each morning: night and day be ours.”
Then Ceadmon knelt, and bowed, and said, “So be it”:
And aged Finan, and Northumbria’s king
Oswy, approved; and all that host had joy.
Thus in that convent Ceadmon lived, a monk,
Humblest of all the monks, save him that slept
In the next cell, who once had been a prince.
Seven times a day he sang God’s praises, first
When earliest dawn drew back night’s sable veil
With trembling hand, revisiting the earth
Like some pale maid that through the curtain peers
Round her sick mother’s bed, misdoubting half
If sleep lie there, or death; latest when eve
Through nave and chancel stole from arch to arch,
And laid upon the snowy altar-step
At last a brow of gold. From time to time,
By ancient yearnings driven, through wood and vale
He tracked Dëirean or Bernician glades
To holy Ripon, or late-sceptred York,
Not yet great Wilfred’s seat, or Beverley:—
The children gathered round him, crying, “Sing!”
They gave him inspiration with their eyes,
And with his conquering music he returned it.
Oftener he roamed that strenuous eastern coast
To Yarrow and to Wearmouth, sacred sites,
The well-beloved of Bede, or northward more,
To Bamborough, Oswald’s keep. At Coldingham
His feet had rest—there where St. Ebba’s Cape
That ends the lonely range of Lammermoor,
Sustained for centuries o’er the wild sea-surge
In region of dim mist and flying bird,
Fronting the Forth, those convent piles far-kenned,
The worn-out sailor’s hope.
Fair English shores,
Despite the buffeting storms of north and east,
Despite rough ages blind with stormier strife,
Or froz’n by doubt, or sad with sensual care,
A fragrance as of Carmel haunts you still
Bequeathed by feet of that forgotten saint
Who trod you once, sowing the seed divine!
Fierce tribes that kenned him distant round him flocked;
On sobbing sands the fisher left his net,
His lamb the shepherd on the hills of March,
Suing for song. With wrinkled face all smiles,
Like that blind Scian upon Grecian shores,
If God the song accorded, Ceadmon sang;
If God denied it, after musings deep
He answered, “I am of the kine and dumb”;—
The man revered his art, and fraudful song
Esteemed as fraudful coin.
Music denied,
He solaced them with tales wherein, so seemed it,
Nature and Grace, inwoven, like children played,
Or like two sisters o’er one sampler bent,
One pattern worked. Ever the sorrowful chance
Ending in joy, the human craving still,
Like creeper circling up the Tree of Life,
Lifted by hand unseen, witnessed that He,
Man’s Maker, is the Healer too of man,
And life his school, expectant. Parables—
Thus Ceadmon named his legends. They who heard
Made answer, “Nay, not parables, but truths;”
Endured no change of phrase; to years remote
Transmitted them as facts.
Better than tale
They loved their minstrel’s harp. The songs he sang
Were songs to brighten gentle hearts, to fire
Strong hearts with holier courage, hope to breathe
Through spirits despondent, o’er the childless floor
Or widowed bed, flashing from highest heaven
A beam half faith, half vision. Many a tear,
His own, and tears of those that listened, fell
Oft as he sang that hand, lovely as light,
Forth stretched, and gathering from forbidden boughs
That fruit fatal to man. He sang the Flood,
Sin’s doom that quelled the impure, yet raised to height
Else inaccessible, the just. He sang
That patriarch facing at Divine command
The illimitable desert—harder proof,
Lifting his knife o’er him, the seed foretold:
He sang of Israel loosed, the twelve black seals
Down pressed on Egypt’s testament of woe,
Covenant of pride with penance; sang the face
Of Moses glittering from red Sinai’s rocks,
The Tables twain, and Mandements of God.
On Christian nights he sang that jubilant star
Which led the Magians to the Bethlehem crib
By Joseph watched, and Mary. Pale, in Lent,
Tremulous and pale, he told of Calvary,
Nor added word, but, as in trance, rehearsed
That Passion fourfold of the Evangelists,
Which, terrible and swift—not like a tale—
With speed of things which must be done, not said,
A river of bale, from guilty age to age,
Along the lamentable shore of things
Annual makes way, the history of the world,
Not of one race, one day. Up to its fount
That stream he tracked, that primal mystery sang
Which, chanted later by a thousand years,
Music celestial, though with note that jarred
(Some wandering orb troubling its starry chime),
Amazed the nations—“There was war in heaven:
Michael and they, his angels, warfare waged
With Satan and his angels.” Brief that war,
That ruin total. Brief was Ceadmon’s song:
Therein the Eternal Face was undivulged:
Therein the Apostate’s form no grandeur wore:
The grandeur was elsewhere. Who hate their God
Change not alone to vanquished but to vile.
On Easter morns he sang the Saviour Risen,
Eden regained. Since then on England’s shores
Though many sang, yet no man sang like him.
O holy House of Whitby! on thy steep
Rejoice, howe’er the tempest, night or day,
Afflict thee, or the craftier hand of Time,
Drag back thine airy arches in mid spring;
Rejoice, for Ceadmon in thy cloisters knelt,
And singing paced beside thy sounding sea!
Long years he lived; and with the whitening hair
More youthful grew in spirit, and more meek;
And they that saw him said he sang within
Then when the golden mouth but seldom breathed
Sonorous strain, and when—that fulgent eye
No longer bright—still on his forehead shone
Not flame but purer light, like that last beam
Which, when the sunset woods no longer burn,
Maintains its place on Alpine throne remote,
Or utmost beak of promontoried cloud,
And heavenward dies in smiles. Esteem of men
Daily he less esteemed, through single heart
More knit with God. To please a sickly child
He sang his latest song, and, ending, said,
“Song is but body, though ’tis body winged:
The soul of song is love: the body dead,
The soul should thrive the more.” That Patmian Sage
Whose head had lain upon the Saviour’s breast,
Who in high vision saw the First and Last,
Who heard the harpings of the Elders crowned,
Who o’er the ruins of the Imperial House
And ashes of the twelve great Cæsars dead
Witnessed the endless triumph of the just,
To earthly life restored, and, weak through age,
But seldom spake, and gave but one command,
The great “_Mandatum Novum_” of his Lord,
“My children, love each other!” Like to his
Was Ceadmon’s age. Weakness with happy stealth
Increased upon him: he was cheerful still:
He still could pace, though slowly, in the sun,
Still gladsomely converse with friends who wept,
Still lay a broad hand on his well-loved kine.
The legend of the last of Ceadmon’s days:—
That hospital wherein the old monks died
Stood but a stone’s throw from the monastery:
“Make there my couch to-night,” he said, and smiled:
They marvelled, yet obeyed. There, hour by hour,
The man, low-seated on his pallet-bed,
In silence watched the courses of the stars,
Or casual spake at times of common things,
And three times played with childhood’s days, and twice
His father named. At last, like one that, long
Begirt with good, is smit by sudden thought
Of greater good, thus spake he: “Have ye, sons,
Here in this house the Blessed Sacrament?”
They answered, wrathful, “Father, thou art strong;
Shake not thy children! Thou hast many days!”
“Yet bring me here the Blessed Sacrament,”
Once more he said. The brethren issued forth
Save four that silent sat waiting the close.
Ere long in grave procession they returned,
Two deacons first, gold-vested; after these
That priest who bare the Blessed Sacrament,
And acolytes behind him, lifting lights.
Then from his pallet Ceadmon slowly rose
And worshipped Christ, his God, and reaching forth
His right hand, cradled in his left, behold!
Therein was laid God’s Mystery. He spake:
“Stand ye in flawless charity of God
T’wards me, my sons, or lives there in your hearts
Memory the least of wrong or wrath?” They answered:
“Father, within us lives nor wrong, nor wrath,
But love, and love alone.” And he: “Not less
Am I in charity with you, my sons,
And all my sins of pride, and other sins,
Humbly I mourn.” Then, bending the old head
Above the old hand, Ceadmon received his Lord
To be his soul’s viaticum, in might
Leading from life that seems to life that is,
And long, unpropped by any, kneeling hung
And made thanksgiving prayer. Thanksgiving made,
He sat upon his bed, and spake: “How long
Ere yet the monks begin their matin psalms?”
“That hour is nigh,” they answered; he replied,
“Then let us wait that hour,” and laid him down
With those kine-tending and harp-mastering hands
Crossed on his breast, and slept.
Meanwhile the monks
(The lights removed in reverence of his sleep)
Sat mute nor stirred such time as in the Mass
Between “_Orate Fratres_” glides away,
And “_Hoc est Corpus Meum_.” Northward far
The great deep, seldom heard so distant, roared
Round those wild rocks half way to Bamborough Head;
For now the mightiest spring-tide of the year,
Following the magic of a maiden moon,
Had reached its height. More near, that sea which sobbed
In many a cave by Whitby’s winding coast,
Or died in peace on many a sandy bar
From river-mouth to river-mouth outspread,
They heard, and mused upon eternity
That circles human life. Gradual there rose
A softer strain and sweeter, making way
O’er that sea-murmur hoarse; and they were ware
That in the black far-shadowing church whose bulk
Up-towered between them and the moon, the monks
Their matins had begun. A little sigh
That moment reached them from the central gloom
Guarding the sleeper’s bed; a second sigh
Succeeded: neither seemed the sigh of pain:
And some one said, “He wakens.” Large and bright
Over the church-roof sudden rushed the moon,
And smote the cross above that sleeper’s couch,
And smote that sleeper’s face. The smile thereon
Was calmer than the smile of life. Thus died
Ceadmon, the earliest bard of English song.
Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1878.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONFESSION IN THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.[160]
The subject of confession has of late been brought prominently before
the British public. We need hardly say that a storm of indignation has
been raised. Parliament has been called upon to put a stop to a
practice which is generally believed to be quite at variance with the
spirit of the Church of England, and many of the bishops have publicly
condemned it. It may, however, be doubted whether any effect has really
been produced; for as long as clergy are found who claim the power of
forgiving sin, and as long as people feel the need of absolution, it is
certain that confession will be practised.
A Catholic must necessarily look on confession, as existing in the
Anglican communion, with feelings of a very mixed nature. On the one
hand it is impossible not to appreciate the sincerity and humility
evinced by those who voluntarily seek what they believe to be a means
of grace. It is hard to doubt that the habit of self-examination and of
watchfulness naturally resulting from confession must have its value;
above all, it seems as if we might fairly hope that the spirit of
obedience and the faithfulness in acting on conviction will be rewarded
by fuller light and knowledge.
On the other hand, it is equally impossible to shut our eyes to the
great dangers which beset confession among Anglicans. In the first
place, there is the absence of all sacramental grace; secondly, of
training, and even of theological knowledge, in the clergy; and,
thirdly, those who use confession are in an exceptional position, which
of itself is fraught with peril to the soul.
Of course no Catholic supposes Anglican clergymen to have true orders.
Confession in the English communion is simply a conversation between
two lay people on some of the most important subjects that can occupy
the thoughts of human beings. There may be on either side sincerity,
piety, and earnestness, but sacramental grace there is not. Relations
so close between two souls are certainly not without peril; we do not
speak of the danger to morals which the Protestant party constantly
insists upon, and whose existence we cannot altogether deny, but of the
tyranny on the part of the minister, and of the unreasonable obedience
yielded by the penitent to a self-appointed guide.
Those who have looked a little into their own hearts, and who have
reflected on the subtle influences which have told on their characters,
must feel that dealing with another soul is no light matter; that the
chances of doing harm are many and great; and that special graces are
needed by those who are called to so sacred an office. The need of
training, too, is obvious; he who is to be the physician of the soul
ought to be as well acquainted with moral theology as a physician
should be with medical science. Among the clergy of the Church of
England there is an absolute want of theological knowledge. It would be
hard to mention an Anglican book on any subject connected with moral
theology. Anglican clergymen, even where they have learnt to believe
many of the dogmas of the Catholic faith, are, generally speaking,
ignorant of the difference between mortal and venial sin. Hence results
a spirit of severity on the part of the confessor which tends to
produce scrupulosity and depression in the penitent. Converts have
declared that the first time they heard Catholic teaching as to the
nature of sin it seemed to them the most consoling doctrine possible.
It is true that of late years some Catholic manuals have been
translated and “adapted” to the Anglican use. In the recent
controversies regarding the _Priest in Absolution_ some of the leading
High-Church clergy have proclaimed their ignorance of the book, and
have asserted that experience had taught them all that they could learn
from its pages; but while they were gaining their experience what
became of the poor souls who were the subjects of their study? In the
Catholic Church a person cannot be said in any way to distinguish
himself by going to confession; he does what has to be done if he would
save his soul. Among Anglicans, although the practice is now pretty
widely spread, the case is very different; the man or woman who goes to
confession occupies a somewhat exceptional position, and is more or
less considered as a support of the church, as one of those through
whose influence that church is gradually to be reformed and restored.
It is hard to get at statistics as to the actual strength of the
extreme High-Church party, and even among those who call themselves
High Church there are many shades and differences of opinion; the
amount of notice which it has attracted is due rather to the adoption
of practices unknown in the Church of England, and to the earnestness
and activity of its clergy, than to the great number of its adherents.
If we were to count one-tenth part of the members of the Church of
England as High Church we should probably be overshooting the mark; and
of these it is by no means to be assumed that the greater number go to
confession. Personal inquiry in at least one so-called centre of
ritualism has led us to believe that it is the practice of a mere
minority.
We believe that the practice of confession may be said to be pretty
nearly universal in the case of the Anglican religious communities
(which are about thirty in number). Many people living in the world are
accustomed to go to confession weekly or fortnightly, and in some few
London churches the practice is probably followed by the majority of
the congregation; children are trained to it from their earliest years,
and it is boldly proclaimed to be the “remedy for post-baptismal sin.”
As far as we can gather from the testimony of those who have confessed
and heard confessions as Anglicans, we should say that confession is
often an actual torture to the soul; that penances are often imposed
altogether without proportion to their cause; that a kind of obedience
unknown among Catholics is claimed and is rendered. This, after all, is
the great danger. It will never be known till the last day how many
souls have been kept out of God’s church by the authority of their
Protestant “directors.” A director finds that one of his penitents
begins to think that the Catholic Church has claims worthy, at least,
of being examined. At once active works of charity are proposed as a
remedy; all reading of Catholic books, or intercourse with Catholic
friends or relations, is forbidden; the director is not afraid to say
that leaving the Church of England is a sin against the Holy Ghost, and
furthermore will promise to answer at the last day for the soul that,
in reliance on his dictum, suspends all search after truth and blindly
obeys. The moment of grace is too often lost; the soul holds back and
will not respond to God’s call. Too often those things which it had are
taken from it, and the sad result is an utter loss of faith.
A Catholic’s interest in the working of the Anglican Church is solely
in reference to the work of conversion. Those who in one sense are said
to come nearest to the Catholic Church are often in reality the
furthest off; for they believe Catholic doctrines not because they are
proposed by a divine authority, but because they consider them
reasonable, or find that they are in accordance with the testimony of
antiquity. Their religion is as much a matter of private judgment as
that of the Bible Christian; the difference lies in the fact that the
ritualist exercises his private judgment over a more extended field
than the other.
An Anglican who goes to confession must be an object of great anxiety
to a Catholic friend. In such a case, at least where the practice has
been voluntarily and earnestly adopted, we feel that God is calling
that soul to his church; that he has awakened in it a sense of need, a
craving for the grace and aid which, generally speaking, are only to be
found in the sacraments. We can hardly doubt that, if that soul is true
to grace, it will ere long be in the one true fold; but the position is
one of peculiar difficulty, and the temptations which beset it are of
no common kind. Minds of a weak order naturally yield to anything that
bears the semblance of lawful authority; the conscientious fear to go
against those whom they believe to be wiser and better than themselves;
a peace of mind often follows the confession of an Anglican. Perhaps it
is the natural result of having made an effort and got over what is
supposed to be a painful duty; perhaps it is a grace given by God in
consideration of an act of contrition. How is the poor soul to discern
this peace from the effect of sacramental grace? So the very goodness
of God is turned into a reason for delay and for resting satisfied.
Hitherto we have looked on the subject of confession in the Anglican
communion chiefly from the side of the penitent; the case of the clergy
who hear confessions is widely different and is beset with many
difficulties. Generally speaking, the only question arising in the mind
of the penitent would be: Can I get my sins forgiven by going to
confession? Of course the reality of the absolution turns primarily on
the validity of orders; strange to say, a vast number of the laity of
the Church of England are contented to take the validity of the orders
of their ministers as an unquestioned fact. The clergy naturally are
most positive in the assertion that their orders are valid; as the
nature and the necessity of jurisdiction are alike unknown to the
ordinary Anglican mind, the matter seems pretty clear. The laity in the
Anglican body are not in any very definite manner bound by the
Prayer-book or by any of the authorized documents of that body; there
is nothing anomalous in the idea of Anglican lay people, especially
women, going to confession without even asking themselves whether the
practice is in accordance with the mind of the communion to which they
belong. Moreover, High-Church Anglicans are avowedly bent on improving
their church; their church is not their guide or their mother, but
rather an institution which has so far fulfilled its purpose but
imperfectly, and which, by a judicious process of reformation, they
hope to assimilate to an ideal existing in their own minds. Many
conscientious Anglicans would therefore deem any objection founded on
the evident want of encouragement of their views by their church as
quite irrelevant. The Church of England does not forbid such and such a
practice, they would say; we are convinced that it is in accordance
with the teaching of antiquity, that it is useful, and therefore we
encourage it.
The clergy, however, are bound not only to follow the voice of
individual conscience, but to keep certain solemn promises by which
they have voluntarily bound themselves. Even if a clergyman be fully
convinced that he possesses the tremendous power of the keys, it does
not necessarily follow that he should feel at liberty to exercise it at
all times or in all places. We do not go at all into the question of
Anglican orders, except to remark in passing that it seems strange that
the majority of the clergy should give themselves so little trouble on
the subject; they know that, to say the least, grave doubts as to their
position are entertained by Christendom in general, and yet it is very
seldom that any one of them takes the same trouble to investigate his
orders that a reasonable man would take in regard to his title-deeds,
if a doubt were thrown on them. We believe that the feeling which we
once heard expressed by a clergyman said to be High Church is not very
uncommon; being told by a friend that there were serious reasons for
doubting Anglican orders, and consequently Anglican sacraments, he made
no attempt to defend them, but simply remarked: “I don’t suppose that
God would let us suffer for such a trifle.” To make the position of the
Anglican clergy clear to our readers, we must begin by citing from “The
Form and Manner of making Priests” the solemn words which a Protestant
bishop, “laying his hands upon the head of every one that receiveth the
order of priesthood,” pronounces over him:
“Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest in
the church of God, now committed unto thee by the imposition of
our hands. Whose sins thou dost forgive, they are forgiven; and
whose sins thou dost retain, they are retained. And be thou a
faithful dispenser of the word of God, and of his holy
sacraments: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of
the Holy Ghost. Amen.”
By the thirty-sixth canon of the Church of England, published and
confirmed in 1865, it is required that the following Declaration and
subscription should be made by such as are to be ordained ministers:
“I, A. B., do solemnly make the following declaration: I assent
to the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion, and to the Book of
Common Prayer, and of Ordering of Bishops, Priests, and
Deacons; I believe the doctrine of the United Church of England
and Ireland, as therein set forth, to be agreeable to the word
of God; and in public prayer and administration of the
sacraments, I will use the form in the said book prescribed,
and none other, except so far as shall be ordered by lawful
authority.”
An Anglican clergyman, again, pledges himself at his ordination to
minister the doctrine and sacraments and the discipline of Christ as
our Lord hath commanded, _and as this church and realm hath received_
the same. The subject of confession is mentioned three times in the
Book of Common Prayer, which, as our readers may perhaps be aware, is
the only authorized formulary of devotion possessed by the Church of
England. There is no separate ritual for the clergy; the Common Prayer
is the one comprehensive whole and is in the hands of everybody.
In the exhortation which is appointed to be read on the Sunday
immediately preceding the celebration of the Holy Communion, and which,
by the way, a great many regular church-goers seldom or never have
heard read, the concluding paragraph runs as follows:
“And because it is requisite that no man should come to the
holy communion, but with a full trust in God’s mercy, and with
a quiet conscience; therefore if there be any of you, who by
this means, (_i.e._, by self-examination and private
repentance,) cannot quiet his own conscience herein but
requireth further comfort or counsel, let him come to me, or to
some other discreet and learned minister of God’s word, and
open his grief; that by the ministry of God’s holy word he may
receive the benefit of absolution, together with ghostly
counsel and advice, to the quieting of his conscience and
avoiding of all scruple and doubtfulness.”
The next occasion on which we find confession in the pages of the
Prayer-book is the Visitation of the Sick. A rubric lays down the
“priest’s” duty in these words:
“Here shall the sick person be moved to make a special
confession of his sins, if he feel his conscience troubled with
any weighty matter. After which confession the priest shall
absolve him (if he humbly and heartily desire it) after this
sort: Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to his church
to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in him, of
his great mercy forgive thee thine offences; and, by his
authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen.”
Lastly, in the twenty-fifth of the Thirty-nine Articles of Religion,
which are subscribed by all the clergy, we read:
“There are two sacraments, ordained of Christ our Lord in the
Gospel—that is to say, baptism and the Supper of the Lord.
Those five commonly called sacraments—that is to say,
confirmation, penance, orders, matrimony, and extreme
unction—are not to be counted for sacraments of the Gospel,
being such as have grown partly of the corrupt following of the
apostles, partly are states of life allowed in the Scriptures;
but yet have not like nature of sacraments with baptism and the
Lord’s Supper, for that they have not any visible sign or
ceremony ordained of God.”
As the Church of England has but one authorized book of devotion, she
has but one book of instruction; her Homilies are declared, in the
thirty-fifth of the Thirty-nine Articles, “to contain a godly and
wholesome doctrine and necessary for these times,” and it is directed
that they should “be read in churches by the minister diligently and
distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people.”
The Homilies are not read in churches; in fact we believe it would be
safe to assert that they are hardly ever read anywhere, and we might
almost suppose them to be obsolete, were it not that every candidate
for orders signs the statement that they are “necessary for these
times.” The second part of the Homily on Repentance says:
“And where they (the Roman teachers) do allege this saying of
our Saviour Jesus Christ unto the leper, to prove auricular
confession to stand on God’s word, ‘Go thy way, and show
thyself unto the priest,’ do they not see that the leper was
cleansed from his leprosy, before he was by Christ sent unto
the priest for to show himself unto him? By the same reason we
must be cleansed from our spiritual leprosy—I mean our sins
must be forgiven us—before that we come to confession. What
need we, then, to tell forth our sins into the ear of the
priest, sith that they may be already taken away? Therefore
holy Ambrose, in his second sermon upon the 119th Psalm, doth
say full well: _Go show thyself unto the priest_. Who is the
true priest, but he which is the priest for ever after the
order of Melchisedech? Whereby this holy Father doth understand
that, both the priesthood and the law being changed, we ought
to acknowledge none other priest for deliverance from our sins
but our Saviour Jesus Christ, who, being our sovereign bishop,
doth with the sacrifice of his body and blood, offered once for
ever upon the altar of the cross, most effectually cleanse the
spiritual leprosy and wash away the sins of all those that with
true confession of the same do flee unto him. It is most
evident and plain, that this auricular confession hath not the
warrant of God’s word, else it had not been lawful for
Nectarius, Bishop of Constantinople, upon a just occasion to
have put it down.
* * * * *
“Let us with fear and trembling, and with a true contrite
heart, use that kind of confession which God doth command in
his Word, and then doubtless, as he is faithful and righteous,
he will forgive us our sins and make us clean from all
wickedness. I do not say but that, if any do find themselves
troubled in conscience, they may repair to their learned curate
or pastor, or to some other godly learned man, and show the
trouble and doubt of their conscience to them, that they may
receive at their hand the comfortable salve of God’s word; but
it is against the true Christian liberty, that any man should
be bound to the numbering of his sins, as it hath been used
heretofore in the time of blindness and ignorance.”
Such are the scanty devotional and dogmatical utterances of the Church
of England on the subject of confession. The only other instruction
given to her clergy in regard to their duties as confessors is to be
found in the one hundred and thirteenth canon, which treats of the
presentment of notorious offenders to the ordinaries. Parsons and
vicars, or in their absence their curates, may themselves present to
their ordinaries
“All such crimes as they have in charge or otherwise, as by
them (being the persons that should have the chief care for the
suppressing of sin and impiety in their parishes) shall be
thought to require due reformation. Provided always, that if
any man confess his secret and hidden sins to the minister, for
the unburdening of his conscience, and to receive spiritual
consolation and ease of mind from him; we do not any way bind
the said minister by this our Constitution, but do straitly
charge and admonish him, that he do not at any time reveal and
make known to any person whatsoever any crime or offence so
committed to his trust and secrecy (except they be such crimes
as, by the laws of this realm, his own life may be called into
question for concealing the same), under pain of irregularity.”
As far as we can gather, the belief of the Church of England on the
subject of confession may be summed up in the following propositions:
1. Penance is not a sacrament, but
2. Her ministers have the power of forgiving sins.
3. This power is exercised after confession made by the penitent.
4. But such confession is not to be made, save in case of serious
illness or of great disquiet of mind.
5. The absolution of the priest is not the ordinary means by which sins
are forgiven.
6. The penitent is to be the judge in his own case. If he feels very
much in want of confession, he may have it; if not, he is to do without
it. His own feeling is the only rule in the matter.
We think our readers will admit that the above statements are in no way
an unfair summary of the teaching of the Church of England as
represented by her formularies. Certainly they give no warrant for the
assertion now made by the High-Church party that confession is the
ordinary remedy for post-baptismal sin, or to the practice of frequent
and regular confession which is now so widely advocated and followed.
Confession is evidently, according to the teaching of Anglicanism, what
it has been well called by an Anglican, a “luxury.” How, it may be
asked, can men who are pledged to teach and maintain the doctrines of
the Church of England act in direct opposition to the instructions
which she has given them? We do not maintain that those instructions
have the appearance of being all the expression of the same
convictions. There is an apparent discrepancy existing amongst them;
they are not consistent with each other. But the one broad fact is
plain as daylight: they do not countenance the present action of
extreme Anglicans. Lookers-on constantly ask, Are these men sincere?
Why do they not “go over to Rome”? Are they not traitors in the
Anglican camp? To these questions we can only reply: We judge not; each
individual must stand or fall to his own master; but we cannot hesitate
in saying that ritualism as a system is dishonest, and that the
position occupied by its adherents is the most untenable that any man
can undertake to defend.
If we seek for the reason why men whom we are ready to believe upright
and honorable act in a manner which is apparently absolutely
incompatible with their solemn engagements, it may perhaps be
discovered by a consideration of one of the chief characteristics of
the Church of England.
St. Paul speaks of the church of Christ as “the pillar and ground of
the truth.” The Church of England is essentially a compromise. Some of
her dignitaries even look on this as her glory: the High-Churchman can
find his belief in the Real Presence supported by her catechism, but
the Low-Churchman has the black rubric, which is equally strong in
favor of his opinion; her prayers are for the most part preserved from
the days of Catholic piety, and her Articles bear the impress of
foreign heresy; she prays against “false doctrine, heresy, and schism,”
and devotes one of her Articles to the assertion that all churches have
erred. Her clergy are required to accept anomalies and inconsistencies;
and we cannot but do them the justice to say that they accept them with
great equanimity. Every one has something to get over: the
High-Churchman could wish some things altered, and the Low-Churchman
would be glad to see others omitted; the result seems to be that every
one subscribes with a kind of laxity which, if it does not imply a want
of honesty, at least betrays an absence of accuracy and of definite
conviction. Subscription to articles and formularies seems to sit very
lightly on the Anglican conscience; it is a mere means to an end.
But the Anglican clergyman not only pledges himself to the doctrines of
the Prayer-book and Articles; he also promises obedience to his bishop.
Here is something apparently definite. In the voice of a living bishop
there can hardly be the same scope for diversity as the pages of the
Prayer-book afford. Generally speaking, the Anglican bishops condemn
the practice of confession; if they were really rulers in their
communion there can be no doubt that the High-Church party would long
since have been extinct. As a fact, the Anglican does not obey his
bishop; at this very moment one of the leading High-Church clergy of
London has definitely and deliberately refused to obey his bishop by
removing from his church a crucifix and a picture of Our Lady, which he
believes tend to promote devotion among his flock.
For the reasons which lead conscientious men to disobey the ordinary
whose godly admonitions they have engaged with a glad mind and will to
follow, and to whose godly judgments they have promised with God’s help
to submit, we must again look to the peculiar theories of the Church of
England. It is hardly necessary to say that the Church of England does
not in any way or under any circumstances claim infallibility; nay,
more, she goes out of her way to deny its very existence. One of her
Articles asserts that the churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch,
and Rome have erred in matters of faith, and another follows up this
assertion by the kindred statement that general councils may err, and
sometimes have erred, even in things pertaining to God. She indeed
daily professes her belief in One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic
Church, but she does not inform her children where and how the voice of
that church is to be heard. She constantly asserts the authority of
Holy Scripture, but she recognizes no authority competent to interpret
Scripture in a decisive manner. Under the influence of such teaching it
is not surprising that there should exist in the Church of England two
theories regarding authority in matters of faith. One is that there is
no authority save Holy Scripture. Everything must be proved by
Scripture; and as there is no one necessarily better entitled than
another to explain Scripture, this virtually amounts to a recognition
of the right and duty of private judgment to its fullest extent. The
other theory is based on belief in the One Catholic Church. It admits
that our Lord appointed his church to teach men all truth; it believes
that the voice of the church in primitive times was the voice of God;
it doubts not that at a former period the church was guided by the
Spirit of God, but it holds that supernatural guidance to be in
abeyance; it recognizes no _living_ voice of the church; it looks
forward with a vague hope to the reunion of Catholics, Greeks, and
Anglicans, and the possibility in such a case of a general council
being held, whose decisions would bind all Christendom. In the meantime
the church is dumb, if not dead, and all that can be done is to turn
with a reverent mind to the study of antiquity, to an examination of
what has been handed down from the days of pure and undoubted faith.
This last is the theory of the High-Church party in general. To their
mind a bishop is a necessity; he is required for the conferring of
orders and for giving confirmation; he is not the centre of sacrificial
power in his diocese, nor the source of jurisdiction; he is not a
teacher in any other sense beyond that in which they are themselves
teachers; their obedience to him is not an obedience to one whom our
Lord has set over his flock with a special charge to feed his sheep as
well as his lambs; it is an obedience rendered to one who is officially
a superior—an obedience which has no direct reference to God, and which
is constantly evaded (it may be in perfect good faith) on the principle
that “we ought to obey God rather than man.”
Another cause which has probably much to do with the apparent
inconsistencies of the High-Church Anglican clergy is the fact that
they are in a great many cases absorbed and overwhelmed by an amount of
active work which leaves little leisure for the serious examination of
their position. It is admitted on all sides that the last century was a
period of spiritual apathy and deadness as far as the Church of England
was concerned. The movement of the past forty years has not been merely
in the direction of Catholic doctrine, but it has also led to a renewal
of zeal, to energy and self-sacrifice, which we cannot but appreciate.
The poor, the young, the ignorant, and the fallen are cared for with a
charity whose root is, we trust, to be found in the increased knowledge
of the life and of the love of our Lord. But even works of mercy have
their snares; a man who is toiling night and day among the outcast and
the poor of great cities, who sees the results of his labor in the
reformed life of many a wanderer, and who also sees pressing on him
needs which he can never fully satisfy, must be sorely tempted to turn
a deaf ear to all such questionings as would stay his course. He hears
people’s confessions, and he sees them turn to God and lead better
lives; naturally he concludes that all is right, and he resents any
interference with a practice which is apparently so salutary.
We have now given a short and, we hope, a fair idea of confession as it
exists at present in the Anglican communion. We must add, for the
information of those who have not had the opportunity of watching the
progress of events in England, that the practice of confession was
unknown, or almost unknown, in the Anglican communion until about
five-and-thirty years ago. It was one of the first fruits of that
turning back to the old Catholic paths which by God’s blessing has led
so many souls into the Church. The movement still goes on; it has
passed through different phases, and year by year it brings one after
another to the very threshold of their true home; they enter in and are
at rest, and find the reality of all that they had hitherto sought and
longed for.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MICHAEL THE SOMBRE.[161]
AN EPISODE IN THE POLISH INSURRECTION, 1863–1864.
It is a trite remark that every age has produced its heroes, its
saints, and its martyrs; but there are few amongst us who have
sufficient discernment to recognize them when they cross our path in
life. “Should we know a saint if we met him?” asks Father Faber. And so
if we were to meet the heroine of this tale, quietly working in her own
village or busy with the _ouvroir_ for young girls she has just
established in her province in France, we should be far indeed from
guessing that we saw with our own eyes a woman who had equalled, if not
surpassed, Joan of Arc in heroism, devotion, and courage, and who had
done deeds which would be incredible, if not attested by a multitude of
living witnesses.
She was born in one of the departments of France unhappily annexed
during the war of 1870–71. Having lost her mother in infancy, she was
brought up by her father, an old officer under Louis XVIII. and Charles
X., who educated her entirely as a boy. At twelve years of age she was
a complete mistress
of the art of fencing, riding, shooting, and other manly
accomplishments. Then, fearing lest she should be altogether unfitted
for the society of those of her own sex, her father suddenly determined
to send her to a convent, where her extraordinary cleverness soon
enabled her to conquer all difficulties, and she made the most rapid
progress in every branch of study. A vein of earnest Catholic piety ran
through her whole character, coupled with an equally earnest devotion
to her country and her king.
We do not know what family circumstances induced her father to part for
a time from a child on whose education he had lavished such thought and
care. But at eighteen we find her established in Poland as an inmate of
one of its noblest families. After two years thus spent, during which
she acquired a thorough knowledge of the Polish and German languages,
she returned to France and had the melancholy consolation of nursing
and assisting her father in his last moments; after which she was
entreated to return to the Countess L—— in Poland, and become the
adopted child of the house, to which she consented. So that, when the
insurrection in that country broke out in 1863, “Mika,” as she was
affectionately called by the whole family, rejoiced in the opportunity
it afforded her of repaying the debt of gratitude she owed to those who
had been as her second parents, by a devotion which was ready to
sacrifice life itself in their service.
It is an episode in this war which we are about to give to our readers,
and which we think will be doubly interesting at the present moment,
when all eyes are fixed on the terrible struggle going on in the East.
The story is told in the heroine’s own words.
* * * * *
It was on the 22d January, 1863, that the Poles, in little bands of ten
or twenty men, met by a cross raised in honor of Kosciusko in the
palatinate of Radom, and made a vow to deliver Poland from the
Muscovite yoke or perish in the attempt. Let those who blame them
remember the intolerable persecution which they had patiently endured
for years—a persecution which deprived them of their faith, their
language, their rights as citizens, and all that men hold most dear.
On the 24th they marched on Miechow, having no other arms than scythes
and sticks and old-fashioned fowling-pieces. Led by inexperienced
chiefs, who, in their ardor, fondly imagined that patriotism and a holy
cause would carry the day against military tactics, they were foolish
enough to attack, in broad daylight, a strong body of Russians, well
armed and superior to them in numbers, who occupied an almost
impregnable position on the heights above the town. The result may be
easily imagined. The Poles were repulsed with heavy loss, and the
Russians, who delight in celebrating their triumphs by a bonfire, burnt
down the town and massacred all the Poles who came within their reach.
Ten of the Polish wounded were secretly brought to the castle, where we
had established a subterranean ambulance. It was my business to dress
the wounds of these poor fellows, assisted by a holy nun, the Mother
Alexandra, who played too important a part in my future history not to
be mentioned here. The Count L—— did not approve of the insurrection
and considered it hopeless from the first; but he would not abandon his
brave peasants. Towards the 30th of this month our couriers gave us
warning that the Russians were aware of the wounded men being under our
care, and that they were marching on the castle for the purpose of
burning it down. The count refused to fly, saying that his place was
amongst his own people at Syez, of whom he had always been both the
father and protector. But he called me into his counsels, and implored
me to carry off his wife and children and his sister-in-law (who lived
with us) to Mislowitz, a little manufacturing town on the frontier of
Silesia and Poland. After all it was a false alarm; and after a
fortnight’s exile, which anxiety and fear had doubled, a letter from
the count recalled us. We had nearly reached the end of our journey
when we were attacked by a mob of Russian fanatics, who endeavored to
seize the carriage. I was on horseback at the head of the little
cavalcade, and I managed by means of my revolver to keep these
miscreants at bay. The coachman profited by this moment’s respite to
lash his horses into a gallop, by which means we escaped the ambush and
reached the castle in safety.
But our tranquillity was not destined to be of long duration. About a
fortnight later eight insurgents of the legion called of “Despair”
sought refuge in our house. We concealed them as well as we could; but
in the middle of the night notice was sent us that the Russians were on
their track and had discovered their hiding-place. We hastened to send
them off to a part of the forest where a cavern had been prepared to
receive any such fugitives. They reached it in safety, but unhappily
were betrayed by a peasant to whom the secret had been confided. The
exasperated Russians again threatened the castle; and again the count
insisted on our flight. On our way an alarm was given of some sort
which so terrified the coachman that he threw down his whip and fled
for his life, leaving us and the carriage at the mercy of the four
horses, which were strong beasts and very fresh. Luckily, they stood
still for a moment, and, as I was used to driving, I reassured the
countess and jumped on the box. Hardly, however, had I taken the reins
than the wheels of the carriage became wedged in the sand. I jumped off
the box, and, seizing one of the leaders by the bridle, urged him
forward with all my might. The animal made so violent an effort that he
threw me down and dragged me some twenty paces; but as I held on for
dear life, he ended by stopping, and, the carriage being thus released,
we went on as fast as we could, continually in dread of pursuit, till
we reached the house of Countess N——, who received us with the warmest
kindness and hospitality. Our stay here, however, was not of long
duration, for my poor friend, the Countess L——, was in an agony to
return to her husband, who had been left alone in the castle; and so,
at the risk of being again captured, we returned to Syez. Fortunately,
this time we had no alarms on the road, and the joy of the family at
their safe reunion was as great as their thankfulness.
But our happiness was short-lived. Although the count did not take any
part in the insurrection, it was well known that his sympathies were
with his people, and this was sufficient to make him a marked man with
the Russian authorities. At last we heard from undeniable authority
that his arrest had been determined upon, and that he had been already
condemned to Siberia. Then followed a heartrending scene—his wife and
children (whose whole future would have been wrecked had his
deportation been carried into effect) imploring him to take refuge in
Germany, where he had a small property, and to remain there till the
storm was past; while he clung tenaciously to his old home and to his
duties as a proprietor during the struggle. Finally, he yielded to our
tears and entreaties; but before leaving he sent for me and solemnly
commended his wife and children to my care. I swore to defend them or
to die in the attempt. It was agreed that we were to watch our
opportunity, and, if possible, obtain an escort so as to cross the
frontier and rejoin the count as soon as we could. Three days only
after his departure we received intelligence that the Russians were
close to our gates and were going to insist on a domiciliary visit. I
flew to the count’s private room and commenced making an _auto-da-fé_
of every compromising letter or paper I could find and of all suspected
newspapers. Whilst I was fanning the flames the count’s sister came in,
and, seeing what I was about, exclaimed with horror:
“O Mika! for God’s sake stop. You don’t know what you are doing. All
Arthur’s gunpowder is hidden and stowed away in that chimney!”
I was almost paralyzed with fear, but I said:
“Fly for your life and get the countess and the children out of the
house.” And then, with a fervent ejaculatory prayer to God, I tore the
burning papers out of the grate before the flames had had time to
ignite the gunpowder, which, luckily for me, had been carefully done up
in packets and placed in a metal box. I managed to drag the papers into
another fireplace, and had time to see that they were all burnt, and to
conceal the tinder, before the Cossacks surrounded the house and
summoned us to open the doors. Their officers made the most minute
examination of everything, but found nothing that they could lay their
hands on, and went away disgusted, while I escaped with a few trifling
burns on my hands and arms.
A few days after this scene Mme. de I—— and I were sitting talking in
the room where we generally met and waited before dinner, when the
countess came in with an open letter in her hand and looking more sad
and pale than usual. “What has happened?” we both exclaimed; and I
added, smiling: “Are we condemned to the knout? Or do the Russians
reserve us the honor of a hempen collar?” But my dismal pleasantry
produced no response, and the poor lady silently came and sat down by
me, taking my hand. After a pause she said:
“Mika, I have been unwittingly guilty of a great indiscretion. You know
how miserably anxious I am for news of Arthur’s safety. A servant whom
I had sent to the post, in hopes of finding a letter from him, brought
me back this one; and, full of my cruel anxiety, I tore it open without
looking at the address, being fully convinced it came from him.”
“Well?” I inquired, as she hesitated to go on.
“Well, this letter was a terrible disappointment. It wasn’t from Arthur
at all, or for me, but for you, and from your own family, who, dreading
the consequences of this sad insurrection, insist on your immediate
return to France.”
“Is that all?” I asked, smiling.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “I only read enough to find out my
mistake, and I was so absorbed by my own anxiety that I hardly took in
the meaning of the words at first.”
“But that is not what I ask,” I rejoined. “I want to know what there
was in that letter which makes you look so sad.”
The countess’ eyes filled with tears. “I own, Mika, that the thought of
losing you breaks my heart. You know, at the first moment of alarm,
Miss B—— and Fräulein F—— left the children and returned to their
homes. I fancied you would follow their example; but seeing you so
brave and so ready to share in all our dangers, I had been completely
reassured, until God allowed this letter to fall into my hands.”
“And what have you concluded from that letter?” I asked rather coldly.
“I have made up my mind, Mika, that it would be the height of
selfishness on my part to strive to induce you to stay on with us in a
country where desolation and terror reign supreme; where we are not
safe from one moment to the other; where neither human nor divine laws
are respected, and where even ladies are not spared the lash or the
stake. Yesterday, as you well know, Countess P——, for having worn
mourning for her brother, who had been massacred by the Russians, was
flogged publicly in the market-place and hanged afterwards. Fly, then,
my dearest Mika, while there is yet time. Already you have done far
more than your duty. You have risked your life over and over again for
us. I cannot, I must not, exact any further sacrifice. Leave us, Mika,
leave us to our sad fate, and may God be with you!”
Here the poor wife and mother hid her face in her hands, and I saw
great tears coursing down her cheeks through her clasped fingers. Mme.
de I—— and the children, who had come in during the interval and had
heard their mother’s words, clustered round me and cried too. When I
could command my own voice I turned towards the countess and said:
“Dearest madam! seven years have now elapsed since I first became an
inmate of your home. When I arrived here, Poland, if not happy, was at
least at peace, and I reckoned you among the limited number of the
truly happy ones on this earth. You received me (I, whom a deep sorrow
had driven from my native land) as a friend, as a child, as a sister;
and this affection and consideration for me have never failed for a
single moment. When the insurrection broke out your English governess
left you; and I think she was right. A sacred duty was laid upon
her—that of supporting her old mother, who lived entirely on her
earnings. As to Fräulein F——, that is quite another matter. I expected
she would go away on the very first alarm. With Prussians devotedness
does not exist. I believe they have tomatoes in place of hearts! As for
me, I have only one brother in the world, and he is good enough to
think of me only when his purse is empty. I have, therefore, not the
same excuse as Miss B——, still less that of Fräulein F——; for if I
chose to live independently, the little fortune left me by my father
would be enough for my wants. If I returned to Poland after his death
it was to find the same disinterested love and affection I had left
there. I have found more than a duty to fulfil: I have a debt of
gratitude to pay; and I thank God for the portion he has assigned to
me.”
“But your family?” again urged the countess, whose face began to
brighten.
“Since my father and sister died,” I replied, “I do not consider I have
any family claims. Now, listen to me, contessina,” I continued,
clasping her two hands in mine. “God has put into my heart an
inexhaustible treasure of devotedness and tenderness. He has given me
likewise unusual courage and strength; and now I thank him that he has
also given me the occasion to employ these, his gifts, in your service.
Your husband is in exile; you are threatened in your home, in your
children, in your property, and by everything around you; and you could
imagine for a moment that, under such circumstances, I should go and
abandon you! Thank God! that there never has been a stain yet on our
family name, and my father, an old soldier, impressed upon me, from a
child, the strongest feelings of duty and honor. I swear, therefore, in
the sight of God, that as long as this war lasts your country shall be
my country, your children shall also be mine, and as long as my heart
beats not a hair of your dear head shall be touched! When happier days
arise for Poland, and peace shall be restored, then, but not till then,
I shall remember that France is my country, and that I have left
well-beloved tombs on her soil.”
The countess threw her arms round me in a close embrace and cried on my
shoulder. Mme. de I—— looked at me with the sweetest smile. “Thanks,
Mika,” she murmured in a broken voice. “I never believed for a moment
that you would leave us. You!”
The children seized hold of my hands and covered them with kisses. It
was a moment of the purest happiness I had known on earth.
In proportion to the progress and extent of the insurrection the
cruelty of the Russians increased. Every day brought new vexations or
fresh tortures. We lived in constant fear, and our position became
really insupportable. Almost every noble family in the neighborhood had
fled and left the country, and we should long before have followed
their example had it not been for the great distance we were from the
railroad. The count had arrived safely at Dresden, whence he wrote
imploring his wife to join him. But we were at least forty versts from
the nearest station, and to go there without an escort would have
exposed us inevitably to fall into the hands of the Russians, who had
lately ranked emigration in the category of crimes of high treason. And
how was it possible to form an escort? The peasants, in the pay of the
_Raskolnicks_ (or old believers), would refuse to march, and the
servants would, in all probability, have betrayed us. In vain I racked
my brains to find some way out of this difficulty, and every day the
danger became more imminent. Providence at last had pity upon us, and
disposed events in a way which became eventually the salvation of those
so dear to me.
Every evening, when the rest of the family were gone to bed, I went
alone into the library to answer letters, verify the steward’s
registers, and look after the accounts. In the absence of the count
there was no one to see after these necessary duties but myself, and I
looked upon them as my right. One night, when this work had kept me up
later than usual, I heard some one knocking at the door. It was past
midnight. I rose to open it, very much surprised at any one coming to
me at that hour, and all the more as no servant would venture into that
part of the house at night, as it was reported to be haunted. What was
my astonishment at finding the countess herself outside the door in a
pitiable state of agitation.
“O Mika!” she exclaimed, almost falling into my arms as I led her to a
seat, “I am in the most horrible perplexity and anxiety. I have just
received an entreaty to send a despatch instantly to General B——, my
husband’s oldest and dearest friend. He is encamped with his squadron
at Gory, on the property of Count Dembinski; and he does not know that
eight hundred Russians are in the immediate neighborhood and have laid
an ambush to surprise him. This despatch is to warn him of it; for he
has only three hundred men with him, who will all be cut to pieces, if
he should not be warned in time. Who knows? perhaps already it may be
too late. But you, Mika, who are always so clear-headed—can you suggest
anything? Can you advise me what to do?”
“But the man who brought this despatch,” I exclaimed—“where is he? Why
cannot he go on instantly to Gory?”
“Alas! it is impossible,” replied the countess. “He has just galloped
seven leagues without stopping to take breath, and his horse dropped
down dead at the entrance of the village. The poor fellow himself is
half dead with fatigue and exhaustion.”
I thought for a minute or two, and then said:
“Leave the despatch with me. I will go and rouse the steward, and
between us we will find some one who will undertake this perilous
mission.”
“Do you really think so, Mika?”
“Yes, I am sure of it,” I replied.
“Oh! what a weight you have lifted off my heart,” said the countess
joyfully. “Go at once, dearest child. I will wait for you, and not go
to bed till I have heard the result of your consultation.”
When the countess had gone back to her own room a terrible struggle
arose in my heart. I had studied the peasants and servants well enough
to know that in such a moment of extreme danger not one of them was to
be trusted. The steward himself did not inspire me with much
confidence; and, besides, he was the father of a family. On the other
hand, the lives of three hundred men hung upon the delivery of this
message. I knelt down and prayed with my whole heart for guidance. When
I rose my resolution was taken. The hour was come for me to pay my debt
of gratitude towards this Poland which had become so dear to me, and
perhaps in this way alone could I save the family to whom I had devoted
my life. I wrote a few lines to the countess, and then went and woke my
own maid.
“Marynia,” I said, “in half an hour, but not before, you must take this
note to the countess, who is sitting up for me. And if to-morrow, when
you get up, I am not come back, you must take another letter to her,
which you will find on my chest of drawers.”
“But, Holy Virgin of Czenstochowa!” exclaimed the poor girl, “you are
not going out at this time of night?”
“Yes; I am starting this very instant.”
“But then I will wake the whole house. I won’t have you go alone at
this hour.”
“No, you will stay quiet,” I said to her in a tone which admitted of no
reply, “and in half an hour you will do what I have told you.”
So saying, I left Marynia to her lamentations and went out. The first
thing I had to do was to put on a man’s dress—I had received permission
to do this from Rome in case of an emergency like the present—and then,
taking my pistols, which were always ready, I went to the stable and
picked out the best horse I could find, which I saddled myself,
blessing again the education my father had given me, that made me
independent of any assistance.
The road which I took passed in front of the castle. There was a light
in the countess’ room where she was waiting for me. Good, gentle,
loving woman with a child’s heart! Twice I saw her shadow pass and
repass across the curtain, and twice my heart failed me. This feeling
only lasted a minute; but this minute might have been a century for the
agony concentrated in it. There to the left was the old castle which
held those two young women so dear to me, and those children whose
birth I had witnessed and who loved me so tenderly. To the right
stretched the road that was to lead me—to Siberia, perhaps, or to a
sudden and violent death. If at this thought my heart failed me, and if
for a moment I hesitated, God will, I hope, have forgiven it. At
twenty-four years of age one does not fling away life without one look
back. I stopped my horse instinctively, fully realizing the almost
foolhardiness of my attempt. But then my thoughts reverted to those
three hundred brave fellows whose lives I held, as it were, in my hand,
and, with a sigh which was more like a sob, I dug my spurs into my
beautiful “Kirdjcali,” who bounded into the air with surprise and pain,
and commenced galloping at a furious pace along the road—a pace I did
not even try to check, for it seemed to relieve my bursting heart. Now
and then I had to lie down on his mane to take breath. But by degrees
the cold and calm silence of the night, and the satisfaction of feeling
that I was accomplishing a great and sacred duty, restored my peace of
mind. I checked the pace of my horse, and after about three-quarters of
an hour came to a thick fir-wood, through which I was quietly ambling
when Kirdjcali stopped suddenly, and I instantly perceived the cause.
On the edge of the wood, about five hundred paces off, a great fire was
crackling, round which were grouped a number of men and horses. It was
either a Russian or a Polish patrol; but in either case my situation
was a critical one. I had no “safe-conduct” papers, and no password
save for General B——. I should be taken for a spy and hanged without
form or ceremony. What was to be done? Go back? That would be the
height of weakness. Take another road? There was no other. Yet to go on
was undoubtedly to run the risk of falling directly into their hands.
Again I lifted up my whole heart in prayer; after all I had God and the
right on my side, and so I decided to venture it, feeling besides that
my good Kirdjcali had the legs of a race-horse and could beat almost
any other animal, if it came to a chase. The moon, which till then had
guided my path, was suddenly hidden behind a thick cloud that concealed
me from the enemy. I made my horse walk, and, lying flat on his neck, I
went on to within fifty paces of the Cossacks (for they were Russian
Cossacks) without their dreaming of my vicinity; for the soft sand
deadened the sound of my horse’s feet. All of a sudden Kirdjcali threw
up his head and sniffed the wind with ever-widening nostrils. And then
what I most dreaded came to pass. He recognized some companion of the
steppes and gave a loud neigh, which was answered instantly by a hurrah
from the children of the Don, who were on foot in a moment. Making the
sign of the cross, I dug my spurs once more into my poor Kirdjcali’s
flanks, and passed like a flash of lightning before the astonished
Cossacks. “Stoj!” (stop) they cried with one voice. My only answer to
this summons was to urge on my steed to still greater speed. Then they
had recourse to a more active means of arresting my course. Two flashes
lit up the darkness of the night, and one ball whistled past my ear,
grazed my head, and cut off a lock of my hair close to the temple; the
other passed through a branch of a tree some paces before me. But
Kirdjcali flew like the wind, and I was soon out of the reach of
pursuit. As soon as I dared I stopped him to let him breathe; five
minutes more of this furious pace, and the poor beast would have
dropped down dead.
By the time I had reached General B——’s column it was three o’clock in
the morning.
“Who goes there?” cried the sentinel.
“Military orders,” I replied.
“The password?”
“_Polska è Volnoszez_” (Poland and liberty). He let me pass, and I was
received by M. D——, one of the general’s aides-de-camp. I gave him the
despatch, which he hastened to take to his chief. Hardly had he left
me, and before I had time to rejoice at having accomplished my mission,
when a discharge of musketry, accompanied by the savage Russian
war-cry, was heard to the left. In spite of the fearful speed of my
ride, I had arrived too late! The enemy had almost surrounded the
little camp. A few minutes sufficed for the general to throw himself
into the saddle and place himself at the head of his column.
“First squadron, forward!” he cried in a stentorian voice.
Not a man stirred.
“Second squadron, forward!” The same result. The poor fellows, worn out
with fatigue, exhausted from hunger, and totally unprepared for this
attack, remained, as it were, paralyzed. To me this first moment was
terrible; and those who boast of never having been afraid the first
time they take part in a battle either deceive themselves or they lie.
It took me a few minutes to master my emotion; but Kirdjcali too made a
diversion by furious bounds and neighing, which proved that for him
also this was the first baptism of fire.
Seeing the demoralization of his soldiers, the brave general made a
desperate charge in the very midst of the enemy’s ranks, followed by a
handful of dragoons under the orders of Count K——. I followed his
movements with my eye in a mechanical sort of way, when all of a sudden
I saw the unhappy general staggering rather than falling from his
horse, while an infernal hurrah of triumph burst from the Russians.
Then all my fears vanished. I thought of my father, and all that was
French in my blood was roused. I seized a sword that lay close by, and
turning towards the troops, who were still hesitating and wavering, I
cried out: “Cowards, if you have allowed your chief to be murdered, at
least do not let his dead body bear witness of your shame by leaving it
in the hands of your enemies. Come on and rescue it, and wash out in
your blood the stain you have set on Polish honor!”
Saying those words, and recommending my soul to God in one fervent
aspiration, I threw myself impetuously into the strife, followed by all
the soldiers, whom my words had roused from their stupor. The whistling
of balls, the smell of powder, the cries of the dying and the dead, and
more than all the savage howlings of the Russians, threw me into a sort
of mad rage and furious excitement which made me insensible to anything
but a longing for vengeance. Every time I rose in my stirrups to wield
my sword a man bit the dust. I felt a sort of superhuman strength at
that moment, and never ceased to strike till I saw the Poles driving
the defeated Russians completely out of the camp, from whence they fled
in the utmost disorder. I woke then as from a horrible nightmare, and
felt an inexpressible disgust and horror at the sight of the dead and
dying bodies of horses and men all round me weltering in their blood.
At that moment an orderly officer galloped up to me.
“Sir,” he exclaimed, “the general desires you to come to him
immediately.”
“Your general!” I exclaimed joyfully. “Why, I saw him fall with my own
eyes. He is not dead, then?”
“Not yet; but his wounds are mortal, and I fear there is no hope of
saving him.”
I followed the officer hastily to a tent where the poor general was
lying on a camp-bed. His face was literally hacked with sabrecuts; one
ball had gone through his chest, and the surgeon, who was bending over
him, was trying in vain to stanch the blood which was escaping in a
black stream from this gaping wound. I took off my cap and bowed low
before the dying hero.
“Sir,” he said in so weak a voice that I had to bend down my ear close
to him to be able to hear, “I do not know you, and I do not remember
ever to have seen you before; but whoever you may be, may God bless you
for what you have done this day! You have saved my troops from
dishonor, and me from having my last moments embittered by the cruelest
sorrow I could ever have experienced.”
At this moment a rush of blood from his mouth threatened to stifle the
dying man. When he had a little recovered he spoke again:
“Whence do you come, and what is your name?”
“I am French, and my name is Michael,” I replied, blushing deeply. Here
the general drew off a ring from his finger. It was a signet-ring used
throughout the war as a password of command.
“Take this,” he said, “and swear to me not to leave my troops till the
Central Committee have sent another officer to take my place. This is
the last request of a dying man, and I feel sure that you will not
refuse it to me.”
I hesitated an instant. How reveal my secret and explain my anomalous
position at such a moment? The general, striving to raise his voice,
reiterated his dying entreaty:
“Swear not to leave them!”
I felt I could not resist any longer.
“I swear it, general, but on one condition: that your soldiers consent
to serve as escort to Countess L—— from her château to the frontier, as
she wishes to escape with her children and rejoin her husband, who is
in exile.”
“What! Countess L——, Arthur’s wife?”
“The same, general,” I replied; “and it was to implore your protection
for her in her hour of need, as well as to convey to you the
information she had received of the Russian ambuscade, that determined
me to accept this dangerous mission.”
“Thanks, my child—thanks for her and thanks for me. Gentlemen,” he
added, turning to his officers, who, silent and sad, were standing at
the other end of the tent, “you will obey this young officer until my
successor be appointed from headquarters. This is my last order, my
last prayer. And as long as he, though a stranger, fights at the head
of your column, you will not again forget, I hope, that the cause for
which you are fighting is a sacred one, the most holy of all causes,
for it is the cause of God and your country.”
The officers hung their heads at this tacit reproach—the only one
addressed to them by the hero whom they had allowed to be slain in so
cowardly a manner. After another fainting fit the general made me a
sign to draw close to him. I knelt down by his side. “If death spares
you,” he said, “go and tell my poor mother how I died. Console her, and
try and replace me to her; for I am the only thing she has left in the
world.”
Here tears filled his eyes, which he turned away to hide his emotion
from his officers. The surgeon had just finished dressing his wounds,
but he shook his head sadly as he rose. The general perceived the
movement and said:
“My poor friend! you have given yourself a great deal of trouble, and
all for nothing; but I am just as grateful to you.”
The surgeon wrung his hand, too much moved to speak. Then I took
courage and said:
“General, when the doctor of the body can do no more, and science is
exhausted, a Christian has recourse to another Physician.”
“You are quite right, my child,” replied the good general gravely; “and
I have no time to lose, for I feel my life is ebbing away every
moment.”
He made a sign to one of his aides-de-camp, and whispered his
instructions to him, which the latter hastened to obey. He returned in
a few minutes with a young Capuchin, who was the chaplain of the corps.
The officers left the tent, and I was about to do the same when a
sudden thought struck me.
“One word more, general. I want three days to make my arrangements and
get my kit ready.”
“Take them, my son; but do not be away longer, for when you return I
shall be no more here.”
“Not here, perhaps, but in a better world,” I exclaimed. “God bless
you, general! I cannot replace you, but I may perhaps be able to show
your troops how those should fight and die who have had General B—— for
their leader!”
“Thanks, my child, and may God bless you! Adieu!”
I pressed the hand which the dying man held out to me with respectful
tenderness; and then, hurrying from the tent to hide my emotion, I
obtained a “safe-conduct” passport, and, remounting my horse, stopped
at the best inn I could find in the next village, and wrote a few lines
to Countess L——, not to tell her of the extraordinary position in which
I had been placed or the fearful events of the past night, but to
reassure her, and bid her to hold herself in readiness for a speedy
departure, as an escort had been promised for her. Thence I rode as
fast as I could to the convent of the Bernardines at Kielce, and asked
to see Father Benvenuto immediately—that eloquent preacher and holy
confessor who had lingered for twenty years in a Siberian dungeon. He
was my confessor, and at this moment of all others in my life I needed
his advice and guidance. Fortunately for me, he was at home, and I
instantly told him all that had happened, and of the almost compulsory
promise which had been extorted from me by the brave and dying general.
The good old father listened in silence, and then said:
“My child, what you have done is heroic and great; but if you were to
return to the camp, and had to bear alone this terrible secret, it
would crush you with its weight.”
“But, good God! what can I do?” I exclaimed. “Must I give it up and
forfeit my word?”
“No; because God, in permitting these extraordinary events, had
evidently his divine purpose for you. You must return and fulfil your
vow, but you must not go alone. More than a month ago I asked
permission of my superiors to be allowed to carry the consolations of
religion to our brave troops in the field. This permission I received
yesterday; and so I can at once precede you to the camp, and when you
arrive will be your safeguard and protector.”
An enormous weight was taken off my mind by this proposal. I thanked
him with my whole heart, and he then insisted on my going to sleep for
some hours; for all that I had gone through had nearly exhausted my
strength. After a good night’s rest I woke, refreshed in body and
relieved in mind, to ride to Breslau, where I completed my military
equipment and then returned to the camp.
[TO BE CONCLUDED NEXT MONTH.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A FINAL PHILOSOPHY.[162]
The war waged by modern thought against supernatural revelation in the
name of the so-called “advanced” science is looked upon in a different
light by Catholic and by Protestant thinkers. Catholic philosophers and
divines look upon it as a noisy but futile effort of modern
anti-Christianism to shake and overthrow the mighty rock on which the
incarnate God has been pleased to build his indefectible church. They
know, of course, that they must be ready to fight, for the church to
which they belong is still militant; but, far from apprehending a
coming defeat, they feel certain of the victory. God is with them, and,
on God’s infallible promise, the church whose cause they serve is sure
of her final triumph. Protestant divines, on the contrary, hold no
tokens of future victories, and look upon infidel science not as an
enemy whom they have to fight, but as an old acquaintance, and a rather
capricious one, whom they must try to keep within bounds of decency,
and from whom they may borrow occasionally a few newly-forged weapons
against the Catholic Church. Some sincere Protestants, considering the
tendency of scientific thought to destroy all supernatural faith, saw,
indeed, the necessity of resisting its baneful incursions; but their
resistance did not, and could not, prove successful. Protestantism is
the notorious offspring of rebellion; it is not built on the rock; it
has no claims to special divine assistance; it cannot reckon but on
human weakness for its support; it is supremely inconsistent; in short,
it is no proof against the anti-Christian spirit of the age, and, what
is still more discouraging, it is fully conscious of its progressive
dissolution.
These considerations and others of a like nature kept continually
coming to our mind as we were perusing the pages of the singular work
whose title stands at the head of this article. The great object of Dr.
Shields is to reconcile religion with science by means of what he calls
_final philosophy_.
In the introduction to the work the author points out the limits and
the topics of Christian science; the logical, historical, and practical
relations of science and religion; the possibility of their
reconciliation, and the importance of their harmony to science, to
religion, to philosophy. The work is divided into two parts. The first
part is a review of the conduct of philosophical parties as to the
relations between science and religion; whilst the second part
propounds and explains the philosophical theory of the harmony of
science and religion, as conceived by the author. The first part opens
with a chapter on the early _conflicts_ and _alliances_ between science
and religion, where the author investigates the causes of the present
disturbed relations between religion and science, and traces them from
the dawn of the Greek philosophy to the Protestant Reformation;
describes the conflicts of philosophy and mythology in the
pre-Christian age; the wars of pagan philosophy against Christianity in
the first centuries of the present era; the alliance of theology with
philosophy in the patristic age; the predominance of theology and the
subjugation of philosophy in the scholastic age; and, lastly, the
revolt of philosophy against theology in the age of the Reformation.
In a second chapter he describes the _modern antagonism_ between
science and religion, the conflict in astronomy, in geology, in
anthropology, in psychology, in sociology, in theology, in philosophy,
and in civilization.
The third chapter, which fills more than two hundred pages, describes
the _modern indifferentism_ between science and religion, under the
name of “schism” or “rupture” in all the branches of science already
enumerated—viz., the schism in astronomy, in geology, in anthropology,
etc., to which is added the schism in metaphysics.
In the fourth chapter the author examines the _modern eclecticism_
between science and religion: eclecticism in astronomy, eclecticism in
geology, and so on through the other branches of knowledge already
mentioned.
The fifth and last chapter describes the _modern scepticism_ between
science and religion: scepticism in astronomy, in geology, in
anthropology, and in all the aforesaid branches of human knowledge,
with a conclusion about “effete religious culture.”
The second part of the work, though much shorter than the first, is
divided also into five chapters, of which the first aims to show that
philosophy is the natural _umpire_ between religion and science,
wherever they are in conflict; the second expounds and refutes the
_positive_ philosophy; the third examines and criticises the _absolute_
philosophy; the fourth states that _final philosophy_, or _a theory of
perfectible science_, may bring about the conciliation of positivism
and absolutism; and the last offers a sketch of the _ultimate
philosophy_, the science of sciences, derived scientifically from their
own historical and logical development, and whose characteristic
features the author thus glowingly describes in the closing sentence of
his work:
“The summary want of the age is that last philosophy into which
shall have been sifted all other philosophy, which shall be at
once catholic and eclectic, which shall be the joint growth and
fruit of reason and faith, and which shall shed forth, through
every walk of research, the blended light of discovery and
revelation; a philosophy which shall be no crude aggregate of
decaying systems and doctrines, but their distilled issue and
living effect, and which shall not have sprung full-born from
any one mind or people, but mature as the common work and
reward of all; a philosophy which, proceeding upon the unity of
truth, shall establish the harmony of knowledge through the
intelligent concurrence of the human with the divine intellect,
and the rational subjection of the finite to the Infinite
reason; a philosophy, too, which shall be as beneficent as it
is sacred, which in the act of healing the schisms of truth
shall also heal the sects of the school, of the church, and of
the state, and, while regenerating human art, both material and
moral, shall at length regenerate human society; a philosophy,
in a word, which shall be the means of subjecting the earth to
man and man to God, by grouping the sciences, with their fruits
and trophies, at the feet of Omniscience, and there converging
and displaying all laws and causes in God, the cause of causes
and of laws, of whom are all things and in whom all things
consist; to whom alone be glory” (pp. 587, 588).
These are noble words. It is certain that our age is in great need of a
philosophy at once catholic and eclectic, as the author very wisely
remarks. But it is our firm conviction that if Dr. Shields had studied
our great Catholic authors, he would know that there is a philosophy
and a theology which does already all that he wishes to do by his
projected final philosophy, and much better too. We praise his
excellent intention; but we do not think that his project has any
chance of being carried out in a proper manner. We even doubt if a
_new_ system of philosophy can be found so comprehensive, coherent,
impartial, and perfect in all its parts as to justify the high
expectation entertained by the author.
This new system of philosophy cannot be the product of infidel thought,
as is evident. Hence none of the advocates of advanced science can have
a part in the projected work, except as opponents whom philosophy shall
have to refute, or as claimants upon whose rights philosophy has to
pronounce its judicial sentence.
Nor will the new system be the product of Catholic thought; for we
Catholics are under the impression that the world has no need of _new_
philosophical systems. As for us, we have a philosophy of admirable
depth, great soundness, and incomparable precision, which has ever
successfully refuted heresy, silenced infidelity, and harmonized the
teachings of revelation and science to our full satisfaction. This
philosophy can, indeed, be improved in some particulars, and we
continually strive to improve it: but we are determined not to change
its principles, which we know to be true, and not to depart from its
method, which has no rival in the whole world of speculative science.
Who, then, would frame and develop the new and “final” philosophy?
Free-thinkers? Freemasons? Free-religionists? These sectaries would
doubtless be glad to dress philosophy in a white apron, with the square
in one hand and the triangle in the other; for, if the thing were
feasible, they would acquire at once that philosophical importance
which they have not, and which they have always been anxious to secure,
but in vain, by their united efforts. But then we are sure that they
would only develop some humanitarian theory calculated to flatter the
sceptical spirit of the age, and to merge all creeds in naturalism and
free-religion; and this, of course, would not do, for the “final
philosophy” should, according to Dr. Shields’ view, maintain the rights
of supernatural revelation no less than of natural reason.
Should, then, the great work be abandoned to the hands, industry, and
discernment of the Protestant sects? Men of talent and men of learning
are to be found everywhere; but as to philosophers, we doubt whether
any can be found among Protestants who will be honest enough to draw
the legitimate consequences of their principles, when those
consequences would imply a condemnation of their religious system. In
other terms, if the work were to be entrusted to Protestant thinkers,
one might, without need of preternatural illumination, boldly predict
that the whole affair must end in nothing but failure. What can be
expected of a Protestant thinker, or of any number of Protestant
thinkers, whether divines or philosophers, but an inconsistent and
preposterous tampering with truth? Protestantism lacks, and ever will
lack, a uniform body of doctrines, whether philosophical or
theological; it has no head, no centre, no positive principle, no
recognized living authority, no bond of union; it has only a mutilated
Bible which it discredits with contradictory interpretations; it is
neither a church nor a school, but a Babel confusion of uncertain and
discordant views; and it has no better foundation than the shifting
sand of private judgment. On what ground, then, can a Protestant
apologist force upon modern thought those shreds of revealed truth
which he claims to hold on no better authority than his own fallible
and changeable reason? And what else can he oppose to the invading
spirit of unbelief? Alas! Protestantism is nothing but a house divided
within itself, a ship where all hands are captains with no crew at
their orders, an army whose generals have no authority to command and
whose soldiers have no duty to obey. Such a House cannot but crumble
into dust; such a ship must founder; and such an army cannot dream of
Christian victories, as it is doomed to waste its strength in perpetual
riots, unless it succeeds in putting an end to its intestine troubles
by self-destruction. It is evident, then, that “final philosophy”
cannot be the product of Protestant thought.
Dr. Shields seems to have seen these difficulties; for he holds that
such a philosophy must not spring full-born from any one mind or
people, but mature “as the common work and reward of all.” Here,
however, the question arises whether this mode of working is calculated
to give satisfactory results. When a number of persons contribute to
the execution of a great work, it must be taken for granted that, if
their effort has to prove a success, they must work on the same plan
and tend in the same direction, so that the action of the one may not
interfere with the action of the other. If all men were animated by an
intense love of truth, and of nothing but truth, if they all could
agree to start from the same principles, if they were all modest in
their inferences, if they were so humble as to recognize their error
when pointed out to them, and if some other similar dispositions were
known to exist in all or in most students of science and philosophy,
Dr. Shields’ plan might indeed be carried out with universal
satisfaction. But men, unfortunately, love other things besides truth
and more than truth: they love themselves, their own ideas, and their
own prejudices; they ignore or pervert principles; they defend their
blunders, and even embellish them for the sake of notoriety, and they
are obstinate in their errors. On the other hand, we see that an
ignorant public is always ready to applaud any philosophic monstrosity
which wears a fashionable dress; and this is one of the greatest
obstacles to the triumph of truth, as error grows powerful wherever it
is encouraged by popular credulity. Thus error and truth will continue
to fight in the future as they did in the past. The history of
philosophy is a history of endless discords. The wildest conceptions
have ever found supporters, and charlatanism has ever been applauded.
The only epoch in which error had lost its hold of philosophy, and was
compelled to retire almost entirely from the field of speculation, was
when theology and philosophy, bound together in a defensive and
offensive alliance under the leadership of the great Thomas Aquinas, so
overpowered the Moorish philosophers and confounded their rationalistic
followers that it was no longer possible for error to wear a mask. Then
it was that the principles of a truly “final” philosophy were laid
down, faith and reason reconciled, and false theories discredited. And
it is for this reason that the disciples of error, who after the time
of the Lutheran revolt have never ceased to attack some religious
truth, style that scholastic epoch a _dark age_. Dark, indeed, for
error, which had lost much power of mischief, but bright for
philosophy, which had triumphed, and glorious for Christianity, which
reigned supreme. If any age must be called _dark_, it is the one we
live in, owing to the numbers of ignorant scribblers, unprincipled men
in responsible positions, and illogical scientists who disgrace it.
This state of things is the product of free thought, which has
disturbed and nearly destroyed the harmony of all the sciences, and all
but extinguished the light of philosophical principles. The idea of
employing free thought as an auxiliary for the defence of philosophy is
so preposterous on its very face that none but a sectary or a sceptic
could have entertained it. It must be pretty evident to all that such a
course is like introducing the enemy into the fortress. Introduce
Draper and Büchner, Tyndall and Moleschott, Haeckel and Darwin, Huxley
and Clifford into the parlor of philosophy, and you will see at once
how utterly mistaken is Mr. Shields if he reckons on them for his great
work; you will see with what self-reliance, arrogance, and intolerance
they condemn everything contrary to their favorite views. Tell them
that they must help you to make a “final philosophy” which shall
reconcile Scripture and science, Christianity and human reason. What
would they think of such a proposal? Would they condescend to answer
otherwise than by a sneer? But let us admit that they will favor you
with an honest answer. What will they say?
Draper would probably remark that philosophy cannot undertake any such
task, as the conflict between religion and science has its origin and
reason of being in the nature of things, which is unchangeable.
Büchner would laugh impertinently at the idea of a God, a Scripture,
and a religion.
Tyndall would have nothing to do with the scheme; for modern science
cannot shake hands with revelation without encouraging a belief in
miracles and in the utility of prayer—both which things science has
exploded for ever, as conflicting with inviolable laws.
Moleschott would object that revelation and science are irreconcilable,
at least, as to psychology; for the study of physiology has made it
clear that thought consists in a series of molecular movements, and he
is not willing to renounce this new dogma of science or to modify in
any manner his view of the question for the sake of a new philosophy.
Haeckel would indignantly protest against the scheme, for there is no
philosophy but the Evolution of species and the Descent of man; and he
would turn to the great Darwin, his respected friend, for an approving
smile.
The great Darwin would then smile approvingly on his loving and
faithful disciple, and remark that Logic, for instance, which is
believed to be a part of philosophy, and his Descent of man are on such
bad terms that it would be but a waste of time to attempt a
reconciliation between them, so he would let them alone.
The talkative Huxley would gladly second Mr. Darwin’s resolution by the
further remark that a logic or a philosophy which cannot be weighed in
the balance of the chemist, or be verified by the microscope, or be
illustrated by the series of animal remains preserved in
palæontological museums, has no claims to engage the attention of the
noble scientists present in the room.
Clifford would scout the idea of a philosophy enslaved by theological
prejudices. For free thought cannot come to terms with theology; it
must combat it in the name of progress and civilization with all
available weapons, and with an ardor proportionate to the grandeur and
importance of the cause.
This sketch, which is certainly not over-colored, might be enlarged
almost indefinitely by the introduction of other living or dead
materialists, pantheists, atheists, theists, idealists,
free-religionists, etc., whose discordant views would have to be either
accepted, reformed, or refuted, as the case may be. John Stuart Mill
and Comte, Bain and Spencer, Kant and Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, Hume
and Hobbes, and a host of other minor lights of heterodox thought,
would have to be harmonized, if possible, or else condemned and
forgotten. But let the dead rest in peace and suppose that none but
living thinkers are to be consulted. A dilemma presents itself: either
Dr. Shields and his co-operators get the best of fashionable errors,
and reject them, or not. If _not_, then a final philosophy _reconciling
revelation with science_ will be out of the question. If _yes_, then
the final philosophy will be denounced by the evicted party as a mass
of unscientific and _à priori_ reasoning, a counterfeit of mediæval
metaphysics, a tardy and clumsy attempt at resuscitating the
discredited notions of a slavish and intolerant past. Newspaper
writers, pamphleteers, lecturers, and professors would sneer at your
final philosophy, as they now sneer at the scholastic doctrine; and the
ever-increasing mass of sciolists, who think with the brains of others,
would take up the sneer and propagate it even to the ends of the world.
Thus science and religion, so long as human pride and human obstinacy
are not curbed by the keenest love of truth, will remain antagonistic,
and the present war will continue in spite of the “final philosophy.”
Dr. Shields very explicitly declares that he believes in God, in
Christ, and in the Bible. For this we cannot but praise him. Yet his
book leads thoughtful readers to suspect that his faith is still
undeveloped, uncertain, indefinite, and, as it were, in an embryonic
condition. In fact, religion and science, as he conceives, are still at
war, and revelation must yet be reconciled with reason by the aid of
final philosophy; and this final philosophy is a thing of the future.
What will he believe meanwhile? What will all other Protestants
believe? Must they adopt a provisional scepticism? This is, indeed,
what most of them do; nor can we see that any other course is open to
them, if they are waiting for the final philosophy. But, since “without
faith it is impossible to please God,” how will they be saved? The
question deserves an answer.
There is a science which teaches that man’s soul is not immortal, not
spiritual, not even a substance, but only a molecular function, which
cannot survive the body. Must Dr. Shields’ disciples remain uncertain
about this point of doctrine until the final philosophy is published?
And there is a science which maintains with the greatest assurance that
what we call “God” is nothing more, in reality, than nature, or the
universe and its forces and laws. Must we suspend our judgment on this
all-important subject on the plea that final philosophy has not yet
shed its brilliant light on the question? And there is a science, too,
which contends that the human will, though long believed to be free, is
nevertheless determined by exterior and interior causes according to a
law of strict physical necessity which admits of no exception. Ought
we, then, to consider ourselves irresponsible for our deliberate
actions, till the final philosophy shall teach us that we are not mere
machines, and that the freedom of the human will has at last been
reconciled with the general laws of causation? To our mind, a Christian
divine cannot for a moment admit that such a provisional scepticism
could be recommended as a healthy intellectual preparation for the
attainment of truth. Nor could a Christian divine fancy for a moment
that a provident God has hitherto left mankind without sufficient light
to understand and solve such capital questions as we have mentioned,
and many others whose solution was equally indispensable for the moral
and the religious education of the human race. The truth is that
mankind has been endowed from the beginning with the knowledge of the
principles of moral science, the laws of reasoning, the precepts of
religion, and the eternal destiny of the just and the unjust. This
knowledge was transmitted from fathers to sons, but was soon obscured
by the surging of turbulent passions and a proud desire of
independence. The human family soon emancipated itself from the moral
law, and learned to stifle the voice of conscience by false excuses and
by worldly maxims. Nations fell into polytheism, idolatry, revolting
superstitions, and barbarism. Indeed, a few pagan philosophers, still
faintly illumined by the remnants of the primitive tradition, attempted
the reconstruction of human science; but they were only partially
successful, and their names became famous no less for the errors with
which they are still associated than for vindicated truths. Even the
Jews, who were in possession of an authentic record of the past, and
could read the Law and the Prophets, often adopted pagan views, or at
least mistook the spirit of their sacred books by a too material
adherence to the killing letter. At last Jesus Christ, God and man, the
light that enlightens the world, the new Adam, the divine Solomon,
came, and brought us the remedy of which our ignorance and corruption
had so much need. He gave us his Gospel of truth and life, and not only
restored but increased and perfected the knowledge of divine and human
things; he founded his church; and he appointed, in the person of his
vicar on earth, a permanent and infallible judge of revealed doctrine.
The two hundred and odd millions of Christians who recognize this
infallible judge know distinctly what they ought to believe. They need
not await the decisions of any “final philosophy” in order to be fixed
on such questions as the origin of matter, the creation of man, the
liberty of the soul, the existence of a personal God, and the worship
acceptable to him. And as to the scientific questions, these millions
very naturally argue that any theory which clashes with the doctrine
_defined_ by the church bears in itself its own condemnation, whilst
all the other theories are a fit subject of free discussion by the
rational methods. This is our intellectual position in regard to
science; and we venture to say that even Dr. Shields could not find a
better one either for himself or for his pupils and friends. But he,
unfortunately, does not belong to the true and living church of Christ;
he belongs to a spurious system of Christianity, which countenances
intellectual rebellion, and which, after having imprudently fostered
free thought, is now at a loss how to restrain its destructive
influence. Hence he is anxious to be on good terms with all
free-thinkers, in the hope, we assume, that, by yielding in a measure
to the spirit of infidelity, some arrangement may be arrived at,
equally acceptable to both sides, by which Protestantism, as an old but
now useless and despised accomplice, may be left to die a natural
death. Thus the “final philosophy” of Dr. Shields, so far as we can
judge from the details of his work, will put in the same balance God
and man, revelation and free thought, wisdom and folly, with the
pitiful result that we have briefly pointed out.
Final philosophy, as conceived by our author, can be of no service to
the Catholic, and of no great benefit to the Protestant, world. At any
rate a truly “final” philosophy has scarcely a chance of seeing the
light in the present century, especially through the exertions of
Protestant divines. The century to which we belong, though famous for
many useful discoveries, is even more conspicuous for its great
ignorance of speculative philosophy. In the middle ages, which were not
half so dark as modern thinkers assume, there was less superficial
diffusion of knowledge, but a great deal more of philosophy. Giants,
like St. Anselm, Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, had collected,
sifted, and harmonized the philosophical lore of all the preceding
ages, refuted the errors of a presumptuous pagan or heretical science,
shown the agreement of revelation with reason, reconciled metaphysics
with theology, and made such a body of philosophical and theological
doctrines as would, and did, satisfy the highest aspirations of
deeply-cultivated intellects. It is men of this type that could have
written a “final” philosophy. But who are we men of the nineteenth
century? Are we not mere pigmies when compared with these old masters?
Where do we find profound metaphysicians and profound theologians?
Some, of course, are to be found in the Catholic Church, which alone
has preserved the traditions of the ancient intellectual world; but we
do not think that any one of them would consider himself clever enough
to write a “final” philosophy. And should such a competent man be
found, who would care for his doctrine? Scientists would certainly not
bend to his authority, as they only laugh at metaphysics, nor to his
arguments, which they would scarcely understand; and unbelievers would
probably not even listen to him, as they would be afraid of being
awakened from their spiritual lethargy.
On the other hand, to expect that a Protestant divine, or a body of
Protestant divines, will be able to compose such a final philosophy as
Dr. Shields describes in the passage we have quoted is the merest
delusion. Not that there are not able and learned men in the Protestant
sects, but because the Protestant mind is trained to look at things in
the light of expediency more than of principles, and, besides other
disqualifications already referred to, it sadly lacks the jewel of
philosophical consistency. Dr. Shields, who holds, as we gladly
recognize, a prominent place among the learned men of his own
denomination, is by no means exempt from the weaknesses of his
Protestant compeers. For example, he is apt to confound things which
should be distinguished, and to draw consequences which go farther than
the premises; he frequently yields to partisan prejudices; he makes
false assumptions; he seems ready to sacrifice some religious views to
modern thought; and he misrepresents or misinterprets history. A few
references to his book will suffice to substantiate this criticism.
Thus, in the very first chapter of his work he says that in the first
age of Christianity there was on the side of the church “an apparent
effort to supplant philosophy” (p. 31); and to prove this he alleges
that “the apostles had scarcely left the church when there sprang up,
in the unlettered class from which the first Christians had been
largely recruited, a weak jealousy of human learning, which, it was
claimed, had been superseded in them by miraculous gifts of wisdom and
knowledge.” This statement is captious. From the fact that the first
Christians, guided by the wisdom of the Gospel, had come to despise the
absurd fables of pagan philosophy, it does not follow that they
rejected human learning, but only that they had common sense enough to
understand and to fulfil the duties of their religious position. On the
other hand, to imagine that “the unlettered class” could have thought
“of supplanting human learning” is as ridiculous as if we pretended
that our carpenters and blacksmiths might conspire to supplant
astronomy. The author adds that “Clement of Rome was held by his party
to have enjoined abstinence from mental culture as one of the apostolic
canons,” that “Barnabas and Polycarp were classed with St. Paul as
authors of epistles which carry their own evidence of imposture,” and
that “Hermas, as if in contempt of scholars, put his angelical
rhapsodies in the mouth of a shepherd.” We scarcely believe that these
three assertions will enhance the credit of Dr. Shields as a student of
history. Clement was himself a theologian and a philosopher; “his
party” is a clumsy invention; “apostolic canons” never condemned mental
culture; St. Paul’s epistles bear no evidence whatever of imposture;
and, as to Hermas, it is well known to the learned that he put his
instructions in the mouth of a shepherd, not that he might show his
“contempt of scholars”—for he himself was a scholar—but because his
guardian angel, from whom he had received those instructions, had
appeared before him in the garb of a shepherd.
The author says (p. 33) that in the age of the Greek Fathers “there was
a false peace between theology and philosophy; and religion and
science, in consequence, became more or less corrupted by admixture
with each other.” This statement is another historical blunder.
“The doctrines of St. John were sublimated into the abstractions of
Plato.” This, too, is quite incorrect.
“The Son of God was identified as the divine Logos of the schools.” By
no means. The Logos of the schools was only a shadow as compared with
the Son of God; the Logos of the schools was an abstraction, whereas
the Logos of the Fathers was a divine Person.
“Eusebius, Athanasius, Basil, the two Gregories, Chrysostom, and the
two Cyrils did scarcely more than consecrate the spirit of the Academy
in the cloisters and councils of the church.” This statement has no
need of refutation. The works of all the Fathers here mentioned are
extant, and they eloquently protest against the slander. But Protestant
authors are anxious to show that the Catholic Church was corrupted from
its very first age; and to do this they do not scruple to gather lies
and misrepresentations from all accessible sources, to transform
history into a witness to facts that never had an existence.
“Philosophy,” continues the author, “became not less corrupted through
its forced alliance with the new theology.” Who ever heard of a _new_
theology in the patristic age? or of a theology with which philosophy
could not make an alliance, except by force, and without being
corrupted?
“If philosophy gained somewhat on its metaphysical side by having its
own notional entities traced up to revealed realities as the flower
from the germ of reason, yet it lost quite as much on its physical side
through a narrowing logic and exegesis which bound it within the letter
of the Scripture, and turned it away from all empirical research; and,
consequently, even such crude natural science as it had inherited from
the early Greeks was soon forgotten and buried under a mass of
patristic traditions” (p. 34). From this we learn that logic, according
to Dr. Shields, “narrows the physical side of philosophy,” and exegesis
opposes “empirical research”! Is it not surprising that such assertions
could find a place in a work which purports to be serious and
philosophical? And as to the “crude natural science” of the early
Greeks, which was a confused mass of conflicting guesses, does the
author believe that it had a right to the name of science? or that it
commanded the respect of theologians? or does he think that the
Scripture has not a literal sense, which contains more truth than all
the crude natural science of the early Greeks?
“In geology the speculations of Thales, Anaximenes, and Heraclitus,
tracing the growth of the world from water, air, or fire, were only
exchanged for the fanciful allegories and homilies of Origen, Basil,
and Ambrose on the Hexaëmeron, or six days’ work of creation.” Dr.
Shields has just complained that the Fathers bound science “within the
letter of the Scripture”; and he now complains of Origen abandoning the
literal for the allegorical sense! Such is his need of quarrelling with
the Fathers. We may grant that some of Origen’s allegorical
interpretations were rather “fanciful”; but since such interpretations
were generally rejected even in his own time, it is difficult to
understand how they could supersede the speculations of philosophers.
As to St. Basil and St. Ambrose, however, no one who has studied their
works will dare to maintain that they have indulged in fanciful
theories. Of course they were not professors of science but of
Christianity; nor were they obliged to forsake Moses for Anaximenes or
Heraclitus, whose theories were nothing but dreams. Geology, as a
science, was yet unborn; and we are certain that, had the Fathers
embraced the theories which they are denounced for ignoring, Dr.
Shields or some of his friends would have considered the fact as
equally worthy of censure. Such is the justice of certain critics.
“In astronomy the heliocentric views of Aristarchus and Pythagoras had
already given place to the Ptolemaic theory of the heavens.” This does
not prove that the Fathers have corrupted astronomy; it shows, on the
contrary, that the false system of astronomy originated in what was
then considered science. It is to false science, therefore, and not to
false theology that we must trace the false explanation of astronomical
phenomena.
“In geography, the corruption of natural knowledge with false Biblical
views became even more remarkable, and the doctrine of the earth’s
rotundity and antipodes which had been held by Plato and Aristotle, and
all but proved by the Alexandrian geometers, was at length discarded as
a fable not less monstrous than heretical.” We wonder how it could have
been possible to prove “by geometry” the existence of men at the
antipodes, and we still more wonder how could the doctrine of the
earth’s rotundity, which is a Scriptural doctrine, be discarded as a
monstrous and heretical fable by men familiar with the teachings of the
Bible. But what is the fact? Did any of the Fathers suggest that the
words _orbis terræ_, which are to be found in many Scriptural texts,
could be understood to mean anything but the earth’s rotundity? Or did
any of them maintain that the earth’s rotundity was a “false Biblical
view”? The author replies by quoting the _Topographia Christiana_ of
Cosmas Indicopleustes, who teaches that the earth is flat. But we
answer that Cosmas was not a father of the church, and that his work
has never been considered “a standard of Biblical geography,” as the
author assumes. The theory of this monk was not the result of
“theological” learning, as Dr. Shields imagines, but the offspring of
Nestorian ignorance and presumption. Nor does it matter that Cosmas
cites “patriarchs, prophets, and apostles in its defence as doctrine
concerning which it was not lawful for a Christian to doubt” (p. 35);
for we know, on the one hand, that there is no monstrosity which
heretics are not apt to defend obstinately with Scriptural texts, and
on the other that the theory of the Indicopleustes made no fortune in
the Christian world; which further shows that the theological mind was
not “inwrought” with any such fancies as the author pretends to have
swayed the doctors of the Catholic Church. We know, of course, that our
old doctors did not admit that the antipodes were inhabited by men; but
this scarcely deserves criticism, as it is plain that before the
discovery of the new world no serious man could take the responsibility
of affirming a fact of which there was not a spark of evidence.
The author adds: “At the same time all the issuing interests of this
paganized Christianity could not but share in its hybrid character. Its
piety became but a mixture of austerity and license.” He then says that
the Christian ritual “was a mere medley of incongruous usages”; that
“the sign of the cross became a common charm as well as a sacred rite”;
that Pachomius organized monasteries and nunneries as sanctuaries of
virtue “amid a social corruption too gross to be described”; that
“Christian and pagan factions contended for supremacy in the Roman
senate”; that “the Lord’s day was observed by imperial edict on a day
devoted to the god of the sun,” etc., etc.; and he winds up his survey
of the patristic age by the remark that “the patristic type of
Christian science has been likened to a twilight dream of thought
before the long night-watches of the middle ages” (p. 35, 36).
It would be useless to ask Dr. Shields how he has ascertained that
Christianity was “paganized,” and that the sign of the cross had become
a “charm”; he would tell us simply that these gems of erudition have
been culled by him from Protestant or infidel books. As to the “mixture
of austerity and license” nothing need be said, for the contradiction
is glaring. That the social corruption was “too gross to be described”
is not astonishing, as the world was still more than half pagan; but to
connect social corruption with the monasteries and nunneries organized
by St. Pachomius, in order to denounce them as a mixture of austerity
and license, is a proof not only of bad taste, but of bad will and of
want of judgment. The author forgets to tell us why the Christian
ritual should be called “a mere medley of incongruous usages”; and yet,
as our present ritual does not substantially differ from that of the
patristic age, it would have been easy to point out a few of such
usages, were it not that their incongruity is only a crotchet of
Protestant bigotism. That the Lord’s day was observed “by imperial
edict” may indeed seem scandalous to free-thinkers and
free-religionists, but not to Protestant doctors; for they must know
that in Protestant countries the Lord’s day is still observed by a law
which has the same power as an imperial edict. But Protestants are
perhaps scandalized at the Lord’s day being kept on the “day devoted to
the god of the sun” instead of the Sabbath; and from this they argue
that the Church of God has been utterly corrupted and paganized. If so,
then they should either prove that the Lord’s day, the day of Christ’s
resurrection, was the Sabbath, or denounce Jesus Christ himself for
doing on the day “devoted to the god of the sun” what he ought to have
done on the Sabbath. O the Pharisees! We cannot wonder if they despise
the “patristic type of Christian science” as a dream when we see how
shamelessly they strive to misrepresent the most glorious ages of
Christianity, and to turn truth itself into poison.
The few quotations we have here made, and the remarks we have appended
to them, are far from giving an adequate idea of the partisan spirit
and unreliable statements with which Dr. Shields has filled the first
part of his book. What we have given is only a small sample of the
rest, and was extracted from three pages. Were we to extend our
criticism to only ten pages more, we would find matter enough for a
volume. Our author, as nearly all Protestant authors, characterizes the
scholastic age as one of philosophic bondage. Theology subjugates
philosophy: “The church is the only school; orthodoxy the one test of
all truth; the traditions of the Fathers the sole pabulum of the
intellect; and the system of Aristotle a mere frame-work to the creed
of Augustine.” Peter Lombard “narrowed the circle of free thought by
putting the authority of the church above that of Scripture”; Alexander
of Hales “rendered the thraldom of the intellect complete by
systematizing the patristic traditions or sentences with Aristotelian
logic.” Alas! we know only too well that Protestantism detests logic as
much as the patristic traditions. But, then, why should a Protestant
D.D. undertake to harmonize philosophy and theology? Is there any
philosophy without logic, or any theology without patristic traditions?
Thomas Aquinas “dazzled all Europe”; but Duns Scotus “proceeded to
evaporate the distinction of Aquinas in a jargon which defies modern
comprehension.” This does little credit to modern comprehension; for
the jargon of Scotus is nothing but the Latin tongue adapted to
philosophical use. “Philosophy,” at this time, “could only succumb to
theology.” “In logic any deflection in mere form as well as matter was
enough to draw down the anathemas of the church.” Roscellin “was
arraigned as a tritheist,” William of Champeaux “was pursued as a
pantheist,” Abelard “was forced to cast his own works into the fire,
and condemned to obscurity and silence.” It is evident that these
facts, and others of a similar nature, must fill with horror our
liberal Protestants and all free-religionists, just as prison and
capital punishment fill with horror a convicted criminal. But if Dr.
Shields condescends to examine the doctrines of Roscellin, William of
Champeaux, and Abelard in the light of Scripture, as they are
faithfully portrayed in reliable works (such as St. Thomas’ life by
Rev. Bede Vaughan, for example), he will see that all three were guilty
of heresy, and that they richly deserved the treatment to which they
were subjected. We cannot, of course, enter here into a discussion of
such doctrines; we merely state that they have been fully examined and
debated in the presence of the interested parties with all the calm,
patience, and impartiality which characterize the proceedings of the
Catholic Church.
As to the singular notion entertained by Dr. Shields, that philosophy
“could only succumb to theology,” we wish to tell him that no man can
be a theologian unless he be also a philosopher; whence it follows that
philosophy and theology are naturally friendly to one another, and, if
they ever happen to disagree, they do not fight like enemies, but they
state their reasons like good sisters equally anxious to secure each
other’s support. Philosophy is like a clear but naked eye; theology is
the same eye, not naked, but armed with a powerful telescope. Will Dr.
Shields maintain that the eye succumbs when it sees by the telescope
what the naked eye cannot discover? Yet this is the idea latent in his
notion of philosophy succumbing to theology. What succumbs to theology
is not philosophy, but error masked in the garb of philosophy. The
author himself tells us that “reason and revelation are complemental
factors of knowledge, the former discovering what the latter has not
revealed, and the latter revealing what the former cannot discover.”
This is exactly what we were saying; for the science of reason is
philosophy, and the science of revelation is theology.
We would never end, if we were to follow our author through the five
hundred and eighty-eight pages of his book. We only add that the
theological and philosophical erudition which he parades throughout the
whole work has been derived from the same baneful sources from which
Dr. Draper collected the materials of his _History of the Conflict
between Religion and Science_, and deserves the same heavy censure. The
late Dr. O. A. Brownson, when Dr. Draper’s work was published, said of
it: “The only thing in Dr. Draper’s book that we are disposed to
tolerate is his style, which is free, flowing, natural, simple,
unaffected, and popular. Aside from its style, the book cannot be too
severely censured. It is a tissue of lies from beginning to end. It is
crude, superficial, and anything but what it professes to be. It
professes to be a history of the conflict between religion and science.
It is no such thing. It is a vulgar attack on Christianity and the
Christian church, in which is condensed the substance of all that has
been said by anti-Christian writers from the first century to the
nineteenth.” We do not say that Dr. Shields’ intention has been to
attack Christianity in general as Dr. Draper did; he, on the contrary,
professes to labor for a reconciliation of Christianity and reason.
But, good as the intention is, the book will do as much harm as that of
Dr. Draper. Its style is as good, to say the least, as Dr. Draper’s,
and its subject-matter is well distributed and orderly developed; but
these and other good qualities, instead of redeeming its numerous
misrepresentations of truth, make them more dangerous by adding to them
a charm against which the average reader can ill defend himself.
Besides, Dr. Draper’s work, owing to its shameless infidelity, disgusts
the Christian reader and makes him unwilling to swallow the poison it
contains; whereas Dr. Shields’ book has such an attractive title,
professes such a reverence for Scripture, and displays such an
earnestness and ingenuity in the holy task of reconciling religion with
science, that the unsophisticated reader (the Protestant reader in
particular) will follow him, not only with great pleasure, but also
with great docility and deference, till he persuades himself that
religion is now in such a state that it needs to be purified by
philosophy, and that reason must be made the _umpire_ between revealed
and scientific dogmas. The consequence is that the author’s “final
philosophy” will serve the interests of rationalism rather than of
religion. The more so as the author shows himself well acquainted with
the errors of modern thought, some of which he exposes and refutes in a
truly philosophical spirit, and with a talent and ability of which we
see few instances in modern thinkers. We have been particularly struck
by his powerful handling of positivism and absolutism, not to mention
many other topics which he has treated in a very fair and intelligent
manner. Had he not taken his stand on the shifting ground of Protestant
opinions, he might have achieved a very meritorious task. He speaks of
catholic views, catholic philosophy, and catholic spirit as something
indispensable to carry on the much-desired conciliation of natural with
supernatural knowledge. But what can the word “catholic” mean on the
lips of one who does not listen to the Catholic doctors, and who is a
stranger to the Catholic Church? His “catholic” spirit cannot but be a
spirit of compromise, and a kind of rationalistic eclecticism, ready to
accept only so much of revelation as men will condescend to authorize
on a verdict of their fallible reason, and no less ready to sacrifice
and ignore as much of it as human reason cannot explain or harmonize
with natural science. It is evident that such a spirit can lead to
nothing but religious scepticism. And this should convince even Dr.
Shields that his “final philosophy” will never achieve a success. The
Catholic thinker, if he had to compose a final philosophy, would place
himself on much higher and much securer ground; he would first range in
a series all the truths which the Catholic Church has defined to be of
faith; he would then range in another series all the _demonstrated_
truths of the natural sciences, and all the principles, axioms, and
propositions of philosophy which are generally received by the
different schools; he would next inquire whether any proposition of
this second series clashes with any of the truths contained in the
first series; and, as he would be unable to find any truth of science
or of philosophy conflicting with any revealed truth, he would conclude
that the world is not just now in need of a final philosophy for
settling a conflict which has no existence except in the imaginative
brains of scientific charlatans. Dr. Shields may think that this course
is not calculated to secure the alliance of religion and science; but
let him read the magnificent article published by Dr. Brownson in his
_Quarterly Review_ (April, 1875), on Dr. Draper’s pretended history of
the conflict between religion and science, and he will see his mistake.
The “final philosophy,” as we have already remarked, will be of no use
to the Catholic world. Protestants may, perhaps, relish it all the
more. But no class of men will, in our opinion, be more gratified with
it than the sceptics, the free-thinkers, and the enemies of
supernatural truth; for they will not fail to see that to set up
philosophy as “umpire” between religion and science is to make men
distrust the doctrines of religion, and to prepare, though with the
best intentions, the triumph of religious scepticism.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A GREAT BISHOP.
In writing the lives of saints their biographers often forget that they
are writing history, and telling the part which a wise, strong, and
manly character bore in that history. William Emmanuel von Ketteler,
the late Bishop of Mayence, might by many be reckoned among saints, so
holy was his life and so like the primitive Christian ideal. But he has
another claim to fame, as one of the greatest modern champions of order
against socialism, and of the church against organized godlessness. The
“iron bishop,” the “fighting bishop,” were nicknames given him by his
foes, and, though given in hate and derision, they unconsciously set
forth one side of his powerful character. A man of his reach of mind,
however humble, could not have taken a less prominent part and position
in the struggle of principle against license of which the present
religious disturbances in Germany are the type. It fell naturally to
his share to be the speaker and standard-bearer of the cause of church
liberties, and the representative of the episcopal order. His legal
studies and experience, as well as his hardy habits and magnificent
_physique_, seemed to have prepared him and pointed him out among all
others for the championship of his party, including all the bodily
fatigue and mental anxiety incident to such a leadership. He was as
thorough a man as he was an ideal bishop and exceptional orator, and
this manliness, physical and intellectual, was the basis of his simple
and grand character. His chosen motto, “Let all be as one,” is no bad
interpretation of the leading ideal which he tried through life to
realize: church unity and Christian loyalty, served by the whole round
of his exceptional and perfectly-developed faculties. Before setting
forth the fruits of his special studies, and examining his life and
personality from the point of view most important in this century of
social strife, we purpose giving a short biographical sketch of the
Bishop of Mayence.
He was born on Christmas day, 1811, at Münster in Westphalia, of a
noble family, one branch of which, embracing the doctrines of the
Reformation, had in the sixteenth century migrated to Poland and become
hereditary dukes of Courland, and a second, remaining German and
Catholic, had been distinguished by giving more than one member to the
Order of St. John of Jerusalem. His own branch, the third, known as
that of Alt-Assen, was worthily represented by his father, a stern,
faithful, and upright man, an uncompromising Christian, and a moralist
of what our easier age calls the “old school.” As in every great
character, there was something of the soldier in Baron Frederick von
Ketteler of Harkotten, and this streak was reproduced in at least two
of his sons, William and Richard. His mother, Clementina, Baroness von
Wenge of Beck, was a woman of superior character, as it is noticed that
the mothers of remarkable men almost invariably are, and one of the
bishop’s biographers is certainly entitled to dwell as he does, with
special force, on the fact of the home-training of young Ketteler
having had more real influence in shaping his character than either the
schooling he got at the cathedral school of Münster until he was
thirteen years of age, or the atmosphere of the Swiss Jesuit College at
Brieg, where he studied until he was eighteen. The two most conspicuous
traits in the youth were his passion for hunting and sport of all
kinds, athletic games, Alpine climbing, and all exercises requiring
hardiness and disregard of wind and weather, and his earnest and
unobtrusive piety. He was spared the trial through which so many noble
natures pass before fully identifying themselves with the spirit of the
church, whose letter they have been early taught to obey: he
experienced no time of doubt, of wavering, of temptation, and the
modern sore of unbelief never seems to have even come near his mind.
From a youth passed in alternate study and sport and a free,
out-of-door life he grew to a manhood serious and industrious, with a
routine of work always hallowed by early prayer and daily attendance at
Mass, and a social position in his native town, as counsel or referee
for the government, which was, if not fully worthy of his talents, yet
sufficiently honorable as the beginning of a professional career. His
university life had, like that of most young Germans, been marked by
one duel, which seriously displeased his father, and his military
obligations had been discharged, according to the laws as they then
stood, by his service as a “one-year volunteer” in the local militia.
His legal career seemed assured, though there were many among his early
friends who foresaw that his entering the church was not unlikely. The
incident that determined this change was the outbreak of Cologne in
1838, when the first note of the coming ecclesiastical troubles was
sounded by a municipality that went to the length of imprisoning the
archbishop, Clement von Droste-Vischering; the friend of Stolberg, and
the primate of the Rhine provinces.
Ketteler, never averse to Prussia, in whose mission to Germany he
believed, even up to the late Falk or May Laws which tore away the
veil, could, nevertheless, not reconcile himself to serve any longer a
government that allowed such violations of personal freedom and of the
principles which underlie that freedom. In the autumn of the same year
he went to the Münich Theological College and began his ecclesiastical
studies. Among his professors were Döllinger and Görres, and others
whose fame is less European but scarcely less great in Germany itself;
and among his fellow-students Paul Melchers, the present Archbishop of
Cologne, who, like himself, had been a lawyer of great promise. Coming
at the age of twenty-seven to study among a body of whom many members
were hardly more than boys, it may have been a hard task to preserve
humility and charity; yet the verdict of his fellow-students, summed up
by one of themselves, was to the effect that Ketteler’s simplicity and
good-nature were in every way as marked as his intellectual
superiority. These qualities came out again later in his intercourse
with his country parishioners, each of whom, peasants as they were, he
treated with the cordiality and respect of a neighbor and an equal. He
was no demagogue, and had no theories save the everlasting theories of
the Gospel and the church; but, as is usually the case, his practice
with his social inferiors went far beyond the noisy and deceiving show
of equality made by professional agitators. After four years’ study in
Münich he devoted one year more to theological subjects in the
episcopal seminary at Münster, and received holy orders in 1844, when
he was sent as curate to Beckum, a small town in Westphalia. He was
then thirty-three, and had reached half his allotted years; for it has
been noticed that his term of service as priest and bishop was also
thirty-three years. The coincidence of his last illness having lasted
thirty-three days also struck many persons who are fond of these
calculations.
At Beckum, where he was associated with two other young priests (one of
whom, Brinkmann, is now Bishop of Münster), he led a life as near as
possible to one of his ideals—still unfulfilled in practice, but only
postponed in his mind because of more urgent and present needs—the life
in common of the secular clergy. He and his fellow-curates lived in a
small house, where each had one room besides the common gathering-room,
and one purse for all uses, whether personal or charitable. He and
Brinkmann founded a hospital during their short stay, and this grew
afterwards to very satisfactory proportions; but Ketteler had
opportunities of proving himself a good nurse under his own roof, where
his third colleague was often bedridden for months at a time. His
public ministry, however, never suffered, and his assiduity at the
bedside of his sick parishioners and in the confessional at all times,
in season and out of season, were remarkable. If all priests would
reflect how momentous, nay, how awful, is the responsibility incurred
in this matter of ever-readiness to hear a man’s confession, they would
less seldom deviate from the self-sacrificing example which Bishop
Ketteler gave consistently throughout his life. His zeal in this
particular was not inferior, however, to his care of the schools which
in his public career so distinguished him; and both led his diocesan
after two years to remove him from Beckum, to a full parish, that of
Hopsten.
His life here was a repetition of the life at Beckum; his ministry was
so efficacious that the spiritual life of the parish resembled a
permanent “mission,” or revival, and his active charity had a large
field for exercise in the famine and the fever which visited his people
during his incumbency. It is related of him that, his sister coming to
visit him at Hopsten, he proposed to take her to see some of his
friends in the neighborhood, and accordingly took her to his poorest
people, begging for each a gift sorely needed, which resulted in her
emptying her purse so effectually that she had to borrow money for her
journey home. He provisioned his parish during the famine, and got his
rich relations to help him in the work; and in the fever, besides his
gifts of food, bedding, and medicines, and his regular offices as their
pastor, he literally became his people’s physician and nurse.
It was no wonder that he should so have won the respect and trust of
his neighbors that, even in that very Protestant borough of Lengerich,
of which his parish formed part, he was unanimously returned as deputy
to the Frankfort Parliament in 1848. It was here that he first came
publicly before Germany as an orator and a statesman, and that he made
that famous speech at the funeral of the Prussian delegates, Lichnowsky
and Auerswald, murdered during the riots, which has become the most
popular and widely known of any of his discourses. After his retirement
from Parliament, and his attendance in the same year at the first
meeting of the Catholic Union at Mayence, he was asked to give a course
of lectures in the cathedral on the social and political problems of
the day. It is said that Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, besides
free-thinkers, crowded to hear these eloquent and exhaustive lectures,
and that the competition for seats was a fitting type of the
intellectual stir they made in the city. His physical endurance was no
less marvellous, and added much to the impressiveness of the
discourses, delivered in close succession, with a full, melodious,
resounding voice under perfect control of the speaker, and carefully
husbanded, so that neither enthusiasm nor emotion should drive it into
shrillness or sink it into huskiness. That year saw the preacher
transferred to the provostship of St. Hedwige’s Church in Berlin, which
he occupied only for ten months, but long enough to win the love of his
city congregation as he had that of his country parish. His younger
brother, Richard, who had left the army to become a priest, succeeded
him at Hopsten, but left the place later to become a Capuchin; he was
long known as Father Bonaventure. In 1849 Provost Ketteler was chosen
Bishop of Mayence, after a stormy election and dispute in the cathedral
chapter. The first nominee, Doctor Leopold Schmid, professor of
theology at Giesen, the local university, being, on grounds of “undue
influence,” strongly disapproved of by a large minority of the canons,
they and their opponents of the majority agreed to a re-election and to
an appeal to the Holy See, upon which, out of the three names sent in,
the Pope chose the provost of St. Hedwige. He was not consecrated till
July, 1850, by the archbishop of Freiburg, assisted by the bishops of
Limburg and Fulda. Thenceforward one may say that his life was entirely
a public one, so intimately was it connected with the living and
burning questions of the time. Each year the crisis between church and
state seemed to draw nearer; and, if one may say so, the gap between
the two has become complete since the promulgation of the May Laws. In
this struggle, which lasted all through his episcopate, the state
certainly proved the aggressor, for the lukewarmness of German
Catholics in the last generation was a proverb; and Ketteler succeeded
to a diocese in very different order from the one he has left. Things
were working, or rather lapsing, into the hands of the church’s
enemies, had they been wise enough to wait and watch; by hurrying
matters they roused the spirit of Catholics, and raised against
themselves a zealous band firmly attached to their faith and determined
to vindicate its rights and liberties.
Of this band Bishop Ketteler, whether as deputy, pamphleteer, lecturer,
or spiritual guide, was practically the head. His first works in
Mayence were, on a wider scale, the repetition of those in Hopsten. He
instituted reforms and amendments in every department; gathered the
clergy together in yearly retreats, during which the exercises of St.
Ignatius, which he held in high esteem, were made the basis of
instruction; founded several Capuchin convents for the purpose of
giving missions, especially in the country, and one Jesuit college, on
the occasion of whose establishment he had to bear the brunt of a
determined journalistic opposition; set up schools and an orphanage for
girls under the care of the Sisters of Mercy, an asylum for repentant
women under the nuns of the Good Shepherd, a refuge for servant-maids
out of employment, a community of Poor Clares to visit and relieve the
poor in their own homes, a Boys’ Orphanage, Boys’ Reformatory, and
Boys’ Refuge, several unions and brotherhoods to keep the people
together and preserve them from the snares of irreligious
associations—notably a Working-men’s Catholic Union—and last, not
least, a school taught by the Christian Brothers, which soon won such
golden opinions that Protestants by scores withdrew their children from
the communal schools and placed them under the new teachers. With rare
liberality a Lutheran clergyman was allowed free access to the school
to teach these children the religion of their parents. The bishop’s
care for, and personal visitation of, the hospitals also reacted on the
management of these institutions, so that they were more than ever well
conducted during his episcopate. Though his enemies, despairing of
finding other sins to lay to his charge, accused him of undue harshness
as a taskmaster in the things he required of his clergy, this body
itself never found fault with his zeal for discipline and austerity. He
counselled nothing which he did not perform and, indeed, far surpass;
for, unlike many bishops, estimable and even holy men, he did not
consider his rank as exempting him from the most ordinary duties of a
priest; he sat as many hours on regular days in the confessional as any
country curate, and his daily Mass at five o’clock was always said in
the cathedral instead of a private house-chapel—that is, until the last
four or five years of his life, when old age made this indulgence
necessary. He preached almost incessantly; the Sundays in Lent and
Advent always in his own cathedral, other Sundays alternating with his
clergy, and in the evenings of Sundays and week-days alike in any
church, chapel, or even hall, where he was asked to further any good
cause. His confirmation and church-visitation journeys were remarkable;
he returned to the rightful custom of confirming, no matter how few the
candidates, separately in each parish, instead of lumping many parishes
together in one central ceremony, and this in order that he might gain
a personal knowledge of each place, its needs and workings. On these
occasions he would give a preliminary introduction on the eve of the
confirmation, then hear confessions far into the night or morning, say
Mass early, and confess again till he preached the sermon and
administered the sacrament; in the afternoon inspect the schools,
catechise the children, and visit any sick persons there might happen
to be; conduct the evening service himself and preach a second time,
the intermediate moments being passed again in the confessional or in
private intercourse with any one who asked for special advice or
comfort.
His daily life at home was as simple, hardy, and frugal as it had been
at Beckum: he rose at four and worked incessantly, yet finding time,
besides his Breviary, to say the rosary and the office of the Third
Order of St. Francis every day. Add to this his writings, his minute
supervision of the ecclesiastical machinery of his diocese, his
conferences with political leaders, his necessary journeys or
excursions, besides his frequent undertaking of the duties of the
archbishop of Freiburg after the latter grew too infirm to go on long
confirmation rounds, and it will be easily seen that he was far from an
ordinary man. In virtue of his office he was entitled to a seat in the
Upper House (in the grand-duchy of Hesse), with the right of sending a
representative, if he chose, which he did, sending one of his canons,
Dr. Monsang, who, among other things, distinguished himself by voting
for the freedom of the Jewish religious bodies, in the matter of
internal reform, from state interference, and for their right to
receive state aid, provided they themselves solicited it. In the German
Reichstag, however, where Bishop Ketteler represented the borough of
Tauberbischofsheim, he sat in person, and was numbered among the
members of what was known as the Fraction of the Centre, of whom
Windthorst, his friend, was and is the leader. During the two German
wars, 1866 and 1870, he, though deploring the civil nature of the
first, according to the tradition of the greater part of the
Westphalian nobility, leaned to the side of Prussia, in whose mission
to unite Germany his belief never wavered, and whose influence in
things purely political he always upheld. His very patriotism and
enlightened views in this direction made his firm stand against the
Prussian aggression on the church of more weight and importance—a fact
which his enemies fully appreciated and often tried to make capital of,
dubbing him as inconsistent with himself. Every one will see how
one-sided this view was.
He was so far modern in his ideas that he claimed not to have lost any
of the rights of a citizen by becoming a priest; but the way in which
he used those rights, civic and parliamentary, roused the anger of men
whose interpretation of the same principle led them to see in a priest
nothing more than a military serf of the empire. He never claimed for
the church any privilege or any exemption, only the full meed of
liberty due to any other corporation; the exception need not be in her
favor, but should not be directed specially against her. The state and
the church were separate bodies, indeed, and well for the latter that
such a doctrine could be conscientiously held; but the very separation
involved perfect autonomy for the church, and forbade any interference
on the part of political authorities, while her influence in social
questions was to be exerted only through her direct influence on
individuals; for a state under bondage to the church never occurred to
him as desirable. Meanwhile, he labored to carry out his ideal of
internal church government, a noble and primitive one, based upon the
importance of parish organization and of the thorough efficacy of the
parish clergy, to whom the religious orders, in his view, were to act
as helpers and subordinates. To the disuse of ancient church laws and
customs he attributed the troubles that have often come upon the church
in all times; for he held her discipline, and even her ritual, to be no
less than her doctrine under the direct guidance of the Holy Ghost.
This alone would have made him a reformer in a lax and lukewarm age,
when it was the fashion for Catholics themselves to join in mild or
witty reflections upon their own faith, and to remain outwardly in
conformity with that faith only by habit and by intellectual
sluggishness. But this, joined to his powerful zeal in matters more
prominent and public, made him specially the leader of a spiritual
revival among the people of his city, his diocese, and Germany at
large. It was not in vain that he sat in the see of St. Boniface; and
when he encouraged the celebration of his predecessor’s eleventh
centenary, it was fully as much to stir up the zeal of his people for
church liberty as to honor the memory of the great missionary. His five
journeys to Rome on various solemn anniversaries, and notably that on
the occasion of the Vatican Council, were the only other incidents of
his life that remain to be noticed; on his way back from the last, in
1876, when the Holy Father received him with special marks of esteem
and rejoiced to have him as a witness of his “golden” anniversary,
Bishop Ketteler fell ill at Alt-Oetting, a shrine where he had
encouraged and taken part in many a pilgrimage. He could get no farther
than the Capuchin convent of Burghausen, where he died on the 13th of
July, of typhoid fever; on the 18th he was buried in his own cathedral
amidst the lamentations of his clergy and people. The country people,
to whom he had always had a special leaning, and who knew him as
familiarly as his own canons did through his frequent presence at and
ministry in the great Rhine pilgrimages, were loud in their expressions
of grief; all felt that they had lost a father, but those whose chief
concern was in temporal matters felt also that a great speaker and
thinker had departed. Of his style, his mode of thinking, and the zeal,
always burning yet never intemperate, which he brought to his work even
so early as 1848, one can judge by the famous passage of his speech at
the funeral of Lichnowsky and Auerswald at Frankfort: “Who are the
murderers of our friends? Are they the men who shot them through the
breast, or those who clove open their heads with their axes? No, these
are not the murderers. Their murderers are the principles which produce
both good and evil deeds upon the earth, and the principles which
produced this deed are not born of our people. I know the German
people, not, indeed, by the experience of conventions, but by that of
its inner, daily life.... I have devoted my life to the service of the
poor people, and the more I have learnt to know them the more have I
learnt to love them; I know what a great and noble character our German
people has received from God. No, I repeat it: it is not our noble, our
honest German people who are answerable for this wicked deed.... The
true murderers are those who, before the people, seek to bring into
contempt and to soil with their low ribaldry both Christ, Christianity,
and the church; those who strive to efface from the heart of the people
the healing message of the redemption of mankind; those who do not look
upon revolution as a sad necessity under certain circumstances, but
erect revolution into a principle, and hurry people from revolution to
revolution; ... those who would take from the people the belief in the
duty of man to command himself, to curb his passions, and to obey the
higher laws of order and of virtue, and would, on the contrary, make
laws of those passions and therewith inflame the people; those men who
would set themselves up as lying gods over the people, in order that it
may fall down before them and worship them.”
Ketteler’s first well-known speech on social subjects was delivered on
the 4th of October, 1848, at the original meeting of the Catholic Union
at Mayence—a body whose “congresses” have been held yearly since that
time, and have been distinguished by speeches such as those of
Montalembert, Dupanloup, Manning, Döllinger, before 1870, and others
whose names are public property. His subject was “The Freedom of the
Church, and the Social Crisis”; and says one of his biographers, “It is
no mean testimony to his far-sightedness that he already foresaw and
took part in the importance of the social question.” His lectures in
the cathedral took in such themes as these: “The Catholic Doctrine of
Property,” “Rational Freedom,” “The Destiny of Man,” “The Family, based
on Christian Marriage,” “The Authority of the Church, based on Man’s
Need of Authority.” Of the impression these discourses made on all
classes we have spoken already. To show how liberal were his views on
the form of government, it may be mentioned that it was one of his
axioms that it mattered little _who_ ruled, but much _how_ he ruled.
All forms of legitimate government were practically alike to him,
though his own ideal for Germany was a revival of the old unity of
confederation, with the equal representation of the burghers and of the
peasantry by the side of the clergy and nobility; but the manner in
which the government, no matter what it called itself, dealt with
weighty questions of morals was in his view a touchstone. It will be
seen from this that if his foes delighted in calling him the most
ultramontane of ultramontanes, they had no reason, politically
speaking, to call him retrograde, absolutist, or even monarchist. In
fact, it seems as if one might sum up his political character thus: a
citizen of a free imperial city of the middle ages, imbued with the
keenness of sight and the versatility of tongue peculiar to the modern
European politician.
In 1851 and 1852 a new phase of unbelief, dubbing itself “German
Catholicism,” did its best to bewilder the mind of Catholic Germany,
and the bishop plainly warned his people against it, saying: “Though I
should incur hereby the reproach of intolerance, I must warn you
against ‘German Catholicism,’ for it denies the Godhead of Christ,
revelation, and redemption, and makes itself a god according to its own
fancy.” In 1852, in his Lenten pastoral, he touched upon the connection
between this belief and political radicalism; also upon the common
reproach of rebellion against authority or of flattery towards princes
which these new philosophers were constantly bringing against the
church. “When the church,” he says, “advises the people to submit to
the civil power, she is thus attacked: ‘See the flatterer of princes,
the protectress of all abuses, the willing instrument of the oppression
of the people.’ When, on the other hand, she reminds the state of its
obligations, and, under certain circumstances, proclaims that God is to
be obeyed rather than man, the spirit of deception cries out: ‘See the
rebel, the seeker after undue authority.’” In 1873, when a new attack
was made on religion by the establishment of communal schools, he
resisted, by writing and preaching, “these institutions which
contradict all the principles of religion, disturb Christian education,
contradict and confuse the understanding and the nature of childhood,
and damage all the interests of the Christian family.” In 1851, when
every government in Germany had been more or less remodelled, and many
fetters of old prescription and prejudice had been shaken off by the
revolution of 1844, the bishops of the Upper Rhine province came
together at Freiburg, and presented a memoir on church relations with
the state to the neighboring rulers of Hesse, Würtemberg, Baden, and
Nassau. No notice was taken of it, and two years later it was repeated
with almost the same result, save that in Hesse the grand-duke and his
prime minister, Dalwigk, called a convention in 1854, and established
the liberty and autonomy of the church upon a legal basis. Ketteler’s
pamphlet in the same year, three months previous to the convention, had
some influence on the course of affairs; it was on “The rights, and the
right to protection, of the Catholic Church in Germany, with special
reference to the claims of the episcopate of the Upper Rhine and the
present struggle,” and may be summed up in this quotation from it: “The
rights of sovereignty are doubtless holy. They belong to God’s
ordinances, and are therefore of God; but those indefinite, boundless,
unhistorical, unfounded rights of sovereignty stand exactly on a level
with the equally indefinite, boundless, unhistorical, unfounded rights
of humanity. They are distorted images of lofty truths, and are born of
the same fallacy as absolutism. Once face to face with them, the church
must either allow herself to be ravaged or must begin a struggle for
life and death.”
However well known and widely spread were Ketteler’s influence and
writings, the latter partook of the local and circumstantial nature
of most political writings: they were not solid, dignified, technical
treatises of theology, nor popular and “taking” books of devotion,
but the outcome of present necessities, quick and vigorous protests
against injustice, weapons specially adapted to the ever-shifting
warfare between socialism and religion. His pamphlets were mostly
short, terse, and to the point; he slept in his armor and was always
on the watch. He speaks of his work in this direction with great
simplicity to Prof. Nippold, of Heidelberg: “Besides my spiritual
ministry in my diocese, I follow and observe all the movements of my
time, and cannot help meeting with all the injustices which men do to
one another, not always, indeed, of malice prepense, but often
through misunderstandings, prejudices, and false representations.
Then, if I can spare time from my work, I make an effort towards
clearing up those unfortunate misunderstandings....” But though he
spoke and felt thus modestly about his important part in the
questions of the day, we know how impossible it is for a man of his
stamp not to rise to his natural level. He was born to be a leader,
and neither necessity nor humility could block the path to political
prominence. Such a man, weighted with even more absorbing work than
his, would have made time for occupations so naturally fitted for
him; such a mind, even had it been in a less robust body, would have
overcome disease and weakness, and wrested from them the power to
make itself known. A list of a few of his writings will show how
universal was his watchfulness: _Can a believing Christian be a
Freemason? The True Foundations of Religious Peace. The Defamation of
the Church by the Tribune. The Right of Free Election of the
Cathedral Chapter. Germany after the War of 1866. The Fraction of the
Centre at the First German Reichstag. Catholics in the German Empire.
Freedom, Authority, and the Church, considerations upon the Great
Problem of the Day. The Labor Question and Christianity. Liberalism,
Socialism, and Christianity. The General Council and its Influence on
Our Time. The Doctrinal Infallibility of the Pope after the
Definition of the Vatican Council._
What he has said and written on the social question, including the
subjects of marriage, the family, education, and the relations between
capital and labor, even most of his opponents judge to belong to the
quota of wisest utterances extant on the subject. His gift of
opportunity, or of speaking always to the point, has been noticed
already. Here is what a German contemporary says of it: “The bishop did
not devote himself to journalism as a profession, for he looked upon
his ministry as immeasurably more precious and higher than political
influence. But he used it as a weapon at every important turning-point
of contemporary German history, when dangers threatened the moral order
of German society, and when the rights of the church were violated and
her institutions hampered; and precisely because his writings sprang
from instant necessities or the peculiarities of the day, they were, in
the noblest sense of the word, _timely_—not productions of labored
pulpit-wisdom, but the forcible words, piercing through bone and
marrow, of a powerful voice sounding the battle-cry of a mind-conflict;
of a man whose keen and far-sighted look measured the heights and
depths of the mind-disturbances of his day, and shared heartily in the
joys and sorrows of his time.”
It is worth while to notice his usual method in these earnest
pamphlets. It consisted, as a rule, of taking his opponents’ own
arguments or “accomplished facts” nakedly as they stood, and carrying
them on to their strictly legitimate but startling consequences. Yet,
in the whole course of his polemical writings, he carefully abstained
from the least personality. In this he might with advantage be taken as
a model by most schools of political pamphleteering. Soon after his
speech at Frankfort his fame as an orator was already held so high that
it suggested the following poetical portrait of him by Bede Weber, in a
work entitled _Historico-Political Sketches_. This is almost a literal
translation:
“The parish priest of Hopsten has a tall and powerful figure, with
sharply-cut features, in which speak a fearlessness impelling him
irresistibly to ‘do and dare,’[163] joined to an old Westphalian
tradition of loyalty to God and church, to emperor and realm. To his
discerning spirit the German nation, in its unity, its history, and its
Catholic traditions, is still living and strong. Luther and
Melanchthon, Charles the Fifth and Napoleon, the Peace of Basle and the
cowardly Pillersdorf, are nothing in his eyes but passing shadows over
the black, red, and gold shield of the German people. From the blood of
General Auerswald and of Prince Lichnowsky, from the murder of Lamberg
and Latour, the roses of hope spring only more obstinately for him, and
his tears hang on them only as the pearly dew of the dawn of German
freedom, German loyalty to the faith, and German order. He bears the
great, brave German people, with the everlasting spring of its virtues,
in the innermost depths of his heart, and from this union, or rather
identification, flows the peculiar pride of his address, which, in the
evil seething of elements in the ‘days of March,’ still points out the
means of building up the cathedral of the German Church sooner and more
beautifully than the cathedral of Cologne. Therefore was it that his
words impressed his hearers with a resistless might. When I think of
the orator Ketteler, I see before me a thorough man, who can awake fear
in many a heart, but whose individuality is in itself a right to do
so.”
Most of his bitterest opponents in the Reichstag acknowledged his power
in speaking, and respected the fearless use he made of his position to
remind them of their duties as men, Christians, and lawmakers; and when
circumstances made it impossible for him to combine his duties as
deputy with his dignity as bishop, and caused him to retire from his
place, his party felt the loss of his voice as much as his adversaries
rejoiced in their deliverance from a parliamentary “Son of Thunder.”
His lectures and sermons, even on ordinary days and stereotyped
subjects, were always startling and mind-compelling by the manner in
which old truths were handled and new meanings brought out therefrom;
while his open-air preaching at pilgrimages, where he was often heard
by ten thousand people, bore an equally powerful and peculiar stamp,
and, though his thoughts were then clothed in simpler language, they
lacked none of the breadth which distinguished his more finished
speeches.
In a monthly magazine edited at Mayence by the bishop’s friends
Heinrich and Monsang, both dignitaries of his cathedral chapter, is a
review of his life which gives a prominent place to his opinion on the
importance and seriousness of social questions:
“He was deeply and firmly convinced that political and social problems
are so inseparably connected with religious questions that any one
aiming at defending religion from a high stand-point and in a
comprehensive manner cannot indifferently pass by these problems.”
A newspaper generally opposed to his political views, the _Catholic
Voice_ (or “Opinion”),[164] speaks in the same sense:
“One of the most noteworthy traits in the life and works of Bishop
Ketteler is the lively interest which he took, by deed, word, and
writing, in the social question. It is precisely in this direction that
most misunderstandings take place. But we would remind the public that
the attitude of the bishop towards this problem was wholly shaped by
his Catholic principles and his priestly duties. Nothing was further
from his mind than the wish to use the needs of the laborer as a basis
for political agitation, or to carry out any chimerical theories of a
general millennium. He took a part in the labor question, because he
saw in working-men the victims of so-called liberal lawgivers, and
because he found it his duty as a pastor to care for the poor. These
high and noble motives were not always appreciated, but working-men
themselves have repeatedly testified their confidence in him, and after
his death were published many gratifying tributes from the same
source.”
The sense in which he took part in this question is again impressed on
the German public by means of the article from which we have quoted
before—namely, that it was determined by personal experience and a
sensitive consciousness of his duties as a priest.
“What he wrote and did concerning this subject proceeded not from mere
theoretical interest, still less from political reasons, but from
Christian love and brotherly feeling towards the people, especially the
poorer classes, and from the ardent wish to further their eternal and
temporal welfare, as well as to save them, together with the whole of
society, from the terrible chaos towards which we are being hurled, if
the old maxims and practice of Christian charity and justice do not
prevail against the principles of modern liberalism and
pseudo-conservatism.”
In his political prominence, and his fearless handling of questions
often, under specious pretexts, withdrawn from the allowed limits of
clerical oratory, Ketteler seems to invite a comparison with Dupanloup,
the Bishop of Orleans, who, having fought in the earlier struggle for
freedom of education in France, has lived to take part in a struggle
more vital and less local—that of the whole field of Christian doctrine
in arms against systematized revolution. Occasion naturally moulds the
men it needs; the material of such characters is always present, but in
the church, as in the world, “mute, inglorious Miltons” and “village
Hampdens” die and leave no mark. This explains the rush of talent to
the rescue of every cause seriously imperilled by its successful
adversaries; among others the cause of the church, under whatsoever
persecution it may chance to suffer. This also explains the present
superiority, as a body, of the German episcopate. In the first quarter
of this century the reconstruction of society in France, and the
reorganization of the church on a basis less majestic but more
dignified than that of the _ancien régime_, brought about the same
bristling of great gifts greatly used around the threatened liberties
of the church. In Poland, during the two insurrections which this
century has witnessed, heroes rose up naturally wherever there was a
priest or a bishop; in the late French war, and its sequel, the
Commune, the martyrdoms and Christian stoicism of 1793 were repeated
and nearly surpassed, while the present more tedious, less brilliant
struggle of the church in Germany has called forth men of iron will and
fathomless patience to resist, legally and passively, an active,
goading injustice. In countries where there is no need for it there is
less of this public display of unusual powers; bishops who might be
statesmen remain simply administrators, priests who might be heroes
remain obscure pastors; in literature it is research, learning,
theology which take up their leisure time, not public speaking or
political writing; the silent, healthful life of the church goes on,
without struggle and hindrance, and work is done indeed, but it seldom
becomes known beyond a small local circle. And even this happens only
under the shadow of suppressed hostility to the church, such as there
exists at present in almost every country; for there have been times
when, splendid as the outward position of the church has been, or
seemingly unfettered her organization, there was at the core a
spiritual drowsiness which was far from honorable. Such a period came
before the first French Revolution; another earlier, before the German
Reformation; another later, before Catholic Emancipation in England;
and another before the late Prussian church laws in Germany. There was
either security or sovereignty; no shade of persecution; at most a
polished indifference or a scornful toleration, and hence no revival,
no earnest, quick-pulsing life.
We have omitted to mention one of Bishop Ketteler’s most important
undertakings—that of the theological institute in Mayence, to replace
the education given to the clergy at the local university of Hesse,
Giesen. The grand-duke heartily approved of the plan of restoring to
the episcopal seminary the whole training of the diocesan clergy,
instead of the taking on, as a secondary branch, of a chair of theology
to Giesen; and the bishop was enabled to carry out his plans in this
matter, and to leave behind him a body of priests, zealous, loyal,
whole-hearted, and imbued with his own spirit.
Ketteler was in every sense a great man, and no less a man of his age.
He accepted everything as it legitimately stands, with no hankerings
after the old order of things, no political, or rather romantic,
longings after forced revivals of bygone conditions; but he took his
stand firmly on the principle that the church has her own appointed and
immutable place in every successive system, and ought to stand by her
claim to this place. This is the basis whence every member of her army
should in these days fight her battles, and, taking up the new weapons,
make them his own. Ketteler has shown them the way.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE OLD STONE JUG.
A TALE OF THE NEUTRAL GROUND.
A century ago on the post-road to Boston, and sixteen miles from the
city of New York, stood a tavern called the Old Stone Jug. It was a
one-story building of dark-colored stone, with a single window fronting
upon the highway—a quaint, lozenge-shaped window, of thick, dingy
glass, through which the sun’s rays penetrated with difficulty. The
chimney, battered by two generations of northwest winds, sagged
considerably to the south; a frowning rock rose close behind the house;
and altogether the Old Stone Jug wore a sinister appearance, which
tallied well with the stories told about it. A band of Indians had come
in the night-time and massacred the first family who dwelt here; a
peddler had been seen to enter the doorway and never been heard of
afterwards; a cavern of fathomless depth was said to connect the cellar
with the rock; and certain it is that no one who had made this spot his
home had either remained long or prospered there, except Peter Van
Alstyne—better known in the township of East Chester as Uncle Pete—who
kept the tavern at the opening of the Revolution.
But he did well; the poorer his neighbors became, the more
light-hearted did he grow and the richer, and all because the fox which
prowleth about in the dark was not cunninger than Uncle Pete.
His wife was dead, but he had a daughter named Martha, who kept house
for him, and whom he tenderly loved and strove to bring up in his own
principles—namely, to be all things to all men. “For these are critical
times,” he would say, “and who can tell, child, which side will win?”
Martha was just twenty years of age, and, if not what we might call a
handsome girl, had something very attractive about her. She was tall
and graceful and abounding in spirits. She knew everybody for miles
around, and everybody knew her; and if the more knowing ones shook
their heads and looked a little doubtful when they spoke of Van
Alstyne, all agreed that Martha was a fine young woman.
The only member of the household besides herself and parent was a
diminutive negro boy christened “Popgun.” And at the moment our tale
begins Popgun is perched on the topmost limb of a wild-cherry tree hard
by, Martha is in the kitchen making doughnuts, while the publican is
standing in the middle of the road gazing up at the sign-board which
hangs immediately above the entrance—and, considering that he painted
it himself, ’tis not a bad work of art. Here we see King George with a
crown on his head; at the royal feet crouches a lion, and around the
two figures, in big red letters, are the words, “God save the King!”
He was still contemplating the features of his sovereign when a shrill
voice cried down from the sky, “Be ready, sir.” In an instant Uncle
Pete’s face lost its tranquil expression, and putting his hand to his
ear, so as to catch well Popgun’s next warning note, he listened
attentively.
In another minute came the voice again: “‘Lisha Williams, sir, on Dolly
Dumplings.”
“Ho! Then I must be brisk, for the mare travels fast,” muttered Van
Alstyne, hastening toward a ladder which lay a few yards off in
readiness for these occasions. In less time than it takes to relate the
sign-board was turned round, and, lo! in place of King George and the
lion behold now George Washington, holding in his hand a flag whereon
are thirteen stripes and thirteen stars, and circling the picture are
the words, “God save our Liberties.”
“Child, here’s ‘Lisha coming,” shouted Uncle Pete, thrusting his head
into the doorway.
“Elisha! Indeed!” exclaimed Martha, letting drop the cake she was
rolling in her hands. “Oh! how glad I am. Haven’t seen the dear boy for
an age.” Then away she flew to make ready for her lover, or rather for
one of her lovers. And now, while the girl is putting on another gown,
let us speak a few words about the horseman who is approaching.
Elisha Williams was a young man of five-and-twenty, with sandy hair and
blue eyes, and whose father owned a farm half a mile east of the inn.
He and Martha had been friends from childhood, and when at length the
time came for him to think of matrimony there was no lass whom he
desired more for his wife than Martha.
She was a girl after his own heart: not demure and timid and silent as
a tombstone, but brave and full of fun; he had even known her to pursue
and kill a rattlesnake; and she was as fond of a horse as he was
himself.
When news came of the fight at Lexington Elisha openly took the patriot
side, bought Dolly Dumplings of Martha’s father (a mare so given to
kicking and jumping fences that, although of unstained pedigree, Uncle
Pete was fain to part with her), and now he is one of the most daring
troopers in the Continental army, and is known far and wide as The
Flying Scout.
But Elisha was not the only one who courted Martha. He had a rival
named Harry Valentine, son of Doctor Valentine, the most notorious Tory
in East Chester; and this caused Elisha not a little anxiety. For,
although Martha always received him very cordially when he paid her one
of his flying visits, and seemed pleased to hear of his exploits, she
never would listen when he said anything harsh of the Tories.
Elisha’s heart was beating quite as fast as her own when presently he
reined in his foaming steed before the tavern door. Martha was standing
on the threshold, looking, in his eyes, never so bewitching. Between
her fingers she held a lump of sugar for Dolly Dumplings—she seemed to
care only for Dolly; her long, luxuriant brown hair, which flowed loose
down her shoulders, had a spray of wild honeysuckle twined through
it—you might have fancied she had been wandering through the woods, and
that the flowers had got tangled there by accident. Her cheeks were
slightly tinged by the sun; but what of it? They were plump, healthy
cheeks, adorned by two pretty dimples; and Elisha, who loved cherries,
felt his mouth water when he looked on Martha’s lips.
“How is my Martha?” he exclaimed, sliding nimbly off the saddle.
“_Your_ Martha, indeed!” answered the girl, tossing her head; then with
a smile, as he caught both her hands: “Well, I’m alive and well, and—”
“Not at all pleased to see me, eh?” interrupted Elisha.
“Delighted to see you,” she added, a sweet pink blush spreading itself
with the quickness of light over her face.
“Really? Truly? ‘Pon your honor?” cried Elisha, squeezing her hands
tighter.
“Come inside and let’s have a talk,” said Martha, trying to free
herself from his grasp. But she only half tried; and when presently
they were seated side by side he was still holding fast to her right
wrist.
“What delicious flowers!” observed Martha, looking down at a nosegay
which the youth had stuck in his belt. “Wild-flowers give no such
perfume.”
“These are for you,” said her lover, presenting them to her. “They came
from Van Cortlandt’s garden. I spent last night at the Manor. Van
Cortlandt is a patriot, and is not ashamed to offer a farmer’s son
hospitality.”
“How delicious!” said Martha, bringing the nosegay to her nose.
“Colonel Delancey’s hot-house plants cannot surpass them.”
“Delancey! The Tory! The Cowboy chief! What do you know about his
flowers, Martha?”
“Harry Valentine brought me a magnolia from there a few days ago,”
replied Martha frankly.
The other murmured something to himself, then burst out: “Confound and
hang the Tories!”
Martha was silent a moment, then remarked: “Well, however much you
dislike them, I hope you will not harm Harry Valentine, if he ever
falls into your hands.”
“It being your wish, I will always aim a mile above his precious head,”
returned Elisha.
“You are a good fellow—a real good fellow; just the same as you always
were,” continued Martha tenderly. “Oh! I often think of our old frolics
together, Elisha.”
“Do you, really? Well, Martha, I often think of them too. What happy
days those were!”
“Yes, much happier than these. O Elisha! you can’t think how changed
everything is since this dreadful war began. Not a sloop sails up the
creek now; no carriages pass along the road; no bees, no husking
parties—everybody is gloomy. First this man’s barn is burnt, then that
man’s; and chickens and horses and cattle are stolen. In short, between
the Skinners and the Cowboys poor Westchester County is fast becoming a
desert.”
“Well, for all that it is a glorious war, and will end in freeing us
from England,” said Elisha, thumping his fist upon his knee.
“Ay, to be sure it will. God save our liberties! Hurrah for the
Continental Army!” cried Uncle Pete, waddling into the house. Then, as
he opened a cupboard which contained a number of bottles of rum and
cherry-bounce: “Tell me, ‘Lisha, how you like Dolly Dumplings.”
“Like her? Why, Uncle Pete, she’s just the best animal that ever was
shod. Nothing can catch her—not even the wind.”
“Right, my boy! Colonel Livingstone, who imported her sire from
England, and who sold the mare to me five years ago, declared that she
has in her veins the blood of the Flying Childers, and you know he ran
a mile a minute.”
“Father, Popgun is calling,” said Martha, with a disturbed air.
“Is he?” And Van Alstyne hurried away as fast as possible; but before
you could count ten he was back again.
“Too bad, ‘Lisha,” he said, “that you must quit us so soon—hardly time
to take one drink. But some enemy’s cavalry are in sight and they’re on
a trot.” Then out he went again to fetch Dolly Dumplings.
“Well, dear boy, may the Lord watch over you and keep you safe!” spoke
Martha, in a tone of deeper feeling than she had yet evinced toward her
lover. The latter gazed earnestly in her face a moment, then said:
“Must I bid good-by and depart in uncertainty? O Martha dear! tell me
what I so long to know: will you be my wife?”
Her response was: “Elisha, I love the brave, and the bravest shall win
me.”
“Then, by Heaven, I’ll be a hero!” cried Elisha. These were his last
words; in another moment he was gone. But ere Dolly Dumplings had
galloped fifty paces the sign-board was turned round and King George
came once more in view.
“Who are they, pa—Hessians or real Britishers?” inquired Martha calmly;
for she knew they could not overtake Elisha.
“Hessians, I believe,” replied Van Alstyne.
“Detestable creatures!” exclaimed the girl, withdrawing into the house.
“Don’t say that, child. They’re as good as any soldiers who fight for
the king; and if they halt here they’ll leave more than one guinea
behind them.”
And so they did, for they were a party of very thirsty and hungry men
who shortly arrived; and for the next hour and a half the Old Stone Jug
was as busy as a bee-hive. Many a bottle of spirits was emptied, every
doughnut and pie was devoured; and in consideration of his being a
staunch loyalist they paid Uncle Pete without grumbling, albeit the
score was rather high.
“They’re gone at last—what a blessing!” said Martha, while her father
was counting over the money to make sure it was all good coin.
“Why, how foolish you talk!” said happy Uncle Pete.
“Well, father, I’m in earnest. I don’t dislike real Britishers or
Tories; but these German mercenaries I do detest.”
“Bah! bah!” growled Van Alstyne. “Perhaps to-morrow we’ll have a band
of Continentals or some roving Skinners; then perhaps, day after,
‘tother side may visit us again. Why, child, I’m getting rich out of
this war.”
“Take one side or the other,” returned Martha, shaking her head. “I’d
rather be fair and open, even if we made less money.”
“Humph! We’d be in a pretty fix if I did that, child—a pretty fix. Why,
this tavern wouldn’t stand a week, except for my double-faced
sign-board; whereas now George Washington might be entertained here and
depart highly edified, and so might King George. The only
unpleasantness would be if they both happened to come at the same time.
And so, child, you ought not to be finding fault.” Then, after pausing
long enough to take a chew of tobacco: “And besides,” he went on, “’tis
not easy in this world always to see the clear path we ought to follow.
Why, you yourself are in a fix; and I don’t wonder at it, for in this
township I can’t name two honester, jollier more manly fellows than
‘Lisha Williams and Harry Valentine. And if I were a girl with those
two boys for sparks, I believe I’d jump into East Chester Creek, so
that neither of ’em might be disappointed.”
Here Martha’s merry laugh rang through the house; then, taking Elisha’s
bouquet in one hand and Harry’s magnolia in the other, she stretched
forth her arms and stood exactly half-way between the two love-gifts,
and said: “Well, yes, I am in a fix.”
“And a very, very sweet fix,” mumbled Uncle Pete, rolling the quid
about in his capacious mouth. “Many a young woman might envy you.”
“Well, I do wonder how long it will last. I must decide one of these
days.”
“Don’t be in a hurry, child. Wait; have patience. If we are beaten and
forced to remain colonies, marry Harry Valentine; if we secure our
independence, then choose ‘Lisha. For ’twill go hard with the party
that’s beaten; their land will be confiscated.”
“Dear, darling flowers! How delicious you are!” said Martha, bringing
the magnolia and the nosegay together and pressing both to her lips;
and she kept kissing them and smelling them, and smelling and kissing
them, till at length her father said:
“Humph! they’ll soon wilt, if you treat the pretty things that way.”
“Oh! I’ll get fresh ones afore long,” answered Martha. “However, I will
put these in water. They may as well last a few days.”
But a week went by, and then another week, without bringing again
either of her suitors. The weather was delightful, for it was early
June. The summer heat had not yet begun; and if it were not for war,
ruthless war, how fair all nature would have appeared! But although the
meadows were spangled with dandelions and buttercups, the woods scented
with dogwood blossoms, and the air full of the melody of bobolinks and
orioles, the people of East Chester were more depressed than ever. Bob
Reed’s mill had just been burnt by the Cowboys; in revenge the Skinners
had scuttled a Tory sloop anchored in the creek; while some miscreants
had even made an attempt to fire St. Paul’s Church in the village. But,
sad as all this was, nothing caused Martha Van Alstyne so much distress
as the doings at the Old Stone Jug. For two whole nights she was kept
awake and bustling about, attending to the wants of a set of profane
marauders who belonged both to the British and American side. These
villains, sinking all difference of opinion, would occasionally unite
to rob friend as well as foe;[165] and it was to the Old Stone Jug they
carried their plunder, which Uncle Pete would hide in the cavern behind
the house.
“Well, don’t blame me, child,” said Van Alstyne. “Remember how I am
situated. Why, if I had refused to conceal those bags of gold I’d like
enough have been hung forthwith; for among the men who were here last
night and the night before are some of the greatest scoundrels in
America.”
“Well, I am going to choose my husband afore long,” answered
Martha—“either Elisha Williams or Harry Valentine; and then you must
abandon this tavern and come live with me. For if you stay here—”
“O child! I sha’n’t stay after you’re gone. But why marry so soon? Why
not wait a while?—at least, until we see what Burgoyne does with his
army, which is large and well appointed. He may sweep everything before
him; and if he does, then you’ll see your way much clearer, and I’ll be
the first to tell you to wed Harry Valentine.”
Martha shook her head: “I’ll give my hand to the bravest, father, no
matter which side he is on. And it is because they are both so good and
so brave that I hesitate.”
“Well, now, child, if you’re not careful you may cause the death of ’em
both. Ay, ’tis hard to say what wild, foolhardy deed they may not
attempt in order to win you.”
“Do you think so?” exclaimed Martha, pressing her hand over her heart
and turning pale. This thought had not occurred to her before. But it
was too late. She had already told each wooer that the bravest one
should have her.
The girl was inwardly lamenting her folly when a voice from the
cherry-tree cried: “Be ready, sir.” And immediately she and her father
listened with all their ears for the next call.
“Red-coats!” shouted Popgun in about three minutes.
“All right,” said Uncle Pete, and off he went to get the ladder. But
quick Martha checked him, saying: “Why, father, the sign-board is all
right for Britishers.”
“Oh! so it is,” ejaculated Uncle Pete; then, with a grin: “The fact is,
child, I’m so used to turning it round and round—first to King George,
then to George Washington, then back again to King George—that I’m
afraid some day I’ll make a mistake, and I’ve half a mind to give you
charge of it.”
“If you do I’ll either nail the sign fast to the house, or else take it
away entirely,” answered Martha.
Her parent was still laughing at this innocent, unbusiness-like speech
when the British dragoons arrived, and at their head was Harry
Valentine.
Harry was a very different looking man from Elisha Williams: not only
was he clad in a brilliant scarlet uniform, but he had more refined
features and courtly manners, which seemed to confirm the view that
Martha’s father held—namely, that the most genteel people were Tories.
And now, while Harry clasped the hand of his sweetheart, the latter
forgot altogether Elisha’s freckled but honest face, his sandy hair and
homespun coat, with naught to distinguish him from an ordinary citizen
save a black cockade and eagle feather in his hat, and she thought to
herself: “Was there ever such a magnificent wig as my Harry’s! ’Tis
powdered to perfection! Dear, darling boy!”
“Ah! there is the magnolia I gave you,” said Harry, smiling, as they
entered the little sitting-room, where Martha passed most of her time
when not engaged in the kitchen.
“How fresh it looks! Yet ’tis a good while since I brought it.”
“An age,” returned Martha, eying him fondly.
“And what pretty flowers those are yonder!” he continued, looking
toward the other end of the mantel-piece.
“None could be prettier,” said Martha in a quiet voice, yet she felt
the blood stealing over her cheeks.
“From Reverend Doctor Coffee’s garden, perhaps?”
“No indeed! They were given me by one whom nobody can come up to—one
who keeps ahead of everybody. Now guess his name!”
“Oh! I know—that Skinner, Elisha Williams,” said Harry with apparent
indifference, but inwardly groaning.
“He is not a Skinner, any more than you are a Cowboy. You are both in
the regular armies,” said Martha; then, laying her hand on Harry’s
shoulder: “And, Harry, I hope, if Elisha is ever your prisoner, that
you will treat him kindly.”
“For your sake he who in your eyes is ahead of all the rest of the
world shall have not a single one of his red hairs injured,” answered
Harry, making a low bow. “But might I venture to ask what valiant
exploit has Elisha performed that you say he is ahead of me, his open,
determined, but honorable rival?”
“O Harry! your dear brains are running away with you,” said Martha.
“You speak hastily. I only meant that Dolly Dumplings is so fleet that
not a trooper in the king’s army can catch Elisha. That is all I
meant.”
“Is that really all?” exclaimed Harry, giving a sigh of relief.
“Yes, upon my word it is.”
“Well, Elisha must look out,” continued the young man, his countenance
beaming once more. “He must not presume too much on the fleetness of
his steed; for a hundred pounds reward has just been offered to whoever
will capture Dolly Dumplings.”
“Indeed! A hundred pounds!” exclaimed Martha. “Well, for all that Dolly
will still continue to show you her heels.”
At this Harry laughed, then said: “Martha, I hope the next time you see
me I’ll have a decoration; we expect stirring events soon.”
“O Harry! pray don’t be rash,” said the girl. “Do, do take care of
yourself.”
“Stop no preaching, dear Martha. I love you too much to heed the
bullets. You remember you said the bravest should possess you; and you
are a treasure worth shedding blood for.”
“Oh! did I say that?” Here she pressed her hand to her brow. “Well,
yes, I believe I did. But I was a fool, for who can be braver than you
and Elisha? Who can doubt the courage of either of you?”
“Well, then, precious Martha, why not decide at once between us? Oh! I
assure you ’tis a great trial for me, this long uncertainty.”
When he had spoken these words Martha turned her eyes upon Elisha’s
nosegay, which, despite the water, was beginning to fade; then from the
flowers her eyes dropped to the floor, while her heart throbbed
violently. Then, looking up, she was on the very point of uttering
something of vast moment, when, lo! a bullet crashed through the
window, whizzed close by her head, and buried itself in the
wainscoting, half blinding her with whitewash and mortar.
Immediately there was a great stir and confusion in the bar-room, where
Harry’s company were drinking and smoking their pipes.
Quick the troopers were on their feet and rushing pell-mell out of the
house, while their horses were pawing the earth and neighing furiously,
for “whizz!” “whizz!” “whizz!” like so many bees the balls were flying
past them.
“Good Lord! here they come, and close upon us!” gasped Uncle Pete,
shaking like an aspen leaf as he glanced up the highway, then looking
toward the sign-board. Would he have time to make the sign change
front? Momentous question! And on the American cavalry were coming—a
whole regiment—on, on, at full speed. But, rapidly as they approached,
the Britishers were too quick for them; every man of the latter was
already in the saddle, and Martha, although seeing but dimly, was
giving Harry’s hand a parting squeeze, heedless of the danger she was
in and deaf to his urgent entreaties to withdraw.
“No, no, I’m not afraid,” she said. Nor did she retire until he had
pressed his lips to her cheek; then back she flew into the house.
Scarcely had Harry put spurs to his horse when Uncle Pete—his movements
happily hidden by a cloud of dust—sprang up the ladder, turned the
sign-board round in a jiffy, then, pulling from his pocket a bit of
chalk, drew it thrice across George Washington’s benign visage. After
which down he came, or rather down he tumbled; the ladder was hastily
flung aside, and through the doorway after Martha he ran, shouting:
“Smash the bottles, child! Smash a lot of ’em!”
Poor Martha, who was cleansing the mortar from her eyes, was filled
with amazement at these words. Had her parent suddenly lost his wits?
Ay, surely he had, for he was already hard at work breaking bottle
after bottle, and by the time Colonel Glover’s regiment, which pursued
the enemy only half a mile, drew up at the Old Stone Jug, two pounds
ten shillings would not have made good the damage which Uncle Pete had
wrought to his own property.
“God save our liberties, and the devil take King George!” cried Van
Alstyne as the American colonel dismounted; then, pointing indignantly
at the sign-board: “Look, sir, what the British villains have done!
Look!”
“Ay, disfigured our noble commander-in-chief,” answered the officer.
“But now come, sir, and see what they have done inside,” continued
Uncle Pete, foaming at the mouth.
In a few minutes the tavern was crowded with officers and soldiers
heaping maledictions upon the British for having destroyed so much
excellent rum; the whole floor was reeking with spirits.
But Uncle Pete, in consideration of his loyalty to the American cause,
recovered all he had lost, and more too; for the cavalry-men made the
inn merry until the day was well-nigh spent. And when at length they
departed there was not a more contented citizen in the township than
Peter Van Alstyne.
“What a narrow escape we had!” he said to Martha when they were once
more alone.
“Very; and we may thank God ’tis all over without one drop of blood
being spilt,” answered the girl.
“Well, no, ’tisn’t quite over yet,” added the publican; then, going to
the door, he shouted: “Popgun, come down.”
Popgun obeyed, but his movements were slow; he moved like one who has
the rheumatism, and he took double the usual time to descend the tree.
“I say, you little black imp,” growled Uncle Pete as soon as the boy
got within reach—“you little black imp, you fell asleep on your perch
to-day. Now, don’t lie; you did, and you’re ‘sponsible for the broken
bottles, and the disfigured sign, and the bullets in the wall. Ay,
you’re ‘sponsible for every penny’s worth of damage, and now I’m going
to punish you.”
“O massa! please don’t make me dance a hornpipe,” said the unhappy boy,
whining and wringing his hands. “Don’t! don’t! I’ll never fall asleep
again—no, never.”
“Well, it’s a hornpipe I’m going to make you dance; and now begin.” So
saying, Uncle Pete lifted up a stout ox-gad and brought it down with
all his might on Popgun’s legs. The blow was followed by a piercing
cry. Martha implored her father not to strike him again, but Van
Alstyne was deaf to her appeals for mercy, and during several minutes
Popgun continued to hop about like a dancing bear, and you might have
heard his screams as far as East Chester village.
Finally, Uncle Pete having broken the whip over the poor child’s legs,
Martha, who was truly vexed at such cruelty, led Popgun into the
kitchen, intending to console him with something good to eat. But Van
Alstyne, who knew how soft her heart was, said:
“Martha, I positively forbid you to give him one mouthful of
sweetmeats, and not a single doughnut or tart. Obey me!”
The girl made no response, but, having fastened the kitchen door and
brushed a tear out of her eye, bade the little sufferer sit down; then
said: “Now, mind, you are to have no sweetmeats and no tarts and no
doughnuts, so here’s some honey and a corncake.”
Popgun looked up in her face, and Martha was not a little surprised to
see him recovering so rapidly from his terrible castigation; so broad
was his grin that every one of his gleaming teeth was visible.
“I’d like to dance a hornpipe every day, Miss Martha,” he said, “for I
love corncake and honey.”
“Do you? Well, then, you shall have plenty.”
But before the urchin began his feast he whispered: “Miss Martha, you
won’t tell anybody if I tell you a secret, will you?”
“Of course not,” answered Martha, who was anxious to please him, and
thus make amends for the barbarous treatment he had received.
“Well, then, Miss Martha, look here.” And Popgun stooped, and, turning
up the rim of his light linen trowsers, revealed underneath a pair of
cowskin breeches about a quarter of an inch thick; and these breeches
had proved a good friend to him, for he had danced many a hornpipe.
“Oh! fie, you naughty boy!” exclaimed Martha; and she was strongly
tempted to take away the honey-jar. But after reflecting a moment she
burst into a laugh, while Popgun tried to laugh too, but did not
succeed for the honey which filled his mouth.
Never had Martha known so much anxiety as during the four months which
followed Harry Valentine’s last visit. Neither of her lovers came to
see her. Never had they stayed away so long before; and whenever any
one arrived at the tavern with news she would listen with rapt
attention and a sinking heart, fearful lest she might hear that some
evil had befallen them. Often and often Martha would turn from her
spinning-wheel to gaze on the flowers they had given her—poor faded
flowers, but more precious now than diamonds in her sight; and instead
of keeping them far apart, Martha set the nosegay and magnolia near
together—so near that she might circle them both in one fond embrace.
It was an anxious, trying summer, too, for the patriots. Washington was
suffering defeats in Pennsylvania; two important posts on the Hudson
River—Fort Montgomery and Fort Clinton—were captured by the British;
and Congress had fled from Philadelphia to York. Nothing seemed likely
to rescue the cause of independence from utter ruin, save the army
under General Gates, which was marching to meet Burgoyne; and every
breath of rumor from the north was eagerly listened to.
“A crisis is approaching, child,” Uncle Pete would say, “and I guess
you’ll be able to select your husband afore the next moon.”
But Martha had grown too down-hearted to heed what her father said, and
more than once he found tears in her eyes.
By and by autumn came—rich, ripe, golden autumn. But in many an orchard
the apples were left unpicked, for the young men were gone to the war
and the old folks had no heart for the labor. The blackbirds were
flocking, and Martha would watch them as they took wing for the south,
and she felt toward the little birds as never before; for perhaps in
their long journey they might pass over Harry and Elisha; in New
Jersey, in Delaware, in Maryland, or even in the far-off Carolinas,
they might see their camp-fires, might hear the cannon booming.
“Sweet birds, you will come back in spring-time,” she sighed. “Will
Harry and Elisha come back?”
“Child, here is something that may cheer you up,” said Uncle Pete one
October evening. The girl looked round, and, lo! he had a letter for
her. Martha’s hand trembled as she took it.
A century ago people did not write as often as nowadays; indeed,
comparatively few knew how to read and write. Hence it was not so very
strange that Martha was unable to tell at a glance from whom the letter
came. Was it from Elisha? or Harry? or from some comrade of theirs
imparting sad news?
Few moments in life are more big with keen suspense than the moment
between the breaking of a letter’s seal and the reading of the first
line, when the missive is from one very dear to us and far away. This
interval of time—brief as three heart-throbs—may prove the
boundary-line where happiness ends for ever and dark days begin, or it
may set us smiling as Martha is smiling now; therefore let us peep over
her shoulder and learn what the glad tidings are:
“I am coming in three days, dearest Martha, to take you to St.
Paul’s Church and make you my darling wife. Now, don’t say nay.
I implore you not to break my heart. I have won two
decorations, and am a major, and in all America nobody loves
you more truly than your devoted
“HARRY VALENTINE.”
Although an exceedingly short letter, it required some little time for
Martha to spell it all out; and when she did get to the end she was in
such a flurry that she could barely speak when Uncle Pete asked what
was the matter.
“O father! Harry Valentine says he will be here in—in three days to
marry me. And—and he has won two decorations, and he is a major, and I
don’t know what to think about it.”
“Humph! he has risked his life twice for you, has he? Got two
decorations! Well, that ought to count a good deal in his favor.”
“Well, yes, it ought, father.”
“And do you know, child, there is a rumor flying about that Gen. Gates
has found Burgoyne too strong for him, and that he is retreating.
Therefore, all things considered, I think you may bet on King George
and marry Harry.”
“O father! how little you understand me,” exclaimed Martha with a look
of reproach. “I may seem a flirt, a coquette, but I’m not. My heart is
not like your sign-board, and I have suffered more than you imagine
from not being able to decide between Harry and Elisha, who love me so
truly, and each of whom is so worthy of my love.” Then, pressing her
hands to her bosom: “Poor heart!” she cried, “what must I do? Oh! tell
me, what must I do?” Then, hastening into the sitting-room, where she
kept the nosegay and the magnolia, she put her lips to Elisha’s
withered love-gift, then carried it off, leaving the magnolia alone in
its glory. But ere Martha reached the window, where she meant to fling
the flowers away, the glass which held them slipped from her quivering
hand, and in an instant it lay shattered at her feet.
“Well, really, child, you do astonish me,” said her father the
afternoon of the day when Harry Valentine was expected. “You can’t
sleep, you’ve lost your appetite, and all because ‘Lisha’s posy dropped
on the floor. Why, what nonsense!”
“Well, yes, it is silly,” said Martha. “One of the two I will wed, and
I have made up my mind it is to be Harry, and I doubt not Elisha will
live fifty years and be happy too. Any one might let a glass break.”
“Ay, ay. I’ve smashed scores of ’em, child, and never knew any ill to
follow—except once, when I stumbled and fell on top of the broken bits
and cut my finger.”
Martha now made a strong effort to dispel the sense of approaching evil
which for three days had been haunting her, and during the next hour
she kept in good spirits. She had on her best gown, there was a flush
upon her cheeks, and every few minutes she would go to the foot of the
cherry-tree and ask if Harry Valentine were in sight.
“No, miss,” answered Popgun the last time she put the question to him.
“But there is a man in the cedars yonder making signs; I guess he wants
to speak with you or master. He looks like an Indian.”
Martha did not hesitate to go herself and see what the stranger wanted;
and after the latter had spoken a few words to her and she turned to
leave him, the bright color had fled from her face and she trembled.
A half-hour later a cavalcade of gay horsemen arrived at the tavern,
and, as we may imagine, Van Alstyne wondered very much why his daughter
was not present to greet Harry Valentine. He searched all through the
house for Martha; he called her name, but she did not answer. Where
could Martha be?
In the meanwhile Harry, directed by Popgun’s finger, which pointed to
the woods, had set out in quest of his love.
And Martha was soon found; but not, as the young officer had fancied
she would be, gathering chestnuts or wild grapes by the brookside, by
Rattlesnake Brook, where he had first met her five years ago—oh!
never-to-be-forgotten day, when she was just emerging from girlhood and
the first down was on his chin. But now Harry found her kneeling upon a
mossy rock, praying. And when at the sound of footsteps Martha rose up
and flew into his arms, although transported with delight to meet her
again, and to feel she had yielded him her heart at last—that heart
which it had taken so long to win—nevertheless a pang shot through him
when he discovered a tear on her cheek; ’twas easy to kiss the tear
away, but why had she been weeping? He asked the question, but Martha
only shook her head and said:
“Remember, dear one, the promise you once made me: if Elisha ever falls
into your hands, you will do him no injury. Remember.”
And now evening has come, and a jovial party is assembled in the Old
Stone Jug. Uncle Pete bestirred himself as never before to do his
guests honor; he could scarce remain quiet a moment. The best his house
afforded he gave without stint, and ’twas a free gift. Uncle Pete
intended that his future son-in-law should long remember the
hospitality of this autumn evening.
Martha was the only one who did not make merry. She sat close beside
Harry Valentine, her eyes resting on his manly, sunburnt face; she
seemed ready to devour him with her eyes, and spoke very little.
But ever and anon she would withdraw her hand from his and go peep out
of the window. It was when she had done this for the third time, then
come back and placed her hand within his again, that Harry observed in
a tone of surprise:
“Why, my beloved, what is the matter? Your hand is grown suddenly cold
as ice.”
“Is it?” said Martha nervously. There were other words quivering on her
lips, but she held them back. In after-years she bitterly lamented her
silence at this critical moment. It was late, yet not too late—the moon
was still a quarter of an hour below the horizon—and when Harry noticed
her agitation, if she had only been frank with him, how different might
have been the whole current of her after-life—how very different!
And now the sky in the east is growing rapidly brighter, and Martha’s
heart is throbbing faster and louder—so loud that Harry might almost
have heard it. But ’twas not necessary for him to hear the beating of
her heart in order to discover her growing distress. Martha was leaning
back in the chair, her cheeks were become as cold as her hand, and her
eyes strayed from his eyes to the window in a wild, fearful way; then,
looking at him again, she seemed about to say something, but did not,
and Harry was really becoming alarmed at the strange mood she was in,
when the tavern door was suddenly flung wide open, and, as it swept
round on its hinges, a small, black hand passed swiftly over the table.
In an instant the candles were extinguished, and in the pitchy darkness
which followed Martha found herself borne away in somebody’s arms.
“Now, Martha, you’re mine,” said Elisha Williams exultingly, as he
bounded like a deer up the road to the spot where he had left his
horse.
“Be true to me, Martha. Mount! and we’ll hie to the Jerseys together.”
What the girl’s feelings were just at this moment ’twere not easy to
describe. In her ears came deafening uproar from the Old Stone
Jug—quick commands; the neighing of steeds; a voice cried, “Fire!”
Then—well, she must have swooned; for when next she became conscious of
anything, Martha found herself seated on the saddle-bow, Elisha’s arm
supporting her, and Dolly Dumplings galloping at terrific speed along
Cusser’s Lane.
And here let us say that the very first thought to enter Martha’s mind
was a glad thought. Ay, her dark presentiment in regard to The Flying
Scout had proved utterly untrue, and she even laughed aloud when
presently she told Elisha what her fears for him had been. Whereupon he
cried: “Me dead! Ha! ha! No indeed! Hurrah for Independence and Martha
Van Alstyne!”
Then, while his voice was echoing through the woods which lined the
road on either side—frightening an owl and rousing a partridge out of
its sleep—Elisha went on to tell the great news of Burgoyne’s
surrender. “I was present, my love,” he said. “I saw the British colors
lowered. Hurrah for Martha and Independence! Hurrah! hurrah!”
But swift as was Dolly’s pace—her tail, back, and nose formed one
beeline—it was none too swift, and she needed all the blood of her
grandsire, the Flying Childers, to save her from being overtaken. On,
on at a furious rate Harry Valentine was coming. He led the pursuit;
his friends were close behind him. And now, we may ask, did Martha
remonstrate with Elisha? Did she urge him to draw rein?—to surrender
her to the one whom she had consented to wed on the morrow? No, indeed.
Elisha’s astounding boldness in stealing her away from her home when
surrounded by a score of armed men drowned every other thought; verily,
he was the boldest of the bold. The bracing night-air, too, was like
wine to her throbbing veins, and the moonbeams shimmering through the
trees lent a weirdness to the scene which prevented Martha from
thinking calmly about anything. She felt as if bewitched. Dolly
Dumplings appeared like a ghostly steed; Elisha was a wizard knight
bearing her off to his enchanted castle; and not for all the world
would she have slipped off the saddle to go back to the Old Stone Jug.
But great changes often come unawares, and in a few minutes everything
changed. It happened thus: lying in the middle of the lane, directly in
front of old Isaac Cusser’s house—from whom the lane takes its name—was
a cow, and between the cow and the stone wall opposite the farmer had
piled a load of salt hay. Now, had there been a little more light,
Dolly Dumplings would have discovered the animal in time and jumped
over her. But the trees just at this spot threw a broad shadow across
Dolly’s path, and naught was visible until the mare got within a stride
of the obstacle. Then she swerved violently to one side, and in another
moment Martha found herself rolling over and over in the hay.
Needless to observe that Elisha did his utmost to stay the course of
Dolly Dumplings. But, once past the cow, Dolly had instantly resumed
her headlong gait, and she went quite a distance ere she was brought to
a halt.
Poor Elisha! he knew well that Martha was lost to him; yet he did not
hesitate to return—to approach within easy pistol-shot of where Harry
Valentine and his friends were assembled round about the young woman.
The farmer, too, had come out with a lantern, and Elisha, plunged in
despair, could distinguish the figure of Martha standing upright, and
he could hear her voice, and even fancied she was laughing! Was this
possible? No, no! Elisha would not believe his ears; and he called to
her to be true to him—that he would never love another.
“Martha, Martha, I will always love you,” he cried.
“Save yourself! Do! do! Make haste!” came back the response to his
words; and Elisha was slowly turning Dolly round when the crack of a
pistol rang through the forest; ’twas followed by a sting in his
breast; and while the mare continued her flight Elisha’s life-blood
trickled down upon the saddle and left red marks along the road.
But, although desperately wounded, The Flying Scout was not going to be
captured, and faithful Dolly, who heard the clatter of hoofs behind
her, flew on swifter than ever. It was the firm belief of Elisha’s
pursuers that he would turn to the right after leaving Cusser’s lane
and take the way to Tuckahoe; for the bridge across the Bronx River, a
half a mile on his left, had been destroyed. Although aware of this
fact, Elisha nevertheless had the audacity to turn Dolly’s head toward
the stream; and down the hill which led to it Dolly plunged, a dozen
bullets whizzing by her. Would the Scout venture such a leap? From bank
to bank was farther than any horse had ever been known to spring. But
blood will tell—Dolly’s grandsire was the Flying Childers—and now like
a bird she rose into the air, and, lo! to the amazement of the enemy,
Elisha was landed upon the west side of the Bronx.
Here, as they abandoned the chase, let us go back to Martha Van
Alstyne.
It is the morrow morning, and we find her once more under her father’s
roof, making ready to repair with Harry Valentine to St. Paul’s Church;
for she has promised to become his bride, and she cannot break her
word. Yet at this the eleventh hour Elisha holds the first place in
Martha’s heart; she openly rejoices to hear that he escaped, and even
twits her affianced husband for not having been able to catch Dolly
Dumplings, whereupon Harry good-naturedly admits that not another steed
in America could have cleared the Bronx at one leap.
“’Twouldn’t surprise me in the least,” Martha said to herself, as they
were about to set out for the village, “if Elisha dashed up to the very
church-door and carried me off a second time. But then,” she added
after a moment’s reflection, “it is not likely to happen; no, I must
banish him from my heart as soon as possible and love Harry alone.”
Here she threw her eyes upon her betrothed and in all the lovely autumn
landscape nothing was more lovely than those two faces as they met.
But although Martha was struggling hard to conquer her greater love for
Elisha, ’twas a difficult battle she was waging with herself.
There are embers which will live and glow despite the ashes we heap
over them; so even now, while her eyes were searching into Harry’s
eyes, while her smile was answering his smile, Martha’s countenance
fell anew and she recoiled from him. ’Twas at this very moment Popgun’s
voice cried out:
“Dolly Dumplings’s in sight!”
This startling announcement was more than Martha could bear without the
deepest emotion. Quick she looked up the road; the astonished Uncle
Pete and all the others did the same, while the girl stretched forth
her hands to welcome the one who was approaching. Her heart was in her
throat; every limb of her body quivered. On, on galloped the mare.
In less than two minutes Dolly dashed into the midst of the party
gathered in front of the Old Stone Jug. And what a spectacle did she
present! She had no rider, and the red marks which stained the empty
saddle were blood-marks! Oh! surely they were. The wild look, too, and
the fierce neigh of poor Dolly told plainly enough that something
horrible had occurred.
It took Martha but an instant to decide what to do, and, breaking loose
from Harry and her father, who were vainly striving to calm her, she
sprang upon the saddle; then, turning to Harry Valentine with an
expression pen cannot describe, “Marry you!” she cried. “No, not for
the kingdom of England!” And away she galloped.
In a remote corner of the graveyard at East Chester is a tombstone with
the following inscription carved upon it: “Here lie the remains of
Martha Van Alstyne, spinster, who departed this life in the year of
grace 1838, aged 81.” These few words tell the rest of our story.
Martha, when she discovered that Elisha Williams had been killed, never
married; and although no man knows Elisha’s burial-place, his name is
not forgotten, and the bridge which spans the Bronx River at the point
where Dolly Dumplings made her wonderful leap is called Williams
Bridge.
As late as 1840 the ruins of the Old Stone Jug were visible on what is
now known as Schieffelin’s Lane; Rattlesnake Brook still flows on, but
the rattlesnakes have long disappeared; and here and there stands an
aged tree beneath whose shade Martha and Harry and Elisha used to play
together in the days when George III. was king.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
BROTHER AND SISTER.
Happy those turtle-doves that went, my Queen,
With you to the temple—tho’ to death they went.
Could they have known, they had been full content
To give their little lives. And well I ween
Your pitying hand caressed them; and, between
The turns you took with Joseph (favored saint!)
At carrying Jesus, you would soothe their plaint,
And hold to your heart their bosoms’ silver sheen.
But cherish more my sister-dove and me:
Carry _within_ your heart, and all the way,
Our souls to the true Temple. Offered so,
They cannot perish—no, nor parted be:
For He whom you presented on this day
Whom you present His own must ever know.
FEAST OF THE PURIFICATION, 1876.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHRISTIANITY AS AN HISTORICAL RELIGION.
II.
To know the true genius of Christianity is the same thing as to know
the true destiny of man, and the actual order of Providence by which he
is conducted to its fulfilment, through the state of his earthly
probation. The true destiny of man is supernatural; his end is beyond
the earth and the present life, which is the place and period of origin
and transit only, where he has his point of departure, his impulse of
direction, the beginning of the movement which is to draw a line of
endless length on the absolute duration and absolute space of eternity
and infinity. The actual order of Providence, within the infinitesimal
limits of time and extension which bound man’s earthly existence, is
exclusively determined, as to its ultimate end, to this eternal and
infinite sphere of being, where man shares with God, according to the
mode and measure which is possible to his finite nature, the “total,
simultaneous, and perfect possession of interminable life.” This is
precisely what is meant by eternal salvation, final beatitude, union
with God, and all other terms of similar import. Any temporal good, in
comparison with this, is trivial. It cannot be an ultimate object of
God’s providence, and ought not to be regarded as an end by a rational
man. These are the suppositions, the _præcognita_, from which all
Christian philosophy must take its initial movement. Dr. Fisher
enunciates, therefore, one of the axioms of Christianity when he says
that in the design of the divine religion given by God to mankind, “the
good offered is not science,” or, as is evidently implied, any other
temporal good, “but salvation.” The original right to this salvation
and to the means of attaining it having been forfeited in the fall and
restored only through Christ, “the final cause of revelation is the
recovery of men to communion with God—that is, to true religion.” As a
consequence from this, “whatever knowledge is communicated”—and,
equally, whatever other good is communicated for human perfection in
this present state—“is tributary to this end” (p. 3). The whole of
human history before the Christian epoch, in general, and specifically
the whole inspired history of patriarchal and Judæan religion, being a
record of events looking towards the coming of the Son of God to the
earth, the learned professor proceeds logically in making the
statements which follow:
“Christianity is the perfect form of religion. In other words,
it is the absolute religion, ... the culminating point in the
progress of revelation, fulfilling, or filling out to
perfection, that which preceded.... In Jesus religion is
actually realized in its perfection.... In Christ the
revelation of God to and through man reaches its climax.... In
Christianity the fundamental relations of God to the world are
completely disclosed.... Through Christ the kingdom of God
actually attains its universal character.”[166]
Many passages scattered throughout the entire work of Dr. Fisher
repeat, confirm, or amplify these general statements of his fundamental
conception of Christianity. Thus, he says that it “proposed the
unification of mankind through a spiritual bond” (p. 42); that it
brings God near “to the apprehension, not of a coterie of philosophers
merely, but of the humble and ignorant” (p. 189); that it “made human
brotherhood a reality” (p. 190). “From his first public appearance
Jesus represented himself as the founder and head of a kingdom” (p.
443), and this kingdom “was to be bound together by a moral and
spiritual bond of union” (p. 444). Moreover, “his kingdom was to act
upon the world, and to bring the world under its sway” (p. 456); it was
to “leaven human society with its spirit, until the whole world should
be created anew by its agency”; “a world-conquering and world-purifying
influence,” destined “for the accomplishment of a revolution, the
grandest which it ever entered into the heart of man to conceive—it
being nothing less than the moral regeneration of mankind” (_ibid._)
The idea which lies at the foundation of all these statements is
nothing else than that which St. Ignatius has made the basis of his
_Spiritual Exercises_, and which is fully developed in the meditations
on fundamental Christian principles which are placed at the beginning
of the series for a retreat in books like the _Raccolta_ of Father
Ciccolini. On these principles is founded the whole system of
instructions given to ecclesiastics and religious during their
retreats, by which they are formed for the sacerdotal or religious life
or renovated in the spirit of their state. The very same form the basis
of the sermons preached at the beginning of missions given to the
faithful in churches, “On the End of Man,” “On the Value of the Soul,”
“On the Necessity of Salvation.” That man is the only being on the
earth who is an end in himself, and that all other creatures, together
with all arrangements of divine Providence respecting this world, are
for him; that the chief and ultimate end of man is his eternal
salvation, and that everything else is intended as a means for
attaining this end; is the doctrine inculcated and preached in all
Catholic spiritual books and in all sermons, in all theological
treatises, and expositions of Catholic philosophy which profess to
explain the fundamental relations of the natural to the supernatural
order. Any other idea of Christianity than this is unworthy of its
Author. It is a very low and childish view which represents the
perfection of humanity in respect to the political, social, and
intellectual spheres of the earthly and temporal order as the direct
object of the mission and work of Christ in the world. _Præterit figura
hujus mundi._ That which is transitory cannot be an ultimate end.
There is nothing permanent and having an eternal value on the earth
except the spiritual perfection of the human soul and whatever
appertains to it or is inseparably connected with it. The regeneration
and perfection of men in the spiritual and divine life is necessarily
the only direct and primary object of the theandric work of Christ as
the mediator between God and mankind. His kingdom is in the soul, his
reign and conquests are in the spiritual realm. St. Augustine explains
that difficult statement of St. Paul, that the Son will finally deliver
up his kingdom to the Father, by means of this Scriptural conception of
the nature of his kingdom. This kingdom is the multitude of the saved,
the complete number of the elect, in whose glorification the special
work of the Son as creator and redeemer reaches its consummation and
attains its final end. The kingdom is delivered up when these souls, in
whom the reign of Christ is perfectly and for ever established by grace
and divine love, are united with the divine essence in the beatific
vision. The initial and temporal conditions of the eternal kingdom of
Christ, the kingdom of heaven, disappear, of course, in the fulfilment;
as his human childhood, life, death, and resurrection were transient
states or events, as the whole of human history is transient. In its
initial state the kingdom of heaven on the earth is a preparation for
its perfect state, which it contains in germ and principle, and with
which it must necessarily have a similitude of nature. It is therefore
only a truism to say that the kingdom of Christ is spiritual and its
bond of unity spiritual. We may even say that the whole universe is a
spiritual empire and its bond of unity spiritual. Physical beings, in
the ontological order are metaphysical, and in the order of cognition
are logical. All the transcendental predicates, which really express
only phases of the same idea; being, unity, truth, and good; are, in an
analogous sense, predicable of God and of everything which has or is
capable of having existence. God is a spirit, and the ideal of all
beings is in his intelligence. The [Greek: Logos] [Greek: endiathetos],
in the bosom of the Father from eternity, and the [Greek: Logos]
[Greek: prophorichos], uttering the creative word whose effect is in
time, whose intelligible expression is in all creatures, are one—the
Word of God. There are material substances and forces, but their origin
is spiritual; their essence and existence are the expression of
thought; the space in which they move has its foundation in the essence
of God; they are an adjunct of the spiritual world, and are
subordinated to it with a view to the same end. There are temporal and
contingent things, but their duration has a fixed relation to the
absolute duration of God, and to his eternal, immutable decree and
foreknowledge. Though some things are trivial and worthless by
comparison with others, and every being is infinitely less than God,
yet nothing is absolutely trivial or worthless, and every finite thing
has infinite relations. Bodies are infinitely inferior to spirits, yet
they are infinitely superior to nothing, and not only the grand bodies
which express in magnitude and number an image of the immensity of God,
but grains of sand and the minutest molecules, are terms of divine
Omnipotence, and their being presupposes and imitates the being of God.
God formed the body of the first man out of the dust of the earth
before he breathed into him the living soul, and he will awaken all
human bodies to an everlasting life from the dust of the universal tomb
of humanity. The Word assumed not only a rational but also a corporeal
nature into hypostatic union with the divinity in his own person, and
arose bodily from the sepulchre to glorify matter as well as spirit,
and make it a gem eternally lustrous and sparkling with divine
splendor. God came to this small solar system, a mere point in the
milky way, to this minute planet, to the insignificant country of
Judæa, to the little village of Bethlehem, to the narrow cave of the
Nativity, to the humble cottage of Joseph and Mary, and was born and
brought up the son of a humble maiden under the guardianship of an
obscure artisan. The future and eternal kingdom of heaven with all its
splendor, which was only made that it may serve as a reflection of the
glory of the Incarnate Word, has its origin from these mere points in
time and space. Things which, isolated and in their mere physical
quantity, are almost nothing receive an infinite value through their
relations. Nude first matter, apart from form, is, as St. Augustine
says, “_fere nihil_—a being not-being.” Yet it seems to be rigorously
demonstrated that the active force of every material element is capable
of attracting or repelling other elements in an infinite sphere of
space around its centre. The visible universe, considered as having a
mere isolated existence and motion in space and time, is not much,
compared with even one finite spirit—is _fere nihil_. The intellectual
creation, considered as isolated within the bounds of nature, finite,
actually existing only in one indivisible now of time, which by its
gliding from a beginning point on an endless line never actually draws
more than a line of finite duration, compared with the infinite
possibility is not much more. All creation, even supposing that God
continued to extend and multiply it for ever, could never become
anything which would not be infinitely less than absolute space and
duration. On the lower surface of things which faces the nothingness
out of which they came they participate in not-being and resemble
nothingness. In their negation and privation, they _are not_. On their
upper surface which faces the being above them they participate with
all being, even the highest. That which is lower touches by its highest
point that which is lowest in the higher, and so from the bottom to the
top. The physical universe has a sufficient reason of being in the
intellectual universe, the intellectual in the spiritual, and the
spiritual at its apex touches God by the union of the highest
nature—the created nature of the Word, with the uncreated, divine
essence. The universe, notwithstanding its intrinsically finite and
contingent being, receives thus a mode and order of relation to the
infinite and eternal being, giving it a species of divinization which
extends to its least and lowest parts. Therefore we say that the whole
universe is a spiritual empire and its bond of unity spiritual.
This world is a garden of God, set apart for the planting and growth of
human souls. The garden of Eden, which God planted and beautified as
the residence of the first parents of the human race, is a type of the
ideal earth as it was conceived in the mind of God. The redemption, in
its ideal form, is a work for the restoration of paradise on earth,
under a modified condition suited to the fallen state of man, and in
its actual results is an approximation to this idea. The growth of
human souls in the regenerated and spiritual life is its end, and the
only thing of absolute importance in the sight of God. The Creator
himself came on the earth in human form expressly for the sake of
fulfilling this divine intention of bringing souls to the completion of
their growth in a perfect likeness to himself. It is needless to quote
his own distinct and solemn affirmation of the value of the soul, and
the worthlessness of the whole world beside, in comparison with its
highest spiritual good. His great work in humanity may therefore be
fitly summed up in the terse and succinct formula of “moral
regeneration,” provided that these terms are so defined as to give them
an adequate extension and comprehension. The whole plan of God in
creating the universe, and elevating it through the microcosmical being
man by the Incarnation, must be kept in view; and the nature of the
regeneration to be effected must be so understood as to justify the
necessity of the stupendous and multiplied means employed by the divine
wisdom in bringing it to actual accomplishment. The universe, and this
little epitome of creation which is man’s world, as well, is complex
and composed of heterogeneous parts. The problem of man’s destiny and
of the end proposed in the plan of the divine creator and redeemer of
human nature is, therefore, necessarily complex. If it is expressed in
a ratio of simple terms, these terms must be virtually equivalent to a
great number and a great variety, corresponding to the complex reality
which they denote and signify. A simplification of our ideas which is
not the result of a combination of all the elements that ought to enter
into composition, but is produced by the suppression of some, is a work
of destructive and not of constructive philosophy. If we interpret,
therefore, that spiritual doctrine which we have laid down in the
beginning of this argument too literally and exclusively, we make a
misinterpretation of the sense of Holy Scripture and of the writings of
the saints, and manufacture for ourselves a false and absurd doctrine.
A philosophy which aims to give the spirit a complete riddance of
matter, and of the whole world beside spiritual existence in its purest
and most immediate relation to God, may arrogate the name of spiritual
philosophy, but it is a counterfeit spiritualism. If God desired that
we should get rid of matter, and had no other aim except to produce
purely spiritual being in his own likeness and in participation with
his own pure essence, he would never have created anything except
spirit, and he would have made it at once in that state of perfection
which he willed it to possess. If this perfection were limited to the
order of pure nature, nothing more was requisite than to create a
multitude of intellectual beings naturally endowed with the
intelligence and felicity conformed to their essence. If they were to
be elevated to supernatural perfection in the beatific vision of God,
one act of divine power and love would suffice to place them at the
first instant of their creation in the term of being, the ultimate
perfection, the everlasting felicity in the possession of the sovereign
good, to which they were destined. There is no necessity for probation,
gradual progress, or any sort of conditions precedent, in order that
created spirits may be made perfect in cognition and volition, either
natural or supernatural, in any finite degree and grade of existence
and beatitude which God may choose in his pure goodness to communicate.
Still less is there any reason, on the hypothesis of such an end in
creation as we suppose, for the existence of matter and corporeal
beings. Matter and body cannot help purely intellectual beings to
attain their proper intelligible object. The light of glory, and the
direct illumination which gives the spirit an immediate intuitive
vision of the divine essence, cannot be conjoined with any material,
corporeal medium or organ. Why, then, did not God create angels only,
and, if he desired to elevate creation to the hypostatic union with
himself, assume the angelic nature? The only possible answer to this
question is derived from the manifestation which God has made, through
his works and through his word, that his plan of creation included
something besides the natural and supernatural communication of glory
and beatitude to created spirits. It was his will to create the
corporeal, visible universe in connection and harmony with the
invisible and spiritual world. It was his will to place man in the
middle-point of all creation, and to give him a complex essence
composed of rationality and animality, that he might unite in his
substantial being the highest with the lowest—_ima summis_. Moreover,
the creating Word assumed this nature as microcosmical, that in
humanity he might elevate the entire universe and bring it in his own
person to its acme.
Even this might have been accomplished instantaneously, without
probation, without the long procession of second causes, without the
efforts and the pain which the struggle toward the ultimate end has
cost the creature, and to which the Incarnate Word subjected himself
when he became _obediens usque ad mortem, mortem autem crucis_.
Why the long process from the chaos at the beginning toward the
consummation of the end which has not yet been attained? The only
answer to this question which can possibly be given is that God chose
to make the creature concur to its own glorification by the way of
merit, and to bring the utmost possible effect out of created
causality. This is the reason for the probation of the angels and of
man; for the full scope given to free-will, notwithstanding the
incidental evil which through this avenue has rushed in upon the fair
creation of God; and for the choice of the most difficult and painful
way of redemption and restoration through ineffable labors and
sufferings.
The regeneration of humanity must, therefore, take its character from
the supernatural destiny of man, his complex nature, and the relations
in which it places him to the complex plan of God which takes in all
the parts of the universe, from the lowest to the highest, and gives
the utmost possible play to the action of created causality. Its chief
end is to prepare human souls, through the grace and fellowship of
Christ, to share with the other sons of God, the holy angels, in the
glory and beatitude of the Incarnate Word in the kingdom of heaven.
Included in this end of beatification in God, which is essentially the
same for all spiritual beings who attain it, are the distinctive grades
of glory, gained through grace and personal merit, in an ascending
scale from the souls of infants to the soul of Jesus Christ, by which
the celestial firmament is decorated. This beatitude in the vision of
God certainly does not exclude the secondary and natural beatitude
arising from the knowledge and enjoyment of the creatures of God, and
this must therefore be a secondary and subordinate end in the divine
plan. Intellectual cognition and volition are not organic acts of human
nature; and, therefore, if we believe in the bodily resurrection of our
Lord and of the saints to a glorified corporeal life, we must admit the
existence in the divine plan of some subordinate end, in view of which
man was created as a composite being, and in view of which, also, the
Word assumed the composite human nature, which is complete only by the
union of the spiritual and material substances. The glorified body no
doubt receives a reflected lustre from the glorification of the soul.
But its glorified senses cannot be the organs of anything more than an
elevated and sublimated sensitive cognition and enjoyment. The term of
their action is the physical, visible creation to which human nature
partially belongs; and therefore the final end of man is partially
identified with the final cause for which the vast and everlasting
visible universe was created. The Incarnate Word touches this visible,
material realm of his creation by the bodily part of his human nature.
The what and the wherefore of this almost infinite realm of nature we
do not pretend to understand. It is certainly not a mere _jeu d’esprit_
of Omnipotence, a causeless or transitory spectacle to excite the
babyish wonder of the human race not yet out of its nursery. It belongs
to the great sphere of the divine plan, a segment of one of whose great
circles is human history on this earthly planet. As we cannot
demonstrate the problem of this sphere and its great circles, we cannot
completely solve the problem of man’s destiny on the earth. It is an
enigma, a mystery. And, above all, the question _Cur Deus Homo_? the
what and the wherefore of the Incarnation, is an enigma, a mystery for
human reason, only obscurely manifested to faith. Christ in history,
universal history as having its _mot d’enigme_ in Christ, must
consequently present to the believing and enlightened mind of the
Christian student an object of investigation and thought which he
cannot hope to understand and know adequately, much less to comprehend.
Whatever we can know must be learned by the manifestation which God
makes of his wise intentions through his word and his works, the
instruction which he deigns to give us by experience, reason, and
divine faith.
For what is man being educated on the earth, and what did his Creator
intend to bring him to when he came down in person, after a long series
of precursors had prepared the way before him, to teach and to do that
which could be entrusted to no mere creature, whether man or angel? The
manifestation of Christ in the history of mankind on the earth will
make known the answer to this question to all intelligent beings when
this history is completed. But this will be only at the day of
universal resurrection and final judgment. Until that day arrives there
can only be a gradual and incomplete disclosure and justification of
the ways of God to men, which are unsearchable and past finding out by
human wisdom. The Eternal Word, who created all things, and directed
all nations on the earth by his providence before he assumed human
nature and died on the cross for their salvation, has not ceased, since
his Incarnation, to carry on his work, or confined his care to a small
number elected out of the mass of mankind. Nature has not been
substantially or totally depraved by the fall, or become the property
of Satan. The Incarnation is not a mere device and contrivance, to
which God was forced to resort because he could not otherwise pardon
the elect, and substitute for the eternal punishment which was due to
them an eternal reward due to Christ, and transferred to them without
any personal merit of congruity or condignity. The plan of God for
salvation through Christ is not a mere segregation of a certain number
of individuals from the world, that they may devote themselves
exclusively to their sanctification by purely interior, spiritual
acts—waiting until death shall release their souls from a bodily
existence which is a mere degradation, and a world which is utterly
accursed and given over to the dominion of the devil. Such ideas are
exaggerations and perversions of Christian doctrine. They necessarily
provoked a reaction and revolt in the minds and hearts of men whenever
they were taught; and there has been, consequently, a perpetual effort,
among Protestants who were not willing to abandon Christianity
altogether, to find some kind of rational religion which can plausibly
assume to be the pure, original Christianity of Christ. But by
eliminating or altering and diminishing the mysteries and supernatural
elements of Christianity, they change its nature and reduce it to
something so ordinary and commonplace that its divinity is lost. The
ideal Christianity becomes a sort of peaceable, orderly, moral,
well-educated society, in which as nearly as possible all men enjoy the
comfortable and respectable mode of life belonging to the gentry of
England, and the poorest class are as well off as the ordinary
inhabitants of a pleasant, old-fashioned New England village. That
there is something attractive about this picture we will not deny. But
we cannot think that the production of a state of merely natural
well-being in society, of commonplace human happiness, even supposing
it founded upon religion, sanctified by piety, and tending toward a
more perfect happiness in the future life, was the real, ultimate end
which our Lord had in view when he founded the church. The old idea of
a millennium which used to prevail among the Puritans of New England
had something in it very beautiful; but it was only a beautiful dream,
never destined to be realized in this world. The philosophical dream of
a golden age, to be attained by progress in science, civilization,
political and social reform, is still more futile. The doleful and
terrible wail of the pessimist philosophers and poets of Germany, which
begins to find an echo over all the civilized world, would be the
outcry of a despair justified by the whole history of mankind, were it
not for the light which faith casts across the gloom, and the solution
of the dark enigma of life which is given by the cross on which Jesus
died, exclaiming, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The
drama of human history is grand and terrible and tragic. It has scenes
and episodes which have a character of quiet, delightful, and joyous
comedy, but it is a tragedy; it has been so from the first, and will be
the same to the end. The Son of God came on the earth in the very
crisis of human history, and his human life was a tragedy, ending in a
sublime triumph, but a triumph won by sorrow, conflict, and conquest.
All that was tragic in previous history culminated in him, and
subsequent history can be nothing else than the last act of the tragedy
hastening to the _dénoûment_, and preparing the way for the second
coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven, with great glory, to
achieve his final triumph. The Apocalypse of St. John, in which all
things that were to come to pass in the last age of the world passed
before his entranced spirit in a series of sublime and awful pictures,
shows that this horoscope is true. What for him was a vaticination is
for us in great part a retrospect, by which it is historically
verified, so far as the scroll of time has unrolled itself, and by
which the similar character of that part which is still in prospect is
surely foreboded.
Christianity is an historical religion. It is the outcome of all
previous history, and its inspired documents alone, in which the
genealogy of its founder is traced back to Adam, and the record of the
origin of the human race preserved, give us authentic history of the
most important facts which underlie all the great events and movements
of the world. This history connects the beginning of human destinies
with the earlier and higher sphere, where the history of the
intelligent creation begins—with those great events, the trial of the
angels, the rebellion of Lucifer, and the commencement of the warfare
whose seat was transferred to the earth by the successful ruse of the
serpent in the temptation of Eve. In the expulsion of our weeping
parents from Eden into the outside world, humanity was led by a counter
strategic movement upon the new battle-field, where Satan was to be
vanquished in fair and open war. All the demons, reinforced by all the
traitors and deserters they could gain from among men, were allowed to
pit themselves against the sons of God and the holy angels, and against
the First-begotten Son himself when he came in the infirmity of human
nature, as the captain of salvation, to become perfect through
sufferings and to lead his brethren by the same arduous road to glory.
Redemption and salvation consist essentially in liberation from the
servitude of Satan; victory in the combat against that mass of false
maxims, evil principles, and wicked men called the world, those low and
vicious propensities called the flesh, and the seducing spirits sent
forth by Satan to draw men into his rebellion against God. Human
society was organized under the law of redemption, in the family, in
the social, and in the political community, in religious communion, in
order to reconstruct fallen humanity; to repair the ruin effected by
the devil; to oppose a barrier against his further aggressions; to
consolidate a perpetual force of resistance and warfare against him;
and to be the instrument of the Son of God, the creator and redeemer of
mankind, in effecting the final subjugation of the rebellion
inaugurated and carried on by Lucifer. The division of nations, the
colonization of the earth, the foundation of states, of industry and
commerce, of art and science, of culture and civilization, is a divine
work. Everything good in humanity is from the Word, the predestined Son
of Man. The Book of Wisdom says that it was the delight of the eternal
wisdom to be with the sons of men, and the early Fathers dilate on what
is expressed in the German word _Menschenfreundlichkeit_, better than
in any equivalent English term, as an attribute of the Logos. That
admirable sentiment of the Latin poet, _Homo sum, et nihil humani
alienum a me puto_, may be most appropriately ascribed to the divine
Person who joined the human nature to his uncreated essence in an
indissoluble marriage. The devil is the author of nothing on the earth
which has real being and life, but only of error and sin with their
logical consequences—that is, of intellectual and moral perversion, of
ruin, decay, and death. His kingdom is a graveyard and a realm of
darkness beneath it. The kingdom of the living is the kingdom of
Christ, and of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Life-giver, who proceeds
from the Father through the Son. The power of Satan on the earth is
gained by the invasion and treasonable surrender of the cities and
fortresses founded by the rightful King of men, and consists in the
influence which he usurps in the affairs of men, in the schism and
heresy by which he breaks the unity of human brotherhood in Christ. The
apostasy, the false religions, the corrupted ethics, the degenerate
institutions of the old heathen world were schisms and heresies against
the primitive revelation and the patriarchal unity of mankind in one
true doctrine, worship, and discipline. The foundation of Judaism was a
measure which the Lord adopted to oppose a bulwark against universal
apostasy, to preserve the treasure of revelation and grace, and to
prepare the way for a more perfect organization of the universal
religion. Without abandoning the other nations, he concentrated his
special providence upon Israel. And even here the history of his own
special kingdom and peculiar people is altogether different from what
our human reason and sentiments would expect and wish for, and
especially so in reference to the epoch when the Messias appeared. We
cannot understand it, unless we recognize the universal law pervading
the divine plan, by which almost unlimited play is given to free-will;
the conflict of the powers of good and evil permitted to run its
course; victory and salvation are achieved by labor, combat, and
suffering; the world and humanity are set apart as a battle-field,
between the Son of God, with his brethren by adoption among angels and
men, on one side, Lucifer, with his army of apostate angels and men, on
the other—a battle-field on which the everlasting destinies of the
universe are decided for eternity.
After this long and circuitous digression we may direct our attention
now on the specific nature of Christianity as an historical religion,
and consider what organization Jesus Christ gave redeemed humanity in
the universal church, how he embodied the absolute, universal religion,
what means he adopted for achieving the work of the moral regeneration
and eternal salvation of mankind.
The work undertaken by the Incarnate Word in person is evidently the
continuation of that which he began through his ministering angels, his
prophets, and his other human agents, and by far the most difficult and
important part of the entire plan of God. Passing over his principal
theandric work of redemption, we must affirm the same with equal
emphasis and certainty of that which is supplementary to it, and by
which it is extended to its term. In assuming human nature the Son of
God assumed all its temporal and eternal relations; he grasped and drew
into himself universal humanity and the whole creation. His first and
direct object was the glorification and beatification of human souls in
God, but his action toward this end drew into its current and impelled
by its energy all things connected with and subordinate to this highest
and purely spiritual sphere of his creative wisdom. The action of
Christ in history after his resurrection is necessarily more complex,
more far-reaching and universal, more manifest and immediate, more
obviously dominant and victorious, more evidently bearing on the final
and eternal consummation of the divine plan in the universe through the
destinies of man and the earth, than it could have been before that
glorious and decisive event. Christianity, as an historical religion,
must have more comprehension in its actual development than in its
inchoate state before Christ. While it remains true that it is
characteristic of the pure and perfect religion taught by the mouth of
its divine Author to lead men to an interior, spiritual life, to the
contemplation and love of God, to a paramount desire and effort for the
salvation of the soul, and to bring this way of union with God in
loving, spiritual brotherhood among men down to the level of the lowly
and the poor in all natural goods, this idea does not require an
exclusion of other and different aspects of the same religion. The
specific good proposed and placed within reach is salvation, and not
science, art, civilization, political order, social well-being,
national development, the natural progress of mankind, the production
of a brilliant series of great men, extraordinary works and events in
the temporal order. The empires and cities, the grand monuments, the
intellectual masterpieces, the entire array of results produced by
human activity, and all the splendor and felicity of the men who in
outward seeming are the most favored and fortunate, are transient; they
return to the nothingness from which they came. Nevertheless, they may
be made tributary to something higher and more durable, and what is
substantial and indestructible in and under these evanescent forms may
survive and reappear, like the mortal part of human nature, by a future
resurrection. There is no reason, therefore, why Christ, the Incarnate
Word, in effecting the regeneration of the human race by means and
instruments which are natural and human, yet not purely natural and
human, or standing alone in their nude and finite essence, should not
take hold of all human things and relations and subject them to his own
special service. There is no reason why he should not have secondary
and subordinate ends indirectly connected with his one principal and
ultimate object. There is no reason why Christianity, though not
identified with and merged in human affairs, should not be in intimate
relations with them all. In fact, there is every kind of reason to the
contrary, and as an historical religion it cannot be regarded in any
other light. It must be in continuity with its own past on the same
lines. The same constructive principles must pervade religion in all
ages. The same law of curvature must be verified in every segment of
the circle, and all the diameters must be equal. Unity is essential to
universality. The superior courses of stone in the building must
correspond to the inferior, and rest upon them and upon the foundation.
Christianity as an historical religion must be of equal dimensions and
similar structure to the substratum furnished by the pre-Christian
universal history, where, so to speak, its sub-cellar, crypts, and
basement are covered, and in great measure buried in inexplorable
obscurity, beneath the walls of its colossal architecture.
When we consider Christianity as a religion in the precise and
restricted sense, and the church as a strictly religious society, we
cannot identify the Christian Church and religion so completely with
Christianity in the wider sense as to confound the central nucleus with
its environment and atmosphere. We must distinguish, accurately and
carefully, those things which are really distinct, though not disunited
and separate from one another. Religion is well defined by Mr.
Baring-Gould as consisting essentially in dogma, worship, and
discipline. The church is its organic embodiment. The absolute and
universal religion must of course throw off what was proper only to a
state of inchoate and imperfect development, and the church must be
freed from what was proper only to a partial and national organic
constitution. This is a doctrinal certitude with an actual verification
in history. It is needless to prove that our Lord never thought of
making Christianity a mere extension of Judaism, and of founding a
universal kingdom which should be an enlargement, co-extensive with the
world, of David’s monarchy, with the institutes of Moses and the
religious ceremonial of Solomon’s temple as the model of its civil and
ecclesiastical polity and its ritual of worship. It is equally
unnecessary to prove that the divine Master thought as little of going
back to the more ancient and simple dispensation of patriarchal
religion. This would have been a regression instead of a progression; a
dwindling and dwarfing of humanity into a second infancy instead of its
expansion into adult proportions, similar to the absurd imagination of
Nicodemus in respect to the process of regeneration. The absolute,
universal religion, by virtue of the law of continuity in growth, must
necessarily retain all that which pertained to the essence and
properties of religion as such—that is, of religion generically and
specifically considered in respect to human nature in a state of
probation; a lapsed condition; and in the way of restoration, through
the redemption with its law of grace, as revealed by God from the
beginning. All pertaining to its integrity and to its accidents, in so
far as any such appurtenance is suited to human nature in all ages and
nations—giving greater perfection, adaptation to its end, and power in
its operation to religion—must also be considered as permanent for a
sufficient reason, viz., that its cause and motive are general and
persistent, though it may undergo modification and be subject to
variation. Natural religion is preserved in revealed religion, the
patriarchal in the Mosaic, and all these in the Christian religion.
Precisely how much has been preserved, how much modified or altered,
and in what way, how much dropped as obsolete in Christianity
considered as an historical religion, must be determined historically.
We know, however, before we examine the historical documents of
Christianity, that, unless God manifests in his actual providence a
determination to derogate from constant and general laws by introducing
an entirely miraculous dispensation, we shall surely find in historical
Christianity certain features absolutely requisite in a human religion.
There are such features or characteristics which in their generic ratio
are known with certainty, prescinding from any information given by the
actual, objective manifestation which Christianity presents in its
history. It must be adapted to human nature—that is, it must be a
religion suitable to a being who is not a pure spirit, or one united to
a body by accidental, extrinsic, and temporary relations, but who is
composed of soul and body in his specific and permanent essence. It
must be adapted to the conditions in which human nature exists in its
earthly stage of progress toward perfection—that is, suitable to men
who are in multifarious relations with one another in the family, in
society, in the state; relations both amicable and hostile, relations
of similarity and of opposition, relations of great complexity and
variability. It must be adapted to the character of the divine Person
from whom it proceeds; as the Son of God and the Son of Man, united
with the Father in one essence by the Holy Spirit; hypostatically
united within his proper personality subsisting in two distinct
natures, by the same Spirit; sanctified in soul and body by this
life-giving Spirit; and by the same Spirit sanctifying, and uniting in
himself to the Godhead, redeemed humanity. It must be adapted to the
temporal and eternal end for which it is intended—that is, suitable for
the instruction, sanctification, unification, temporal and eternal
salvation of all mankind, in all nations and ages; for the work of
regeneration, individual, social, political, intellectual, moral, and
physical, as an absolute, universal, world-conquering power.
In order to meet these requisitions, its spirit and body must be
essentially and indissolubly united; it must be organized in a perfect
and unequal society of universal extension, sovereign independence,
complex and irresistible forces. It must have both divine and human
attributes, and be vivified by the divine Spirit. It must be
inseparably united with its head and throughout its members,
indefectible, immutable, and endowed with the plenitude of graces,
gifts, and powers merited by Jesus Christ for mankind and sufficient
for the production of the highest degrees of human virtue in the
greatest possible variety. It must be supreme, and have all things
subordinated to its own end, controlled by its influence, subservient
to its purposes as instrumentalities of its dynamical action.
As the absolute world-religion, its dogma, worship, and discipline must
vastly transcend the initial revelation, elementary ritual, and
propædeutic order of Judaism. There is a kind of foreshadowing of all
these features of the kingdom of Christ in universal history, and there
are abundant types and prophecies of it in the history and inspired
documents of the patriarchal and Judaic dispensations. We need only to
confront the idea of Christianity, derived _à priori_ from the
consideration of the plan of God manifested in his works and word
before the time of Christ, with the actual, historical Christianity, in
order to give this idea distinctness, and to add the last complement of
certitude to our judgment that it truly represents the reality.
Wherever we find existing as a concrete, historical fact that which
realizes in the fullest and the highest sense the predictions of the
prophets; that which fulfils in the most perfect manner the
anticipations of history; that which is the most worthy of the
stupendous miracles culminating in the resurrection; that which
corresponds in magnitude and grandeur to all the great works of God;
that which gives the most sublime significance to the destiny of man;
that which magnifies in the most wonderful way the power and love of
God and the object of the Incarnation—there we behold, with all the
evidence which moral demonstration can furnish, the genuine, absolute
religion, manifest before our eyes as historical Christianity. Facts
interpret prophecy, confirm and consolidate the conclusions of reason,
determine the sense of much that is ambiguous in the disclosures of
revelation. The test of history is therefore safe and conclusive in
respect to the genuine essence and nature of Christianity.
The application of this test shows that Catholic Christianity, which
alone can claim unbroken, unaltered historical continuity and
universality from the apostolic age, is the genuine and absolute
religion of Christ. Any other species is unknown to history as an
historical religion. The Catholic faith, worship, and discipline
manifest themselves in the church of apostolic succession at the
earliest period in which this church is clearly and distinctly visible
through the medium of historical testimony. There is no resource for
those who call in question the identity of Nicene Christianity with the
apostolic religion, except in the obscurity of the century immediately
following the death of St. John, and in the indistinct, incomplete,
and, as considered separately from the traditional supplement and
commentary, partly ambiguous records, allusions, and testimonies, in
respect to some parts of Christian doctrine, worship, and discipline,
of the New Testament. The nobler class of modern Protestant writers
admit in a general sense the historical continuity of the essence of
Christianity in the Catholic Church, placing their own restrictions on
the definition of that which is essential as distinguished from the
non-essential, as well as from abnormal modifications. Those who are
not of the semi-Catholic school are obliged to seek for some tenable
ground on which to maintain their claim of fellowship in essentials
with the universal church, in a theory of transition from apostolical
to ecclesiastical Christianity during the period lying between the
close of the first and the end of the second centuries. The hinge of
the question is the institution of the episcopate, as a distinct and
superior grade of the Christian presbyterate, with hierarchical
authority. We do not propose to discuss the proofs from Scripture and
the most ancient historical records of the apostolic institution of the
episcopate, and of what is called the apostolic succession of bishops,
as a principal and immutable part of organic Christianity. This
controversy has been exhausted by the able writers of the high-church
school. Professor Fisher presents but little in addition to what has
been urged by the advocates of parity, and fully answered in several
works easily accessible to English readers, though his manner of
presenting his case is such as to make the most of it, and shows both
critical ability and a candid spirit. A rejoinder ought to be minute
and critical like the argument itself. As we have not at present time
and space for this, we prefer to pass it over altogether. Our line of
argument leads us to consider some deeper and more universal and at the
same time more obvious and easily apprehended principles of bringing
the Catholic and Protestant theories of Christianity to an historical
issue.
The essential nature of Christianity as represented by one of these
theories is specifically different from what it is as represented by
the other. According to the latter theory, the essence of the Christian
religion is something exclusively spiritual and individual. The
exterior organization is not in vital and substantial unity with it,
but is an habiliment, an extrinsic instrument, a vehicle, or a separate
medium. One who considers that faith, the way of salvation, spiritual
union with God in Christ, are in a separate and independent sphere,
very naturally and logically considers that questions of ecclesiastical
organization and government are of inferior moment; that symbols of
doctrine, forms of worship, and modes of discipline are not matters of
perpetual and universal obligation as founded on divine right and law.
Such a question as that of episcopacy must, therefore, appear to him as
among the non-essentials; and even supposing that he admits the
certainty or probability that it is the apostolic form, he will see no
reason why it should be necessary to the being of the church, or even
to its well-being, or why Christians should be divided in fellowship on
account of matters merely belonging to exterior order and indifferent
forms.
According to the former theory, the spiritual and corporeal parts,
religion and the church, are after the model of human nature and the
Incarnation, in vital, essential, and perpetual unity. The church is
the way of salvation, the body of Christ vivified by his Spirit, the
medium of union with God. Christianity is a sacramental religion. The
episcopal order has been established and consecrated by Jesus Christ to
possess and transmit the plenitude of sacerdotal grace and power
received from him as a gift; to preserve and transmit the faith,
sacramental grace, the pure oblation of Christian worship, the
discipline of the New Law in Catholic unity.
A Christianity of the first species, loosely organized in an imperfect
society, could never have been transmuted into the second species. The
specific Catholic Christianity, hierarchical, dogmatic, sacramental,
liturgical, is the historical Christianity of the period of the first
six œcumenical councils, and appears at the Council of Nice, in the
person of the great Athanasius, in all parts of the earth, in all the
saints and doctors, in all writings and all monuments, pointing
backward to the past, the era of martyrdom, the period of foundation
and of apostolic labor, as the origin and source of its doctrine,
discipline, and worship. A transmutation of species in Christianity
like that which the Protestant theory supposes is rationally
impossible. There is the additional impossibility to be taken into
account of such a great and universal change having occurred without
leaving its records and traces in history. Christianity is an
historical religion, and the historical Christianity is identical with
Catholicity. It is the absolute and universal religion which has
manifested itself as a work which only divine power could have
produced, in the history of the past; in present history it is showing
before our eyes its supernatural and divine character; and the
fulfilment of its end in the final consummation and triumph of the
kingdom of Christ will finish the last chapter of the Revelation of
Christ in History.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“THERE WAS NO ROOM FOR THEM IN THE INN.”
Foot-sore and weary, Mary tried
Some rest to seek, but was denied.
“There is no room,” the blind ones cried.
Meekly the Virgin turned away,
No voice entreating her to stay;
There was no room for God that day.
No room for her round whose tired feet
Angels are bowed in transport sweet,
The Mother of their God to greet.
No room for Him in whose small hand
The troubled sea and mighty land
Lie cradled like a grain of sand.
No room, O Babe divine! for thee
That Christmas night; and even we
Dare shut our hearts and turn the key.
In vain thy pleading baby cry
Strikes our deaf souls; we pass thee by,
Unsheltered ‘neath the wintry sky.
No room for God! O Christ! that we
Should bar our doors, nor ever see
Our Saviour waiting patiently.
Fling wide the doors! Dear Christ, turn back!
The ashes on my hearth lie black—
Of light and warmth a total lack.
How can I bid thee enter here
Amid the desolation drear
Of lukewarm love and craven fear?
What bleaker shelter can there be
Than my cold heart’s tepidity—
Chill, wind-tossed, as the winter sea?
Dear Lord, I shrink from thy pure eye,
No home to offer thee have I;
Yet in thy mercy pass not by.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE HOME-RULE CANDIDATE.
_A STORY OF “NEW IRELAND.”_
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE LITTLE CHAPEL AT MONAMULLIN,” “THE ROMANCE OF A
PORTMANTEAU,” ETC., ETC.
CHAPTER I.
A NEW IRELANDER.
“I’m afraid your shooting party is spoiled,” said my mother, handing me
a letter across the breakfast-table in the well-known hieroglyphics of
my Uncle Jimmy.
“I should hope not,” I retorted, as the expedition in question had been
looked forward to with considerable pleasure, on account of Harry
Welstone, my old chum at the Catholic University, having announced his
intention of “turning the head of his dromedary to the desert of
Kilkenley,” the name of my ancestral seat, in the snug morning-room of
which my mother and myself were discussing cream, tea, new-laid eggs,
and crisp rashers.
My Uncle Jimmy’s note, addressed to my mother, his only sister, ran
thus:
“UNITED SERVICE CLUB,
“LONDON, Sept. 10.
“MY DEAR SUSEY: My old and valued friend, Mr. Fribscombe
Hawthorne, the member for Doodleshire, is most anxious to treat
Ireland fairly on the Home-Rule question. He is well disposed
towards the Green Isle, and the country cannot afford to lose
an ally in this crisis. Freddy [myself], although no
politician, manages his tenants exceedingly well, and I should
like Hawthorne to learn that at least one Irish landlord can
live upon his estate without fear of bullet or bludgeon.
Hawthorne leaves to-night, and will stop at the Shelborne
Hotel, Dublin. Tell Freddy to drop him a line, asking him to
put up at Kilkenley, and to give him some of that Sneyd and
Barton claret which I love, not wisely but too well. My enemy
is at work on my big toe, but I hope to be with you as usual at
Christmas. The grouse were capital, fat and large, and I am on
the look-out for partridge. Your affectionate brother,
“JIMMY L’ESTRANGE.”
“P.S. I forgot to mention that Hawthorne’s daughter accompanies
him; you had better enclose a note to her.
“J. L’E.”
“_Con_found it!” I cried, “it’s really too bad of Uncle Jimmy to saddle
us with some dried-up statistician and his mummy daughter. You must
write to him, _madre mia_, saying that I am at Derravanagh and beyond
reach of post and wire.”
“If your uncle wasn’t very anxious about this he would never write so
urgently; and don’t you think a little sacrifice is due to him?”
My mother was in the right. A moment’s reflection told me that my
uncle’s letter was as forcible as an act of Parliament.
“Besides,” added my mother, with a cheery smile like a ray of sunshine,
“this Mr. Hawthorne may be a sportsman and enjoy the shooting as keenly
as Harry Welstone or yourself.”
My uncle was, or I should say is—for while I write he is enjoying a
pipe in the company of Barney Corcoran, who stands to him in the same
capacity as did Corporal Trim to “My Uncle Toby”—as thorough a
gentleman as ever saw the light of day. Simple, unassuming, loyal,
generous, brave, he actually refused the recommendation for the
Victoria Cross, in order that a fair-haired boy, whose very soul was
set upon its possession, might receive the decoration. Pure-minded and
good, he is at once, as Bayard, _sans peur et sans reproche_.
Jimmy entered the army in the year 1847, roving about with his regiment
from clime to clime with a superb indifference as to change of scene,
but with a fervid determination to remain with the gallant
Thirty-third; and it was only when the Crimean war-cloud loomed
overhead that he resolved upon quitting the old corps for one under
orders for the East. One-half of the fighting Thirty-third volunteered
with him, and the great redoubt at the Alma is steeped in the blood of
many a gallant fellow who chose to follow the fortunes of Jimmy
L’Estrange.
Jimmy was badly hit at Inkerman, and was sent home invalided, to be
nursed by my mother. In a few months, however, he returned to the seat
of war, only to be knocked over at the taking of the Redan, which he
entered side by side with the dashing Tom Esmonde, where, in addition
to a bayonet thrust in the chest, he was made the depositary of a
bullet in the right leg. This bullet, clumsily extracted by an
unskilful surgeon, constitutes the only decoration my uncle deigns to
wear, and he carries it suspended from the steel chain attached to a
huge gold watch formerly in possession of his great-grandfather, to
whom King James presented it ere he rode from the disastrous
battle-field of the Boyne.
Jimmy has eight thousand pounds lent out at four per cent., and lives
like a nabob at his London club—reading the _Army and Navy Gazette_ all
the morning, gossiping with his former companions-in-arms during the
afternoon, sunning himself in the park until dinner-time, and playing
shilling whist up to his wonted hour for turning in for the night. He
spends three months in every year at Kilkenley, during which, by a
judicious course of open air, early hours, plain food, and ‘34 claret,
he is enabled to undertake the London campaign with renewed vigor and
vitality.
Visions of a crabbed, hard-headed, hard-fact, singularly uninteresting
Englishman crossed my mind as I helplessly gazed at my uncle’s
epistle—of mornings spent in debating the question of Home Rule
_versus_ Imperial legislation; of days engaged in quoting acts of
Parliament and compiling statistics; of evenings behind the horror of a
white choker, passed in dissecting and arranging these statistics,
converting figures into facts, and facts into figures—this dreary
drudgery instead of the delectable society of the bright, happy, and
joyous Harry Welstone, of mornings on the hillside, of days in the
turnip-fields looking for the identical partridge of which my uncle had
made honorable mention in his letter, of evenings whirled through in
chatting over old times and old associations. What cared I for Mr. Butt
or Home Rule, the land question, fixity of tenure, tenant right, and
such bother? If my tenants required time to pay the rent, they got it.
If they required help toward fencing, draining, top-dressing, or
thatching, they got it. If they were twelve months in arrear, they came
to my mother to plead for them; if over that period, they invariably
waited for the annual visit of my Uncle Jimmy, in order to utilize him
as ambassador; and my private opinion is, that upon one occasion, in
order to keep up the credit of a family distantly related to his valet,
Barney Corcoran, he paid the rent himself. I dare not hint at such a
thing, but I feel thoroughly assured that the money came out of his own
pocket. In the end, however, things generally came right, and delay in
this case did not prove dangerous.
I read my uncle’s epistle twice, confounded him once, and contented
myself by showering mild maledictions upon the heads of his English
friends with a fervor that bore witness to my feelings of chagrin and
disappointment.
The letters were duly written to Mr. and Miss Hawthorne and forwarded
to the Shelborne.
“An’ yez are not goin’ to Derravanagh?” asked Ned Clancy, my
game-keeper, in tones betraying the deepest dejection—“afther all me
thrubble wud the birds, an’ the dogs blue-mowlded for a set. Begorra, I
dunno what I’ll do wud the poor bastes. I tould thim we wor aff in the
mornin’, an’ now be me song it’s at home they’ll have for to stay an’
set gruel.”
“I’m sorry to say I can’t go, Ned, as I expect an English gentleman and
his daughter to visit us”; and, wishing to impress him with their
importance, added: “He is a member of Parliament, and is coming over to
study the Home-Rule question.”
My _addendum_ failed to produce the desired effect.
“An’ much he’ll larn here,” observed Clancy with a toss of his head.
“Av he axes the quollity for information, sorra an information they
have for to give him; an’ if he axes the poorer soart, they’ll only cod
him, bad cess to him!”
Ned Clancy was even more fatally “sold” than I by the postponement of
our visit to Derravanagh; for a certain blue-eyed colleen, the daughter
of a “warm” farmer living close to the shooting-lodge, had succeeded in
stirring tender emotions in the region lying beneath Mr. Clancy’s
waistcoat on the left side, which, while productive of joy, were
equally productive of pain, since the sunshine of her presence was
unhappily counterbalanced by the very prolonged shadow of her absence.
Forty miles lay between him and the object of his admiration; and
although there are but seventy thousand four hundred yards in forty
miles, still it is a long road for a gentleman to travel, unless he is
pretty certain of his welcome, and as yet Ned Clancy had “never told
his love.”
“Mebbe yer honor wud like for to show this English gintleman the
counthry; an’ shure, in regard to scenery, there’s no batin’
Derrynacushla all the ways be Derravanagh. Sorra a finer sight nor the
view from Ballyknocksheelin hill; it flogs Rooshia, Ashia, an’
Africa—so Misther Corcoran, yer uncle’s boy, tould me; an’ shure he
ought for to know, be raisin’ av his havin’ travelled all the world,
likewise Arabia.”
“I’m afraid it’s a little too far, Ned.”
“Far!” he contemptuously ejaculated—“a few dirty mile, an’ the horses
atin’ their heds aff. Lily av the Valley darted through her stall this
mornin’, an’ it tuk me an’ a cupple more for to hould Primrose.”
This was special pleading with a vengeance.
“Mebbe the gintleman wud take a gun. Give him a lind av Miss Blake,
sir. She goes aff soft an’ aisy, an’ wudn’t rub the dew aff th’ eyebrow
av a grasshopper. Blur an’ ages, Masther Fred! for th’ honor av ould
Ireland give him a shot. The birds is as thick as hayves, an’ he cudn’t
miss thim no more nor a haystack; an’ shure,” he added, “anything _he_
misses I’ll be on the luk out for, so betune us we’ll make it soft
anyhow.”
“It’s not to be done, Ned; besides, Miss Hawthorne accompanies her
father, and she possibly would not like to separate from him.”
“Bad cess to thim for wimmen!” he muttered, as he tossed the gun across
his shoulders; “they spile everything. I wish they wor niver invinted.”
In the course of post two very polite letters reached us, one addressed
to my mother from Miss Hawthorne, the other to myself from the M.P.,
accepting the invitation and stating that the writer would leave Dublin
by the one o’clock train upon the following day, reaching Ballyvoreen
station at 5.30.
The letters were excellently well written, both as regards style and
caligraphy, especially that of the lady, whom I now felt assured must
be a distinguished member of the Social Science or of the British
Association.
“They will be here to-morrow, mother. How on earth are we to amuse
them? We are in for it now, and must do our best to make their visit
agreeable. I know little, and care less, about Home Rule, so I’ll hand
Mr. Hawthorne over to Myles Casey, of Loftus Park, who opposed our
present member. Father O’Dowd, too, will give this base, bloody, and
brutal Saxon enough to think about for a dozen sessions of Parliament.
I’ll do _my_ part like a man.”
“We must give a dinner-party,” said my mother with a weary sigh,
visions of unpacking the family plate, which had not seen the light of
day since my poor father’s death, floating across her mind’s eye. “I
can drive Miss Hawthorne about the country and pay visits.”
“Don’t trouble yourself about her, mother. She’ll be able to amuse
herself. Show her the old quarry at Rathnamon, and she can geologize
until she’s black in the face. Or bring her to Carrignageena, and
she’ll find ferns to bother her; and if she’s a dab at antiquities, the
old church at Bohernacapple ought to put her on the treadmill for a
week. There is one tombstone there that has bewildered Sir William
Wilde and the entire Royal Irish Academy.”
“She may be interested in the Home-Rule question,” suggested my mother
with a smile, adding: “And perhaps political economy is her _forte_.”
“In that case I’ll hand her over to Harry Welstone. He can talk Adam
Smith, Martin Tupper, and Stuart Mill. He can enlighten her on the land
question as well as A. M. Sullivan or Mitchel Henry; and he _shall_ do
it as sure as my name is Frederick Fitzgerald Ormonde. Besides, he can
imitate Gladstone, Bright, Toole, Mathews, and Buckstone. He’s just the
sort of fellow to encounter this antediluvian female, and, if such a
thing were within the realms of possibility, metamorphose her.”
Visitors to a country house, should the entertainers be not in the
habit of receiving company, are about the severest penances that can by
any possibility be inflicted. Everything requires to be turned
topsy-turvy for them—beds, bedrooms, furniture, carpets, “fixins’” of
every description. The cellar must be overhauled and confidential
conferences held with the cook. The “trap” used for knocking about the
roads and attending markets and fairs must be shoved aside, and the
family coach put into formidable requisition. The horses must be
clipped, while the harness is found to be defective and a new whip an
absolute necessity. The very door-mats suggest renovation.
As regards Harry Welstone, his room and his tub were always ready. I
would have felt no hesitation in quartering him on the house-top, and
the only preparation I went in for with reference to his visit was a
scrupulous overhauling of the billiard-table. Having no person to
practise with except Martin Heaviside of the Grove, or Captain O’Reilly
of the Connaught Rangers when home on leave, the cushions became more
like bags of sand than those springy, elastic walls from which the pale
white or the blushing red ball bounds gaily towards the coquettish
pocket or the artfully-arranged collision of the carrom. With the aid
of Ned Clancy—who, in addition to being game-keeper, was a sort of
Jack-of-all-trades—and the usual _formulæ_, I succeeded in imparting
the necessary tone to the table, and was satisfied that Harry would
scarcely fail to appreciate the utility of the preparations.
I felt no anxiety whatever to “show off” to the English member of
Parliament, while I honestly confess to a burning desire to appear the
“correct thing” in the eyes of my old college chum; and while I ordered
a homely vehicle called the shandradan—half pilentum, half brougham,
very old, very rickety, and very seedy—to meet Mr. and Miss Hawthorne
upon the following day, I turned out my own dog-cart, built by Bates,
of Gorey—stained ash, brass-boxed wheels, brass-mounted harness,
‘possum rug, with Lily of the Valley and Primrose tandem—in order to
bowl Harry Welstone from Ballyvoreen station to the lodge gate, nine
miles, in the forty minutes.
In accordance with preconcerted arrangement, I met Harry, hugged him,
whacked him on the back, refreshed him from my flask, rolled him in the
‘possum rug as though the mercury were in the tens below zero, and
almost yelled with pleasure the entire way back.
Is any meeting equal to the meeting of old school-fellows?
_Ay de mi!_ no.
He had grown much stouter and much handsomer. His eyes were more
romantically dark, and his black moustache, which I recollected so well
in its struggling tooth-brush infancy, was now pointed after the
fashion of the third Napoleon.
After he had received a cordial welcome from my mother I dragged him up
to his room, and there we sat talking over Jim Cooper, that went to the
diggings, and Bobby Thyne, now a leader at the Indian bar, and Tom
O’Brien, who was a Jesuit, and Phil Dempsey, whose last speech on
circuit had elicited the warm encomiums of Mr. Justice Fitzgerald; of
the Corbet girls, and the Walshs’ picnic at the Dargle, when Harry fell
overhead into the river in a chivalrous endeavor to pluck a maiden-hair
fern for Miss Walsh, and a host of similar delightful _souvenirs_,
until the dinner-bell rang.
“Harry, my old bird, what will you dip your beak into—claret or the
ding-dong?”
“Well, I stand by the solid liquor, Fred, but the pace is too heavy.”
Over our punch we resumed the conversation on the olden, golden time.
Ah! how weary, as we approach the end, to look back at the milestones
we have passed on our journey. Why did we tarry here, why not have
rested there, why not have halted for good and aye? With us it was
_couleur de rose_. We had no shadows to sadden memory. Our gossip was
of our college days, when life was on the spring and every nerve braced
for the forthcoming struggle. We talked late into the night,
disregarding dove-like messages from the ark announcing coffee.
The next day Harry went on a ferreting expedition with Ned Clancy, and
my mother was too deeply immersed in household affairs to be enabled to
take my place and go to meet our expected guests; so, with feelings of
no very amiable description, I threw myself, all untidy and ill-dressed
as I was, into the shandradan, and jingled the nine miles to
Ballyvoreen behind as sorry a pair of nags as ever ploughed a nine-acre
field.
I had to wait at the station, as _of course_ the train was
five-and-twenty minutes late, and I was seriously hoping that some
untoward accident had occurred which would retard its progress for
four-and-twenty hours at the very least, when it came creaking and
groaning in. Just as I had anticipated, a tall, grim, gaunt, elderly
gentleman alighted, followed by a tall, grim, gaunt, elderly young
lady, with a nose as sharp as a shilling razor, wearing her hair in
wiry curls, and dragging by a long blue ribbon a plunging, howling,
ill-visaged pug. The sight of the dog was somewhat of a relief to me,
as I foresaw the miserable existence he was likely to lead with my two
Skye terriers—a counterpart of the torture I should be compelled to
endure with his master and mistress.
“Mr. Hawthorne, I presume,” bowing and lifting my hat.
He bowed stiffly.
I repeated the question, fearing, perhaps, that he had not heard me.
“You are mistaken, sir,” in freezing tones. “I am Lord Mulligatawney.”
“I _was_ mistaken.”
Apologizing for the error, I looked up the line and perceived in the
distance—for the train was a long one—a well-dressed, dapper little man
engaged in lugging a valise from beneath the seat of a first-class
carriage. “This must be my guest,” thought I, advancing, and as I
reached the carriage the portmanteau came to earth with a chuck that
nearly precipitated its proprietor into an adjacent hedge. Following
the “leathern conveniency,” and with a spring graceful as that of a
gazelle, a young girl alighted from the compartment. She was small but
exquisitely proportioned. Her hair, pure gold, was wound round the back
of her head in ponderous plaits. Her eyes were of that blue which in
certain lights cries “check” unto the violet. Her nose was straight and
delicately shaped, but not in the least classical. Her mouth was large,
full, and generous, and adorned with flashing white teeth, somewhat
irregular, it is true, but in their irregularity lay a special charm
all their own. She was attired in a shepherd’s plaid silk travelling
dress, a Die Vernon hat with a sweeping blue feather almost caressing
her left shoulder, and her dainty little hands were encased in black
kid gauntleted gloves. Struck by her singular grace and beauty, I
remained staring at her—staring like a schoolboy at a waxen effigy.
“You are Mr. Ormonde,” she said laughingly, and advancing towards me.
“You are Miss Hawthorne,” I stammered.
“I am, and papa, as usual, is fussing about our luggage—_impedimenta_
you scholars call it nowadays. I knew you from your photograph. It is
_so_ kind of you to come and meet us.” She put out her hand as she said
this in a winning, confiding way that was fraught with captivation. I
bowed over the tips of her fingers in respectful reverence, scarcely
daring to touch her hand.
“May I ask _where_ you saw my photograph?” I asked, inwardly hoping she
had come across the one taken for the Rathaldron hunt, in which I
figured in full field toggery, my right hand caressing the shoulder of
Galloping Bess, my favorite hunter.
“In your uncle’s album,” she replied.
Of course it was that photograph, done while at the university, with
the lackadaisical expression around the eyes and a general limpness
about the form, while my garments bore the appearance of having been
constructed for the celebrated Irish giant. If I had had the artist in
my hands at that particular moment, it is possible that I might have
taken _his_ photograph with something akin to a vengeance.
“Papa, this is mine host.” And she curtsied towards me after the
fashion of the ladies at the Court of St. James, when hoops were worn
at the hips and patches and powder held their parti-colored sway. I
grasped the little man by the hand, telling him fervently that his
acquaintance was the greatest favor ever bestowed upon me by my uncle,
that my house was his home, together with several similar expressions
of intense good-will and of the liveliest satisfaction. How I inwardly
anathematized my seedy coat, my unkempt beard, and above all the
jingling shandradan with its villanous pair of _garrons_ standing at
the exit gate! I believe I offered Miss Hawthorne my arm to lead her to
the vehicle in question, calling loudly to Peter O’Brien, who acted in
the duplicate capacity of coachman and butler. Finding that my servant
failed to respond to the summons, I flung open the door of the
carriage, and was about to hand her into it, when, to my utter shame,
misery, and mortification, I beheld my missing retainer rolled up like
a ball in the space between the seats, fast asleep, and snoring like a
fog-horn. In a blaze of indignation I caught him by the coat-collar,
with the intention of giving him a shake that would rattle him into an
eel-like liveliness; but while in the act of inserting my fingers
deftly around the collar, so as to afford me the grip necessary to the
effectual carrying out of my intention, he suddenly awoke from his
slumbers, and, upon perceiving the condition of affairs, with the howl
of a startled wolf, plunged upwards with such overwhelming force as to
cause me to lose my hold, to lurch against the step of the carriage,
carrom off the open door, and lastly, O agony! O shame! to measure my
full length in the dusty roadway, whilst a shout of laughter from
porters, passengers, and by-standers, in which I could detect the
silvery notes of Miss Hawthorne, greeted my tingling ears. I sprang to
my feet, full of the intention of throttling the misguided rascal, but
was restrained, _bon gré mal gré_, on discovering him upon his knees in
the centre of a sympathizing audience, whom he was addressing with
astonishing volubility ere I could possibly interpose.
“O mother o’ Moses! I was overkem wud sleep; an’ shure I’m not for to
blame afther all, for never a sight o’ me bed I seen last night till
daylight this blessed mornin’. But shure I’d sit up for a month like a
Banshee for his honor, av it divarted him. Let me aff this wanst,
Masther Fred, an’ I’ll carry ye up to bed every night in—”
Deeming it advisable to stop this dangerous harangue as speedily as
possible, as I found myself quietly dropping from out of the frying-pan
into the fire, and as, in his anxiety to make out a good case for
himself, the rascal was using me as a scapegoat, I sternly bade him
look to his horses.
Finding himself once more approaching the sunshine of favor, he hastily
scrambled to his feet, and, before I could intercept his movement, had
commenced to rub me down as if I were one of the quadrupeds under his
especial care, accompanying each vigorous rub with that purring sound
wherein the groom proper delights to indulge.
“Bad cess to it for dirt! it ‘ill never come out,” he began, as, with a
slap that brought tears to my eyes, he endeavored to remove the dust
from the back of my coat.
“Silence, sir! Go to your box!” I shouted, as I handed Miss Hawthorne
into the shandradan, placing her father beside her, and my miserable,
humiliated self opposite directly beneath the perilous influence of her
violet eyes.
“I trust, Miss Hawthorne,” I blurted, as we started for Kilkenley,
“that you are not too deeply influenced by first impressions?”
“Will you permit me to be very Irish, and answer your question by
putting another? Are _you_?”
Despite my late discomfiture, my unkempt hair, my gloveless hands, and
general seediness, I had sufficient grace within me to gaze for one
brief second into her lovely eyes until red as a rose was she, and
reply with a well-toned emphasis: “Most decidedly.”
I then, in a disjointed and desultory way, endeavored to explain why so
shaky a vehicle had been sent to the station; why Peter O’Brien’s hat
was so brown and bore such traces of snail-creeping from brim to crown;
why I had turned out so shabbily; why the horses were so slow—in a
word, it was the old story of _qui s’excuse s’accuse_, and my
explanations, such as they were, will ever remain a matter of the
profoundest mystery to myself, as I never by any possibility could
recall their tenor to my memory.
I believe that during the drive Mr. Hawthorne spoke a good deal of my
uncle, of London, Parliament, late hours, divisions, of the Home-Rule
question, and upon several other equally agreeable and interesting
topics, all of which seemed to afford the most exquisite delight to
Peter O’Brien, who sat perched sideways upon the box, with one eye
approvingly upon the “mimber” and the other skewise upon the road; but
as for me, I was so lost in contemplating the charms of my _vis-à-vis_
that the eloquence of the member for Doodleshire was as completely
wasted as if he were addressing Mr. Speaker himself.
Miss Hawthorne only spoke upon two occasions—once to comment upon the
beauty of the foliage at Ballyknockscroggery, the name amusing her
immensely, and which she endeavored to repeat with a childlike glee;
and once to ask about my mother—but the sounds were as music, and my
ears quaffed the delicious, dreamy draught with greedy avidity. How
those nine miles passed I never knew; they seemed but so many yards.
Peter kept “a trot for the avenue,” and brought us to a standstill with
a jerk that spoke volumes in favor of the anxiety of the screws for a
respite from their labors. I handed the young and lovely girl to my
mother, who stood upon the steps awaiting our approach, and, having
escorted Mr. Hawthorne to his room, retired to my own in a whirlwind of
new and pleasing emotion—ay, new and pleasing indeed!
I ate no dinner. What cared I for food? Mabel Hawthorne’s presence
enthralled me with an undefinable ecstasy. Every gesture, every
movement seemed fraught with a new-born grace, while her every word
filled my very being as with melody. I envied my mother that she talked
so much to her; I envied Harry Welstone for looking so confoundedly
handsome and because he sat opposite to her; I envied Peter when she
addressed even a “yes” or “no” to him; I envied her father, who called
her “Mabel” and “darling.” Heigh-ho! How I hated the approach of that
fatal moment when the conventionalities demanded the withdrawal of the
ladies—a cruel and barbarous custom, and I said so. She brushed past me
as I held the door open, her eyes lifting themselves like violets from
beneath the leafy lashes; and when she had glided away on my mother’s
arm, I felt that the light had ceased to live in the apartment. I
longed for a cigar in the stillness of the autumn night, surrounded by
the lordly gloom of nature, and yearned for the priceless _abandon_ of
my own musings. But, as in duty bound, I descended to the realities and
the ‘34 claret.
“A good wine, sir,” exclaimed Mr. Hawthorne, smacking his lips and
cunningly holding his glass between the lamp and his left eye; the
right being carefully closed. “A grand wine, sir. A comet vintage, sir.
Mr. Speaker has no wine like this; and the Speaker of the House of
Commons has the best cellar in England, sir.”
Mr. Hawthorne spoke solemnly. His sentences seemed carefully weighed,
and were delivered with an unctuousness that bespoke considerable
satisfaction with himself. He addressed me as if I were the Speaker of
the House of Commons, and as though he were desirous of catching my
eye. Some persons hold you with their eye. It’s not pleasant. He was
one of this class.
“It’s a ‘34, sir; you are quite correct. My poor father was very
particular about his cellar. I have too much of it; you must permit me
to send you a dozen at Christmas.” What would I not give _her_ father?
“On the condition that you will come and help me to drink it, sir.”
Need I say how profuse were my thanks? This was a chance—to see her in
her own home, too.
“We live in the Regent’s Park, York Terrace. Our windows command a very
pleasing prospect. It’s a nice walk for me to the House, and from my
roof I can tell by the electric light in the clock tower whether the
House is sitting or not. This is of immense importance, as to lose a
division very often means to lose a seat—ha! ha! ha!”
I must be forgiven if I joined in this melancholy merriment.
“Full well I laughed, with counterfeited glee,
At all his jokes, for many a joke had he.”
I kicked Harry Welstone beneath the table as a signal to join in, but
he maintained a grim, stolid silence. He told me subsequently that it
wasn’t to be done at any price.
“You may not possibly have heard Mr. Disraeli’s last, gentlemen,” said
Mr. Hawthorne, placing his left hand inside his waistcoat and
flourishing the right in my direction. “It’s—ha! ha!—so _very_ like
Dizzy that—ha! ha!—I cannot help repeating it.” Here he laughed
“consumedly” for fully a minute.
The reader is possibly acquainted with some one man who cozens time by
inward chuckles at his own conceits. It is a melancholy ordeal to have
to endure this individual, to reflect back his dulness, and to return
smile for smile. All bores are terrors, but the worst class of bore is
the political; he is the embodiment, the concentrated essence, the
amalgam and epitome of bores. He mounts his dreary Rosinante, and jogs
along, taking acts of Parliament for milestones and the dullest
utterances in the lives of eminent men as his halting-places, quoting
long-winded, meaningless speeches as epigrams, and paralyzing his
auditory with wooden extracts from a blue-book of exploded theories.
His pertinacity is as inexhaustible as it is undaunted; he is free from
the faintest suspicion of self-distrust; he is a bore within a bore. Of
course, as the father of Mabel, Mr. Hawthorne interested _me_, and I
listened with a reverence that begat the reputation of a shrewd,
sensible fellow—an encomium never heretofore passed upon me under any
circumstance whatsoever.
“The Right Honorable the senior member for the city of Dublin,”
commenced Mr. Hawthorne, after his merriment had cooled off a little,
“is—ha! ha!—a Mr. Jonathan Pim, Quaker, and a laborious statistician.
The House likes a statistician on the budget or in committee, but we
will not have him in debate—no, gentlemen, we will not tolerate him in
debate. A question arose in which I had fruitlessly endeavored to catch
the Speaker’s eye—the Speaker is, by the bye, no particular friend of
mine, as I once overruled his decision on a point of order;
consequently, I seldom get an opportunity of speaking, and am compelled
to write to the _Times_. Well, gentlemen, as I was observing, a
question came up in which the Right Honorable the senior member for the
city of Dublin felt himself interested, and he made a very creditable
speech, bristling with figures—quite a surprise to some of us; but it
bored us, gentlemen, and the House will not tolerate a bore.”
Harry trod upon my toe; my boots were tight—I involuntarily groaned.
“I perceive that you agree with me,” said the M.P.; “the affliction
_is_ terrible.”
“Awful!” said Harry, peeling a plum.
“Well, gentlemen, the Right Honorable gentleman, the senior member for
the city of Dublin, had—ha! ha!—just concluded his speech, when Mr.
Disraeli, who sat upon the Opposition benches, said to the honorable
member for Shrewsbury, who sat behind him, and placing his eyeglass up
so”—suiting the action to the word—
“‘Who is this person?’
“‘Mr. Pim, sir, the senior member for the city of Dublin,’ responded
the honorable member for Shrewsbury.
“‘Oh! indeed. Dublin used to send us a gentleman and a blackguard; this
creature is neither.’”
This was not quite so bad, and we joined the honorable member for
Doodleshire in his mirth, which continued long after our responsive
haw-haws had become things of the past.
Mr. Hawthorne, being thus encouraged, was good enough to enliven us
with a prolonged description of his original Parliamentary yearnings,
his first and unsuccessful contest, and his subsequent triumphant
victory—a victory which we were led to believe was unparalleled in the
annals of electioneering struggles, and one that caused a thrill of
dismay all along the entire line of the great conservative party. We
were solemnly inducted into the forms of the House, from the entrance
of a newly-fledged member to his maiden speech. We were initiated into
the mysteries of the “Opposition benches,” the “gangway,” the “table,”
the “bar,” the duties of the “whip” and the “tellers,” the _modus
operandi_ as regards notices of motion and divisions, the striking of
committees, and the rules of Parliament generally, until we were
surfeited _ad nauseam_. These pleasing preliminaries having been
satisfactorily gone through, Mr. Hawthorne very obligingly proceeded to
give us brief biographical sketches of Gladstone, Bright, Disraeli,
Northcote, Hartington, and other leading men of that august assembly,
dilating upon the peculiarities in their style and the mistakes in
their several Parliamentary careers, until I wished him—in the
drawing-room. The windows were open, and across the sensuous night-glow
came sweet, soothing strains from the piano, now in low, wailing
cadences soft and sorrow-laden as the cry of the Banshee, now in the
dashing brilliancy, the _élan_ of those chromatic fireworks which none
but the most skilled pyrotechnist dare handle save _à deux mains_.
“Miss Hawthorne is at the piano,” I ventured, in the earnest hope that
her father, in the pride of parental fondness, might suggest an
adjournment.
“Yes, yes,” coolly and imperturbably.
“She plays divinely.”
“Rubinstein, who gave her lessons at I’m ashamed to say how much per
lesson, said she was his best amateur pupil. But, as I was observing,
Mr. Gladstone pronounces some words very strangely; for instance, issue
he always pronounces ‘issew,’ and Mr. Bright invariably says ‘can’t’
for ‘cawnt.’”
After a dissertation of about half an hour’s duration upon the Marquis
of Hartington’s lisp, the unwieldy oratory of Ward Hunt, Mr. Roebuck’s
‘no,’ and Mr. Whalley’s ‘heaw, heaw,’ I again hinted at an adjournment,
and on this occasion with a view to a general move, suggested the
billiard-room.
“Ah! no, my dear sir, we overworked members of the legislature value
too much the delightful tranquillity of our claret to ‘rush things,’ as
they say in America. We must make hay while the sun shines. How many
nights during the coming session shall I not have to snap at my food
with the ting! ting! of the division-bell ringing in my ear! How often
have I just raised my soup to my lips, when ting! ting! and away into
the House or to the division-lobby, and back to find it cold.
Fish!—ting! ting!” playfully tapping a wine-glass with his
dessert-knife by way of illustration. “Entrée!—ting! ting! And as for
wine, I have been compelled, ay, six nights out of the seven, to gulp
it, gentlemen. Fancy gulping claret as a navvy tosses off a quart of
ale. _Festina lente_, young gentlemen. Make haste slowly with your
dinner and your post-prandial wine; the pace of the tortoise is the
winning, and assuredly the most pleasant, one.”
Harry Welstone, who had been sipping his claret in dogged silence,
suddenly started from his chair, and exclaiming, “By Jove! she’s
playing _Les Baisers d’Amour_; excuse me, Fred,” hurriedly quitted the
apartment, leaving me in a condition of the deepest dejection, and
writhing under the dreary torture of the Parliamentary _souvenirs_ of
the member for Doodleshire.
“I—ha! ha!—call to mind another _mot_ of Mr. Disraeli’s; not at all a
bad one, either,” continued the M.P., deliberately attacking a fresh
decanter of claret—attacking it in that steady, methodical way which
indicated a determination to reduce it by slow degrees to the last
extremity. “Dizzy says a thing, sir, in a quaint, dry way peculiarly
his own—_Multum in parvo_ I call it—and he looks so demure, seated upon
the Opposition bench in his short black velvet coat, and caressing his
daintily-booted left foot upon his right knee. One night during the
last session a very particular friend of mine, Sir Brisbane Bullflier,
the junior member for Hants, happened to ask him what he thought of Mr.
Gladstone. Dizzy turned his gaze toward the government benches, and
coolly surveying the prime minister, who was parrying an adroit
question, said, as he calmly surveyed him:
“‘Mr. Gladstone is a man without a single redeeming vice.’”
My heart was in the drawing-room, where I now imagined Harry Welstone
leaning with his elbows upon the piano and his chin upon his hands (his
favorite position when my mother played for him), gazing at Mabel—I had
commenced to think of her by this gracious and winsome name—uttering
some of his daring _facetiæ_, and being rewarded by a glance from those
bewildering violet eyes, while I, bound in the iron fetters of a vile
conventionalism, was compelled to listen to “I thus addressed the
Speaker: ‘Mr. Speaker, sir,’” or, “I called for a division, sir, and
insisted upon explaining to the House my motives for adopting this
somewhat daring and untoward course,” and “Would you believe it, sir,
the _Times_ never noticed my speech upon the church disestablishment;
it is positively amusing—ha! ha! ha!”; his face bore no traces of the
amusement in question—“and that contemptible rag, the _Daily
Telegraph_, merely mentioned that the honorable member for Doodleshire
said a few words which were inaudible—this, sir, to a speech that cost
me three weeks in the preparation and three hours in the delivery.”
This sort of thing under ordinary circumstances, would have been dry
and prosy enough, but under the special conditions of the case it
became simply unbearable.
I suggested cigars; he didn’t smoke. A Bras Mouton instead of Château
Lafitte; he preferred the existing vintage. Coffee I dared not venture
upon, and I relinquished the hopeless struggle with a weary sigh. He
was there for the evening, and in that spot he would remain until the
contents of the decanter had disappeared.
“Do you take an active part in politics, Mr. Ormonde?” he asked after a
prolonged silence, during which I had the dismal satisfaction of
hearing the strains of a _valse brillante_, accompanied by an
occasional ripple of laughter, wafted in through the windows.
“None whatever.”
“No?” uttered in a tone almost of dismay.
“No, sir. Our country is in the hands of an Orange _clique_, who will
not allow a Catholic to hold a position of any consequence whatever.
The representation is, as a matter of course, in their hands, and the
family of De Ruthven have supplied the members since the sacking of
Drogheda under Cromwell, and will continue so to do, although, perhaps,
under the recent Ballot Act some outsider may get a chance, There are
but two Catholics in the grand panel. I am one of them, and was never
even summoned to attend until I threatened to horsewhip the high
sheriff. My colleague is what we call in this country a
‘Cawtholic’—that is, one who invariably votes with the Orange party,
and who would drink the great, glorious, pious, and immortal King
William in preference to the health of Pius the Ninth.”
“You have done away with that absurd toast,” said Mr. Hawthorne.
“Not at all, sir; it is given at every dinner-party in the country, and
it was once given in this very room.”
“In this room? Why, I thought you Ormondes were always out-and-out
papists.”
“And so we have been, and so we are. I’ll tell you how it happened. My
father—God be merciful to him!—was always noted for his hospitality,
and one evening, after a hard run with the Bohernabreena hounds, he
invited the hunt, at least as many as were in at the death, home to
dinner, sending a boy across the bog with the news to my mother.”
“‘I haven’t much to offer you to eat, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘but we’ll
make it up in the liquor.’
“About twenty gentlemen rode over here, and, after having dined in a
scratch sort of way, they plunged on the claret—this identical wine.”
“It is too good for fox-hunters,” observed my guest. “Such liquid
nectar is for brain-workers like _me_.”
“After a very joyous carouse one of the party, called ‘Orange Dick,’ a
Mr. Templeton, of Ashbrooke Hall, about ten miles from this, a deputy
lieutenant and J.P., stood up and asked permission to propose a toast.
The permission was freely accorded by my father, and full bumpers were
called for. When the glasses were all filled and the company on their
feet, Mr. Templeton gave the memory of the great, glorious, pious, and
immortal King William, which was received with three times three, my
father, to the astonishment of one or two, joining in.
“‘Now, gentlemen,’ said my father, ‘I drank your toast; you’ll drink
mine. Fill your glasses.’
“They required but little inducement to do as he bade, and in an
instant were in readiness.
“‘To your feet, gentlemen.’
“This order having been complied with—for it was given as such, and not
as a request—my father shouted in a voice of thunder:
“‘Here’s to the sorrel nag that broke King William’s neck.’”
Mr. Hawthorne was about to enter into the question of the Hanoverian
succession, and had already briefly sketched the career of the Prince
of Orange, when Peter entered, and, approaching me as though he were
treading upon eggs, whispered in a voice which betrayed a vigorous
_razzia_ upon the decanter, and sufficiently loud to make itself
distinctly overheard:
“The sooner the punch is riz the betther, sir; the kittle’s gettin’
cowld an’ the mould fours is runnin’ low.”
Inwardly cursing the fellow’s garrulity, I proposed to my guest that we
should join the ladies.
“Begorra, yez may save yourselves the thrubble, gintlemin, for it’s in
their beds th’ are”; here he lowered his voice into a whisper solely
addressed to my ear: “The young leddy axed me confidintial: ‘When will
he be comin’ to the dhrawin’-room?’ sez she.
“‘Not till he’s had his five,’ sez I.
“‘What five?’ sez she.
“‘Tumblers av punch, miss!’ sez I. “An’ didn’t I do well, Masther Fred,
for to keep up the credit av’ the family?”
My hands clenched involuntarily, preparatory to making themselves
acquainted with the body of my blundering retainer, when Mr. Hawthorne,
upon whom the fatigue of the journey, and perhaps his Parliamentary
reminiscences, had produced a somniferous effect, suggested following
the good example of the ladies—a proposition which I joyfully acceded
to. I assisted him to his bed-chamber, where, after listening to a very
lengthened and no doubt excessively profound disquisition upon a
proposed amendment in the Irish Poor-Law Act, I left him to “nature’s
sweet restorer,” and, gruffly refusing to partake of a night-cap with
Harry Welstone, lighted a cigar and went out into the night.
What a revolution had taken place in my existence within a few hours!
Behind yonder lighted casement a young girl was preparing for rest, the
very thoughts of whom, but a short while back, were a source of
mortification and chagrin, and now—love and light and joy beckoned me
towards her, drawing me to her by a chain of roses.
TO BE CONTINUED.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A CHILD-BEGGAR.
Soul, from thy casement look, and thou shalt see
How he persists to knock and wait for thee!
—LOPE DE VEGA, _Longfellow’s Translation_.
There knocketh at thy door to-night
A tender little hand.
Without the portal, waiting thee,
Two feet, way-weary, stand.
So oft to-night that hand hath knocked,
So often been denied;
O wavering soul! ope thou thy house,
Bid this child-beggar bide.
Without the bitter moonlight casts
Cold glitter on the snow;
With icy fingers ‘mid the boughs
The wind wakes sounds of woe;
Unclouded is the light of stars
Filling the frosty blue;
Yet, heedless of the winter chill,
A childish voice doth sue:
“Open, dear love, and let me in,
The world without is cold;
In the warm shelter of thy heart
I pray thee me enfold.
Weary I wander forth to-night,
I knock at many a door,
I call, but seems my voice too weak
To rise the bleak wind o’er.
“A little exile here I stand,
Begging an easy grace—
Beside thy hearth this biting night
A little resting-place.”
O patient voice! O weary feet!
O soul! be thou beguiled,
Thy bolts undo, thy bars let fly,
Keep Love no more exiled.
’Tis Love that knocks and begs for love
In that soft, childish tone,
Who pleads a beggar at thy gate,
Whose right is thy heart’s throne.
Open, dear heart, and do not fear;
With him can enter in
Not any ill—nay, from his hand
Thou shalt all blessing win.
Though heaped thy house with treasure rare
Ah! do not Love deny;
He may not seek thee any more,
Scorning to-night his cry.
And do not fear that thou shalt find
A little rosy elf
With laughing eyes that look through tears
That pity but himself.
No fretful, pouting lips are his
Who waiteth at thy gate;
No querulous tone shall dim his voice
Who knocks so long and late;
His are no folded rainbow wings
Wherewith he may ensure
His safe retreat when his weak faith
No longer shall endure.
He bears no burden of barbed shafts;
A cross his quiver is,
And of a crown of thorns his brow
Beareth the cruelties;
His feet are pierced with wounds whose stain
Lies on the moonlit snow,
And in his tender baby hands
Twin blood-red roses blow.
Beneath the cross and crowning thorn
Infinite peace doth shine.
Ah! open quick. O doubting heart!
Let in this Love Divine.
Have thou no fear of heavy cross—
His shoulders bear its weight;
The thorny wreath with sharp, strong touch
Shall joy undreamed create.
These infant lips shall bless thy tears,
This tender voice give peace;
The hand that begs thy grace to-night
Shall sign thy woe’s release.
He asks so little, gives so much,
And sigheth to give more
Who, patient in the wintry world,
Stands knocking at thy door.
Hasten, my soul, let Him not wait;
Fling thy heart’s portal wide;
Bid thou this weary little Child
Fore’er with thee abide.
Kneel thou a beggar at his feet
Who begs to-night of thee;
No alteration knows this Love
Born of eternity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE ISLES OF LÉRINS.
There like a jewel in the Midland Sea
Far off discerned, the isle of Lérins hangs
Upon the coast of Provence, no fit haunt,
As from its beauty might at first appear,
For summer revel or a moonlit masque,
But where in studious cloister Vincent lived
And taught, and, in the simple panoply
Of Catholic tradition armed, struck down
The heretics.
—FABER.
The town of Cannes, to which so many English and Americans resort on
account of its delicious climate, its healing air, and the lovely
shores where grow the olive and the vine, has, too, its balmy
atmosphere for the soul. All the neighboring heights are clothed with
the mystic lore of mediæval saint and chapel, the waves of the azure
sea still seem to move to the holy impulses that once swept the air,
and across the beautiful bay are two fair isles at the entrance—St.
Marguerite, associated in most persons’ minds with the prison in which
was confined the mysterious Man of the Iron Mask, but once was more
happily peopled with
“Virgins good
Who gave their days to heaven”;
and St. Honorat, the Happy Isle (_beata illa insula_), as it was once
called, famous for its ancient monastery, that played so glorious a
_rôle_ in the religious history of Gaul. These are the isles of Lérins,
two gems of that collar of pearls thrown by God around the
Mediterranean Sea, to quote St. Ambrose, where once those who would
escape from the perilous charms of the world found refuge.
The island of St. Honorat is now occupied by the Cistercians, and early
one morning, soon after our arrival at Cannes, we went in search of the
boat they send to the mainland every day for their necessary supplies.
We were so fortunate as to find on board a young monk of great
intelligence, who was well versed in all the traditions of Lérins and
the surrounding region. He kindly volunteered to become our guide, and
proved an invaluable one. The islands are between two and three miles
distant, and we were about an hour in crossing. A sail on those blue
waters, in sight of their shores of radiant beauty, is always a
delight, but especially so on a lovely day such as we had chosen, in
the middle of October, with just air enough—and what soft air it
was!—to ripple the sea and make it give out a thousand flashes from the
tiny waves. We first came to St. Marguerite, which is the largest of
the islands. It is seven kilometres in circumference, oval in shape,
and almost entirely covered with maritime pines. It looks indeed like a
gem, this emerald isle rising out of the sea of dazzling gold. It is
said to have once borne the name of Léro, from some person of ancient
times whose prowess excited the admiration of his contemporaries, and
the sister isle took the diminutive of this name—Lérina. St. Honorat is
said to have overthrown the temple of the deified Léro, and perhaps
built the church early erected here in honor of the illustrious virgin
martyr of Antioch. An old legend says when he retired to the
neighboring isle his sister Margaret came here to live, and gathered
around her a community of pious maidens, to whom the sea, as it were,
offered its mystic veil. As Lérina was interdicted to women, she begged
St. Honorat to visit her frequently, and complained that her wish was
so seldom gratified. On the other hand, the saint feared that he held
converse with his sister too often, and thought such visits disturbed
his recollection in prayer. At length he told her he should restrict
his visits to a periodical one, and selected the time when the
cherry-trees should be in bloom—meaning, of course, once a year.
Margaret wept and entreated, but nothing could change his resolution.
Then she declared God would be less inflexible, and, in answer to the
prayers she addressed to him, a cherry-tree planted on the shore put
forth its snowy blossoms every month. Honorat no longer felt disposed
to resist, and whenever he saw their white banner on St. Marguerite’s
Isle he crossed the water, which became solid under his feet.
This island is also said to have afforded a secret asylum to the monks
called to the contemplative life, or who wished to pass some time in
utter solitude. Little is known of these lofty contemplatives, but it
is believed that it was here St. Vincent of Lérins wrote his immortal
work, the _Commonitorium_. St. Eucher also dwelt here for a time, and
here received letters from St. Paulinus of Nola, who, like him, had
abandoned the world.
It is melancholy that an isle, once consecrated to virginal purity and
holy contemplation, should become a place of expiation for criminals,
and that the most noted of its prisoners should almost efface the
memory of St. Vincent and St. Margaret.
St. Honorat is just beyond the island of St. Marguerite. It is a low,
flat island, also oval in form, only about a mile in length, and three
kilometres in circumference.
“Parva, sed felix meritis Lérina,
Quam Paraclito, Genito, Patrique
Rité quingenti roseo dicârunt
Sanguine testes”
—Lérins is small in extent, but illustrious by its glory; five hundred
martyrs have worthily consecrated it to the Father, the Son, and the
Holy Ghost by shedding their noble blood, says Gregorius Cortesius.
Along the edge is a line of low, craggy rocks, called monks or
brothers, which protect the shore from the encroachment of the waves.
At the east are some little islets, the largest of which bears the name
of St. Féréol, who, according to tradition, was here martyred by the
Saracens and received burial.
The numerous trees that formerly grew on St. Honorat gave it the poetic
title of the _aigrette de la mer_, but they are all gone except a few
olives in the centre, and a girdle of pines along the shore which
protect the interior from the winds injurious to vegetation, and serve
as an agreeable promenade. But no, there is one more tree—it is rather
a monument—the ancient palm of St. Honorat, which stands before the
door of the conventual church. “Honor thy paternal aunt, the
palm-tree,” says the prophet of Islam, “for she was created in Paradise
and of the same earth from which Adam was made!” Let us especially
honor this legendary palm; for if we understood, as the rabbis say
Abraham did, the language of its leaves, that never cease their
mysterious murmuring, even on a windless day, what a page in the
history of the church we should learn!
A legend tells us that the island in ancient times was infested with
venomous serpents, of which a frightful picture was drawn by the
inhabitants of the mainland to retain St. Honorat at Cap Roux, whither
he at first went on retiring from the world. When the saint arrived at
Lérina, and beheld their number and size, he prostrated himself on the
ground and cried to the Lord to exterminate them, and they all died at
once. Their bodies infecting the air, the saint climbed a palm-tree and
prayed to Him who had led him into this solitude, and the waves of the
sea immediately rose and swept over the isle, carrying off the serpents
that covered it.
This miracle of the palm, as it is called, is attested by St. Hilaire,
who passed several years as a monk at Lérins, and speaks of the numbers
of serpents that still infested the neighboring shores. At all events,
this isle, like Ireland, is free from them to this day, though they are
to be found on St. Marguerite, which is not saying much for the
gallantry of St. Honorat. This palm-tree has always been regarded with
great veneration, and the legend was represented on the old shrine of
St. Honorat—the saint in the palm-tree, and the waves sweeping the
serpents into the sea. And on the arms of Lérins the abbatial crosier
is placed between two palms.
Under the care of St. Honorat and his disciples the aspect of the
island was before long so changed that St. Eucher, one of the first to
inhabit it, says: “Watered by gushing fountains, rich with verdure,
brilliant with flowers, odorous with sweet perfumes, and with
delightful views on every side, it seems to those who inhabit it the
very image of heaven toward which tend all their desires.” And Isidore,
the monk, speaking of its eternal verdure, exclaims: “_Pulchrior in
toto non est locus orbe Lerina_”—No, the universe presents not a more
beautiful spot than Lérins.
But it appears that the holy cenobites suffered greatly at first from
the want of pure water, and at length they came one day and prostrated
themselves at St. Honorat’s feet, beseeching him to obtain by his
prayers what nature had refused to the island. “Go, brethren,” he
replied, “and dig perseveringly in the centre of the isle between the
two palms. [It appears there were two then, as on the arms.] God, who
has created the living springs of the earth, is sufficiently powerful
to grant what you ask with faith.” The monks set to work with ardor,
and dug till they came to a solid rock, without finding water or the
least sign of humidity. Discouraged, they returned to St. Honorat, who
ordered them to attack the live rock and confide in the Lord. They
returned obediently to the task, and succeeded in excavating a few feet
deeper, but still without any result, and they finally requested
permission to try another spot; but St. Honorat went with unshaken
faith to the place and descended into the pit. After praying to the
Lord he smote the rock thrice in the name of the Holy Trinity, and an
abundant stream gushed forth. Such is the tradition of Lérins, founded
on the testimony of SS. Eucher and Hilaire, who both lived with St.
Honorat. St. Eucher says the waters rose to the surface and spread over
the land around. There is nothing miraculous in the present appearance
of the well, but an old farmer of this region, who has been down
several times to clean it out, says the water issues from four
different points, as from the extremities of a cross. It is now covered
with a little rotunda, and over the entrance is an inscription in Latin
to this purpose:
“The leader of the hosts of Israel made sweet the bitter waters; his
rod brought forth a stream from the rock. Behold here the fountain that
sprang up from the hard rock, the sweet water that welled from the
bosom of the sea. Honorat smote the rock, and abundant waters gushed
forth, thus renewing at once the prodigies Moses wrought with the tree
and the rod.”
Everywhere on the island are _débris_ of all kinds—hewn stones, old
cement, bricks of Roman type, fragments of inscriptions, etc. The soil
is red and stony. The centre is partly cultivated, and bears a few
grapes, olives, and vegetables. The Cistercians, who have been here
eight years, have built a new convent near one end, which includes part
of the old abbey and St. Honorat’s palm. This is enclosed by a high
wall, as if they were not girt about by the great deep, and beyond this
wall no woman is permitted to go. Even the Duchess of Vallombrosa, the
great benefactress of the house, has been allowed to enter but once,
and then as part of a suite of a princess to whom the pope had given a
special permission. But there are some low buildings without the walls
where pilgrims can find shelter, even those of the obnoxious sex, and
be provided with refreshments. There are about fifty monks in the
community, one of them a novice of sixteen, who looked like an
anachronism in his Cistercian robes. Near the monastery is an orphan
asylum containing about thirty boys under the care of Brother Boniface.
They are taught trades, and for this purpose there are joiner’s shops,
a printing establishment, etc., on the island.
While the monks were attending some rite we made the entire circuit of
the island, following the path among the odorous pines on the shore,
calm, peaceful, and embowered as the arcades of a cloister. These tall
pines are aslant, as if bent by the winds, and the foliage, high up in
the air, shelters from the sun, without excluding the sea breeze or
obstructing the view. Everywhere was the flash of the waves, and the
mysterious sound of the waters that gently broke upon the shore of this
happy isle, mingled, as in the olden time, with the solemn measure of
holy psalmody. It was delightful to wander in this lone aisle of
nature, and drink in the beauty of sea and land, and give one’s self up
to the memories that embalm the place.
It was early in the fifth century when St. Honorat established himself
here. He belonged to a patrician race, and his father, to divert his
mind from religious things, sent him at an early age to the East with
his brother Venance, who was of a livelier turn. Venance, however, soon
yielded to Honorat’s moral ascendency, but died at Messenia, and the
latter returned sorrowfully to Gaul with St. Caprais, his spiritual
guide, who had accompanied them. For some time he lived as a hermit in
a cave at Cap Roux. Then he came to Lérins, where numerous disciples
gathered around him who are now numbered among the most eminent
churchmen of Gaul. Maxime, Bishop of Riez, Hilary of Arles, Jacques of
Tarentaise, Vincent of Saintes, Fauste of Riez, Ausile of Fréjus, were
all formed in his school of Christian philosophy. St. Eucher, whom
Bossuet calls “the great Eucher,” here forgot his noble birth and
attained the sanctity which raised him to the see of Lyons. Salvian,
surnamed “the Master of Bishops,” and styled “the Jeremias of his age,”
on account of his lamentations over the woes and corruptions of the
world, here wrote his treatise on the government of God. Cassian, after
long journeys and great sorrows, spent a year at Lérins before he
founded the abbey of St. Victor at Marseilles. St. Patrick, according
to the tradition of the island, passed long years here in prayer and
frightful austerities. St. Vincent of Lérins here wrote those works
which have made him an authority in the church. St. Cæsarius also, who
became one of the most influential bishops of southern Gaul, and St.
Loup of Troyes, who inspired so much deference in Attila, the Scourge
of God, were among the first disciples of St. Honorat, and many more,
some of whom have left no name on earth, but whose names are written in
the Lamb’s Book of Life. “How many assemblies of saints have I seen in
this isle!” cries St. Eucher—“precious vases, which spread abroad the
sweet perfume of their virtues.” And St. Sidonius Apollinaris, with a
bolder figure, says:
“Quanto illa insula plana
Miserit ad cœlum montes!”
—How many lofty mountains rise toward heaven from this low isle! And
St. Cæsarius of Arles: “Happy, blessed isle of Lérins, thou art small
and level, but from thee have risen innumerable mountains!” Over forty
saints are mentioned by name in the Litany of Lérins, besides the
hundreds of martyrs who are invoked.
Salvian thus alludes to the paternal rule of St. Honorat: “As the sun
changes the aspect of the firmament by its splendor or obscurity, so
joy and sadness are diffused among those who, under his paternal
guidance, aim at heaven and devote themselves to the angelic functions.
If Honorat suffers, all suffer; restored to health, all return to new
life.”
Lérins became so renowned as a school of theology that, in the seventh
century, there were three thousand and seven hundred monks, and the
Christian world sent here to obtain its bishops and the directors for
its monasteries. It was in this century that St. Aygulph established
here the rule of St. Benedict. In the eighth century, when the Saracens
invaded the island, more than five hundred monks fell victims to their
hatred of Christianity. Eleuthère, by the aid of King Pepin, restored
the ruined buildings, but the enemy returned again, committing fresh
ravages, and, indeed, devastating the island. These attacks at length
became so frequent that the pope granted indulgences to all who would
aid in defending it against the infidel. Whosoever devoted himself to
this good work for the space of three months acquired the same
indulgences as a pilgrim to the Holy Places at Jerusalem, and minor
ones were accorded to those who sent substitutes. In 1088 was erected
the lofty citadel, which is still the most prominent object on the
island, as a retreat for the monks in time of danger. It was connected
with the abbey by a subterranean passage. This is now a picturesque
ruin. It is on the eastern shore of the island, and rises directly out
of the water. The massive walls of hewn stone have acquired a soft,
mellow tint that contrasts admirably with the sky and sea. They are
scarred with many a cannon-ball that tells of more than one rude
assault.
Here and there are narrow loop-holes, and high up in the air is a line
of battlements that still seem to defy both the sea and the Moor. There
was formerly a drawbridge, and nothing was lacking necessary to sustain
a siege. This stronghold formed part of a line of signals along the
sea-coast. It was four or five stories high, and contained four
kitchens, several chapels, thirty-six cells for the monks and five for
strangers, with cisterns, and everything to render it a complete
monastery as well as castle. The Père Antonin was our guide around this
interesting ruin. It is entered by a spiral staircase, which brought us
into a small court or cloister with several galleries around it, one
above the other, communicating with the different stories, sustained by
pillars of marble, porphyry, and granite. Old fragments of carved
capitals, and inscriptions, some Roman, some Christian, were scattered
here and there. In the centre is an immense cistern, paved with marble,
which contains a never-failing supply of water. This was constructed by
Gastolius de Grasse, who, having lost his wife and children, retired to
the island to console himself with the thought of heaven and eternal
reunion, devoting his whole fortune to the poor and the improvement of
the monastery. The old chapter-room is utterly ruined. Its arches were
blown up by some Scotchman in his attempts to find the supposed
treasure of St. Honorat, and the rank grass is growing from the
accumulated soil. There is the old refectory with its crumbling pulpit,
and, in the next room, the lavatory of calcareous stone, like an
ancient sarcophagus, where the monks washed their hands before entering
the refectory. On it is graven in Latin: “O Christ! by thy right hand,
which can cleanse us within and without, purify our souls, which this
water cannot cleanse.” Then there is the chapel which once contained
the relics of SS. Honorat,[167] Caprais, Venance, Aygulph, etc., and
the three sacred altars to which indulgences were attached at the
request of the Emperor Charles V. The chapel of Notre Dame de Pitié, or
of the dead, was used for domestic purposes by some layman who held the
island after the Revolution, and the place where once rose the solemn
requiem and the odor of incense was now filled with the fumes of a
kitchen. We went up, still by the spiral staircase, to the battlements.
Here we looked down on the whole island. Before us was stretched the
neighboring shore with fair towns and villages from Cannes to Nice,
with the purple mountains in the background. On the other hand, in the
distance, rose the mountains of Corsica. And all around was the sea
that bathes the shores of so many storied lands.
With increased means of defence the prosperity of the abbey revived. It
had the exclusive right, conferred by the counts of Provence, of
fishing in the surrounding waters. It owned numerous priories all along
the coast from Genoa to Barcelona, as well as in the interior. And it
continued to be a centre from which radiated light, and many a person
escaped from the _Mare Magnum_ of the profane world to this haven of
spiritual rest. We read that Bertrand, Bishop of Fréjus in the eleventh
century, retired to St. Honorat (as the bishop of Valence has recently
done) and died here in the odor of sanctity. For those who wished to
lead the eremitical life there were formerly many cells around the
island. How dear this holy retreat was to its inmates may be seen by a
letter from Denis Faucher, whose duties retained him from the isle, to
his superior: “My thoughts turn eagerly towards Lérins. Sad, I bewail
my long exile. In spite of my oft-renewed entreaties, you defer my
deliverance. A cruel grief torments my desolate soul. I love not these
magnificent palaces. Let kings inhabit them. For them, they gleam with
marble; for me, the desert and the lonely shore. That little isle
suffices for my happiness.”
Around the island were seven small chapels, or oratories, mostly on the
shore, to which, like the seven stations at Rome, great indulgences
were attached. These were successively visited by the pilgrims as a
preparation for receiving the Holy Eucharist.
The tombs of the saints, the holy chapels, the soil impregnated with
the blood of the martyrs, and the wondrous history of the island, gave
it a glorious prestige that made it not only a resort for pilgrims, but
even the dead were brought across the waters, with crucifix and
lanterns held aloft in the boats, and chants mingling with the sad
murmur of the waves, to be laid in this consecrated isle. Many remains
of their marble tombs are still to be found.
We, too, made the stations of the seven holy chapels, though they are
mostly in ruins. That of the Holy Trinity, in the eastern part of the
island, is the most ancient. Its walls of massive stones are still
erect. It is a Romanesque chapel, with three bays, the remains of an
ancient porch, and vaults beneath for recluses or the dead. But the
windows are gone, and rank weeds grow in the interior.
Only a few traces remain of St. Cyprian’s chapel; not St. Cyprian who
shed his blood at Carthage, but St. Cyprian of Lérins, surnamed the
Magician, who is honored September 26.
Further on, among the rocks on the shore, is the legendary cave known
as the _Baoumo de l’Abbat_, only accessible by going down into the
water and wading through a narrow crevice between two tall rocks. It
was here, when St. Porcaire and his five hundred companions were
martyred by the Saracens, that two of the monks, Colomb and Eleuthère,
fled in terror to conceal themselves. But they could still hear the
vociferations of the infidel, and, their eyes being opened, could see
the souls of their brethren ascending to heaven, conducted by the
angels. Ravished by this spectacle, Colomb cried out with holy
enthusiasm: “Let us go forth to be crowned like them. Let us fly to the
Lord!” Eleuthère still shrank with fear, but Colomb went boldly out to
share the glory of his brethren. Eleuthère afterwards gathered together
the monks who had escaped, and became abbot of Lérins. Hence the name
of the Abbot’s Cave, given to the place of his concealment.
Nearly opposite, in the centre of the island, is the octagon chapel of
the Transfiguration, or St. Sauveur, with a star-shaped vault. It is
twenty feet in diameter and twelve high. It has been rudely restored by
the bishop of Fréjus, and has an ancient stone altar pierced with
holes, as if for the passage of liquids. Some consider this chapel the
ancient baptistery. The sailors call a neighboring inlet the _Caranquo
dé Sant Saouvadou_, or Crique de St. Sauveur.
Several of these chapels were used in the construction of batteries by
the Spaniards in the seventeenth century, as that of St. Pierre on the
southern shore, near the remains of which is an old votive altar to
Neptune with the inscription: _Neptvno Veratia Montana_.
The walls of St. Caprais are partly standing. This saint is still
invoked in our day for rheumatism. A portion of his relics, hidden at
the Revolution, is religiously preserved at Chartèves, in the diocese
of Soissons, and is the object of pilgrimages on the 20th of October.
“_Quæ sancta Caprasi vita senis!_” says St. Sidonius Apollinaris—What
an admirable life is that of the aged Caprais!
The chapel of St. Porcaire and the Five Hundred Martyrs, on the place
where they were buried, has recently been repaired, and Father Boniface
says Mass there every morning. Over the altar is a painting of St.
Porcaire pointing to heaven and encouraging his brethren. The seventh
chapel, St. Michael’s, is within the walls of the Cistercian convent.
The isles of Lérins have been a place of pilgrimage for more than a
thousand years. They were already frequented when Pope Eugenius II.
came here early in the ninth century to venerate the traces of the
saints and martyrs. When he landed on the shore of St. Honorat, he put
off his shoes and made the tour of the island in his bare feet. He
consecrated the church, blessed the whole isle, and granted those who
visited it with the proper dispositions between the eve of the
Ascension and Whit Monday all the indulgences to be gained by a
pilgrimage to Jerusalem, as well as smaller ones to those who came here
at other seasons, with the exception of those who had been guilty of
striking their parents or violating their marriage vows. In accordance
with his wish, all who had gained the indulgence used to receive a palm
in testimony thereof. These pilgrimages were called, in the language of
the country, _Romipetæ_. All the towns on the neighboring coast were
numerously represented here at the Grand Pardon. Twenty-seven nobles
are mentioned as coming once from Arles. Pilgrims even came from Italy.
The old records tell how fifty-three came from Pisa to offer thanks for
their miraculous escape after being taken by the corsairs. But the
annual pilgrimage from Rians was the most famous, and has been
celebrated in a quaint old Provençal ballad that is delightfully
redolent of the age. It consisted of the greater part of the villagers,
and to sanctify the journey, they used to halt at all the places of
devotion along the road. Every one of these places had its holy legend
that, like a fragrant flower, embalmed the way. At Cotignac they paused
to drink at the miraculous fountain of St. Joseph—
Foou ana boiro à la sourço
Doou benhurux Sant Jaousé—
which, say the people, sprang up to quench the extreme thirst of a poor
simple country laborer, named Gaspar, to whom the compassionate St.
Joseph appeared under the form of an aged man, and pointed out the spot
where water could be found—a spot since widely known as a place of
miraculous cures and abundant spiritual favors.
Then the pilgrims ascended the hill of Verdale, near Cotignac, to pray
at the altar of Nouastro Damo dé Graci. This is quite a noted chapel.
It was visited in 1600 by Louis XIV. and his mother, Anne of Austria,
for whom a new road was expressly constructed, still known as the
_Chemin de Louis Quartorze_. He hung his _cordon bleu_ on the Virgin’s
breast, and Anne of Austria founded six Masses in the chapel. The king
afterwards sent here copies of his marriage contract and the treaty of
the Pyrenees in a magnificently-bound volume, by way of placing these
important transactions under the protection of our great Lady; and when
his mother died he founded Masses here for her soul, and set up a
marble tablet with a commemorative inscription. Pope Leo X. conferred
indulgences on this chapel.
At the village of Arcs, or near it, the pilgrims turned aside to
venerate the remains of the beautiful St. Rossoline, who sprang from
the barons of Villeneuve and Sabran. Her cradle in infancy was
surrounded by a supernatural light. The miracle of the roses was
renewed in her favor to avert the anger of her father, who was weary of
the importunity of beggars at his castle. At the age of seventeen she
buried her youth and beauty in the Chartreuse of Celle Roubaud, and was
consecrated deaconess by the bishop of Fréjus in 1288, which gave her,
by an exceptional privilege to the nuns of this house, the right of
reading the Gospel in church. Hence she is represented in art, not only
with the crown of roses wherewith she was crowned on the day of her
sacred espousals, but wearing a stole. She spent the remainder of her
life in transcribing the sacred books, in order, as she said, to be
always holding intercourse with God, and, as she could not preach in
public, aid in propagating the Gospel. She held the office of prioress
for a time, but, at her own request, ended her days as a recluse. While
she was breathing her last St. Hugh of Lincoln and St. Hugo of Grenoble
appeared and incensed her cell, and she died with _Deo gratias_ on her
lips.
An old ballad tells how, after her death, St. Rossoline delivered her
brother, Helion de Villeneuve, a crusader, who had been taken prisoner
by the Saracens. She appeared to him in his dungeon, loosed his heavy
chains, opened the doors, and conducted him to the sea-coast, where,
spreading her veil on the waters, they both placed themselves thereon,
and so came safely to Provence. Helion now happened to fall asleep, and
when he awoke his sister was missing. He thought she had gone home to
announce his arrival, but, when he came to the manor-house, learned she
had for some time been dead. Her tomb became noted in Provence, and was
one of the stations where pilgrims loved to pay their vows.
Our villagers next came to Fréjus to see the image of the Holy Child
Jesus venerated in the cathedral. At Esterel the prior gave them
refreshments under the great chestnut-trees near the inn. Cannes
welcomed them with the ringing of bells, and went out to meet them in
procession:
“Canno, villo maritimo—
Remplido dé zèlo è d’estimo
Per leis pélérins dé Rians—
Seis campanos souanoun toutos
Per faire la proucession.”
Then they came with
“_Allegresso
Dins leis ilos dé Lérins_.”
It seemed to them like entering Paradise. They went to shrift, visited
the seven chapels, and finally came to the church of the _glourious
Sant Hounourat_, where they received the Holy Eucharist and their
palms. Besides the latter, they also carried away, as the custom was,
some sprigs of a marine plant still known as the _herbo doou par
doun_—the herb of the Pardon or Indulgence. This is the _cineraire
maritime_, common on the shores of the isle, which has hoary,
pinnatifid leaves and a flower that grows in panicles.
On their way home the pilgrims went to pray at the tomb of Sant
Armentari, a great miracle-worker at Draguignan, specially invoked for
those who have lost their reason. But we shall speak of him further on.
Arriving home, they were met by their fellow-townsmen and led in
triumph to the church, when Benediction was given, thus ending the
pilgrimage.
The expense of the journey, or the gradual lukewarmness of the people,
at length diminished the number from Rians, and finally the pilgrimage
ceased altogether, till a failure of the crops induced the town to
revive it partially by sending a yearly deputation as its
representative.
There is a naïve legend of one Boniface who lived at Oraison—a simple,
upright man whom lack of worldly wisdom had reduced to such want as to
force him to become the swineherd of a wicked usurer, named Garinus,
who was blind. For six successive years he had visited Lérins at the
time of the Grand Pardon, and, when the seventh arrived, he humbly
begged permission of Garinus to go and gain the indulgence. Garinus
refused, and, lest the swineherd should secretly join the other
pilgrims, he carefully fastened him up. Boniface’s grief increased as
the feast of Pentecost drew near. The eve arrived, but he was prevented
from keeping even a lonely vigil by an overpowering drowsiness.
Suddenly the sound of music awoke him, and, opening his eyes, he found
himself before the altar of the church of Lérins. When the stations
were made and the divine offices were over, the monks, as usual,
distributed the palms among the _Rominæ_. Boniface also approached with
the others to receive his, and then retired to an obscure corner of the
church, where he soon fell sound asleep. When he awoke he found himself
once more in the prison where he had been confined by his master. The
rest of the pilgrims from Oraison arrived three days after, and, not
knowing the state of affairs, complimented the usurer on his kindness
to his servant. He denied having given Boniface permission to go, and
summoned him to his presence. The swineherd related with great
simplicity what had happened to him. Garinus was at once astonished and
affected by the account, and besought Boniface to give him the palm he
had brought from the holy isle. Taking it reverently in his hands, he
applied it to his eyes, and at once not only recovered his sight, but
the eyes of his soul were likewise opened.
But to return to the history of the island. The abbey was secularized
in 1788—some say on account of the luxuries and excesses of the monks.
But the inventory shows how few luxuries they really had—not more than
the simplest villagers now possess. The monks withdrew to their
families. Not one was left to guard the graves of the martyrs and
continue the prayers of so many ages. The last prior of Lérins, Dom
Théodule Bon, died at his sister’s residence in Vallauris. The people
of Cannes used to say of him: _Moussu lou Priour es Bouan dé noum et dé
fach_—M. le Prieur is good by name and good by nature.
In 1791 the island was sold at public auction, and the purchaser’s
daughter, who had been an actress, came here to reside. O isle of
saints!... In 1856 Mr. Sims, an Anglican minister, bought it. He showed
some respect for the ancient monuments, and had begun to restore the
citadel when he died. The bishop of Fréjus bought it in 1859. Two
bishops, several dignitaries of the church, and a number of priests
came over to take possession of the island. A great crowd awaited them.
The clergy (those of Cannes bearing the relics of St. Honorat) advanced
toward the old church, chanting the mournful psalm, _Deus, venerunt
gentes_, many verses of which were so particularly applicable. The
walls so long profaned were blessed, and the crowd prostrated
themselves while the Litany of Lérins was solemnly sung. Some
agricultural brothers of the Order of St. Francis were established here
for a time. On the eve of the feast of St. Caprais (St. Honorat’s
spiritual guide) the bishop blessed the chapel of St. Porcaire and the
Five Hundred Martyrs, which had been restored, and Mass was said amid
the ruins of the old church of St. Honorat.
* * * * *
There are several places of great interest on the mainland, associated
with the saints of Lérins, all of which we devoutly visited as a part
of our pilgrimage. One is Cap Roux, at the western termination of the
Bay of Cannes, always dear to the monks of the isle on account of the
_baume_, or cave, on the western side of the cliff, inhabited for some
time by St. Honorat after his return from the East, and still called by
his name. The ascent to this grotto is rather dangerous, and at the
foot was once an oratory where pilgrims stopped to pray before
undertaking the ascent. They used to cry: “Sancte Maguncti!” perhaps
because they associated the name of this saint of Lérins with the
Provençal word _m’aganti_, as if they would say, _Saint I-cling-to_, as
they seized hold of the sides of the cliff.
Denis Faucher, the monk, graved an inscription in Latin verse over the
entrance to the Baume de St. Honorat, which may thus be rendered:
“Reader, in Honorat, our father, thou wilt find an example of lofty
virtue and reason to admire the wonderful gifts of God. Others visit
the holy places and seek afar off the noble models they have not at
home. The renown of Honorat renders sacred every place he approached,
though now devoid of his presence. Behold this retreat, once almost
inaccessible to the wild beasts, now rendered so famous by the holy
bishop as to attract innumerable visitors from every land.” In the cave
there has been for centuries an altar for celebrating the Christian
mysteries. At the left is a well that rarely fails, even in the
greatest drought. At the right is a hollow in the rock like the impress
of the human form, called by the people the _Couche de St. Honorat_.
Over it is also an inscription by the same monk: “Illustrious pontiff,
from the height of heaven reveal thy august presence to him who seeks
thy traces upon earth.”
Another cave in the side of the mount near the sea was inhabited for a
time by St. Eucher, to whom his wife, Galla, came to bring food while
he gave himself up to contemplation. An angel revealed to the people of
Lyons where he lived concealed, and they sent messengers to ask him to
be their bishop.
St. Armentaire, who was bishop of Embrun in the middle of the fifth
century, being deposed by the council of Riez, retired to Cap Roux. It
was he who slew the dragon that infested the neighborhood of
Draguignan. The fame of his sanctity led to his being chosen bishop of
Antibes, but his body was, after his death, brought back to Draguignan
and placed in a church he himself had erected in honor of St. Peter.
The concourse to his tomb was formerly very great, as we have seen in
the case of the pilgrimage from Rians.
There were hermits at Cap Roux as late as the eighteenth century, and
pilgrims used to go there in procession, chanting the litany of Lérins,
to implore the cessation of some scourge. Now it is only visited from
time to time by a solitary devotee, or some naturalist to study the
flora and the formation of the rocks, who pauses awhile at the cave and
drinks at the fountain.
About a league west of Cannes, above Cap Roux, is Mt. Arluc, which
rises out of the plain of Laval. It belongs to the tertiary formation,
and looks so artificial that it has often been regarded as a tumulus
made by the Romans, who, according to tradition, had an intrenched camp
here to protect the Aurelian road[168] that ran through the plain, as
well as the galleys on the coast. After the submission of the province
to the Roman domination a temple was built here in honor of Venus, who
could not have desired a fairer shore, in sight of the very sea from
which she sprang. Her altar was surrounded by trees to veil her unholy
rites, and the mount took the name of _Ara-luci_—altar of the sacred
wood—whence the name of Arluc. This consecrated grove was cut down by
St. Nazaire, abbot of Lérins, who knew the importance of destroying
these high places of the Gentiles. To him, too, the waves beneath were
always whispering of love, but not profane love. They spoke of “love
eternal and illimitable, not bounded by the confines of the world or by
the end of time, but ranging beyond the sea, beyond the sky, to the
invisible country far away.” And he set up an altar to the Infinite
One, and beside the church built a monastery, which he peopled with
holy maidens under the direction of Hélène, a princess of Riez. One of
the first abbesses bore the name of Oratorie. It was to her St. Césaire
of Arles addressed two of his essays: one on the qualities that should
be possessed by those who have the direction of souls; the other on the
text, “O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge
of God!”
About the year 677 St. Aygulph, abbot of Lérins, rebuilt or enlarged
this monastery at the request of several noble ladies of the region,
and, the house having perhaps been depopulated by the Saracens, a
colony of nuns came here from Blois under the care of St. Angarisma.
When the holy abbot was martyred, Angarisma, learning the fate of her
spiritual father, went with the sisterhood to venerate his remains. The
monks who had escaped described the sufferings and constancy of the
martyrs, and showed their mangled remains. One of the nuns, named
Glauconia, who was blind, applied the right arm of St. Aygulph to her
eyes and at once recovered her sight. Whereupon the abbess begged for
his body, but in vain. The arm which had restored Glauconia’s sight was
given to her, however, and they carried it with them to Arluc. St.
Aygulph is invoked in this region still, under the name of St. Aïgou,
for diseases of the eye, and a statue of him is to be seen at
Châteauneuf in the chapel of Notre Dame de Brusc.
The nuns of Arluc fled several times before the Saracens, but we read
of the monastery in the tenth century, when St. Maxime, of the
illustrious family of De Grasse, came here in search of Christian
perfection. She was afterwards sent to found a house at Callian, where
part of her remains are still preserved.
In the life of St. Honorat there is an interesting legend of one of the
nuns of Arluc, named Cibeline, the daughter of Reybaud, a lord of
Antibes. She had been married in early life, but lost her husband soon
after, and was still renowned for her beauty when she became infected
with leprosy. St. Honorat appeared to Reybaud in a dream and said to
him: “Give me thy daughter as a bride.” He had the same vision three
times, which at last so impressed him that he took Cibeline with him
and went to Lérins to relate it to the holy abbot Porcaire. The latter
at once comprehended its spiritual significance and said to Cibeline:
“Wilt thou, out of love to God and devotion to St. Honorat, lead
henceforth a pure life and take the sacred veil in the monastery of
Arluc?” Cibeline then confessed this had been the earliest desire of
her heart, and that she regarded her disease as the judgment of God for
having violated the vow she had made in yielding to worldly persuasions
and wedding the husband she had lost. St. Porcaire then took pure
water, in which he plunged holy relics, and ordered her to bathe
therein. She was instantly cured of her leprosy, and her father led her
to Arluc and consecrated her to God.
Arluc probably took the name of St. Cassian, by which it is now more
generally known, in the fourteenth century, when it fell under the
jurisdiction of the abbey of St. Victor at Marseilles, which Cassian
had founded. Nor is the name inappropriate for this mount that stands
in sight of the places rendered sacred by St. Honorat and St. Eucher,
for whom Cassian had so great an admiration as to cry in one of his
books on the ascetic life dedicated to them: “O holy brothers! your
virtues shine upon the world like great beacon-lights. Many saints will
be formed by your example, but will scarcely be able to imitate your
perfection.”
Cassian has been regarded as a saint in Provence, and the people of
Cannes used to make a _romérage_, or pilgrimage, to the chapel that
took his name at Arluc, on the 23d of July, the festival of St.
Cassian.
When the Revolution arrived the republicans wished to sell the mount,
and two hundred soldiers were sent to strip the chapel. The number was
none too large, for at the news the people of Cannes sounded the tocsin
and went in crowds to the rescue. The very women were armed. One in
particular aimed her reaping-hook at the neck of the leader. They bore
triumphantly away the relics and ornaments, but the chapel and land
were sold some time after to nine men belonging to Cannes. St. Cassian,
or Arluc, is still crowned with oaks, as in the time when Venus held
sway there, though Bonaparte, when in the vicinity, had many of them
cut down.
The monastery of Arluc gave its name to a village on the sea-shore at
the mouth of the Siagne. This stream, in which the monks of Lérins once
had the sole right to fish, derives its name from the Provençal word
_saignos_ or _siagnos_, given to the cat-tails that grow so abundantly
on its banks. On the Siagne is the hamlet of Mandelieu, on land which
once belonged to St. Consortia, the daughter of St. Eucher. She gave
her fortune to works of charity, and founded here a hospital under the
invocation of St. Stephen. And there is a cape on the coast, near La
Napoule, called Theoule, from another daughter of St. Eucher, named
Tullia. When St. Eucher abandoned the world and retired to Lérins he
took with him his two sons, Véran and Salonius, leaving his wife,
Galla, and her two daughters on his domains near La Napoule, where
Tullia, who died young, was buried.
Such are the memories associated with the isles of Lérins, for many of
which we are indebted to the interesting work by M. l’Abbé Alliez. We
made a second visit to St. Honorat before leaving Cannes, to take a
farewell look at the old donjon on the shore, the holy palm in the
cloister, and the ruined chapels. When we left the isle several of the
white-robed monks accompanied us to the shore, and, on looking back
from our swiftly-receding boat, we saw two of them still standing at
the foot of a huge cross among the sad pines....
“O satis nunquam celebrata tellus!
Dulce solamen, requiesque cordis!
Cœlitum sedes procul a profani
Turbine vulgi!”
—O land that can never be sufficiently praised! Sweet consolation,
repose of the heart! Haven sheltered from the tempests of a profane
world!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
IN RETREAT.
“Break, my heart, and let me die!
Burst with sorrow, drown with love!...
Lord, if Thou the boon deny,
Thou wilt not the wish reprove.” ...
Whence that piercing, burning ray,
Seem’d to reach me from the light
Where, behind the Veil, ’tis day—
Where the Blessèd walk by sight?
Thine, ’twas thine, O Sacred Heart!
Mercy-sent—that I might see
Something of the all Thou art,
Something of the naught in me.
Ah! I saw Thy patient love
Watching o’er me year on year;
Guarding, guiding, move for move—
Always faithful, always near:
Saw Thy pardon’s ceaseless flow
Evermore my soul bedew;
Washing scarlet white as snow,[169]
Sere and blight to morning-new:
Saw this self—how weak, how base!—
Still go sinning, blundering, on;
Thankless with its waste of grace,
Wearied with the little done.
Then I murmur’d: “O my King!
What are all my acts of will?
Each best effort can but bring
Failure and confusion still!
“This poor heart, which ought to burn,
Smoulders feebly; yet may dare
Offer Thine one last return—
One fond, fierce, atoning prayer?
“Let it break, this very hour—
Burst with sorrow, drown with love!
For if Thou withhold thy power,
Thou wilt not the wish reprove.” ...
Pass’d that moment: but, as fall
Lovers’ whispers, answer’d He;
“_Daily_ die[170]—with thy Saint Paul.
Die to self—and live to Me.”
SEPTEMBER, 1877.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREACHERS ON THE RAMPAGE.[171]
Men who are by no means optimists are apt unconsciously to allow
themselves to get a dim impression that the world is becoming better,
more kindly, more charitable, and that we are approximating a time
when, by the pure influences of increased material appliances and
“well-regulated human nature,” the hatreds and strifes both of nations
and sects will have measurably ceased. The delusion is a pleasant one,
but it is none the less a delusion, and will not endure the slightest
contact with the sharp edge of fact. In this nineteenth century,
notwithstanding the peace society, more human beings have lost their
lives by war than in any other since the advent of our Lord. In this,
the freest, the most prosperous, and, so far as the masses are
concerned, the best-instructed of all Christian countries, we have but
had breathing time since one of the bloodiest civil wars on record. In
the lull (protracted by war and its results) many Catholics seem to
have become in like manner possessed with an undefined notion that the
people who made the Penal Laws and executed them have become imbued
with a milder spirit toward the church; that Know-nothingism is a thing
of the past, the virtue of the cry of “No Popery” dissipated, and the
fell spirit of the Native American party utterly extinct.
Those who think thus will see cause to awake from their dream on
examining the volume whose title heads this article. In October, 1876,
a Joint Special Committee of three senators and three members of the
Lower House sat in San Francisco for the purpose of procuring testimony
in regard to the advisability of restricting or abolishing the
immigration of Mongolians to this country—a question which has been for
some time exciting at least a considerable section of the inhabitants
of our Pacific coast. Whether truly or falsely we cannot say, but the
impression is produced that the Catholic, and more particularly the
Irish Catholic, population of California has ranged itself in hostility
to the Chinese. If this be true we should be very sorry for it, knowing
full well that by any such action foreigners of all sorts, more
especially Catholics, are simply supplying whips of scorpions with
which they will be lashed on the outburst of the next campaign (under
whatsoever name it may be known) conducted on principles of hostility
to them. On its face it looks altogether likely that so plausible a
movement as this opposition to the Chinese should take with a laboring
class not very well posted in the principles of political economy, and
we know that the large majority of white laboring people are in San
Francisco Catholic, while certainly a great many of them are Irishmen.
Their priests are too few and have too much to do to give them lectures
on Say, Smith, and Ricardo; and it is no part of their duty, still less
would it be a pleasure, to instruct them how they shall view purely
political issues, whether local or national. Repeating, then, that we
cannot but deem it a terrible blunder for their own sakes, and utterly
against their own real interests, that these people should so range
themselves against the influx of the Chinese, we have certainly no
right to dictate to them how they shall vote or on what side they shall
exert any influence they may have; and we must add that they seem to
err (if error there be) in very good company, and plenty of it, since
both political parties have in their national platforms endorsed the
views said to be held by the Irish Catholics of California, as did also
both Republicans and Democrats in the last campaign of the Golden
State.
This report contains the sworn testimony on the subject at issue of one
hundred and thirty witnesses; but we only call attention to the
evidence of some of the preachers, and that, too, not on the general
merits of their testimony or concerning Chinese immigration at all, but
on account of the Vatinian hatred which they have gone out of the way
to display towards Catholics, and the deadly venom they exhibit towards
Irishmen especially. For just as women are sometimes most bloodthirsty
during a war, far outdoing in rancor the combatants themselves, so
would preachers seem to be the least charitable of the human species—to
have, as Dean Swift well remarked, “just enough religion to make them
hate, and not enough to make them love, one another.” The first of
these worthy representatives of Christian charity and disseminators of
the truth is a certain Rev. O. W. Loomis, in the employ of the
Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, who takes occasion to say:
“_Unlike some others who come to America, as we have been told (and who
manage to get to the ballot-boxes very soon), they [the Chinese] are
not sworn to support any foreign hierarchy and foreign ecclesiastical
magnate who claims the whole earth as his dominion_” (p. 417). While
the English of this sentence is very far from clear, yet the animus of
the whole is so patent that he must needs be a very stupid fellow
indeed who does not perceive that Catholics are aimed at. Whether Mr.
Loomis “_has been informed_” that Catholics come to America, or that
they reach the ballot-boxes early, or that they are sworn to support a
foreign hierarchy, or that the Chinese are not under such obligations,
is far from being as limpid as “bog-water,” and it is to be hoped that,
in his instructions to his neophytes, he seldom degenerates into such
want of perspicuity; still more would it be desirable that he should
confine himself more strictly in his usual ministrations to the truth
and to matters within his own knowledge than he does when before the
committee and on oath.
It is distinctly _false_ that Catholic foreigners, in coming to this
country, make a business of getting to the ballot-boxes any sooner than
the law allows them to do. It is equally mendacious, if he means to
assert the same thing of any one set of Catholics as a specific
nationality. If the statement were as true as it is false, scurrilous,
and malicious, that “man of God” could not possibly know more than a
few individual instances, and could not predicate the fact as true of a
whole nationality, any more than the writer (who happens to have known
in his life four instances in which young Americans voted without
having attained their majority) would be justified in slanderously
describing the young men of the United States as in the habit of
perjuring themselves in order to anticipate the right of elective
franchise. But our friend, though on oath, never blinks—in fact, he
has, while on oath, gone out of his way to drag in the above statement,
and is only prevented from taking the bit in his teeth and careering
madly over the whole plain of anti-Catholic bigotry by being checked
peremptorily with the information furnished him by Representative
Piper: “_That is entirely foreign to the matter at issue._”
As to the assertion that Catholics swear allegiance to the Pope in any
sense that would interfere with their fealty to any temporal rule or
government, its absurdity has been so often, so ably, and so clearly
demonstrated that it is only persons of the third sex who at this day
pretend to believe it. We will give even Mr. Loomis credit for
appreciating the distinction between the loyalty which his people owe
to the confession of faith, their synods and presbyteries, and that
which they owe to the government of the land. We wish we could in
conscience credit him with as much candor as ability and knowledge in
the premises; for a great deal of his testimony proves him to be by no
means one of those persons whom we pass by as being entitled to a
“fool’s pardon.” Did it never occur to this man, and to others of his
way of thought or expression, that this oath or obligation of two
hundred million Catholics must be of very little avail—might, in short,
quite as well not have been taken—if its only result is to land the
Pope here in the fag end of the nineteenth century, in the Vatican,
without an acre of land over which he can exercise temporal
jurisdiction, while Catholics all over the world, with the numbers, the
power, and the means to restore him, if they had but the will, lie
supinely by, not making a move, either as governments or as
individuals, in his behalf? That bugbear is too transparent for use;
people can no longer be scared by it; it is high time to excogitate
another and a more plausible one, if you are still bent on war with the
Pope. For our own part, we would recommend the propriety of a change;
but that change should be to the culture of Christian charity, the
practice of the golden rule, not forgetting the commandment which
people of Mr. Loomis’ persuasion call the _ninth_. Ah! Mr. Loomis,
hatred springs apace fast enough among men without any necessity for
its culture on the part of professing religious teachers.
Again, the same professor of the doctrine that “the earth is the
Lord’s,” that “we are all his children,” and that “we are all one in
Christ,” announces: “_I was a Native American on principle, and I
believe that America should belong to Americans_” (p. 464). This is
bad, in our opinion, but it is English, it is intelligible, and it is
no doubt true as an utterance of his individual sentiment. The set of
principles referred to have twice been adjudged by the voice of the
American people, and condemned on both occasions as anti-American,
opposed to the genius and traditions of our people, and subversive of
the aims which made us one of the foremost nations of the earth. Mr.
Loomis, or any other man, has an inherent right to believe in them, if
he so list; but we question much his discretion in dragging his
enunciation of political principles into his sworn evidence on the
Chinese question, and we doubt much whether a knowledge that such is
his belief would be calculated to enhance the regard of the Chinese,
among whom he states that he is an evangelist, for either the
philanthropy or the hard sense of their coryphæus.
That there may be no doubt about the intensity of his virulence
against the church, he returns to the charge; and, strangely enough,
it is the same committeeman that now goads him on who, on the
previously-mentioned reference to foreign hierarchs, stopped his
mouth by stating that his opinions on that subject were not at issue
in the examination.
“_Ques._ You spoke about these Irish as people coming here who
have sworn allegiance to some foreign potentate. To whom have
you reference?
“_Ans._ I refer to the Roman Catholics.
“_Ques._ Do you, then, think Chinese immigration less dangerous
to our institutions than that of Roman Catholics?
“_Ans._ I think so; decidedly less. The Chinese do not purpose
to intermeddle with our religious rights. They have no
hierarchy. They are not sworn to support any religious system.
They are mixed up at home. They have no one religion. They may
be Mahometans.
“_Ques._ You think they are less dangerous than European
Christians of a certain persuasion?
“_Ans._ I think they are less dangerous than Roman Catholics.
“_Ques._ Are they less dangerous than Europeans?
“_Ans._ Whether they be Europeans or of any other nationality,
providing they are Romanists.
“_Ques._ Suppose the Chinese should become Catholics; then they
would become dangerous?
“_Ans._ I think so.
“_Ques._ The Roman Catholics are not Christians, then?
“_Ans._ They are Christians, but not Protestant Christians.
They are Roman Catholic Christians. I make a wide distinction
between Protestants and Romanists” (p. 469).
Thus this man, professing himself an ambassador of Christ, deliberately
puts himself on record as holding that pagans who know nothing of
Christ’s atonement, and who, in his phrase, worship idols, are
preferable to those who have had invoked upon them the name of God in
baptism, who believe in the Divinity, bow at the name and hope to be
saved by the merits of Jesus. Could the spirit of the most malevolent
_odium theologicum_ go further? Would such an assertion be believed of
any ignorant communist, much less of one who claims to be a minister of
Christ, were it not contained in print in the report of a Congressional
committee? If the man believes so little in the influence of the
religion of the Saviour whom he preaches as his statement would
indicate, it is his duty at once to resign, and relieve the society
which supports him of the burden of a salary which he cannot
conscientiously earn. “Believe,” said the apostle, “in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved!” “Not enough,” says Rev. Loomis; “you
must be additionally a Protestant, or a belief in the Saviour will
profit you no whit.” Has any man yet ever had a clear definition of
that term, “_Protestant_”? Thomas à Kempis and St. Vincent of Paul, St.
Augustine and St. Charles Borromeo, the glorious cohort of martyrs and
confessors, would be dangerous citizens of the United States compared
with Ah Sin and Fan Chow! This is certainly information of an
unlooked-for kind, and the man competent to impart it does not usually
hide his light in the dreary pages of a Congressional committee’s
report. He says himself that he has been a missionary since 1844. By
consequence he must have attained to a good age, and the great wonder
to us is that a man of such astoundingly original views has not
heretofore made his mark upon an age always anxious “to see or hear
some new thing.”
The assertion that Catholics purpose to interfere with the rights of
Protestants or other unbelievers, implied in the statement that the
Chinese have no such intention, is both too indefinite and too futile
for discussion. Catholics in all countries, but more especially in
English-speaking countries, have for the past two hundred years had all
they could manage to be allowed to follow the dictates of their own
faith, free of legal pains and penalties, to have any time to spare for
concocting plans against the civil or religious rights of others. In
the only English-speaking state that they founded they established
liberty of conscience, which statute was abolished by the friends of
Mr. Loomis just as soon as they had the power.
But Mr. Loomis assigns reasons in favor of the superior desirability of
pagan over Christian immigration, and the prominent ones seem to be
that they have essentially no religion—or rather, that they have fifty;
that they have no hierarchy; that, in fact, they do not support any
religious system—to sum it up, that they are _mixed up at home_! How
ill does not the adversary of mankind brook the distinctive unity of
the church of God! Like Pharao’s magicians, everything else he can
counterfeit or imitate; but the unity of the church is too much for
him. Common sense teaches the most ignorant, that if our Saviour
founded any church at all he founded _one_, and not four hundred
jarring and jangling conventicles. Probably this is the gravamen. The
Catholic, strong in the oneness of his church, and stanch in the
conviction that everything not of it must be a sham emanating from the
father of lies, will not be perverted by Mr. Loomis, charm he never so
wisely; while, on the other hand, a lot of pagans, especially of pagans
who were “considerably mixed up at home,” might furnish grist for Mr.
Loomis’ peculiar gospel mill, with due toll for the miller. As with the
apostle before, so this preacher now differs with the Saviour, who said
and thought that there should be “_one fold and one Shepherd_.” _Absit
blasphemia!_ but the sects all differ widely both from the Master, his
apostles, and the church, with which he promised to abide for ever.
Lest, however, any Catholic should lay to his soul the flattering
unction that his American birth might eliminate him from the general
unfitness of Catholics for citizenship in the United States or from an
entire appreciation of the institutions of his native country, Mr.
Loomis is very careful to inform us that it does not matter whether
they be Europeans or _of any other nationality; if they are Catholics_,
they are not so fit for immigration to this country, still less for the
exercise of citizenship, as if they were “_heathen Chinese_.” Here is a
man who declaims against Catholics and denounces them for purposing to
interfere with the rights of those who disagree with them in religious
views, and in the same breath argues the unfitness of a population of
possibly nine millions for citizenship in his own country, they being
at the time all residents, mostly citizens and largely natives, merely
because they belong to the old religion—the religion of Charles Carroll
of Carrollton. “Resolved,” said the meeting, “that the earth belongs to
the saints.” “Resolved,” added the same body, “that we are the saints.”
Did it ever by chance occur to our friend of decidedly original, if
limited, intellect that Senator Casserly lives in his own town, and is
looked upon, with some reason, as a representative man, very well
posted upon American institutions, and that it would be very hard to
persuade the people of the United States of any latent disability on
the part of that senator to appreciate or support them? Mr. Loomis
makes a great distinction between a Catholic and a Protestant, and no
doubt the difference is considerable; but the chasm is by no means as
great as that which separates the Christian from the bigot, and it is
hard for us to put Mr. Loomis in the ranks of the former. _Abeat_
Loomis.
Rev. W. W. Brier, after describing himself as “a Presbyterian minister
by profession, who makes his living by raising fruit,” proceeds thus:
“_Ques._ Would a reasonable restriction of Chinamen be an
advantage or not?
“_Ans._ If a restriction is to be made in respect to China, it
ought to be made upon people who are far worse for us than
Chinese. I would trade a certain nationality off for Chinamen
until there was not one of the stock left in trade” (p. 575).
Other portions of his evidence show that he herein refers to the Irish
as inferior to the Chinese. How he regards the latter is shown by his
response to the suggestion of a possible danger resulting from the
presence of sixty thousand Chinamen in the State, without any women of
their kind, viz.:
“_Ans._ The fact is, they are laborers, and I regard them very
much in the light I do any other thing we want to use—horses,
mules, or machinery” (p. 577).
When asked if he would be willing to give the Chinese a chance to
overrun California, he says:
“_Ans._ Why not? As well as to give the Irish a chance! My real
opinion is that we would be better off without any more
foreigners (p. 580).
“_Ques._ Are you quite willing there shall be no laws to
prevent this State from becoming a Chinese province?
“_Ans._ My opinion is that there is a great deal worse class of
foreigners in our land, who have all the rights of citizenship
and everything else” (p. 581).
That a man saturated to the heart’s core with such bitter prejudices
against any portion of God’s children should have, under any
circumstances, engaged in the work of saving souls may seem strange,
and we shall not here go into the explication, which would detain us
from our subject; but it is by no means surprising that such a person
should fail of success as an evangelist and devote his time and
prejudices to fruit-raising. He describes himself as a successful
fruit-grower, and we have good authority for believing that “no man can
serve two masters.” Not that he has given up preaching by any means;
for he tells of his ministering in the vineyard, which means with
people of his stamp delivering on Sunday an essay or so something after
the fashion of a screed from the _Spectator_, and taking leave of all
practical religion till the next Sunday. Of the ministrations of the
Catholic priest—going in and out daily among his parishioners,
preparing this one for death, comforting that one bereaved, advising
and warning the vicious, alleviating want and encouraging all—he knows
as little as his own mules. It appears by his evidence that he hires at
times as many as sixty-five or seventy Chinamen, and, as he confessedly
regards them in the same light as so much machinery, it is by no means
to be wondered at that he should prefer men who will submit to be so
regarded. The Chinaman possibly may, certainly the Irishman will not;
and, upon the whole, we should think very much less of an Irishman if
he had proved a favorite with such a specimen fossil as Rev. Brier. The
Irishman is quick, full of life, strong, prone to resent an insult,
courageous, and of all men least likely to allow himself to be trampled
upon, ignored, or regarded in the same light as the mules and horses
about the place. Further, it is more than likely that, in an encounter
of wit with an Irishman, Rev. Mr. Brier would not come out first; and
it is a dead certainty that Brier’s view of religion would appeal as
little to the Irishman’s sympathies as it probably does to those of the
reader. Taking, then, everything into account, we are not surprised
that this person should not like Irishmen, but we do wonder that he
should not have the grace to conceal the hypocrisy involved between his
own ostensible profession on the one side, and his utter disregard of
the dignity of humanity, of the value of the human soul, on the other.
Under such shepherds it is no wonder that the flock becomes scattered,
and, while we do not wish well to Protestantism at any time (for
individual Protestants we entertain the most kindly feelings), it would
be impossible for us to wish the system worse than that the watchmen
upon the walls of the fortress founded by Luther and Calvin may all
have the osseous heart, the hypocritical profession, and the eocene
brain of Rev. Mr. Brier. Calvinism is disintegrating very rapidly, in
all conscience; it needs but a few more years of the ministrations of
such reverend gentlemen as this to give it the final _quietus_.
Why, even Chinamen have in this century been touched by the progressive
spirit of the age. They emigrate, are found in California, the Sandwich
Islands, Australia, Singapore, etc. They have opened their ports to
foreigners, and are sending their young men to be educated both in the
United States and in Europe. And here we have the Rev. Mr. Brier—who
would build up in these United States a Chinese wall of exclusion, who
would have Japan and China return to their ancient policy of
non-intercourse, and who, if he had his way, would cause this great
country to join them—who says deliberately that the United States would
be “better off without any more foreigners.” He is a credit to the
college that educated him, the State that bred him, and the religion he
professes! _Exeat_ Brier.
Rev. S. V. Blakeslee is an orthodox Congregational minister, acting now
as editor of the _Pacific_, which he describes as “the oldest religious
newspaper on the coast.” Contrary to the former two ministers, he is
bitterly opposed to Chinamen, and is only less rancorous against them
than he is against the hated Irish Catholics. We give parts of his
examination, omitting much that would but lead us over ground already
trodden:
“_Ques._ Is there any other class of foreign labor that you
think has a tendency to render labor disreputable?
“_Ans._ Yes, I mean all whom we regard as inferior; to whom we
consign the work—all who are really inferior.
“_Ques._ What race would you put in that category?
“_Ans._ If I were to mention names, I believe the Americans
generally regard the Irish as very much inferior; yet I believe
if the priests were out of the way, if Romanism were out of the
way, the Irish would be equal to any people on earth. As it is,
they are inferior in intelligence, inferior in morality” (p.
1035).
In another portion of his testimony he complains that the people of his
town (Oakland), with forty thousand inhabitants, have by no means the
supply of Congregational and other Protestant churches which in the
East would be considered necessary, and is asked:
“_Ques._ There are many Catholics, are there not?
“_Ans._ Oh! Catholics can hardly be said to go to church. They
do not go to listen to a sermon; they do not go to get
instructed (p. 1037).
“_Ques._ Do the Irish assimilate with the American people?
“_Ans._ They do, if they are Protestant; but the priests mean
to keep them separate, and mean to keep them as a power in
America under their control” (p. 1041).
As to his knowledge of Catholic practice and belief, the following will
suffice, viz.:
“_Ques._ Have you as much prejudice against an American or
German Catholic as against an Irish Roman Catholic?
“_Ans._ If you ask, is my judgment more in approval of an
American or German than of an Irish Catholic, I should say it
was, because I do not find that the priest can control the
German as he can the Irish Catholic.
“_Ques._ Does the priest control them for evil or for good?
“_Ans._ I think that a great many priests teach them that the
end justifies the means, and that to tell a lie for mother
church is honest.
“_Ques._ Did you ever hear one preach that?
“_Ans._ Well, they were so near it—it’s all the same, probably;
but they did not use those words.
“_Ques._ Have you heard them preach?
“_Ans._ No, sir; they don’t preach much. They will stand a long
time, going through a performance, and ring a little bell for a
man to rise and kneel down, and then they will rise up again,
but they don’t preach much!”
The reader will observe the marked contempt with which those to whom
_we consign the work_ are regarded as being _really inferior_. Why, in
the eyes of this exponent of Christian doctrine and republican
practice, labor, and those who do it, are quite as disreputable as used
to be, in their own region, a class known as _poor white trash_. Now,
from the conditions of this world in which we are placed, there can
never, by any possibility, come a time (as there never has hitherto
been one) in which it will not be incumbent on two-thirds of earth’s
inhabitants to earn their _bread in the sweat of their brow_. It is
God’s decree, man’s destiny, and a large proportion of the one-third
who in any age of the world have managed to exempt themselves from the
consequence of the _fiat_ of the Omnipotent in respect to labor, have
done so by taking advantage of the honesty or simplicity of their
fellow-men. They or their ancestors must have converted to their own
use more than their share of the soil, the common heritage of the human
race and the source of all wealth. There are not wanting at this day
those who consider the laws which perpetuated the right to such
original seizures unjust, and it is just such despisers of the laborer
and appropriators of his work as this reverend gentleman who
unwittingly give the greatest occasion for discontent to those who
fancy themselves aggrieved by the existing condition of things. We are
neither communists nor agrarians, but we see that, even in this happy
country, it will be very possible to convert the laboring class into
such by subjecting them to the scorn of such men as this witness,
causing them to feel that they are regarded as really inferior, and
incidentally exciting the envy which the sight of ranches of
seventy-six thousand acres of land in the hands of one individual is
calculated to produce. Such contempt of the laborer is un-American, to
say nothing of its entire lack of Christianity, and to us it seems that
no men of any nationality or religion could be so injurious to the real
interests of any country as those entertaining it. We do not say that
we would _trade_ the Rev. Mr. Blakeslee _for a Chinaman_, but we hope
and believe that there are few Americans of his way of thinking in
regard to labor, and trust that soon there will be none of _that stock_
left. The preamble to the Declaration of Independence must have long
ceased to be remembered, and Christianity will be in her last throes,
ere such views shall obtain; and we have confidence in the permanence
of this republic, with an abiding faith that God will be with his
church.
We will not bandy words with Mr. Blakeslee as to his opinion that
Americans generally regard the Irish as _inferior in intelligence and
morality_. It is one of those lump statements which impulsive or
prejudiced men sometimes make about a whole nation in the heat of
conversation, but which seldom find their way into sworn testimony. We
are American to the manner born, and we not only do not believe the
fact, but, so far as both reading and intercourse with our countrymen
have enabled us to form an opinion, we should assert the direct
contrary. There is, we well know, about all our large cities a class
corresponding to the “hoodlums” of San Francisco (and we are sorry to
add that they are nearly all Americans) who fancy that their mere
accidental birth upon this soil has not only elevated them above all
other nationalities, but raised them above the necessity of work. We
can lay no stress on the opinions of this class. By all other Americans
not influenced by hatred of the church, and, indeed, by many who do not
regard her favorably, we have always heard remarked (and statistics
will prove) the almost entire immunity of the Irish from the crime of
fœticide; their large generosity to their friends and relatives, as
proved by the proportionately larger amounts of money yearly
transmitted by them to the old country; their unconquerable industry;
the chastity of their women, though, by their condition in life, more
exposed to temptation than perhaps any other body of females in the
world. It is denied by nobody that where a soldier is wanted the
Irishman is always on hand, and that he compares very favorably with
the soldier of any other nation. As to intelligence, Mr. Blakeslee must
surely be poking some mild fun at us under the sanctity of his oath. If
he had ever tried to get the advantage of the most illiterate Irishman
in conversation, if he had ever heard or read a true account of the
result to any one who did so, he would not, for shame’s sake, appear
making the wild assertion that the Irishman is deficient in
intelligence. The common experience of any local community in the
United States will at once brand the statement with its proper stamp,
for which three letters are quite sufficient.
But here comes the real gist of Mr. Blakeslee’s charge of immorality
and stupidity against the countrymen of Swift and Burke, of Wolfe Tone
and O’Connell, of Moore and John of Tuam. “If,” says he, “it were not
for Romanism, they would be in course of time a very excellent people.”
In other words, if they would cease to be what they are, if they would
sit under the ministrations of Rev. Blakeslee and his like, if they
would now give up the religion from which centuries of persecution and
penal laws have failed to dissever them, they might finally come to
have as thorough-paced a contempt for labor and as strong a belief in
the inferiority of the laborer as this reverend gentleman himself.
“Paddy,” says Mr. Blakeslee, “you are a Papist, you are an idolater,
you are very immoral, and you have very little sense. Will you be good
enough now to become a Congregationalist?” The Irishman’s blood boils,
fire flashes from his eye, the church militant is roused in him, and
away runs Rev. Blakeslee, more than ever convinced of the inferiority
of the mean Irish and their imperviousness to the charms of
Protestantism!
Among the ephemeral sects of the day, depending, as they do, on the
temporary whims or idiosyncrasies of the individuals who “run them,”
there is apt to arise a fashion in morality, so that it is something
not unlike fashion in ladies’ dress—very different this season from
what it was the last. Now, these sects are loud and noisy, making up in
vehemence for what they lack in numbers, logic, and authority. Just
now, and for some years past, the sin which it is the fashion to decry
to the neglect of all others is that of drunkenness, which the church
has always held to be a great scandal amongst men and a sin against the
Almighty. But, while the church has received no new light on the
subject, the various sectaries have erected “drinking” into the one
typical, the sole crying vice, the incorporation of all the other sins.
A man is now practically “a moral man,” provided he does not use
liquor; and no other crime, short of murder, is, in the eyes of the
Protestant community, so damning as is addictedness to drink. There is
no doubt but that, in the early part of this century, liquor was drunk
by the Irish to too great an extent. There is just as little doubt that
a great change for the better has come over the Irish in this regard,
and that the good work is still going on. But the Irish at no time
exceeded the Scotch in their consumption of liquor, nor did they ever
equal either the Danes or Swedes, both thoroughly Protestant nations.
But if you give a man a bad name you may as well hang him; and the same
holds good of a nation. It suited the sectarian temperance orators to
select the Irish as the “shocking example” among nations, and falsely
to attribute the exaggerated drunkenness which they represented as then
existing to the influence of the church. Such a cry, once well set
going from Exeter Hall and the various Ebenezer chapels, is not easily
quelled; and as it is much easier for most men to take their opinions
ready made than to frame them for themselves, there does remain on the
minds of a large number of people a lurking distrust of the sobriety of
the individual Irishman, and a general belief that drunkenness is his
peculiar and besetting national vice. The statistics of the quantity of
ardent spirits consumed in Ireland since the year 1870, as compared
with the quantities used in England, Scotland, or Wales, will convince
any one who desires to know the truth; and we are not writing for those
who are content to defame a people by the dishonest repetition of a
false cry. These tables prove that, man for man, the consumption
referred to is in Ireland not so much as in Scotland by over three
gallons, in England by nearly two gallons, and in Wales by a little
less than in England. So long, however, as Sweden overtops the
consumption of the highest of them by the annual amount of two and a
half gallons per man, and Catholic Ireland holds the lowest rank as a
consumer of ardent spirits, we have no hope that it will “suit the
books” of sectarian temperance agitators to call attention to the
facts. It is much easier to defame than to do justice, and by this
craft many people nowadays are making a livelihood. Yet this false
charge of a vice which betrays by no means the blackheartedness
involved in many others—which, bad as it is, is by no means so heinous
as defrauding the laborer of his hire, swindling the poor of their
savings, watering stocks, accepting bribes, etc., etc., and which is
not even mentioned in the decalogue—is the only one that could at any
time have been charged with a decent show of plausibility against the
Irish as a nation, or against the individual Irishmen whom we have in
this country. We ourselves must admit that we thought there was some
truth in it, till we searched the statistical tables to find out the
facts, and we here make to the Irish people the _amende honorable_ for
having misjudged them on the strength of the cry of sectarian
demagogues.
Going to church can, in the mind of Mr. Blakeslee, mean only one
thing—_i.e._, going to hear a sermon—and so he says that “_Catholics
can hardly be said to go to church_.” Certainly the prime object of a
Catholic in going to church is not _to listen to a sermon_, nor should
it be so. It is hardly worth while to attempt to enlighten a man like
Mr. Blakeslee, who himself habitually sheds light from both pulpit and
press; but if we are to take the knowledge he seems to possess of the
Catholic Church as a specimen of the information he diffuses on other
points, what rare ideas must not his hearers and readers attain of
matters and things in general! Yet he is a man who professes to have
made a theological course, which should involve not only the study of
the doctrines and practises of his own sect, but also, to some slight
extent, of the remaining sects of Protestantism, to say nothing of the
church on which two hundred million Christians rest their hopes of
salvation. He knows no more of the celebration of the Blessed Eucharist
in the Church of Rome than to describe it as “_going through a
performance and ringing a little bell for a man to rise and kneel
down_”; and yet the fellow does not hesitate to announce what is the
doctrine and what the practice of the church—nay, to hold himself forth
as a champion against her tenets, as though he were divinely
commissioned to instruct thereon. To see ignorance is at all times
unpleasant; blatant ignorance combined with assumption of knowledge is
doubly nauseous; but the supereminent degree of loathing is only
excited when ignorance or conceit of knowledge elevates itself into the
chair of the spiritual guide and denounces what it in no whit
understands. _Be these thy gods, O Israel?_ Surely it is not to hear
the lucubrations of men of this stamp that any sane people would go to
church. We can only wish to the sheep of such a pastor increase of
knowledge, decrease of prejudice, and an enlarged ability to tell truth
on the part of their shepherd! We repeat that Catholics do not go to
church primarily or solely to hear a sermon. But they do go there to
join in spirit at the celebration of the divine Sacrifice, to pray to
God for grace to assist them through life, to make and strengthen good
resolutions, and to obey the command of the church. We all believe that
the devout hearing of one Mass is far more valuable than the hearing of
all the sermons ever delivered or printed since the sermon on the
Mountain of Beatitudes; and we lay no stress whatever on the best
formulæ of words ever strung together by the ingenuity even of the most
pious and learned of mere men, when compared with the expiatory
sacrifice of Christ’s body and blood, instituted by him and celebrated,
not merely commemorated, by the priest to whom he has given the power.
Should it ever happen—and as the mercy of God is infinite, and his ways
past finding out, it is not impossible—that this poor deluded man
should be brought to a knowledge of the truth, with what shame and
confusion of face would he not read his ignorant and impudent travesty
of the worship of God in his church!
If there be, as there doubtless are, other Protestants who get their
instruction about Catholics from Mr. Blakeslee and his like, and who
believe with this witness that the _priests mean to keep them_ (the
Catholics) _as a power in America_ under their (the priests’) control,
it would not be, and is not, worth our while to attempt to argue the
point with such. They will so believe, like the relatives of Dives,
though one rose from the dead to confute them. Ephraim is joined to his
idols; let him alone! But we appeal to the Catholic voters of this
country, of American or foreign birth, to answer: Has your bishop or
parish priest ever undertaken to dictate to you how you should vote?
Has your vote, on whatever side given, interfered in the slightest
degree with your status in the church? Do you know of a single instance
in which one or the other of these things has taken place? We cannot
lay down a fairer gauge. If these things take place they cannot occur
without the knowledge of those among whom they are done and upon whom
they are practised. They are Americans, and it is a free country. Long
ere this would the country have rung with the proof, had any such been
forthcoming. Mr. Blakeslee’s lying charge meant, if it meant anything,
that Catholics were to be kept apart as a political power; for neither
we nor any other Catholic desires or hopes otherwise than that the
church, _as a religious body_, shall, till the end of time, be kept
separate and apart from all the sects of Protestantism, which we
believe to be heresy and schism.
One would naturally always rather give an adversary the credit of
having honestly mistaken the facts than be obliged to consider him a
wilful slanderer and falsifier. But there are circumstances in which
the assertion made is so patently false, or has been so often
thoroughly refuted, that, though the heart would fain take refuge in
the former course, the brain refuses to accept any but the latter. Such
a case occurs where Mr. Blakeslee says that “_a great many priests
teach them that the end justifies the means, ... that to tell a lie for
mother church is honest_.” Every Catholic who has learned his catechism
knows that this is not so. We believe that _he_ knew it was not so when
he said it, but that his own innate malevolence against the church, and
the spirit of the father of lies speaking through him, compelled him to
the utterance of this vile slander. For which great sin may God forgive
him: he stands in sore need of it.
But after all, if Satan is so easily caught on a cross-examination as
he on this occasion allowed his servant to be, we need not stand in
much dread of his lies. The same man whose lips are not yet dry from
saying _on oath_ that the priests teach their people to tell lies, when
asked if he ever heard any single priest so teach, shuffles out of it
thus—his own words need no comment from us:
“_Ans._ Well, they were so near it; it’s all the same,
_probably_! They didn’t use those words!
“_Ques._ Have you ever heard them preach?
“_Ans._ _No, sir!_
We, on the contrary, think that it was not all the same “_probably_,”
and heartily thank his satanic majesty for his negligence in failing to
inspirit his servant with the knowledge that, in order to be believed,
in swearing as to what priests preach in their sermons, it is necessary
to be able also to swear that the witness has heard at least one such
sermon. _Valeat_ Blakeslee.
Other preachers testified; and when the question arose as to Catholic
foreigners, more especially Irish Catholic, all betrayed the cloven
hoof, though some veiled their hatred in much more seemly words than
did others. It had been our intention to examine their testimony, in so
far as it touched the church, _seriatim_; but further reflection
induces us to believe that from these few pages the reader can learn
sufficiently the depth of the ignorance and the extent of the hatred of
these blind leaders of the blind. If the reward in heaven be exceeding
great to those whom all men shall hate, revile, and despitefully use,
surely the glory of Catholics, and of Catholic Irishmen especially,
will be great in the next world; for certainly they are not loved of
men in this.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
A LITTLE SERMON.
FROM “THE LITTLE FLOWERS OF ST. FRANCIS.”
The Poor One of Assisi trod one day
Bevagna’s road, and, praying by the way—
His heart seraphic, like the choirs above,
Filled with the sweetness born of heavenly love—
Lifting his eyes, that loved the earth’s fair face,
He saw, thick gathered in a bosky place,
A host of birds that flitted to and fro,
Filling the boughs with twittering murmur low.
“Wait here, my brothers,” fell in gentle speech;
“Unto this multitude needs must I preach:
“Here by the wayside, good Masseo, bide
Till I these little birds have satisfied.”
Into the field he passed, the flowers among,
Where, on the bending stems, the songsters swung.
Gathered the wingèd things about his feet,
Dropped from the boughs amid the grasses sweet:
Reverent dropt down to listen to God’s word,
Silenced their song that his Poor One be heard.
Touching with his gray robe their eager wings,
St. Francis softly stilled their flutterings.
Sedate they sat with crested heads alert,
The near ones nestling in their brother’s skirt.
“My little birds, ye owe deep gratitude
To God, who has your forms with life imbued,
“And ever in all places should ye praise
Your Maker, who in love keeps you always,
“Since by His hand to you is freedom given
To fly where’er ye will, on earth, in heaven:
“Since from his strong and loving hand ye hold
Your double garments guarding you from cold:
“Since, that no evil blight fall on your race,
He gave in Noe’s ark your sires a place.
“And unto him deep gratitude ye owe
For this pure air whence life itself doth flow.
“And then ye sow not, neither do ye reap,
Yet God for you doth plenteous harvest keep;
“The streams He gives you, and the limpid spring
Where ye may drink of waters freshening;
“He gives the hills and valleys for your rest,
The great-armed trees where each may make his nest.
“And, since ye cannot spin nor sew, his care
Weaves the soft robes ye and your fledglings wear.
“How much he loves that doth so richly give!
Praise him, my little birds, all days ye live!
“So keep ye well from sin of thanklessness,
And God keep you, whom let all creatures bless!”
Bowed all the little birds their heads to earth,
Oped wide their bills, and sang with holy mirth
Their _Deo gratias_ when St. Francis ceased,
Yet rose not till his hand their wings released
With Christian cross signed in the happy air,
Giving the songsters leave to scatter there.
Softly, so blessed, the grateful birds up-soared
And marvellous music in their flight outpoured:
Looked not at earth, nor him they left behind,
Parting in ways the holy cross had signed.
Singing they cleft the quarters of the sky—
Type of St. Francis’ mission wide and high:
Type of his little ones who nothing own,
Whose humble trust is in their Lord alone—
So nourished as their brother birds are fed,
Whose great Creator doth their table spread.
Listening the lessening chant, St. Francis smiled,
Praising his Lord for joy so undefiled.
—_From the French of F. A. Ozanam_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
THE KNOWLEDGE OF MARY. By the Rev. J. De Concilio, Pastor of St.
Michael’s Church, Jersey City, author of _Catholicity and
Pantheism_. New York: The Catholic Publication Society Co., 9
Barclay Street. 1878.
We must apologize to Father De Concilio for being late with our notice
of his book. Our excuse is, simply, lack of time for its
perusal—anything but lack of desire; for, on learning that the author
of _Catholicity and Pantheism_—a work that has won unstinted and
generous praise from all competent critics, and established the fame of
its author as a profound philosophical thinker—was engaged upon a work
about the Blessed Virgin, we hailed the promised boon as a feast, both
intellectual and devotional, of the rarest kind. And are we
disappointed? On the contrary, our most sanguine expectations are
surpassed.
Father De Concilio tells us in his preface that this new book is “a
necessary part” of his former work on _Catholicity and Pantheism_,
“though it may seem to have very little to do with it.” “For Mary,” he
says, “is the best refutation of pantheism, the universal error of our
time. The substance of this error is to absorb the finite in the
infinite, and, consequently, to abolish, to do away with, all created
agency. Now, Mary, as we shall prove, represents created agency in its
grandest, sublimest, and most magnificent expression. She represents
created agency in all the mysteries of God relating to the creature.
She is, therefore, the best and most convincing refutation of
pantheism, the rock against which the mighty waves of this universal
error must exhaust their force.” Again: “Pantheism, in pretending to
exalt humanity, degrades it and deprives it of everything that causes
its glory. Mary, the grandest specimen of human nature, exhibits human
personality in its most colossal proportions, and is the glory, the
pride, the magnificence of our race.”
We quote these passages from the author’s preface, because they furnish
the key-note to the whole work.
The volume opens with an admirable “Introduction,” showing how
Christianity was needed to bring fallen man to the knowledge and love
of God, and how “the world owes Christianity, along with its results,
to Mary”; also, how the same instrument must bring back the knowledge
and love of God to-day, lost again as they have been in great part;
whence “the necessity of true, accurate, solid knowledge of Mary.” Then
follow the five books into which the essay is divided, the chapters of
each book being subdivided into articles. This arrangement at once
gives conciseness to the argument, and much relieves the strain upon
the reader’s thought.
The first, second, and fourth books are the most important: the first
dealing with “Mary’s place in the divine plan of the universe”; the
second with “the grandeur of Mary’s destiny”; and the fourth with “the
consequences of Mary’s dignity relatively to God, to the human race,
and to herself.” The third book treats of “the perfections of Mary in
general,” and its arguments will be readily admitted by the reader who
has accepted those of the preceding books; the fifth, again, elucidates
“Mary’s merit and glory,” which no one will question who agrees with
the fourth book.
Father De Concilio shows himself a master by the easy strength with
which he expounds the divine plan of the universe, and the place which
the Incarnation holds therein. The eight articles of his first chapter
are thus recapitulated:
“End: The greatest possible manifestation and communication of divine
goodness.
“Preliminary means: Creation of substances, spiritual, material, and
composite—angels, matter, and men.
“Best means to the object: The hypostatic union of the Word with human
nature.
“Effects of the Incarnation with regard to God: Infinite glory and
honor.
“With regard to created nature: Universal deification.
“With regard to personalities: Deification of their nature in Christ,
and beatific union with the Trinity through their union with Christ by
sanctification.
“God foresees the fall, and permits it in order to enhance these
effects by redemption.”
We do not at all wonder at a reviewer in the Chicago _Interior_
complimenting our author on “profound scholarship in Catholic
theology.” “The book,” he says, “is bold to familiarity in describing
with scientific particularity and clearness of outline the constitution
of the Holy Trinity as defined by Catholic theologians.” We do,
however, wonder that this writer, if a believer in revelation, should
go on to compare Father De Concilio to a chemist analyzing “a pyrite of
iron,” and still more that he should declare his “ideas as grossly
_anthropomorphic_ as it is possible to be”(!) Would this critic call
the Bible anthropomorphic? He says nothing about our author’s theology
of the Incarnation—unless he means to hit at _that_ as
“anthropomorphic.” It is precisely about the Incarnation that
Protestants are utterly at sea. When the reviewer adds: “We can
understand, after examining this book, the character of Catholic
devotion to Mary as we never understood it before,” we are compelled to
reply: “Then your understanding of it is a greater mistake than ever
before, unless you have first come to realize the Catholic doctrine of
the Incarnation with its bearings; and if that were the case you would
avow it, for you could not remain a Protestant another hour.”
Let any Protestant of sufficient education read the first of these five
books earnestly and prayerfully, and he will have to acknowledge that
his hitherto Christianity, be it what it may, is divided _toto cœlo_
from Catholic Christianity—the _totum cœlum_ being precisely his lack
of that “knowledge of Mary” which is inseparable from an intelligent
belief in the Incarnation.
The Catholic student will be specially interested by the way in which
Father De Concilio treats of Mary’s “co-operation.” She is set
forth—and in a clearer light than ever before by any book in the
English language—as the great “representative _personality_” of our
race. It is in this capacity that she consents to the Incarnation and
Redemption. “A God-Man was necessary to expiate for the sins of
mankind. But that was not sufficient. According to the law of wisdom,
mentioned in our last argument, God was ready to help human nature to
that extent as to effect the Incarnation and produce the God-Man; but
God required, also, that mankind should do all it could towards its own
redemption. It could not give the God who was to divinize the acts of
human nature; it could not actually effect the union between human
nature and the divine person of the Word; but it could freely and
deliberately offer the nature to be united for the express purpose and
intent of suffering; and this offering could only be made by means of a
_representative human person_ fully conscious of the necessity of
expiation, of the conditions required by it, and of the consequences
resulting therefrom” (pp. 77, 78).
Again (pp. 78, 79): “The consent of Mary was required in the plan of
God in order to elevate created _personality_ to the highest possible
dignity, and thus to fulfil the end which God had proposed to himself
in exterior work.” This purpose, he goes on to say, was not completed
by God “taking human _nature_ to be his own nature, and to be God with
him.” ... “Human _personality_ does not exist in Christ, and receives
no honor from him. There is one person in him, and that is divine.” ...
“Mary, therefore (p. 80), fulfils the office of creation, and
especially of created personality, in its most sovereign act—the act
which this personality would have elicited in Jesus Christ, if it had
been in him. Human nature, such as it was in Christ, could not give
itself, because to give is a personal act, and God wished to carry to
its utmost extremity the communication of goodness, that human nature
should give itself in order to be made partaker of the responsibility
and attribution of the effects of that mysterious union.”
Having thus shown the inestimable importance of Mary’s consent to the
Incarnation, our author proceeds to point out “the extent or
comprehensiveness” of that consent—to wit, that “in giving her consent
to the Incarnation and redemption” she “not only agreed to become the
Mother of Jesus Christ the _Redeemer_, ... but also to become a
_co-sufferer_ with him; so that Mary’s Compassion was to accompany, to
go hand in hand with, Christ’s Passion, _both_ being _necessary_ for
the redemption of mankind, according to the plan selected by God’s
wisdom.”
Here is something new to us, but very delightful to discover, since it
glorifies Our Blessed Lady so much more than the ordinary view of her
Dolors. We knew that “she consented to undergo all the anguish and
sorrow and martyrdom consequent upon her from the sacrifice and
immolation of her divine Son,” and thus “join her _Compassion_ to his
Passion, in order to redeem mankind”; that, in this sense, she
“consented to become the _corredemptrix_ of the human race.” But it had
not occurred to us that “all this, implied in her consent, was
_necessary_ as that consent itself.”
Our author here quotes Father Faber’s theory about Mary’s privilege of
being “corredemptrix”—the term by which saints and doctors call her—and
shows that the gifted Oratorian, in his exquisite book on Mary’s
sorrows (_The Foot of the Cross_), “has not done justice to the
subject.” He even quarrels with Faber’s “co-redemptress” as a
“_substitution_” for the ancient “corredemptrix,” whereas it would
appear but a translation—that is, as Faber uses it. We feel sure, too,
that the English word _may_ mean the full equivalent of the Latin. But,
at all events, Father Faber’s theory is that Mary’s dolors were among
the _unnecessary_ sufferings of the Passion. “Indeed,” he says, “they
were literally our Lord’s unnecessary sufferings.... Her co-operation
with the Passion by means of her dolors is wanting, certainly, in that
indispensable necessity which characterizes the co-operation of her
maternity.” To this Father De Concilio remarks that Father Faber “had
an incomplete idea of the office of Mary as to redemption,” and objects
to the doctrine of “unnecessary sufferings” as “theologically
inaccurate, to say the least.” “The Passion of Christ,” he says, “must
be considered as a _variety_ of sorrows _co-ordained_ by the _unity_ of
the sacrifice—the beginning of which was the maternal womb, in which
the Incarnate Word placed himself in the state of a victim, and the
termination Calvary, where the grand holocaust was consummated.” And,
after establishing this point, he proceeds to prove that Mary’s
Compassion was “among the necessary elements of the redemption.” He
brings to light, both from the Fathers and from reason, “a principle in
the economy of our redemption,” whereby God had to supply, indeed, a
means of infinite merit (through the Incarnation), but, equally, had to
exact from humanity all that itself could do towards atonement. From
this principle he deduces three consequences:
_First_. That “our Lord’s humanity was to suffer as much as ... would
bear a kind of proportion to the offence and realize the principle that
human nature was to do as much as possible towards its own redemption.”
Whence, obviously, “the distinction of necessary and unnecessary
sufferings in the life of our Lord” is untenable.
_Second_. That “human nature was required to do more than suffer in
Christ. It was required to deliberately and willingly offer up that
human nature to be united to the Word of God for the purpose of
redemption, by means of a representative of the whole human race.”
Whence “the necessity of Mary’s consent to the Incarnation and
redemption.”
_Third_. That “it was necessary that the highest representative of
human personality, the human head of the race, _should be subject also
to the highest possible martyrdom which a human person may be subject
to_, as a reparation coming from a human personality, and unite it with
the sufferings of the humanity of the Word, and thus bring its own meed
of suffering required by God’s wisdom for our ransom.” “This was
necessary,” he adds, “because in our Lord _humanity suffered as a
nature, not as a personality_.”
From these deductions, then, the author concludes that “Mary’s
Compassion is a necessary element of the redemption, and Mary is really
and truly the corredemptrix of the human race.” But, of course, he is
careful to add that “Christ alone redeemed us truly, really, and
efficaciously, because he alone could give infinite value to those
sufferings, and, therefore, he is the only Redeemer. Mary is the
corredemptrix, but only in the sense just explained.” “Those,” he says,
“who are afraid to think Mary’s sufferings necessary for our redemption
are thinking only of the infinite value required for our sacrifice.
Mary has nothing to do with that. In speaking of her co-operation we
limit ourselves to speaking of what was required from human nature and
human personality as their mite towards redemption, independent of the
infinite worth to be given only by Christ’s infinite personality.”
To us, we must joyfully avow, this elaborate argument for Mary’s
greater glory appears irrefragable.
What specially delights us in the fourth book, again, is to see our
heavenly Mother proved the “channel” and “dispenser” of all grace.
This, also, is an unspeakable gain to us. And we need not say that if,
on the one hand, our learned theologian has invested his Queen with a
sublimity and an awe that makes us feel how unworthy of her notice is
our best of love and service, he has inspired us, on the other hand,
with more confidence than ever in her tenderness and power.
Those, too, of our readers who have a turn for contemplation and have
thought much on Our Lady will meet in these pages with many an idea
which has come into their minds before, and which, perhaps, they have
been afraid to disclose, or even harbor. Such will join with us in
revelling over the logic which makes blessed certainties of these
exquisite guesses.
In conclusion, we are quite unable to express our thanks to Father De
Concilio for his magnificent book. But he does not need our gratitude.
She whose champion he is will not fail to fulfil in his regard the
promise which to him must be so precious: _Qui elucidant me vitam
æternam habebunt_—“They who make me shine forth shall have life
everlasting.”
WHY A CATHOLIC IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY? By William Giles Dix. New
York: The Catholic Publication Society Co., 9 Barclay Street. 1878.
The author of this essay once contributed to THE CATHOLIC WORLD a
thoughtful article called “The Roman Gathering.” (See CATHOLIC WORLD,
May, 1868.) He was then a Protestant. It is consoling to find him no
longer among those who, while forced to envy the Catholic Church,
remain outside her communion on the strength of some hazy theory or
from a superstitious dread of using their reason. Having come, by God’s
grace, to see the truth himself, he aims at making others see it
equally clearly. He shows very forcibly, and in simple language, “that
the New Testament, and the Protestant version of that, proves these
propositions:
“I. Christ founded a church.
“II. Christ founded _one_ church, one only: _not a corporation of
national churches, not a federal union of churches_, but literally one
church.
“III. That one church of Christ was intended to be the only spiritual
guide, on earth, of Christians.
“IV. That [this] church had the promise of endurance and of guidance
until the end of the world.
“V. That [this] church was the beginning of the church known
historically as the Catholic Church.”
Of course this is very old ground; but Mr. Dix goes over it in a way
that ought to induce earnest Protestants of any denomination to follow
him.
Here is an excellent hit:
“A word is in many mouths—_Ultramontane_—intended to represent extreme
views of papal rights. Now, I care not whom you select among the
defenders of the powers of St. Peter and his successors, you will find
the attributes ascribed by any such writer to the successors of St.
Peter not so strong as the single commission of our Lord to his
apostles recorded in the New Testament. _The most ultramontane writers
that I know of are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John._ The only difficulty
which any one finds in the interpretation of the words of our Lord
referring to his church is because those words are so plain and direct.
They so clearly set forth the amplest prerogatives ever claimed for the
Church of Christ that many people seem to believe that they cannot mean
what they seem to mean, and, therefore, must be explained away.”
We hope this short essay will meet with the success its ability
deserves. We regret, however, to say that while the plainness of its
language is a great point in its favor, its style is open to
improvement.
THE MIRROR OF TRUE WOMANHOOD. A Book of Instruction for Women in the
World. By Rev. Bernard O’Reilly. New York: Peter F. Collier. 1878.
Dr. O’Reilly continues to lay Catholics under obligation to his fluent
and versatile pen. He has a keen instinct for what is wanting in
Catholic popular literature, and this large and handsome volume fills a
niche in the Catholic household that was too long left empty. Women in
the world are apt to be overlooked by spiritual writers, or the works
intended for them are of a character not well adapted to attract the
average woman of the world, however good she may be. They need
something to take hold of their homes and their hearts, and to enter
into their ordinary daily life. This Dr. O’Reilly’s excellent volume
aims at doing, and, we trust, will succeed in doing. It is a work of
practical suggestion, illustrated and annotated, so to say, by examples
from the lives of women in all ages and in every station of life. A
tender heart, a practical mind, and a pious soul speak in every line.
It is the mother first of all who is chiefly instrumental in shaping
the life of man. If she is good and pure and high-minded, a constant
example of the height and greatness of those noblest of estates,
wifehood and motherhood, the chances are altogether in favor of her
children following her example. She is their great safeguard, their
earthly guardian-angel until they are properly launched upon the sea of
life, and even after that period her heart follows them and her virtues
live in their memory and their lives. It is because so many women
neglect this high office that so many children go astray. Virtue
belongs to no class; it is common to all Christians. The truest
nobility is a Christian life, which is open to all. The object of his
book is well described by Dr. O’Reilly in the “Introductory”: “It is
precisely because women are, by the noble instincts which God has given
to their nature, prone to all that is most heroic that this book has
been written for them. It aims at setting before their eyes such
admirable examples of every virtue most suited to their sex, in every
age and condition of life, that they have only to open its pages in
order to learn at a glance what graces and excellences render girlhood
as bright and fragrant as the garden of God in its unfading bloom, and
ripe womanhood as glorious and peerless in its loveliness and power as
the May moon in its perfect fulness when she reigns alone over the
starry heavens.” We cannot too earnestly recommend _The Mirror of True
Womanhood_ to women of every class, station, and time of life.
SHAKSPEARE’S HOME: Visited and Described by Washington Irving and F. W.
Fairholt. With a letter from Stratford. By J. F. Sabin. With
etchings by J. F. and W. W. Sabin. New York: J. Sabin & Sons. 1877.
This is an interesting little volume. A fair idea of its contents may
be gathered from the title. The etchings are carefully executed, and
are full of promise.
WHAT CATHOLICS DO NOT BELIEVE. A Lecture delivered in Mercantile
Library Hall, on Sunday evening. Dec. 16, 1877. By Right Rev. P. J.
Ryan, Bishop of Triconia, and Coadjutor to the Archbishop of St.
Louis. St. Louis: P. Fox. 1878.
It was a happy thought to publish this lecture in pamphlet form; for
the matter which it contains is worthy of wide dissemination and close
study. Bishop Ryan has here presented some admirable points in an
admirable manner to the consideration of fair-minded men who are
interested in the doings and the faith of the Catholic Church. He has
taken up a few of the chief current objections against the church, set
them strongly forward, and then disposed of them in a manner that wins
admiration as much for its honesty and calmness as for its completeness
and skill. We understand that it has provoked much discussion in St.
Louis, in the public press and elsewhere. Such discussion can only do
good. We strongly recommend the pamphlet to Catholic and Protestant
alike. It is interesting for its own sake; it will be of great use to
the Catholic who is thrown into non-Catholic society; it will relieve
the fairly-disposed Protestant mind of some inherited darkness and much
foolish misconception.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
THE WRITTEN WORD; or, Considerations on the Sacred Scriptures. By
William Humphrey, Priest of the Society of Jesus.
THE CHRISTIAN REFORMED IN MIND AND MANNERS. By Benedict Rogacci, of the
Society of Jesus. Translation edited by Henry James Coleridge, of
the same Society.
THE ART OF KNOWING OURSELVES; or, The Looking-Glass which does not
Deceive. By Fr. John Peter Pinamonti, S.J. With Twelve
Considerations on Death, by Fr. Luigi La Nuza, S.J., and Four on
Eternity, by Fr. John Baptist Manni, S.J.
LIFE OF HENRI PLANCHAT, Priest of the Congregation of the Brothers of
St. Vincent de Paul, etc., etc., One of the Hostages Massacred by
the Commune at Belleville, May 36, 1871. By Maurice Maignen, Member
of the Congregation of Brothers of St. Vincent de Paul. Translated
from the French, with an Introductory Preface, by Rev. W. H.
Anderdon, S.J.
A VISIT TO THE ROMAN CATACOMBS. By Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, D.D.
MEDITATIONS. From the Spanish of Rev. Fr. Alonso de Andrade, S.J.
ERLESTON GLEN. A Lancashire Story of the Sixteenth Century. By Alice
O’Hanlon.
[All the above are published by Burns & Oates, London, and are for sale
by The Catholic Publication Society Co.
PENITENTIARY SERMONS. By Rev. Theodore Noethen, Catholic Chaplain.
Albany: Van Benthuysen Printing-House. 1877.
THE TOWER OF PERCEMONT. A Novel. From the French of George Sand. New
York: D. Appleton & Co. 1877.
THE SCHOLASTIC ALMANAC for the year of our Lord 1878. Compiled by J. A.
Lyons. Notre Dame, Ind.: The Scholastic Printing-Office.
TO THE SUN. A Journey through Planetary Space. From the French of Jules
Verne. By Edward Roth. Illustrated. Philadelphia: Claxton, Remsen &
Haffelfinger. 1878.
IRELAND: As She Is, As She Has Been, and As She Ought To Be. By James
J. Clancy. New York: Thomas Kelly. 1877.
NEW IRELAND. By A. M. Sullivan, Member of Parliament for Louth.
Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1878.
LIVES AND TIMES OF ILLUSTRIOUS AND REPRESENTATIVE IRISHMEN. By Thomas
Clarke Luby, A.B., T.C.D. Part II. New York: Thomas Kelly.
HOLY CHURCH, THE CENTRE OF UNITY; or, Ritualism Compared with
Catholicism: Reasons for Returning to the True Fold. By T. H. Shaw.
London: R. Washbourne. 1877.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXVI., No. 156.—MARCH, 1878.
IRELAND IN 1878.
I.
A history of Ireland still remains to be written; nor has there been
even an attempt to collect some of the chief materials for such a work.
Ten centuries of almost continuous conflict since the Danish
incursions, or seven since the Anglo-Norman settlement and the
destruction or dispersion of the national archives, are sufficient to
account for the absence of any full, authentic, or valuable Irish
history. From Giraldus Cambrensis in the twelfth century to Froude in
our day, there have never been wanting subsidized, and even able,
writers to defame and revile the native population and laud the English
rule in Ireland. Nor, on the other hand, has there been any lack of
enthusiasts whose patriotism, more ardent than their erudition is
profound or exact, is ever ready to excuse or defend the natives and
execrate the Anglo-Norman and Saxon tyrants and despoilers. Even in
Ireland it is difficult to obtain reliable information regarding the
country; while outside of it such aim is impossible of attainment. The
dispersion of the Irish race during the last thirty years has been
greater in extent and over a larger area of the globe than any exodus
of humanity known to history. These millions have carried the
traditions of their country’s wrongs, and the dismal tales of the
misgovernment of Ireland, to the uttermost ends of the earth,
exaggerating, perhaps, the oppression of their persecutors, and
depicting in touching sympathy the glowing virtues of the victims. The
largest contingent of this Irish emigration has enriched the United
States of America, where partiality has culminated in alternate praise
and censure of the Irish race. The circumstances under which most of
these people reached the American shores were truly tragic and
appalling, and are well-nigh forgotten by the older portion of the
generation now passing away.
The estimated population of Ireland in 1845 was 8,295,061, which made
it then one of the most densely peopled countries in Europe. In the
autumn of that year the potato crop, one of the chief products of the
country and the staple food of three-fifths of the people, failed,
involving a loss estimated by Mr. Labouchere, the British minister, of
eighty million dollars, or sixteen millions sterling. This failure in
1845 was followed by successive blights of the potato-crop in 1846 and
subsequent years, causing what is called the Irish famine, and with it
the great emigration, which brought an increase of millions of citizens
to the United States. There had been an Irish immigration in America
from the earliest days of the colony—to Maryland, for example, in the
seventeenth century; but the Irish famine of 1845–49 marks the opening
of the great influx of Irish into the United States and Canada.
We propose to consider the social and industrial condition and the
political and religious prospects of Ireland in 1878, making the eve of
the famine, in 1845, the basis of comparison. We write from Ireland,
with the amplest knowledge of our subject, and, as we hope, having no
object in view save a full and clear statement of the main facts
necessary for its elucidation. We have travelled over every province,
every county, every parish, every locality of its soil; are intimate
with every phase of its history and every section of its population,
and feel every throb of its national life. Yet we invite the fullest
criticism of our attempt to discuss the present condition of Ireland
from a scientific, a truthful, and an impartial stand-point. Nowhere
out of Ireland is such discussion more desirable or more difficult than
in the United States. The republic contains about the same number of
Irish, by birth or by descent, that remain in the old country. The
emigrants of the famine period left under dire pressure, the origin of
which is not fully understood abroad. In the forty-four years 1801–1845
the population of Ireland increased from 5,216,329 to 8,295,061, or by
3,078,732 persons—an increase of fifty-nine per cent. Emigration was
throughout that period inconsiderable; in the decade 1831–41 it was
only 403,459, or about 40,000 a year; in the next four years it fell to
little over half that average; while in the year 1843, when O’Connell
led the great agitation for repeal of the Union, only 13,026 persons
left the country, being the lowest on record. Although the potato
blight appeared in 1845, it was not until 1847 that the horrors of the
famine and of emigration assumed their most awful aspect. In the single
year 1847, that of O’Connell’s death, there was a loss of population of
262,574, or three per cent., by the conjoint action of emigration and
the excess of deaths over births; while in the next four years the
aggregate decrease reached 1,510,801 persons—little short of nineteen
per cent. of the whole population. The following table exhibits the
estimated population at the middle of the year relating to our inquiry:
─────┬────────────┬───────────────────────
│ │ DECREASE
YEAR│ POPULATION│ PERSONS │ PER CENT.
─────┼────────────┼────────────┼──────────
1845│ 8,295,061│ ——│ ——
1846│ 8,287,848│ 7,213│ 0.09
1847│ 8,025,274│ 262,574│ 3.1
1848│ 7,639,800│ 385,474│ 4.3
1849│ 7,256,314│ 383,486│ 5.0
1850│ 6,877,549│ 378,765│ 5.1
1851│ 6,514,473│ 363,076│ 5.1
1861│ 5,778,415│ 736,058│ 11.3
1871│ 5,395,007│ 383,408│ 6.6
1875│ 5,309,494│ 65,513│ 1.0
1876│ 5,321,618│ ——│ ——
1877│ 5,338,906│ ——│ ——
─────┴────────────┴────────────┴──────────
Over the whole period from 1845 to 1875 population decreased, but the
rate of decline diminished after 1851. In the thirty years there was a
loss of 2,973,443—nearly 100,000 annually, or thirty-six per cent. of
the inhabitants. The year 1876 is memorable as the starting-point of
reactionary improvement. For the first time during a generation
emigration has so diminished that the natural increase of births over
deaths added 10,352 to the population in 1876, and 17,288 in 1877.
Increase must henceforth be the normal law of population, but it is
never again likely to reach the rate it attained in the thirty years
1801–31, when it expanded about fourteen per cent. each decade, or an
increase of nearly one in seven every ten years.
We are now to inquire into the main causes of these terrible
calamities, strange and conflicting explanations of which are advanced
by public writers in the United States and other countries. One
flippant, fertile, and accepted theory is the peculiar proneness of the
Irish to contention and disunion—a theory generally credited as sound
by those ignorant of history or those prejudiced against the Irish
race. We shall adduce a few broad and suggestive facts in disproof of
this theory. Can any nation exhibit a nobler proof of unity than the
Brehon laws, or _Seanchus Mor_, which prevailed universally in Ireland
for centuries before the Christian era, until revised by St. Patrick
and the Christian kings, and which continued in force throughout the
country, save the small patch called the Pale, until the seventeenth
century, while the traditions and principles of that code yet influence
the people after a lapse of twenty to five-and-twenty centuries? And so
as regards the tenacity with which, for ages, the people have adhered
to the use of the Gaelic or native tongue, still spoken by little short
of a million of the inhabitants, after the Greeks, the Romans, the
French, the Spaniards, the Britons, and the Scotch have mainly
abandoned the primitive tongues of their ancestors. All pagan Ireland
was converted to Christianity by one man—an example of unity and
docility without parallel in the history of the human race. Ireland,
like France, England, and other countries, was ravaged by the Danish
and Norse invaders, yet the Irish defeated and expelled them in 1014,
long before the Gauls or the Saxons had banished or crushed them in
Normandy or in England. Towards the close of the twelfth century the
Anglo-Normans found partial footing in Ireland, yet for seven hundred
years the native race have opposed their rule, and oppose it to-day—an
example of unity and persistency unsurpassed in the world. The English,
the Scotch, and most of the nations in the north and northwest of
Europe abandoned their ancient faith and accepted the Protestant
Reformation, at the bidding of their sovereigns, in the sixteenth
century; while Catholic Ireland, in defiance of penal laws that
plundered property, denied education, reduced the people almost to
barbarism, and sent them to the scaffold for adherence to their church,
has remained, through centuries of suffering, loyal to conscience, and
by unity, fidelity, and perseverance has effected the overthrow of the
Protestant Church Establishment of the Tudors. Proud and great memories
these for the Irish nation—memories sufficient to disprove the shallow
and unfounded charge that to disunion, peculiar to their race, must be
attributed the sad and chequered history of the country. While if we
turn to all other kingdoms at corresponding periods, even to the
present time, we find analogous internal strife and domestic political
factions as numerous and as intense as any in Ireland. England,
Scotland, the several British colonies, France, Germany, Italy, Spain,
Holland, and the United States were quite as much torn by internal
dissension as Ireland, and are so at the present day; so that this
hypothesis is wholly unfounded and quite inadequate to account for the
disastrous decadence, or at least want of progress, of Ireland,
compared in many respects with other countries.
The causes of Irish discontent and comparative social backwardness are
remote, chronic, and cumulative. From the arrival of the Anglo-Normans
in 1169 to the defeat of the Irish in the Williamite war, near the
close of the seventeenth century, one clear purpose was kept in view by
the aliens—the extirpation of the natives from ownership and even
occupancy of the soil. Attainders, escheatments, plantations,
transplantations, and settlements—all had the same purpose. Penal Laws,
the Court of Wards, and dire persecution had driven the Catholic
natives from proprietorship, and almost from occupancy, of the soil.
Cupidity led many Cromwellian and planter landlords to baffle the Penal
Laws and pocket the higher rents offered by popish recusants.
Protestants of the humbler classes complained that the protection
promised and due to them as of right in the English interest was denied
and defeated by the planter and palatine landlords in preferring popish
tenants whose lower standard of living and degraded social caste
enabled them to pay a higher rent than Protestant tenants, who claimed,
by right of class, a better mode of living. Thus robbed and deprived of
their estates, denied leases, and rackrented by middlemen and others,
the mass of the Irish people before the famine were mere squatters on
the soil, neither owners nor, in any true sense, occupiers.
Catholics were emancipated in 1829 and rendered admissible to almost
all the offices in the state; they obtained an instalment of
educational concession in 1831, and a modification of the grinding
oppression of the tithe system and the Protestant Church Establishment
a few years afterwards; a Poor Law, directed by a London board, was
passed in 1838, and corporate reform was granted in 1840; but these and
other remedial measures, in operation for a few years, could effect
little towards the elevation of a people impoverished and degraded by
centuries of foreign and crushing legislation.
From an economic and industrial stand-point the condition of Catholics,
in relation to land, was the chief cause of the wretchedness of the
country. The agricultural laborers were in the lowest social state in
Europe, scarcely excepting the Russian serfs. Employment was precarious
and rarely secured a higher average wages than sixpence to eightpence a
day, or scarcely a dollar a week. From Connaught a large number went to
England for some weeks at the hay, corn, and potato harvests, where
they earned what paid the rent of the cabin and the potato-plot; while
many of the cotters and small farmers were little better in position. A
few facts from the census of 1841 and 1851 will suffice to illustrate
the large number and the terrible fate of these classes, as indicated
by the grades of house accommodation before and after the famine:
────────────────────┬───────────────────┬─────────────────
│ 1841. │ 1851.
HOUSE ACCOMMODATION.│ │ PER│ │ PER
│ HOUSES│ CENT.│ HOUSES│ CENT.
────────────────────┼────────────┼──────┼──────────┼──────
First class │ 31,333│ 2.1│ 39,370│ 3.3
Second class │ 241,664│ 16.4│ 292,280│ 24.3
Third class │ 574,386│ 39.0│ 588,440│ 48.9
Fourth (cabin) class│ 625,356│ 42.5│ 284,229│ 23.5
────────────────────┼────────────┼──────┼──────────┼──────
Total│ 1,472,739│ 100.0│ 1,204,319│ 100.0
────────────────────┴────────────┴──────┴──────────┴──────
Here we see that, seemingly in ten but really in five years, no less
than 341,127 fourth-class houses—mud, sod, or stone, thatched cabins
with only a single apartment—were swept away, inhabited by that number
of families, which included about 1,800,000 persons; while the table of
population above given shows that in these years the estimated decrease
was 1,780,588—a striking concurrence between both. Another proof as
regards the class swept away is found in the following table of
agricultural holdings, grouped by extent, in 1841 and 1851:
──────────────────┬──────────┬──────────
HOLDINGS. │ 1841. │ 1851.
──────────────────┼──────────┼──────────
Not exceeding one │Not known.│ 37,728
acre │ │
One to five acres │ 310,436│ 88,083
Five to fifteen │ 252,799│ 191,854
acres │ │
Fifteen to thirty │ 79,342│ 141,311
acres │ │
Above thirty acres│ 48,625│ 149,090
──────────────────┼──────────┼──────────
Total│ 691,202│ 608,066
──────────────────┴──────────┴──────────
Excluding the very large number of holdings under an acre not
ascertained in 1841, we find the disappearance in that decade, or
rather in half of it, of 222,353 tenements between one and five acres,
which represents a diminished population of 1,200,000 persons. The
decrease of 60,945, in the tenements from five to fifteen acres,
representing about 320,000 people, is portion of this same subject. If
we now turn to another head of evidence we find that the population was
thinned from the least educated classes. The census of 1841 returned
fifty-three per cent. of the whole population, aged five years and
upwards, as illiterate, being unable to read or write, while the return
for 1851 showed a decrease to forty-seven per cent.; and turning to the
great decrease in the percentage of the Irish-speaking population
between 1841 and 1851, we find similar results. Lastly, the creed
census demands attention.
The first taken in Ireland was that by the Royal Commission of Public
Instruction in 1834, when, of a population of 7,954,100, it was found
there were 6,436,000, or 80.9 per cent., Catholics; while the followers
of the intruded Anglican Church, established for three centuries,
numbered only 853,160, or 10.7 per cent. The adherents of the Scotch
Presbyterian Church, endowed by the state, though not established,
643,058, or 8.1 per cent.; and all other Protestant dissenters mustered
only 21,822 or 0.3 per cent. Between 1834 and 1845, when the potato
blight first appeared, the population had increased from 7,954,100 to
8,295,061, during which period of eleven years there are ample
evidences to prove that the Catholic element underwent a larger
increase than the Protestant, so that we may fairly assume the whole
population in 1845 to have been thus composed:
PER
CENT.
Catholics 6,760,475 81.5
Protestants 1,534,586 18.5
———— ——
Total 8,295,061 100.
These millions of Catholics, emancipated only sixteen years, were the
descendants of the natives who for over six centuries had battled
against English domination; whose estates and lands had been wrested
from them and given to soldiers and adventurers from England and
Scotland—“the scum of both nations”; whose ancient church had been
despoiled of her property; to whom education was denied and the
profession of their faith made penal; whose manufacturing industries
were suppressed by English laws; who were excluded from all offices,
civil and military, and from all social rank and distinction, and
denied not alone a seat in Parliament for 137 years, 1692 to 1829, but
from 1727 to 1793, a period of 66 years, the right to vote.
Such is a broad outline of the main facts concerning the population of
Ireland in 1845, as to quantity and quality. We must, however,
supplement these by a few particulars.
From one-third to one-half the rental of the kingdom went to absentee
and alien landlords, who spent it in England or on the Continent. The
imperial taxes borne by Ireland were in excess of her capacity and in
violation of the articles of the Act of Union. All the state
departments had their headquarters in London, while Ireland had slender
share either in the appropriating or the enjoyment of those taxes. The
local taxation, through grand jury and other cess, was enormous, but
levied and appropriated by the country gentry, all predominantly
Protestant. The county officers, the grand jury, the jail, the lunatic
asylum, infirmary, and poor-law union boards were almost exclusively
Protestant. The corporations, reformed by statute in 1840, were still
Protestant. One or two Catholic judges had reached the bench, as
O’Loghlen, and many Catholics were pressing to the front at the bar and
in medicine, while in all the professions, in trade, and in commerce
Catholic influence was beginning to be felt. Catholics had, it is true,
only trifling share in the administration of the government and the
laws. They had little representation in the magistracy or on the grand
juries; while jury-packing was the normal condition of the
administration of justice. The Orange system, stimulated by the triumph
of Catholic emancipation, was rampant and aggressive at the prospect of
social equality.
Yet, amidst such disadvantages, Ireland, in the two or three years
before the famine, presented a moral and political spectacle such as
the modern world had never witnessed. O’Connell, the greatest political
leader of this century, led the millions of Irish people in their
demand for justice to Ireland. He claimed the restoration of the
legislative independence of Ireland as it existed from 1782 to 1801, or
a repeal of the Act of Union. His efforts towards that object, the
millions who rose to support him, and the moral, intellectual, and
national sympathy that his demand elicited, are perfectly well known.
The famine appeared in 1845 and blasted the whole agitation, while
O’Connell died at Genoa, May 15, 1847, when the country that he wildly,
passionately loved was in the throes of the famine, the horrors of
which O’Connell vainly endeavored to avert by appeals for substantial
relief to the British government. The present prime minister of
England, the Earl of Beaconsfield, declared in the House of Commons, in
reference to Ireland, on the opening of the famine, that for a country
with an absentee proprietary, an alien established church, and a
population starving or fleeing the country, most Englishmen can see but
one remedy, and that _revolution_.
The great Irish famine, contrary to popular opinion, was exceeded by
many visitations of the kind in India and elsewhere, and perhaps
equalled by some that had occurred even in Ireland, so far as extent of
mortality is concerned; but, measured by the aggregate of its social
and economic effects, no such disaster is recorded in history. The
mortality was considerably less than was supposed—that is, of deaths
caused directly by starvation, suffering, and sickness arising out of
the famine. Dysentery, diarrhœa, fever, cholera—all supervened.
Workhouse accommodation failed, notwithstanding the utilization, as
auxiliary houses, of nearly all the idle and abandoned stores in cities
and towns, and of large numbers of rural mansions deserted by the
country gentry. All the habits, feelings, and traditions of the Irish
nation were opposed to a poor-law. Passed in 1838, although a poor-law
had been in operation in England from 1601, it was only in 1847, the
third year of the famine, that the last of the 131 Irish workhouses was
opened, in Clifden, Connemara, and then by _mandamus_ of the Queen’s
Bench. In 1844, the year before the appearance of the potato blight,
there were only 113 workhouses open, with an aggregate of 105,358
paupers relieved that year at an expense of $1,085,336. In 1847 the
number relieved in the workhouses, auxiliaries included, was 417,139,
or nearly fourfold, while the expenditure was $3,214,744, or threefold.
The entire Poor-Law Act and the workhouse system utterly broke down
under pressure of the mass of destitution. That act was administered
from Somerset House, London, under an English commission, from 1838 to
1847. All the leading officers, assistant commissioners, and others
were sent from England to carry out a law amongst a people of whose
feelings and social circumstances they were thoroughly ignorant, and to
their race and faith were totally opposed. That act expressly denied
out-door relief, in any form or towards any destitution, how acute
soever, in Ireland; while out-door relief was the general and normal
form of poor relief in England for centuries, and continues so at
present. The law was framed so as to throw the whole influence of its
administration into the hands of the landlords and magistracy, or their
agents, the vast majority of whom were planters and Cromwellians,
hostile in faith and feeling to the destitute classes. A temporary Poor
Relief Extension Act, passed June 8, 1847, was necessitated, or the
destitute classes must have seized in self-defence the cattle, corn,
and other edibles abounding in the country to prevent starvation.
Out-door relief was permitted, but should be administered solely in
food; while the able-bodied recipients were subjected to severe tests
of stone-breaking or other unproductive labor. The tenth section of
this act was the infamous quarter-acre clause, which declared that,
“If any person so occupying more than the _quarter of a statute
acre_ (less than thirty-five yards square) shall apply for
relief, or if any person on his behalf shall apply for relief,
_it shall not be lawful for any Board of Guardians to grant
such relief, within or without the workhouse_, to any such
person.”
This horrible clause gave the alternative of death or the surrender of
their cabins, cottages, and small farms to the tens, the hundreds of
thousands who occupied the humbler allotments and homesteads in
Ireland. If they refused to surrender possession to the landlord, they
perished, relief being denied them; while if they yielded, the crowded
workhouse, with a weekly mortality of twenty-five in every one thousand
inmates, precipitated them from the trap-coffin, often unshrived and
always unshrouded, into the common fosse without a semblance of
Christian burial. As an adjunct to the quarter-acre clause, and further
to effect the clearance of the mass of the laboring and industrious
classes, urban as well as rural, occupiers rated at under twenty-five
dollars who surrendered their holdings, whether held on lease or
otherwise, to their landlords, were, with their families, assisted to
emigrate, two-thirds of the expenses of the same to be borne on the
rates of the electoral division, the other third by the landlord. And
to complete and give effect to these provisions for the death or the
extermination of the population, the landlords were secured, by a
radical change in the act of 1838, a monopoly in the whole
administration of relief. Under that act each Board of Guardians
consisted of three-fourths elected members and one-fourth _ex-officio_
members, being magistrates resident in the union; whereas, by an
amendment introduced into the act of 1847 the proportion of
_ex-officio_ members is doubled, being increased from one-fourth to
one-half the whole strength of the board. With a full moiety of the
members of the landlord class, the territorial influence through the
_multiple_ vote, which gives rated property from one to six votes, and
also voting by proxy, the land magnates are always able to command, if
not a majority, at least a large number, of seats amongst the elected
guardians, and thus secure dominance in the administration of the whole
poor-law.
Under the original act of 1838 the incidence of the poor’s rate was
divided equally between the occupier and the owner, while occupiers
whose tenements were below twenty-five dollars annual valuation were
exempt, the rate being charged to the landlord; and, moreover, a clause
declared that any contract made between owner and occupier which would
release the former from liability to a moiety of the poor’s rate was
null and void. The landlord added, of course, the rates to the rent,
save in the case of the small number of tenants holding under lease, so
that the whole cost of relief fell on the occupier; while a clause in
the Poor-Law Amendment Act passed in 1849 repealed the annulling
provision of the act of 1838, and legalized the enabling power of the
tenant to contract himself, under compulsion, out of the protection
secured to him that property should bear a moiety of the cost of poor
relief. We may mention that the savage quarter-acre clause continued in
operation from 1847 until partially repealed in 1862, a period of
fifteen years, during which it quenched many a hearth, dismantled
thousands of roof-trees, and sent more than a million of the Irish race
to the grave or as scattered exiles over the face of the globe. In
1862, its fell purpose fulfilled, it was partially repealed, to the
extent that destitute persons, although occupiers of a quarter of an
acre of land, may be relieved, _but in the workhouse only_; so that
still a cotter with forty perches of a garden, or a small farmer,
suffering under temporary distress from failure of crop, sickness, or
accident, must either surrender his little holding and enter the
workhouse, _or starve_ under the scheme of legal charity devised to
extirpate the Irish from the soil of which their ancestors had been
robbed through ages.
We write fact and law, and repudiate all but sober statement in our
attempt to illustrate the present position of the Irish people. In the
most acute throes of the famine, July 22, 1847, an act was passed for
the punishment of vagrants and persons offending against the laws in
force for the relief of the poor in Ireland—an act worthy of the worst
days of Nero or Diocletian. Let us inquire what was the condition of
the country when this act was passed. At the end of February that year
there were 116,321 inmates in receipt of relief in the workhouses, and
in July there were 10,000 cases of fever, apart from other terrible
diseases, in those institutions, the mortality being enormous. Under
the Temporary Relief Act there were issued, July 3, rations equal to
the support of 3,020,712 persons. Yet the Vagrant Act inflicted
imprisonment in a common jail and hard labor for a month upon any
person “placing himself in any public place, street, highway, court, or
passage to beg or gather alms,” with the same punishment for removing
from one poor-law union, or even one electoral division, to another for
the purpose of relief. More than half the population were then in
receipt of relief, a vast portion of them being engaged upon relief
works, which necessitated the migration to considerable distances of
the male heads of families. Yet a clause in this act imposed
imprisonment for three months, with hard labor, for desertion or wilful
neglect of a family by its head—desertion that might have arisen from
removal for some miles to another union or electoral division, in order
to provide food for them.
Ireland was one uncovered lazar-house in 1847. We write from vivid and
painful remembrance of personal travel of 5,000 to 10,000 miles yearly,
in an official capacity, over the most afflicted of the famine-stricken
districts, from Waterford round to Sligo, during that and subsequent
years up to 1858. We visited every workhouse, every auxiliary, every
fever hospital, every relief depot, every soup-kitchen, every centre of
public works, by way of relief, every missionary station for
proselytizing purposes, every ragged-school, every jail, and made a
minute personal survey of the most distressed localities in the south
and west of Ireland in 1847 and throughout the famine. Holding an
important commission from the government, we had access to and command
of sources of reliable information open to few, while we had personal
communication with the chief officers of several public departments
that enabled us to understand thoroughly the precise condition of the
suffering classes throughout the whole period of acute distress in
Ireland. Charged, unsolicited, by the government with a special inquiry
connected with the condition of the destitute and criminal classes
which embraced the whole kingdom, owing to experience acquired during
the famine period, we visited officially every county, every diocese,
every poor-law union, every parish in Ireland, and willingly place the
results of that experience before the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
The history of the famine is yet to be written, and, if not soon
prepared, the records of personal experience will be lost, and a
reliable account of it rendered impossible. When political factions in
the United States traduce the Irish race, and when factions in the
several British colonies do likewise, as regards Irish immigrants, they
do so ignorant, it is to be hoped, of the precise circumstances under
which these immigrants reached those countries during pressure of the
famine. We have treated the amount of decline of population in Ireland,
and the social quality of that decline, in this article. The decrease
of population directly through the famine is, as we have said,
exaggerated. The census commissioners of 1851 set down the deaths from
_extraordinary_ causes, between 1841 and 1851, or rather from 1845, as
follows:
Deaths from fever 222,029
Deaths from dissentery 134,355
and diarrhœa
Deaths from cholera 35,989
Deaths from starvation 21,770
———
Total 414,143
These figures, sad and enormous as they are, we are prepared to show
are an entire understatement of the true facts of the case. The whole
condition of society below the middle classes was disorganized and
demoralized. Panic and paralysis seized the entire population. The
dependent perished at home or in the workhouses, while those with means
to emigrate fled the country. Flying from famine, fever, and
pestilence, these reluctant emigrants, numbers of whom perished before
settlement, have helped to lay the foundation of the prosperity of the
United States and of the British colonies. The author of the _Record of
the O’Connell Centenary_, describing the character of the early Irish
emigrants, says, with great truth and force:
“Snatched from rough rural labor, little skilled in handicraft,
a very large number wholly illiterate, and many unable to speak
any tongue save the native Gaelic; nearly half of them females,
without that cultured training in domestic service required by
other countries; a heavy, helpless juvenile element hanging on
them; intensely clannish, yet removed from those tribal and
religious standards of morality and social life which
powerfully influence the Irish at home; memory saddened with
the recollection of the roofless cabin and the loved little
ancestral farm lost for ever, the dead who had been starved at
home or fell in fever, the dear relatives who sought the
shelter of the workhouse, but through whose trap-coffin they
were precipitated into the famine fosse without shroud or
requiem; and the uncertainty of despair as to the living
remnant of the family left behind—agonized by such feelings,
the millions were hastily deported on the shores of America,
Australia, and New Zealand, objects of sympathy and affection
to the generous, of pity to the benevolent, of alarm and horror
to the timid, of contempt to the misanthropic, and of scorn and
hatred to the enemies of the race and faith of the Irish
nation. Never before was spectacle so sad, so gigantic, so
appalling submitted to the contemplation of humanity; the
history of Ireland was dramatized throughout Christendom, and
its tragic story personated on every hospitable shore on both
hemispheres, when Moore’s prediction was literally and amply
fulfilled:
“‘The stranger shall hear thy lament on his plain;
The sigh of thy harp shall be sent o’er the deep.’”
We have given an outline sketch of the condition of Ireland just before
and in the early stages of the famine; in our next we shall endeavor to
trace what progress she has made from that sad period to her present
improved position in 1878.
Copyright: Rev. I. T. HECKER. 1878.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE BLESSED VIRGIN.
Like chants which fade yet linger still to bless,
While float their formless notes of joy or dole,
So thought doth grieve for words beyond control,
That to itself it may thy charms confess,
And tell each grace with joyous eagerness,
As did the morning stars their anthems roll,
Or as the angels greet a ransom’d soul.
Such tongues alone could paint the loveliness
Which o’er thy face in sad, sweet beauty smiled;
As though in unseen wingings, ever near,
The Dove had coo’d a legend in thine ear
Of some rare tenderness to grief beguiled—
Perchance of love which bought redemption dear,
With all its cost of sorrow to thy Child.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AMONG THE TRANSLATORS.
VIRGIL AND HORACE—III.
The work of translation seems in an odd way to enlist that mimetic
impulse which is so strong an element of human nature, and which is
really at the bottom of so much of human rivalry. To wish to do as much
as others in any given line of effort is but an after-thought, a
secondary motion of the mind; the initial instinct is to do _the same_
as they. That men do not rest at this; that they are not content with
merely duplicating what they see done about them, like the late
lamented Mr. Pongo; that they are for ever seeking “to better their
instruction,” is due to that further instinctive yearning for
perfection which helps to differentiate them from Mr. Pongo, and
interferes so sadly with many most ingenious and scientific schemes for
recreating the universe without a Creator. All literatures, it may be
said, all poets, begin with translation—that is, with imitation of some
other literature or poet. Alcæus and Sophron, no doubt, are but Horace
and Theocritus to the unknown who went before them; Homer is first,
doubtless, only because we know not the greater than Homer—rapt from us
by the irrevocable years—whom Homer may have copied, as Virgil copied
Homer.
This, however, is a law of literature which was known as long ago as
the days of Solomon, at least. What is not so obvious, and even more
curious as well as more to the present point, is why translators under
certain conditions should be so fond of repeating one another in regard
to any particular bit of work.
For a generation or so some one of the poets who are the favorite
objects of the translator’s zeal will be neglected and seemingly
forgotten. Then some day appears a version which attracts attention and
gets talked of, and, _presto_! a dozen pens are in eager chase to rival
or surpass it. Now it is Homer which is thus brought into notice, and
we have Professor Newman, Lord Derby, Mr. Wright, Mr. Worsley, Mr.
Dart, Professor Blackie, Mr. Bryant—what muse shall catalogue the
host?—giving us in quick succession and in every kind of metre their
versions of the _Iliad_ or _Odyssey_, or both? Again it is Virgil, and
within a brief interval Professor Conington, Mr. Morris, and Mr. Cranch
have done the _Æneid_ into English. Or once more Horace sways the hour,
and in a twinkling or thereabouts a dozen translations of the _Odes_
are smoking hot from the press on the critic’s table, and bewildering
him to choose among their various merits. Within the last half-century,
nay, within the last twenty-five years, we have seen just this
revolution. Is it because our own is so peculiarly one of those
transitional periods in the history of a literature which are most
favorable to translation—indeed, most provocative of it; one of those
intervals when the national imagination is, as it were, lying fallow
after the exhaustion of some great creative epoch, and intellectual
effort takes chiefly the form of criticism, which in one sense
translation is? Well, such generalizations are as perilous as they are
fascinating and we must not yield to them too rashly. In this case, if
we did yield, we should be told, no doubt, that translation was no more
a peculiarity of a transitional period than of a creative one; that the
notion of such divisions in the history of a literature is preposterous
and but another invention of the arch-enemy, like comparative philology
and the Eastern question, to set the mildest and wisest of sages—even
ourselves, beloved reader—thirsting for each other’s blood; or that,
finally, an epoch which has produced Tennyson and Browning, De Vere and
Arnold, Swinburne, Morris, and Rossetti, and—let nothing tempt us back
to our own side of the Atlantic, where poets grow like pumpkins, big
and little, in every garden patch; yet surely, if originality goes for
anything, we may add—Tupper—that a time so prolific of poetic genius is
not to be counted a transitional period at all.
This, or something like it, we should no doubt hear, if we ventured
upon putting forth as our own the enticing proposition we have but
modestly thrown out as a suggestion to the reader. And if we were not
withheld by that providential want of time and opportunity which so
often saves us from our rasher selves, we should no doubt go on to make
the venture even now: to assert that, in spite of Tennyson and
Browning, in spite even of Matthew Arnold—in one sense a truer voice of
his time than either of them—in spite of the pagan and mediæval
renaissance piloted by that wonderfully clever coterie of the
Rossettis, the present can in no sense be called a creative epoch in
our literature, as we call creative the two epochs of which Shakspeare
and Wordsworth are, broadly speaking, the representative
names—representative, however, in different ways and in widely
different degrees; that it is, on the contrary, a true transitional
period, as the period of Pope and Dryden was transitional, and for
analogous reasons; and that, because it is so, the art of translation
flourishes now as then. Nor should we forget, in saying this, the
numerous translations which marked the Elizabethan era. But it is to be
noted that while all, or nearly all, the then extant classics were
turned into English before the close of the Elizabethan era,
translations of any one of them were not repeated, and precisely for
this reason: that the age, being a creative epoch, made its main effort
in the direction of knowledge, and not of criticism—sought to acquire
ideas, and not to arrange them, as was the case with the translating
periods which came after it. Then, too, it was the virtual beginning of
our literature, when translation, as we have said, came natural to it.
Chaucer two hundred years before was a creative poet, if the term may
be used, in a time that was not creative, a time that was not his, a
time whose sluggishness not even his pregnant genius could inform;
Chaucer was the glad premature swallow of a lingering, long-delaying
spring, whose settled sunshine came to us only with Spenser’s later
bird-song,
“Preluding those melodious bursts that fill
The spacious times of great Elizabeth
With sounds that echo still.”
Milton may be said to have concluded, as Spenser preluded, that mighty
time, without fairly belonging to it. They belonged rather to each
other. “Milton has owned to me,” says Dryden, “that his original was
Spenser.” They were the epilogue and the prologue of that mighty
opening chorus of our literature, in which the translators, too, had
their parts, but only as prompters to the great singers, to help them
to add to their native melody here and there some sweetness of a
foreign note.
The time of critical translation, of translation for its own sake, as
an art, came in only with Dryden—perhaps, on the whole, the greatest of
the transition poets. Then, too, translators began first to repeat each
other’s work. Before the year 1580 most of the classic poets had been
translated into English verse. They were not duplicated, because, as we
have said, the time wanted first of all the knowledge of them, and it
was not fastidious as to the shape in which it came. For a hundred
years after its appearance Phaer’s version of the _Æneid_ had no rival.
Then came Vicars’, only to disappear almost as quickly. Doubly lapped
in lead, it sank at once in that Stygian pool where Dulness tries the
weight of her favorites, and there it has since remained, like
Prospero’s book and staff, drowned
“Deeper than did ever plummet sound.”
Undeterred by this untoward fate, John Ogilby brought out his
translation soon after, first at Cambridge and again in London,
“adorned with sculptures and illustrated with annotations”—“the fairest
edition,” grave Anthony à Wood assures us, “that till then the English
press ever produced.” This gorgeous work, pronounced by Pope to be
below criticism, nevertheless went through four editions before
descending to the congenial fellowship of Vicars under the forgetful
wave—a proof how much a good English version of the _Æneid_ was
desired. Ogilby had been a dancing-master, and perhaps learned in his
profession to rival Lucilius, who
“In hora sæpe ducentos
Ut magnum versus dictabat stans pede in uno.”[172]
At all events, although he took to literature late in life—he was past
forty before he learned Latin or Greek—he was a prodigious author, as
we learn from the _Dunciad_:
“Here groans the shelf with Ogilby the great.”
Besides translating remorselessly everything he could lay hands on,
from Homer to Æsop, he found time to write various heroic poems, and
had even completed an epic in twelve books on Charles I., when fate
took pity on his fellows and sent the great fire of London to the
rescue. Phillips, in the _Theatrum Poetarum_, styles Ogilby a prodigy,
and avers that his “Paraphrase on Æsop’s Fables” “is generally
confessed to have exceeded whatever hath been done before in that
kind.”[173] As Milton’s nephew can scarcely be suspected of a joke, we
must conclude that this is not one of the critical judgments which
Milton inspired. Nevertheless, Ogilby’s translations and paraphrases
procured him a “genteel livelihood” which many better poems have failed
to do for their authors.
Neither Vicars nor Ogilby, however, was of sufficient note, nor had
their labors sufficient vitality, to set the current of translation
fairly going. That was reserved for Dryden, whose famous work came out
in 1697. Dryden had all the qualifications necessary to ensure him a
full harvest of imitation and rivalry at once. He was the most famous
poet and critic of his day, and in either capacity had found means to
excite abundance of jealousies and resentments. Moreover, his change of
religion, and the vigor with which he had espoused the Catholic cause
in his _Hind and Panther_, made him many additional enemies. So it is
not to be wondered at that when, as Pope puts it,
“Pride, malice, folly, against Dryden rose
In various shapes of parsons, critics, beaux,”
the parsons led the onslaught. First came Parson Milbourn, “the fairest
of critics,” who printed his own version side by side with the one he
found fault with, and whom Dulness also promptly claimed for her own.
Then Dr. Brady, giving over to his worthy coadjutor, Tate, for the
nonce the herculean task of promoting Sternhold and Hopkins to be next
to the worst poets in the world, devoted himself to the equally
gigantic labor of proving that there was a work he could translate more
abominably than the Psalms. His version in blank-verse, “when dragged
into the light,” says Dr. Johnson, “did not live long enough to cry.”
Then Dr. Trapp, the Oxford professor of poetry—_majora viribus
audens_—rushed to the attack and did the _Æneid_ into, if possible,
still blanker verse than his predecessor’s. It was he who said of
Dryden’s version “that where Dryden shines most we often see the least
of Virgil.” This was true enough; and it was, no doubt, to avoid the
like reproach that the good doctor forbore to shine at all. On him was
made the well-known epigram apropos of a certain poem said to be better
than Virgil:
“Better than Virgil? Yes, perhaps;
But then, by Jove, ’tis Dr. Trapp’s!”
This is only another form of Bentley’s famous judgment: “A very pretty
poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer.” The doctor has had no
better luck than his fellows.
“Olli dura quies oculos et ferreus urguet
Somnus; in æternam clauduntur lumina noctem.”[174]
These efforts of the parsons, however, were no doubt inspired at least
as much by _odium theologicum_ as by the genuine impulse of emulation.
The first true exemplification of this came about 1729 with the version
of Pitt,[175] whose choice of Dryden’s couplet was a direct challenge.
Johnson’s estimate of the success of this rivalry is not, on the whole,
unfair—or, at least, as fair as such comparisons often are. “Dryden,”
he says, “leads the reader forward by his general vigor and
sprightliness, and Pitt often stops him to contemplate the excellence
of a single couplet; Dryden’s faults are forgotten in the hurry of
delight, and Pitt’s beauties neglected in the languor of a cold and
listless perusal; Pitt pleases the critics and Dryden the people; Pitt
is quoted and Dryden read.” Dryden, however, is probably oftener read
nowadays than Pitt is quoted. It is something to be a poet after all,
and in the exchange of translation we allow for the purity of his metal
and the beauty of his coinage. Most of us would rather have the gold of
Dryden, though it fall a piece or two short in the reckoning, than the
small change of Pitt, though every silver sixpence and copper farthing
be accounted for.
Other translations of the _Æneid_ there were during the eighteenth
century, among them one by another Oxford professor of poetry, Hawkins,
but none have survived. Pope’s translation of Homer, which was
published soon after Pitt’s _Æneid_, diverted attention to the Greek
poet, and gave him with translators a pre-eminence over his Latin rival
which only within a few years he can be said to have lost. Pope had no
imitators, however, till long after. Even more absolutely than Dryden
he swayed the sceptre of poetry in his time; and the presumptuous wight
who had ventured to challenge his sovereignty or to measure strength
with “that poetical wonder, the translation of the _Iliad_, a
performance which no age or nation can pretend to rival,” gods—critical
gods—and men and booksellers would have laughed to scorn. It is true,
Addison, that most uneasy “brother near the throne,” was shrewdly
suspected of meditating such a design under the cloak of his friend and
follower, Tickell, and even went so far as to publish—so ran the
current gossip of the coffee-houses—a version of the first book of the
_Iliad_ in Tickell’s name. But the scheme stopped there; Pope’s triumph
was too splendid and overwhelming, and his great work calmly defied
competition, until the spell of his honeyed couplet was broken, and
Cowper could find a hearing for his ponderous Miltonic periods, a full
half-century after Pope’s death. The battle which soon thereafter came
to be joined between the partisans of the Popian and Cowperian
methods—both of them, as Mr. Arnold assures us, really on a complete
equality of error—had the effect of keeping Homer in the foreground and
Virgil in the shade, despite the praiseworthy versions of the latter by
Simmons in rhymed couplets about 1817, and Kennedy in blank-verse some
thirty years later, until the critical _furore_ created by the
appearance of Prof. Conington’s _Æneid_ about ten years since once more
turned the tide and brought our Mantuan to the front.
Conington’s translation, by the novelty of its metre, the freshness of
its treatment, the spirit of its movement, its union of fidelity and
grace, took the public ear and at once won a popularity which, if we
may judge from the fact that a new edition has been lately advertised,
it has not yet lost nor is destined speedily to lose. Moreover, its
peculiar metre gave rise to a discussion among the critics, which has
no doubt had its share in bringing out the two additional versions by
Mr. Cranch and Mr. Morris at brief intervals after Professor
Conington’s, the former at Boston, the latter in England and reprinted
here. Each of these three versions has that “proper reason for
existing” in novelty of method and manner which Mr. Arnold demands, and
without which, indeed, multiplied translations are but cumberers of the
book-stall and a weariness to the flesh. Of Mr. Cranch this assertion
may sound a trifle odd, since his work upon its face presents little
that is new. In place of the galloping octosyllabics of Prof. Conington
or the resurrected Alexandrines of Mr. Morris, he offers us only the
familiar blank-verse which Kennedy and Trapp and Brady used, or
misused, before him; he has no theories to illustrate, but translates
his author as faithfully as he knows how, and his rendering is neither
so exceedingly good nor so excessively bad as to give it any claim to
originality upon that score. But then it is the first American
translation of Virgil, and that is surely novelty enough.
For as each age, so every country, looks at a classic author through
spectacles of its own. “Each age,” as Conington well says in his
preface, “will naturally think that it understands an author whom it
studies better than the ages which have gone before it”; and it is for
this reason, he adds, “that the great works of antiquity require to be
translated afresh from time to time to preserve their interest as part
of modern literary culture.” But it is not alone that each age will
understand an author better than preceding ages; it will understand him
differently; it will see him in another light, from far other points of
view, modified and interpreted by its own spirit. What Heyne says of
the poet is in a measure true of the translator—that he has the genius
of his era, which must necessarily qualify his work. We have sometimes
fancied even that this business of translation was a kind of
metempsychosis through which the poet’s soul shall speak to many
different times and lands through forms and in voices changing to suit
the moods of each. This, of course, is only one of those fantastic
notions which a writer must sometimes be indulged in, if he is to be
kept in reasonable good-humor. But we think we may venture to say that
two nations translating for themselves what antiquity has to say to
them will insensibly find its utterances modified for each of them by
their natural modes of thought. Nay, may we not go further and say that
no two human minds will find precisely the same message in Homer or
Virgil or Horace—so infinite are the gradations of thought, so
innumerable the shades of meaning and suggestion in a word. Of Virgil
this is especially true; for he has, says Prof. Conington, “that
peculiar habit, ... common to him and Sophocles, of hinting at two or
three modes of expression while actually employing one.”
It is just for this reason that repeated translations of a great author
are not only useful but desirable; that, to quote Conington again, “it
is well that we should know how our ancestors of the Revolution period
conceived of Virgil; it is well that we should be obliged consciously
to realize how we conceive of him ourselves.” How true this is no one
can fail to perceive who contrasts Dryden’s method in any given passage
with Conington’s. The sense of Virgil may be given with equal exactness
by each—we say _may_ be, which is rather stretching a point, for, in
respect of verbal fidelity, the two versions are not to be compared—the
interpretation may be equally poetical, but there will remain a subtle
something which stamps each, and which we can only say is the flavor of
the time. Or, again, compare the Abbé Delille’s French version with
Dryden’s English—perhaps a fairer comparison; for both are equally
free, though by no means equally acquainted with their author, and both
to a certain extent belonged to the same school of composition. Nor are
they so very far apart as they seem in point of time; the century or so
which divides them was a very much longer period in England than in
France. Charles II. was nearer to Louis XV. than to George III. in
point of taste. Yet how different from Dryden’s Virgil, or from any
Englishman’s, is Delille’s, even though he does not find in his text
such enchanting gallicisms as Jean Regnault de Segrais could twist out
of the lines,
“Ubi templum illi centumque Sabæo
Thure calent aræ, sertisque recentibus halant”:[176]
“Dans le temple où toujours quelque Amant irrité
Accuse dans ses vœux quelque jeune Beauté.”
This is an extreme case, no doubt, and there are Frenchmen even who
would not be beyond laughing at it. We are not to forget, as we laugh
at it ourselves, that Segrais was not unknown in the Hôtel Rambouillet,
and that although his own poetry was not all of this order, not even
his _Æneid_—Saint-Evremond liked it—he also wrote novels which not even
the Hôtel Rambouillet could read. But when that really able man and
accomplished scholar, Cardinal Du Perron, turns Horace’s lines in the
charming farewell to Virgil (_Carm._ i. 3):
“Ventorumque regat Pater
Obstrictis aliis præter Iapygia,”
into this sort of thing:
“Ainsi des vents l’humide Père
Ton cours heureusement tempere,
Tenant ses enfants emplumez
Si bien sous la clef enfermez
Excepté l’opportun Zephyr,”
we have a version which no doubt seems correct and poetical enough to a
Frenchman, but to an English mind suggests nothing so much as a damp
and aged poultry-fancier locking up his chickens in the hen-house out
of the rain. And a countryman of the cardinal can make nothing more of
the “laughing eyes” of Dante’s Piccarda:
“Ond’ ella pronta e con _occhi ridenti_,”[177]
than
“L’ombre me repondit _d’un air satisfait_!”
as though the celestial phantom had been a small girl bribed with a
tart to answer. To the post-academic Gaul, shivering in the chaste but
chilly shadow of that awful Pantheon of the verbal proprieties, the
“Marguerite aux yeulx rians et verds” whom his forebears loved to sing
would be but a green-eyed monster indeed. Ronsard’s parodies of Pindar
were no worse than Ambrose Philips’ travesties of the deep-mouthed
Theban—the sparrow-hawk aping the eagle—and not much worse, indeed,
than West’s or even Wheelwright’s, or any other imitation of the
inimitable that we have seen. But the badness of the one is thoroughly
French and of his time, even to his bragging that it was his noble
birth which enabled him to reproduce Pindar, wherein Horace, for lack
of that virtue, had failed; the badness of the other as thoroughly
English and of his age. And what more salient instance could be given
of this natural difference in mental constitution, in “the way of
looking at things,” than Voltaire’s treatment of the scene in _Hamlet_
where the sentinel answers the question, “Have you had quiet guard?” by
the familiar household idiom, “Not a mouse stirring”? “_Pas un souris
qui trotte_” the author of _Zaire_ makes it, and proceeds to inform his
countrymen that this Shakspeare was a drunken savage.
Now, while there is no such radical difference between English and
American ways of thought as between English and French ways, there is
still difference enough to justify us in giving place to Mr. Cranch’s
blank-verse _Æneid_, as being _à priori_ another thing from the English
blank-verse _Æneids_ of forty or one hundred and forty years ago. So,
without more ado, let us repeat that these three versions of the last
decade are sufficiently unlike one another or any that have gone before
to warrant attentive notice.
In choosing for the vehicle of his attempt the octosyllabic line—the
well-known metre of Scott’s _Marmion_—Prof. Conington turned his back
intrepidly on all the traditions. Scarcely any rhythm we have would
seem at first blush worse fitted to give the unlearned reader an
adequate idea of the sonorous march of the Latin hexameter or of the
stately melody of Virgil’s verse, of the dignity of his sentiments, or
the noble gravity of his style. For him who uses such a metre to render
the _Æneid_ one half anticipates the need of some such frank confession
as that Ronsard, in a fit of remorse, or perhaps a verbal indigestion
over his own inconceivable pedantry, puts at the end—at the _end_, mark
you—of one of his never-ending series of odes:
“Les François qui mes vers liront,
S’ils ne sont et Grecs et Romains,
En lieu de ce livre, ils n’auront
Qu’un pesant faix entre les mains”—
which for our present purpose we may paraphrase: My excellent reader,
if you don’t know Virgil as well as I do, you will find very little of
him here, and if you do you will find still less. But Professor
Conington soon puts away from us all such forebodings. He gives us, in
spite of his metre, for the most part, in rare instances, by the help
of it, a great deal of Virgil—more, on the whole, than almost any other
of the poet’s translators. He has put the story of the _Æneid_ into
bright and animated English verse which may be read with pleasure as a
poem for itself, and is yet strictly faithful to the sense and spirit
of its original, as close as need be—wonderfully close in many parts—to
its language, often skilfully suggestive of some of the most salient
peculiarities of its form, and only failing conspicuously, where all
translations most conspicuously fail, in rendering the poet’s manner,
because the manner of any poet—and we mean by manner that union of
thought and form of the poet’s way of seeing with his way of saying
things which is the full manifestation of his genius—only failing here
because this part of any poet it is next to impossible to reproduce in
a foreign tongue, and because the vehicle chosen by Prof. Conington, so
opposite in every way to Virgil’s vehicle, increased that difficulty
tenfold. But a translation of a long narrative poem is not like the
translation of a brief lyric. Is the former to be written for those who
understand the original and care for no translation, or for those who,
not understanding the original, ask first of the translator that he
shall not put them to sleep, and, second, that he shall give them all
that his author gives as nearly as possible in the same manner? Two of
these demands Prof. Conington’s version fully meets, and it comes as
near to the third as was consistent with a metre which gave him the
best chance of combining the other two. If any translation of Virgil
can hope to be popular it is his; and we hold to the belief that it
will share with Dryden’s, which, if only for its author’s sake, will
live, the affections of the _unlatined_ English reader for long to
come.
As might be expected, it is in battle-pieces and in scenes of swift and
animated action, to which Scott’s metre naturally lends itself, and
with which it is as naturally associated, that this version chiefly
excels. Take, for example, the onset in the eleventh book:
“Meantime the Trojans near the wall,
The Tuscans and the horsemen all,
In separate troops arrayed;
Their mettled steeds the champaign spurn,
And, chafing, this and that way turn;
Spears bristle o’er the fields, that burn
With arms on high displayed.
Messapus and the Latian force,
And Coras and Camilla’s horse,
An adverse front array;
With hands drawn back they couch the spear,
And aim the dart in full career;
The tramp of heroes strikes the ear,
Mixed with the charger’s neigh.
Arrived within a javelin’s throw,
The armies halt a space; when, lo!
Sudden they let their good steeds go
And meet with deafening cry;
Their volleyed darts fly thick as snow,
Dark-shadowing all the sky.”
The Latin could scarcely be given with more spirit or closeness; though
in neither respect does Morris fall short of his predecessor, from whom
in manner, however, he differs _toto cœlo_:
“But in meanwhile the Trojan folk the city draw anigh,
The Tuscan dukes and all their horse in many a company
Well ordered; over all the plain, neighing, the steed doth fare,
Prancing and champing on the bit that turns him here and here.
And far and wide the lea is rough with iron harvest now,
And with the weapons tost aloft the level meadows glow.
Messapus and the Latins swift, lo! on the other hand,
And Coras with his brother-lord, and maid Camilla’s band,
Against them in the field; and, lo! far back their arms they fling
In couching of the level spears, and shot-spears brandishing.
All is afire with neigh of steeds and onfall of the men.
And now, within a spear-shot come, short up they rein, and then
They break out with a mighty cry and spur the maddened steeds;
And all at once from every side the storm of spear-shot speeds,
As thick as very snowing is, and darkens down the sun.”
It would be hard to say which version is closer to the original.
Conington leaves out the epithet _celeres_ which Virgil bestows on the
Latins, and also—a graver omission—that brother whom Virgil makes
attend him like his shadow (_et cum fratre Coras_) in every
battle-field of the _Æneid_. This fraternal warrior Morris gives us,
indeed, but not very intelligibly, as Coras’ “brother-lord.” On the
other hand, although Morris renders the Latin line for line, he is not
so concise as Conington, who puts Virgil’s fifteen hexameters into
twenty of his short lines as opposed to fifteen of Morris’ long ones.
Virgil has nothing of Morris’ “iron harvest”; here—
“Tum late ferreus hastis
Horret ager, campique armis sublimibus ardent”—
we should give Conington the preference, while Morris excels in
rendering the verse:
“Adventusque virum fremitusque ardescit equorum.”
In Morris’ version four words are to be specially noted: _folk_,
_dukes_, _maid_, and _very_. They contain the key to his method, and we
shall recur to them again.
Our American’s blank-verse here helps him to no greater degree of
fidelity than either of his rivals, while even patriotism must own his
version, as compared with theirs, a trifle tame:
“Meanwhile, the Trojan troops, the Etruscan chiefs,
And all the cavalry approach the walls,
In order ranged. The coursers leap and neigh
Along the fields, and fight against the curb,
And wheel about. An iron field of spears
Bristles afar, and lifted weapons blaze.
Upon the other side the Latins swift,
Messapus, Coras, and his brother come,
Also Camilla’s wing; in hostile ranks
They threaten with their lances backward drawn,
And shake their javelins. On the warriors press,
And fierce and fiercer neigh the battle steeds.
Advancing now within a javelin’s throw,
Each army halted; then, with sudden shouts,
They cheer and spur their fiery horses on.
From all sides now the spears fly thick and fast
As showers of sleet, and darken all the sky.”
The word “cavalry” here is too modern in its associations to suit us
entirely, nor strikes us as highly poetical.
“Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave,
And charge with all thy _chivalry_,”
is the way Campbell put it. Again, the rendering of the line
_Adventusque virum fremitusque ardescit equorum_ is less exact than
Morris’, if not than Conington’s, and much less poetical than either;
and were it not for the printer’s aid, we should be unable to tell such
blank-verse as “Messapus, Coras, and his brother come, also Camilla’s
wing,” from the very prosiest of prose. Mr. Cranch, like Prof.
Conington, omits Camilla’s attribute of _virginis_—though that is,
perhaps, better than to call her, as Dryden does, a “virago”—and turns
Virgil’s snow into sleet, no doubt having in mind Gray’s
“Iron sleet of arrowy shower
Hurtles in the darkened air,”
or the “sharp sleet of arrowy shower” in _Paradise Regained_.
It may be of interest to set side by side with these English
translations the French version of Delille. It will show us, at least,
where Mr. Morris went, perhaps, for his “iron harvest”:
“Mais déjà les Troyens, déjà les fiers Toscans
Pour attaquer vers Lausente ont déployé leurs rangs;
Ils marchent; le coursier de sa tête hautaine
Bat l’air, ronge le frein, et bondit dans la plaine;
Les champs sont hérissés d’une moisson de fer,
Et chaque javelot fait partir un éclair.
Et Messape, et Coras et son valeureux frère,
Et la chaste Camille et sa troupe légère,
Se présentent ensemble. On voit de toutes parts
Et s’alonger la lance et s’agiter les dards.
Sous les pas des guerriers les champs poudreux gémissent;
Et soldats et coursiers de colère frémissent.
Enfin, à la distance où le trait peut porter,
Les partis ennemis viennent de s’arrêter:
On s’écrie, on s’élance, et d’un essor rapide.
Chacun pousse en avant son coursier intrépide.
Plus pressés que la neige au retour des hivers
Des nuages de traits en obscurci les airs.”
In a future number we purpose concluding our present examination and
taking a final leave of the translators.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE HOME-RULE CANDIDATE.
_A STORY OF “NEW IRELAND.”_
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE LITTLE CHAPEL AT MONAMULLIN,” “THE ROMANCE OF A
PORTMANTEAU,” ETC., ETC.
CHAPTER II.
NEW IRELAND AND YOUNG ENGLAND.
How glad I felt when morning came, as it brought me nearer to seeing
our fair guest! I gathered a bouquet for her, wet with the kisses of
the lingering night-dew. I flatter myself that my bouquets are
constructed with a tender regard for tone. I have sat for hours in
Paris, upon an upturned empty basket in the Marché aux Fleurs, watching
the _fleuristes_ deftly composing those exquisite poems in color which
serve to render flowers a charming necessity. Upon this occasion I
selected blood-red geraniums as the outer edge, with narrowing circlets
of stefanotis and mignonette, the whole enshrined in a bower of
maiden-hair fern. How lovely she looked when I presented them to her at
breakfast; how enchanting her transparent complexion, that flushed as
she spoke, and crimsoned when she was spoken to! Alphonse Karr speaks
of a similar indefinable charm in his own delightful way: “_Elle avait
ce charme poétiquement virginal, qui est la plus grande beauté de la
femme._” Alas! my bouquet had been forestalled by the gift of a
veritable last rose of summer which Harry Welstone had culled while I
was engaged in imparting some finishing touches to my rather bristly
hair. The words “too late” to meet me on the very threshold of my new
career! It was truly disheartening.
She was attired in a tightly-fitting dress of pure white, adorned by a
series of coquettish blue ribbons, the edgings being of the same color.
Her cavalier collar and gauntlet cuffs finished a toilette which almost
recalled my Virgil, as I could hardly refrain from exclaiming “_O Dea
certe!_”
“Might I ask, if it is not an unparliamentary question, Mr. Ormonde, at
what hour you allowed poor papa to retire to his bed? Was it late last
night or early this morning?” she asked with a droll archness.
“Well, it _was_ rather late, Miss Hawthorne; but as your father was
good enough to favor me with some exceedingly interesting passages in
his senatorial career, the time galloped by at a break-neck pace and we
took no note of it.”
I had already learned to play the hypocrite. O Master Cupid! and this
was thy first lesson.
“Is my memory mocking me, or did I hear awful mention of Irish whisky?”
she laughed.
This enabled me to explain the blunder of my retainer in his desire to
uphold the honor of the family, and to exonerate myself from the
_soupçon_ of having neglected her society for that of the bottle.
Peter’s ideas upon the family _status_ seemed to afford her the
liveliest merriment, and she laughed the silvery laugh with which, old
playgoers tell me, Mme. Vestris used to bring down the house.
“Peter is a character, then?”
“You will find that out before very long, Miss Hawthorne.”
“I do _so_ love characters!”
I ran over my characteristics like a flash, and found them of the
baldest and mildest nature. Not a single strong point came to the
rescue, not a liking or a disliking. Pah! what a dull, drowsy weed;
what a prosy, colorless nobody.
“Peter is a great admirer of the fair sex,” said my mother. “You must
see him on Sunday standing at the chapel gate ‘discoorsin’’ the pretty
girls as they pass in to last Mass.”
“Is he a bachelor?”
“Oh! yes. I have often asked him why he doesn’t marry, and his
invariable reply is, ‘I’d rayther keep looking at them.’”
“Perhaps I might have a chance,” said Miss Hawthorne, with a delicious
coquetry in her manner.
“Not a bit of it, my dear; he would not ally himself to a Saxon for a
crock of gold.”
“He is a hard-hearted wretch, then,” laughed our guest, “and I shall
not endeavor to make a conquest.”
Little did she imagine that she might have uttered _Veni, vidi, vici_
at that particular moment. A poor triumph, though—a paltry victory. I
did not feel myself worthy of powder and shot.
Harry Welstone kept gazing at Miss Hawthorne from out his supremely
handsome eyes. How I envied him those deep, dark, corsair-like organs
of vision, inwardly railing against my own heavy blues! He chatted
with her upon every conceivable topic, planning excursions, arranging
her boating, riding, walking, and even the songs she was to sing,
disposing of her time to his own especial advantage, and leaving me
helplessly out in the cold with the prosy member for Doodleshire. I
could not find a solitary topic to speak upon; at least, just as I
had summoned up courage to “cut in,” as they say at whist, the wind
had shifted and the current of the conversation had taken another
turn, leaving my disabled argosy high and dry. I had spent my most
recent years in the secluded valley of Kilkenley with my mother, my
horses, and my dogs. I had seen little or nothing of the whirl of the
world, and was so purely, so essentially local as to be almost
ignorant of what was going on in the outer circle of life. Of course
I read the _Freeman’s Journal_—generally two days old when it reached
us—and then I merely glanced at the hunting fixtures or the sales of
thoroughbreds at Farrell’s or Sewell’s. Of course I had done some
reading; and of a lighter kind the Waverley Novels and Dickens, the
Titanic Thackeray and a few unwholesome French effusions; but of late
I had read nothing, and, as a consequence, was local to a
contemptuous degree. In what did Peter, my own servant, differ from
me? Merely in the perusal of a few books. He was a better judge of a
horse and—but why proceed? My reflections were all of this melancholy
cast as I listened to dissertations upon Chopin, Schubert, and
Wagner, upon the novelists and poets of the period, upon Gainsborough
hats and Pompadour flounces, upon the relative merits of Rève d’Amour
and Ess’ bouquet. Harry and our fair young guest kept the shuttlecock
going between them, and I was forced to bear the burden of my own
ignorance in a stolid, stupid silence. One chance was offered me
which I took as I would a six-foot wall—flying. The question of
horses came upon the _tapis_, and I vaulted into the saddle. I rode
down Harry and scarcely spared Miss Hawthorne; nor did I draw rein
until I had described _the_ run of last season, from meet to death,
winding a “View-halloo!” that actually caused the teacups to ring
upon their saucers. This blew off my compressed excitement, and,
although very much ashamed, I felt all the better for it. My foot was
on my native heath, and I showed _her_ that my name was McGregor.
“What are you going to do with Mr. Hawthorne to-day?” asked my mother.
“What are _you_ going to do with Miss Hawthorne, mother?” I retorted.
“Oh! Harry Welstone and I have arranged all that. _You_ are not in the
baby-house.”
This was gratifying intelligence with a vengeance. I was told off as
bear-leader to the prosy Parliament man, while Harry was to revel in
the radiance of Miss Hawthorne’s presence. This was grilling. And yet
what could I do or say? My hands were tied behind my back. I was host,
and should pay deference to the respected rites of bread and salt, the
sacred laws of hospitality. A sacrifice was demanded, and in me was
found the victim.
“Could we not manage to unite our forces?” I suggested, in the faint,
flickering hope that a compromise might be effected.
“Impossible!” said Harry.
I could have flung my teacup at his head.
“And why not, pray?” I asked in a short, testy way.
“Because you are to take Mr. Hawthorne over to Clonacooney, and to talk
tenant-right and landlord-wrong with old Mr. Cassidy; then, when
exhausted there, you are bound for the model farm at Rouserstown, and
any amount of steam-ploughing and top-dressing; then you can pay a
flying visit to Phil Dempsey’s hundred-acre field, and show the Saxon
the richness of the land he has invaded; then you are to call for
Father O’Dowd, where you can coal and do Home Rule; and then you may
come home to dinner, where _we_ shall be very happy to receive you.”
And Harry laughed loudly and long at my utter discomfiture—a
discomfiture written in my rueful countenance in lines as heavy as
those laid on the grim visage of Don Quixote by Gustave Doré.
“You are very kind, Welstone—a most considerate fellow. Why not have
arranged for Knobber, or the other side of the Shannon—say Ballybawn,
or Curlagh Island?”
The iron had entered my soul.
“Is not this arrangement a very heavy tax upon Mr. Ormonde’s
good-nature?” exclaimed our fair guest, graciously coming to the
rescue, addressing my mother, who, _par parenthèse_, expressed herself
perfectly charmed with Miss Hawthorne.
“Tax! my dear child? On the contrary, it is just the sort of day my son
will thoroughly enjoy: going about the country, talking second crops,
turnips, and the price of hay and oats. He is devoted to all that sort
of thing, and I doubt if even his duties of gallantry to you, Mabel,
would get the better of his devotion to Mme. Ceres.”
I was about to blurt out something that might possibly have compromised
me on all sides, when, as luck would have it, the M.P. entered.
He stalked into the room as if the division-bell were ringing, and took
his seat as though below the gangway, bowing gravely to the assembled
House. He lifted his cup as he would a blue-book, and handled his knife
as an act of Parliament.
“You will—ahem!—I’m sure excuse my being a little late”—with a
preparatory cough—“but the late sittings of last session have totally
unfitted me for bed until the wee sma’ hours.”
“Surely, papa, you are not going to carry the House of Commons hours
into the romantic glens of Kilkenly?”
“I admit that I ought not to do so, my dear, but, as a great statesman
once observed—I, ahem! quite forget his name at this particular
moment—habit is second nature; and were I to retire early, it would—ha!
ha!—be only for the purpose of quarrelling with one of my best friends,
my _best_ friend—Morpheus.”
“You must find the fatigues of Parliament very great,” said my mother.
“Herculean, madam. My correspondence, before I go down to the House at
all, is a herculean task, and one in which I am very considerably aided
by my daughter.”
“Oh! yes,” she laughed; “I can write such diplomatic letters as ‘I beg
to acknowledge receipt of your communication of the blank instant,
which shall have my very best attention.’ Papa’s constituents
invariably hear from me in that exact phraseology by return of post. I
have a whole lot of such letters, as the Americans say, ‘on hand.’”
“If it were not for the off-nights, madam,” continued the member for
Doodleshire, “Wednesdays and Saturdays, I should seriously think of
accepting the Chiltern Hundreds, which is a gentlemanlike way of
resigning a seat in the House.”
“And on the off-nights poor papa devotes himself to _me_,” exclaimed
Mabel; “and I always accept invitations for those nights, so the only
chance he has for sleep is during the recess.”
I wondered who her friends might be, what they were like, where they
resided, and if the men were all in love with her. She had upon three
distinct occasions referred to a Mr. Melton, and somehow the mention of
this man filled me with a grim foreboding.
“We take too much sleep. We should do with as little as possible, and
divide that by three. Sleep is waste of time. Sleep is a sad nuisance,
a bore. It is born in a yawn and dies in imbecility,” cried Harry,
suddenly bursting into vitality.
“Is it thus you would designate Nature’s soft nurse, sir?” demanded Mr.
Hawthorne in a severe tone.
“This comes very badly from Mr. Welstone,” said my mother, “who
requires to be called about ten times before he will deign to leave off
sleeping.”
“You should see the panels of his door—actually worn away with
knuckle-knocking,” I added.
“In the country I sleep because there’s nothing else to do. I get up
early! What for? To see the same mist on the same mountains, and the
same cows in the same field, and the same birds in the same trees;
though, _mot d’honneur_, I was up and out this morning at eight
o’clock, and played Romeo to Miss Hawthorne’s Juliet—at least, so far
as a garden and a balcony could do it.”
“Who ever heard of a Romeo by daylight?” I exclaimed sarcastically.
“Let’s see what that love-stricken wretch does ‘neath the sun’s rays.
We all know what he says and does in the pale moonlight.”
“He kills Tybalt,” I interposed, not utterly displeased in being able
to show Mabel that I was on intimate terms with the Bard of Avon.
“And buys a penn’orth of strychnine,” added Harry with a grin.
“We know a gentleman who plays Romeo to perfection,” observed Mabel.
“Such a handsome fellow! And the dress suits him charmingly.”
How I hated this Romeo!
“A Mr. Wynwood Melton.”
I knew it before she had uttered the words.
“An actor?” I drawled in a careless sort of way.
“Oh! dear, no; he’s in the Foreign Office, and a swell. He is nephew or
cousin—I don’t know which—to Mr. Gladstone or some other great chief.”
This with an animation that sent a thrill of despairing jealousy to my
very soul.
“He is—ahem!—a very promising young man, a great favorite of ours, and
will make his mark. He is destined for the House. You’ll meet him, Mr.
Ormonde, when you come over. He is—ha! ha! ha!—rather a constant
visitor,” with a significant glance in the direction of his daughter.
She flushed crimson. The deep scarlet glowed all over her like a rosy
veil. That blush tolled the death-knell of my hopes. Our eyes met; she
withdrew her glance, as I haughtily outstared her.
“He is a great favorite of papa’s,” she murmured, almost
apologetically.
“And how about papa’s only daughter?” laughed my mother.
“Papa’s only daughter admires him very much—thinks him very handsome,
very nice, very cultivated, very clever, _et voilà tout_.”
“What more would papa’s only daughter have?”
A quaint little shrug, and a dainty laugh.
“A thousand things,” she said. From that moment I marked down Melton as
my foe—as the man who had dared to cross my path. Not that I hoped for
success, or could ever hope for it; yet to him she had evidently
surrendered her heart, and _he_ must reckon with _me_. Meet him!
Rather! I would now accept the invitation to London for the sole
purpose of falling foul of Melton. It would be such exquisite torture
to see them together; such racking bliss to behold them pressing hands
and looking into each other’s eyes. What pleasurable agony to look
calmly on while those nameless frivolities and gentle dalliances by
which lovers bridge the conventionalities were being performed beneath
my very nose! Ha! ha! I would close with Mr. Hawthorne’s offer and make
arrangements for proceeding to ‘town,’ as he would persist in calling
the English metropolis, at the earliest possible opportunity consistent
with his, and Melton’s, convenience.
“Miss Hawthorne,” suddenly exclaimed Harry, “_do_ tell us something
more about this Romeo. You have only given us enough to make us wish
for more. What is he like?”
“Will you have his portrait in oil or a twopenny photo?” she laughed.
“Let us strike ‘ile’ by all means.”
“_Imprimis_—that’s a good word to begin with—he is tall.”
“Good!”
“Graceful.”
“Good again!”
“Dignified-looking.”
“_Bravissimo!_”
“Parts his hair in the centre.”
“I don’t care for that,” said Harry.
“It becomes _him_.”
“Possibly. Pray proceed. His eyes?”
“Gray.”
“Nose?”
“Aquiline.”
“Beard?—men parting their hair in the centre wear beards.”
“Henri Quatre.”
“Hands?”
“Small and white.”
I threw a hasty glance at mine; they were of the same hue as the leg of
the mahogany breakfast-table at which we were seated. Sun and saddle
had done their work effectually.
“Does he smile?”
“Why, _of course_ he does.”
“Now,” said Harry, “upon your description of his smile a good deal may
depend.”
“I object to this line of cross-examination,” said my mother.
“I consider the subject has been sufficiently thrashed already,” I
added. Truly, I was sick of it.
“I shall throw up my brief, if I do not get an answer to my question.”
“I shall tell you by and by, Mr. Welstone.”
“By and by will not do.”
“Well, then, Mr. Melton’s smile is like a sunbeam. Are you satisfied
_now_?”
“Mr. Hawthorne,” said Harry, turning to the M.P., “this is a very bad
case.”
“I’m afraid—ha! ha! ha!—that it looks somewhat suspicious,” was the
significant reply.
“If you mean—” Mabel began.
“I don’t mean what _you_ mean,” laughed Harry.
“What _do_ you mean?” she asked.
“What do _you_ mean?” he playfully retorted.
At this juncture Peter O’Brien’s shock head appeared at the open
window, through which he unceremoniously thrust it, announcing, in no
very delicate accents:
“The yokes is _con_vaynient.”
“That’s a fine morning, Peter,” exclaimed Miss Hawthorne, rising and
approaching the window.
“Troth, it’s that same, miss, glory be to God! It’s iligant weather
intirely for the craps.”
“We’ve cut all our corn in England, Peter.”
“See that, now,” gloomily; but, brightening up, he added: “Sorra a
haporth to hindher _us_ from cuttin’ it long ago, av it was only ripe
enough.”
“An Irish peasant will never admit Saxon superiority in anything,” said
my mother, placing her arm about Mabel’s waist. “What ‘yokes’ have you
out to-day, Peter?”
“The shay for you, ma’am, and the young leddy there; though I’m afeared
it’s not as nate as it ought for to be, be raisin av a rogue av a hin—a
red wan, full av consait an’ impidence—makin’ her nest right—”
“Here, Peter,” I cried, to put a stop to these hideous revelations,
“get my car round at once.” I could have strangled him.
As all English visitors to Ireland are possessed of a frantic desire to
experience the jolting of an Irish jaunting-car, I ordered my own
special conveyance round, also from the workshop of Bates—a low,
rakish-looking craft, with a very deep well for the dogs when going out
shooting, and bright yellow corduroy cushions; an idea of my own, and
upon which I rather piqued myself. Harry Welstone and the ladies came
to the doorsteps to see us off, and while he explained the beauties of
the chariot to Miss Hawthorne I endeavored to initiate her father into
the mysteries of clinging on, advising him not to clutch the front and
back rail so convulsively, but rather to allow his body to swing with
every motion of the vehicle, and above all things to trust to luck.
“Lave yourself as if ye wor a sack o’ male, sir,” suggested Peter, who
was charioteer, “or as if ye had a sup in. Sorra a man that was full
ever dhropped off av a car, barrin’ Murty Flinn; an’ shure that was not
his fault aither, for it was intirely be raisin av a bargain he med wud
a lump av a mare he was dhrivin’ at that time.”
“Who was Murty Flinn, Peter?” asked Miss Hawthorne.
“A dacent boy, miss, that lives beyant at the crass-roads—a rale hayro
for sperits,” was the prompt response, accompanied by a semi-military
salute.
“And how did he fall off the car?”
“Troth, thin, _mavourneen_, it wasn’t Murty that fell aff av the car,
so much as that the car fell aff av Murty; an’ this is how it happened:
Murty was comin’ from the fair av Bohernacopple, where he wint for to
sell a little slip av a calf, an’ afore he left the fair he tuk several
gollioges av sperits, an’ had a cupple uv haits wud Phil Clancy, the
red-hedded wan—not Phil av Tubbermory—an’ he was bet up intirely betune
the whiskey an’ the rounds wud red Clancy, so that whin he cum for to
make for home he was hard set for to yoke the mare, an’ harder set agin
for to mount to his sate on the car. But Murty is the persevarionist
man ye ever laid yer two purty eyes on, miss, an’ he ruz himself into
the sate afther a tremendjus battle; and th’ ould mare, whin she seen
that he was comfortable, tuk the road like a Christian mare. Well,
Murty rowled backwards an’ forwards, an’ every joult av the car ye’d
think wud sind him on the crown av his _caubeen_; but, be me song, he
was as secure as a prisner in Botany Bay, an’ it’s a sailor he thought
he was, up in a hammock no less. Well, miss, the night was a little
dark an’ the road was shaded wud threes, an’ whin they cum to th’ ould
graveyard at Killencanick never a fut the mare ‘ud go farther.
“‘What’s the matther wud ye?’ axed Murty; but sorra an answer she med
him.
“‘Are ye bet,’ sez he, ‘an’ you so far from home?’ She riz a cupple av
kicks, as much as to say, ‘Ye hit it off that time, anyhow, Misther
Flinn!’
“‘Did ye get a dhrink at the fair beyant, Moria?’—the little mare’s
name, miss. She shuk her hed in a way that tould him that she was as
dhry as a cuckoo.
“‘Musha, musha, but that was cruel thratemint,’ sez he. ‘What’s to be
done at all, at all?’
“Well, miss, he thought for a minit, an’ he sez: ‘Moria, we’re only two
mile from the Cock an’ Blackberry, an’ I’ll tell ye what I’ll do wud
ye: you carry me wan mile, sez he, ‘an’ I’ll carry you th’ other.’”
This proposition on the part of Murty Flinn was received with a peal of
ringing laughter from Miss Hawthorne, who, with flashing eyes and an
eager expression of delighted curiosity, begged of Peter to proceed.
“Av coorse, miss,” replied the gratified Jehu. “Well, ye see the words
was hardly acrass his mouth whin, cockin’ her ears an’ her tail, th’
ould mare darted aff as if she was runnin’ for the Cunningham Coop at
Punchestown, an’ Murty swingin’ like a log round a dog’s neck all the
voyage; an’ the minnit she come to the milestone undher Headford
demesne she stopped like a dead rabbit.
“‘Where are we now?’ axed Murty.
“She sed nothin’, but rouled the car up to the milestone an’ grazed it
wud the step.
“‘Well, yer the cutest little crayture,’ sez Murty, ‘that ever wore
shoes,’ sez he; ‘an’, be the powers, as ye kept yer word wud me, I’ll
keep me word wud you.’ And he rouled aff av the car into the middle o’
the road, while th’ ould mare unyoked herself as aisy as if it was
aitin’ hay she was insted av undoin’ buckles that riz many a blisther
on Murty’s fingers; for the harness was _con_trairy, and more betoken
as rusty as a Hessian’s baggonet. When Murty seen the mare stannin’
naked in the road, he med an offer for to get up, but he was bet
intirely be raisin av the sup he tuk, an’ he cudn’t stir more nor his
arms; but the ould mare wasn’t goin’ for to be done out av her jaunt in
that way, so she cum over, an’ sazin’ him—savin’ yer presence, miss—be
the sate av his small-clothes, riz him to his feet, an’, wud a cupple
av twists, dhruv him betune the shafts av the car, an’ in a brace av
shakes had him harnessed like a racer.
“‘I’m reddy now, ma’am,’ sez Murty, mighty polite, for he seen the whip
in one av her forepaws—‘I’m reddy now, ma’am; so up wud ye, an’ I’ll go
bail we’ll not be long coverin’ the road betune this an’ the Cock an’
Blackberry.’
“Well, miss, th’ ould mare mounted the car, an’ Murty started aff as
well as he cud; but he was bet up afther runnin’ a few yards, an’ he
dhropped into a walk, but no sooner he done it than he got a welt av
the whip that med him hop.
“‘What are ye doin?’ sez he, an’ down cums the lash agin be way av an
answer.
“‘How dare ye raise yer hand to a Christian?’ sez he. A cupple av welts
follied this.
“‘I’ll not stan’ it!’ he bawled; but the more he roared an’ bawled the
heavier th’ ould mare welted, an’ he might as well be spakin’ to the
Rock o’ Cashel.
“‘Hould yer hand!’ he roared, thryin to soothe her—‘hould yer hand, an’
ye’ll have a bellyful av the finest oats in the barony—ould Tim
Collins’ best crap. Dhrop the whip, an’ sorra a taste av work ye’ll do
till next Michaelmas. I can’t thravel faster, Moria, be raisin av a
corn,’ and the like; but the mare had him, an’ she ped off ould scores,
an’ be the time they kem to the Cock an’ Blackberry poor Murty was bet
like an ould carpet, an’ he wasn’t fit for to frighten the crows out av
an oat-field. An’ that’s how it all happened, miss.”
“And did he give Moria the drink?” asked Miss Hawthorne.
“He sez he did,” replied Peter, with a peculiar grin; “but the people
that owns the public-house sez that he niver darkened their doore, an’
that he was found lying undher the yoke near the crass-roads, wud th’
ould mare grazin’ about a half a mile down the road. But it’s a thrue
story,” he added with somewhat of solemn emphasis.
“_Si non e vero e ben trovato_,” laughed our guest, as she waved us a
graceful adieu.
It was one of those lovely mornings nowhere to be found but in Ireland:
the dim, half-gray light, the heavily-perfumed air, the stillness that
imparted a sort of sad solemnity to the scene, the glorious tints of
green on hill and hollow that mellowed themselves with the sombre sky,
a something that inspires a silence that is at once a resource and a
regret. I became wrapped up in my own thoughts—so much so that,
although I held the “ribbons” I was scarcely aware of the fact, and it
was only the exclamation from Peter: “Blur an’ ages! Masther Fred, luk
out for the brudge”—a narrow structure, across which it was possible to
pass without grazing the parapet walls, and nothing more—that brought
me to my senses. My guest, in spite of the earnest instructions of
Peter, was clinging frantically to the rails at either end of the seat,
and, instead of allowing his body to swing with the motion of the
vehicle, was endeavoring to sit bolt upright, as though he were in the
House of Commons and in anxious expectation of catching the Speaker’s
eye. Upon arriving at the foot of Ballymacrow hill Peter sprang to the
ground—an example followed by myself; but Mr. Hawthorne retained his
seat, as there was plenty of walking in store for him, and my horse
could well endure the weight of one, when the weight of three would
make a very essential difference in so steep a climb.
Peter, reins in hand, walked beside the “mimber,” and in a few minutes
was engaged in “discoorsin’” him.
“Home Rule? Sorra a wan o’ me cares a thraneen for it, thin.”
“What is a thraneen?” asked Mr. Hawthorne, eager for information all
along the line.
“A thraneen is what the boys reddies their dhudeens wud,” was the
response to the query.
“I am still in ignorance.”
“Wisha, wisha! an’ this is a mimber av Parliamint,” muttered Peter,
“an’ he doesn’t know what a thraneen manes, an’ the littlest gossoon
out av Father Finnerty’s school beyant cud tell him”; adding aloud: “A
thraneen is a blade av grass that sheeps nor cows won’t ait, an’ it
sticks up in a field; there’s wan,” suiting the action to the word,
plucking it from a bank on the side of the road, and presenting it to
the member for Doodleshire.
“And so you are not a Home-Ruler, my man?”
“Sorra a bit, sir.”
“Then what are you?”
“I am a repayler. I’m for teetotal separation; that’s what Dan
O’Connell sed to Drizzlyeye.”
“What did Mr. O’Connell say to Mr. Disraeli?” asked my guest in very
Parliamentary phraseology.
“I’ll tell ye. ‘What is it yez want at all, at all, over beyant in
Hibernium?’ sez Drizzlyeye. ‘Yez are always wantin’ somethin,’ sez he,
‘an’ what the dickens do yez want now?’
“‘I’ll tell ye what we want,’ says Dan, as bould as a ram.
“‘What is it, Dan?’ sez Drizzlyeye.
“‘We want teetotal separation,’ sez Dan.
“‘Arrah, ge lang ou’ a that,’ sez Drizzlyeye. ‘Yez cudn’t get along
wudout us,’ sez he.
“‘Cudn’t we?’ sez Dan. ‘Thry us, Drizzlyeye,’ sez he. ‘How did we get
on afore?’
“‘Bad enuff,’ sez Drizzlyeye—‘bad enuff, Dan. Yez were always batin’
aich other and divartin’ yerselves, and, barrin’ the weltin’ Brian Boru
gev the Danes at Clontarf, bad cess to the haporth yez ever done, Dan.
England is yer best frind. We always play fair,’ sez he.
“‘How dar ye say that to me?’ sez Dan, takin’ the Traity av Limerick
out av his pocketbuke. ‘Luk at that documint,’ sez he, firin’ up;
‘there’s some av yer dirty work; an’ I ax ye square an’ fair,’ sez Dan,
in a hait, for he was riz, ‘if the brakin’ av that wasn’t as bad as
anything yer notorious ancesthor ever done?’ alludin’ to Drizzlyeye’s
ancesthor, the impenitint thief.
“‘That’s none of my doin’, Dan,’ sez Drizzlyeye, turnin’ white as a
banshee.
“‘I know it’s not,’ sez Dan; ‘but ye’d do it to-morrow mornin’,’ sez
he, ‘an’ that’s why I demand the repale an’ a teetotal separation.’
“‘Begorra, but I think yer right, Dan,’ sez Drizzlyeye.”
“Such an interview could not possibly have occurred,” observed the
practical Englishman.
“Cudn’t it?” with an indignant toss of the head. “I had it from
Lanty Finnegan, who heerd it from the bishop’s own body-man.” And
Peter, giving the horse a lash of the whip, dashed into the
laurestine-bordered avenue leading up to the cosey cottage wherein
resided the “darlintest priest outside av Room,” Father Myles
O’Dowd.
Father O’Dowd’s residence was a long, single-storied house, whitewashed
to a dazzling whiteness, and thatched with straw the color of the amber
wept by the sorrowing seabird. A border of blood-red geraniums ran
along the entire _façade_, and the gable ends were embowered in
honeysuckle and clematis. A rustic porch entwined with Virginia creeper
jealously guarded the entrance, boldly backed up by the “iligantest
ratter in the barony” in the shape of a bandy-legged terrier, who
winked a sort of facetious welcome at Peter and bestowed a cough-like
bark of recognition upon me. The parlor was a genuine snuggery,
“papered with books,” all of which, from St. Thomas of Aquinas to
Father Perrone, were of the rarest and choicest theological reading.
Nor were the secular authors left out in the cold, to which the
well-thumbed volumes of the Waverley Novels and the immortal _facetiæ_
of Dickens bore ample testimony. A charming copy of Raphael’s
masterpiece stood opposite the door, the glorious eyes of the Virgin
Mother lighting the apartment with a soft and holy radiance, while the
fresh and rosy flesh-tints of the divine Infant bespoke the workmanship
as being that of a _maestro_. A portrait of Henry Grattan hung over the
chimney-piece, and facing it, between the windows, a print of the
review of the volunteers in College Green, while some dozen valuable
engravings, all of a sacred character, adorned the walls in graceful
profusion. A statuette of the Holy Father occupied a niche specially
prepared for it, and an old brass-bound rosewood bureau, black as ebony
from age, sternly asserted itself in defiance of a hustling crowd of
horse-hair-seated chairs; a shining sofa a little the worse for the
wear, and presenting a series of comfortless ridges to the unwary
sitter, and a genuine Domingo mahogany table bearing an honest corned
beef and cabbage and “boiled leg with” completed a picture that was at
once refreshing and invigorating to behold.
“Shure he’s only acrass the bog, Masther Fred,” exclaimed Biddy
Finnegan, the housekeeper, with a joyous smile illuminating the very
frills of her old-world white cap, “an’ I’ll send wan av the boys for
him. He’d be sore an’ sorry for to miss ye, sir. An’ how’s the
misthress—God be good to her!—an’ the major, whin ye heerd av him? It’s
himself that’s kindly and dhroll.” And Biddy, dusting the sofa,
requested the member for Doodleshire to take a “sate.”
“Won’t ye have a sup o’ somethin’ afther yer jaunt, Masther Fred, or
this gintleman? Och! but here’s himself now.”
Father O’Dowd had been attached to Imogeela since his ordination—a
period of thirty years, during twenty-five of which he was its devoted
parish priest. Respectfully declining the promotion in the church which
his piety, erudition, and talents claimed for him as their natural
heritage, he clung with paternal fondness to his little parish,
ministering to the spiritual wants of his flock with an earnest and
holy watchfulness that was repaid to the uttermost by a childlike and
truthful obedience. To his parishioners he was all, everything—guide,
philosopher, friend. He shared their joys and their sorrows, their
hopes and their fears. He whispered hope when the sky was overcast,
urging moderation when the sun was at its brightest. He had christened
every child and married every adult in the parish; and those, alas! so
many, lying beneath the green grass in the churchyard of Imogeela had
been soothed to their long, long rest by the words of heavenly
consolation from his pious lips. Ever at his post, the cold, bleak
nights of winter would find him wending his way through rugged
mountain-passes, fording swollen streams, or wading treacherous bogs to
attend to the wants of the sick and dying, while a granite boulder or
the stump of a felled tree, the blue canopy of heaven overhead, has
upon many memorable occasions constituted his confessional. A profound
scholar, a finished gentleman, and, despite his surroundings, a good
deal a man of the world, I was proud, exceedingly proud, to be enabled
to present to Mr. Hawthorne so true a specimen of that order which Lord
John Russell had been pleased to describe as “surpliced ruffians.”
The priest entered, a smile illuminating his expressive face like a ray
of sunlight. Stretching forth both hands, he bade me welcome,
exclaiming: “Ah! you have made your pilgrimage at last; you come, as
old Horace hath it, _inter silvas Academi quærere verum_. How is your
excellent mother? I received your joint epistle, and I hope you got my
promissory note, due almost at sight.”
Father O’Dowd was about fifty-five or fifty-six; hale, handsome, and
muscular; his silken, snow-white hair and ruddy complexion, with his
lustrous, dark blue eyes and glittering teeth, giving him an air of
genial cordiality pronounceable at a single glance. Tall, sunburnt, and
powerfully built, he carried that solidity of gesture and firmness of
tread sometimes so marked in muscular Christianity. I saw with feelings
of intense pleasure that my guest was both pleased and impressed—an
impression strengthened by the cordial greeting which the worthy priest
extended to him.
“Welcome to Ireland, Mr. Hawthorne. It’s about the best thing Strongbow
ever did for me—the pleasure of seeing a friend of my dear young
friend’s here. Collectively you Saxons hate us; individually you find
us not quite the lawless savages the _Pall Mall Gazette_ and
_Spectator_ would make us.”
“We want to know you better,” said the M.P.
“Ah! that’s the rub. You don’t know us, and never will know us; but
_we_ know _you_. Englishmen come over to Ireland, believing that a real
knowledge of the country is not to be acquired from newspapers, but
that a man must see Ireland for himself. They come; they go; and all
they pick up is a little of our brogue. We never can hope for much more
than what Lucan calls _concordia discors_.”
“I believe if Ireland were to take the same stand as Scotland—”
“Scotland me no Scotland,” laughed Father O’Dowd.
“Scotland is contented and thrifty.”
“And Ireland is poor and proud. I tell you, Mr. Hawthorne, that we have
a big bill of indictment against you that I fear may never be settled
in _my_ day. Why should not Scotland be contented? Is she not fed on
sugar-plums? Is there not a sandy-haired Scotchman in every position
worth having, from the cabinet to the custom-house? Do you not develop
all her industries, and pat her on the back like a spoiled child? Are
not your royal family _ipsis Hibernicis Hiberniores_, or, if I freely
translate myself, more Scotch than the Scotch themselves? Why should
she not be contented and prosperous when she gets everything she asks
for?”
“But you ask too much, reverend sir.”
“It is scarcely asking too much to ask for one’s own.”
“Surely yours are at best but—ahem!—sentimental grievances, and the
House makes every—ahem!—effort at conciliation.”
“We can stand hard knocks and square fighting, and possibly feel all
the better for it; but when you speak of conciliation and all that sort
of thing we get on our edge at once, as we know that we are going to be
bamboozled.”
“But surely you will admit that we have done a good deal for the
country. See the Church Disestablishment Act and the Land Act.”
“Only two patches on our ragged coats, my dear sir. We want
independence, and that you won’t give us; nor will you offer us a _quid
pro quo_, as you did with Scotland, because you know we would not
accept it. No, Mr. Hawthorne, we’ll have to fight you for this, and our
Irish members must do the Mrs. Caudle for John Bull, and give him
sleepless and wretched nights in the big house at St. Stephen’s.”
“Have you any fault to find with the administration of the laws?”
“Fault! When we find ourselves gagged and fettered by a miserably weak
administration, and hedged in by a set of uncertain and floating laws,
we begin to think about righting ourselves. You send us a
lord-lieutenant who knows as much about Ireland as he does of
Bungaroo—who comes over with a hazy idea that there’s some one to be
conciliated and some one to be hanged; a chief-secretary who knows
less; an attorney-general who, if active, means a necessity for
strengthening the garrison; and a commander of the forces who pants for
a chance of manœuvring his flying columns over our prostrate bodies.
But here comes Biddy Finnegan with a cutlet of mountain mutton, and I
can give you a drop of the real mountain dew that never paid the Saxon
gauger a farthing duty—or, at least, if we had our rights, ought not,
according to Peter O’Brien.” And he laughed. “These subjects are much
better worth discussing than English misrule. _Quantum est in rebus
inane._” And ushering Mr. Hawthorne to a seat upon his right hand, he
proceeded to do the honors with a courtly grace blended with a
fascinating hospitality.
“That _poteen_ has its story. As I have already told you, it never paid
duty. A friend of mine was anxious that I should keep it on tap, as he
constantly comes this way. It is somewhat difficult to obtain it now,
as the excise officers are, like you members of Parliament,
particularly wide awake.” The M.P. bowed solemnly in recognition of the
compliment. “At last, however, he managed to drop on a man, who knew
another man, who knew another man, in whose cabin this particular
crayture was to be found. My friend ferreted him out, and, upon asking
the price per gallon, was informed by the manufacturer that he would
only charge _him_ eighteen shillings.
“‘Eighteen shillings!’ exclaimed my friend. ‘Why, that’s an enormous
price.’
“‘Och! shure,’ replied the other, with a droll look perfectly
indescribable, ‘I cudn’t part it for less, _as the duty’s riz_.’”
It took a considerable time to drive the point of Father O’Dowd’s
fictitious narrative and the illicit distiller’s rejoinder into the
head of the member for Doodleshire; and when he did manage to grapple
it, wishing to lay it by in order to retail it in the House, it was
found impossible to get him completely round it, as the word “riz”
invariably balked him, and it is scarcely necessary to observe that his
Anglican substitution failed in every way to improve the story. The
cutlets were deliciously tender, and the potatoes in their jackets so
mealy and inviting that the Saxon fell to with a vigor that fairly
astonished me. As dish after dish of the diminutive shies disappeared,
and potato after potato left its jacket in shreds behind it, I
congratulated myself upon the signal success of this visit.
“My drive gave me an appetite, father,” he said. “I haven’t eaten
luncheon for many months. In the House I generally pair off with some
friend to a biscuit and a glass of sherry; but here I have—ahem!—eaten
like a navvy.”
“I’m delighted to hear you mention the drive as the cause of the
appetite; for I must endeavor to induce you to repeat it and help me to
eat a saddle of mutton that will be fit for Lucullus on Thursday.”
“I am in Mr. Ormonde’s hands.”
I was in an agony—another day from Mabel!
“Oh! Ormonde will do as I direct him; and I’ll tell you what we must
conspire about to-night—to induce the ladies to drive over. I should be
very pleased to show Miss Hawthorne a little this side of the county.”
I breathed again.
“You shall have my vote,” said the M.P.; “and, if I might dare suggest
an amendment to the saddle, it would be in ‘chops.’”
“We might do the swell thing,” laughed the _padre_, “and have two
dishes—an _entrée_; how magnificently that sounds! In any case I can
say with Horace:
“Hinc tibi copia
Manabit ad plenum, benigno
Ruris bonorum opulenta cornu.”
“I have—ahem!—almost forgotten my Horace,” sighed our guest.
“One might say to you, as was said to the non-whist-player, What an
unhappy old age you are laying up for yourself, Mr. Hawthorne!”
“Well, reverend sir, so long as a man has the _Times_ he can defy
_ennui_; every leader is an essay.”
“You cannot commit the _Times_ to memory.”
“I read it every day, sir,” was the pompous reply.
“Apropos of the _Times_, they tell a story of Chief-Baron Pigott which
is eminently characteristic. He is one of the most scrupulous,
painstaking men the world ever saw, who, sooner than do a criminal
injustice, would go over evidence _ad nauseam_ and weigh the _pros_ and
_cons_, driving the bar nearly to distraction. One day a friend found
him upon the steps of his house superintending the removal of a huge
pile of newspapers.
“‘What papers are those, Chief-Baron?’ he asked.
“‘The London _Times_.’
“‘Do you read the _Times_ regularly?’
“‘Oh! dear, yes.’
“‘Did you read that slashing leader on Bright’s speech?’
“‘No; when did it appear?’
“‘Last Thursday.’
“‘Oh! my dear friend, I shall come to it by and by; but at present I am
_a year in arrear_.’”
“Am I to understand that he intended to read up to that speech?”
“Certainly. This will illustrate the man. At his house in Leeson
Street, Dublin, the hall-door was divided into two, and a knocker
attached to each door. The chief-baron has been known to stand for
hours, pausing to consider which knocker he would rap with, fearing to
act unjustly by the unutilized one.”
“I can scarcely credit this,” exclaimed the member.
“Oh! you’ll hear of stranger things than that before you leave
Ireland.” And the merry twinkle in the priest’s eye dissipated any
doubts still lingering in the ponderous mind of the learned member for
Doodleshire.
“That story is worthy of our—ahem!—charioteer.”
“Who? Peter O’Brien? What good company the rascal is! Of him one can
safely say with Publius, _Comes jucundus in via pro vehiculo est_.
Peter would lighten any journey. What was the subject of the debate
to-day?”
“Well—ahem!—he gave us a new and original version of _A Strange
Adventure with a Phaeton_.” And the little man chuckled at his wit.
“I know the story,” said Father O’Dowd. “It is one of Peter’s
favorites, and it takes Peter to tell it.”
“From the phaeton he plunged into Home Rule.”
“Freddy,” addressing me, “you must get Peter to tell our English friend
here the story of how ‘ould Casey done Dochther Huttle out av a
guinea’; it’s racy of the soil.”
“There are—ahem!—some words of his that I cannot exactly follow. They
are Irish, but they have quite a Saxon ring about them, which evidently
shows the affinity in the languages.”
“And a further reason for uniting us. You English will never rest
content until a causeway is built between Kingstown and Holyhead,
garrisoned for the whole sixty miles by a Yorkshire or Shropshire
regiment—one that can be depended upon.”
“That idea has been mooted in the House before now; I mean
the—ahem!—connection of the two countries by a tunnel.”
“So you would bind us in the dark, Mr. Hawthorne?”
“Ha! ha! ha! Father O’Dowd, that is so good that I must book it here,”
tapping his forehead in a ghastly way. “Don’t be surprised if it is
heard in the House. We are very witty there.”
“If there is any wit in the House of Commons we send it to you. But I
doubt if there is a sparkle of repartee among all the Irish members
even. I’ve seen a French _mot_ rehashed, with the epigram left out in
the cold, and an Irish story with the point striking somewhere in
Tipperary.”
“Tipperary is very Irish, is it not? They speak the Irish language
there, and run their vowels into each other.”
“You are right, sir; that is the place where you’d get your two _i_’s
knocked into one.”
Mr. Hawthorne saw this, and, although the laugh was against him,
enjoyed it amazingly. Father O’Dowd could hit from the shoulder, but
could also pick up his prostrate foe with the delicacy of a woman. When
creed or country came up, one found a stalwart champion in the worthy
priest, who could meet his adversary with shillelah or polished steel,
as the requirements of the case demanded.
“Finish that glass of wine, and let me show you a set of the finest
boneens in the county.”
“Boneens? What are boneens?”
“This is more of your Saxon ignorance,” laughed Father O’Dowd, as,
followed by Mr. Hawthorne and myself, he led the way in the direction
of the stable-yard.
TO BE CONTINUED.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
OUTSIDE ST. PETER’S.
How grand the approach! The dome’s Olympian disc
Albeit has sunk behind the huge façade.
Lo! with its cross the sentinel obelisk
Salutes as on parade.
“Hewn from the red heart of primeval granite,”
It says, “among the monuments which man
Reared to outmass the mountains of his planet,
I was, ere Rome began.
“By no dark hieroglyphs my sides are storied;
My titular god, in Heliopolis,
In the world’s morning burned into my forehead
The signet of his kiss.
“Converted like an ancient scroll rewritten,
What heeds the Sun of Righteousness my date?
I lift his symbol on my brow, dawn-smitten,
And at his portal wait!”
And the twin fountains leap in joy, and twist
Their silvery shafts in foaming strength amain,
Whose loosening coil is whirled into a mist
Of sun-illumined rain.
Therein the bow of promise tenderly,
A Heart in glory, palpitates and glows;
And musically, in words of melody,
The crystal cadence flows:
“Ho! fallen ones, Eve’s sorrowing sons and daughters!
In our lustration nothing is accurst;
Ho! come ye, come ye to the living waters,
Whoever is athirst.”
The colonnaded, stately double-porch
For world-wide wanderers stretches arms of grace;
The bosom of the universal church
Draws us to her embrace.
In their white silence the apostles look
Benignantly upon us. Waving hands
Of welcome—if our tears such vision brook—
In midst the Master stands.
“Humanity,” he pleadeth, “heavy laden,
Come unto me, and I will give you rest!
Through this, my portal, to the nobler Eden
Enter, and be possessed!”
’Tis Easter; and they sing the risen Christ—
How jubilant St. Peter’s wondrous choir!
But now no vision of the Evangelist,
Preceding throne and tiar,
Is borne amid the mystic candlesticks;
No waving feathers flash with starry eyes;
In the gold chalice and the gold-rayed pyx,
For paschal sacrifice,
No pontiff consecrates the elements;
And dost remember, in the olden time,
How heaven was stormed with silver violence—
That trumpet-burst sublime,
Like cherubim in battle? Or, all sound
Tranced for the elevation of the Host,
How tingling silence thrilled through worlds profound,
Where moved the Holy Ghost,
And then Rome rocked with bells? If such things were,
They are not now. But we are strangely wrought
And vibrant, answering like a harp in air
The impalpable wind of thought.
O’er the Campagna’s wastes of feverous blight
I’ve watched St. Peter’s mighty dome expand
In soaring cycloids to the infinite,
When heaven was blue and bland.
When storm was on the mountains and the sea,
Have seen its whole empyreal glory tost
Like shipwreck on a wild immensity,
That heaved without a coast.
But it was grand through all. From far or near,
It seemed too vast for heresies or schisms;
No colored glass, within its hemisphere,
Breaks white light as with prisms.
I have dreamed dreams therein: of charity
Wide as the world, impartial as the sun;
That on such Sion, in fraternity,
Might all men meet as one.
Dreams! Yet one cross, one hope—we scarce can err—
May, must all wanderers to one fold recall:
The Apostles’ Creed, the bunch of precious myrrh,
Can purify us all.
“I have builded on a rock!” His word symbolic
He will make plain—the Eternal cannot fail:
“Earth shall not shake my One Church Apostolic,
Nor gates of hell prevail!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
FRENCH HOME LIFE.[178]
Philosophers, theologians, and political economists alike are agreed
that the family is the basis of society and the type of government.
Home life and teaching, therefore, is the most important thing in
youth, and of whatsoever kind it is, so will be the behavior in riper
years of the generation brought up in its precepts. If parents did
their duty, the state would need fewer prisons; or, as a Chinese
proverb more tersely puts it, “If parents would buy rods, the hangman
would sell his implements.” Individual effort, however heroically it
may make head against the stream, has but a hard and uncertain task in
an atmosphere the very reverse of Christian and Scriptural, and in the
teeth of laws becoming every day more and more antagonistic to the Ten
Commandments. Still, since the spirit of the age has almost put on one
side, as obsolete, the ideal of reverence for age and experience, and
the respect due to parents, husbands, masters, and superiors, the
preservation of the worthy traditions of Christian home-life falls
necessarily to the hands of families themselves. We have to live not up
to or within the laws, but beyond them, and to train our children not
only as good and obedient citizens but as earnest and practical
Christians. Not only in one country is this the case, nor even among
the countries of one race, but everywhere, from modernized Japan to
Spain, from Russia to the reservations of friendly Indians.
There is one country, however, whose modern literature and practice for
a century and a half has been a synonym for looseness of teaching, for
disregard of family ties, honor, authority, and restraint, for every
element brilliantly and fatally disintegrating, for every moral and
philosophical novelty. France is perhaps the nation most misrepresented
and maligned by her public literature—at least the France whose
delinquencies have been so shamelessly and with seeming enjoyment
dissected before our eyes by her novelists and satirists. The sound
body on whose surface these sores break out is ignored; the old
tradition, rigid and artificial in many points, but made so by the very
license of court and city which for ever assaulted its simplicity, is
overlooked, and the decent, quiet, and strong substratum of manliness,
truth, and purity underlying the froth of vice in the capital and the
large towns is forgotten.
The first French Revolution was prepared by atheistical epicures, the
airy and refined unbelievers of the court of Louis XIV. and XV.; and
though turbulent masses here and there caught the infection, and with
cruel precision put in practice against the court nobility the theories
about which the latter so complacently wrote essays and epigrams, yet
the rural populations still believed in God and virtue—the evil had not
struck root among the body of the nation. The infidelity of the present
century has completed the task left unfinished by Voltaire and
Rousseau; newspapers have carried doubt and arrogance among the simple
people of the country; the laws of partition have destroyed many
homesteads once centres of families, and driven people into crowded and
unhealthy cities; the example of a noisily prominent class of
self-styled leaders has carried away the senses of otherwise sober and
decent men; the increase of drunkenness has further loosened family and
home ties; politics have become a mere profession, instead of the
portion allotted by duty to the collective body of fathers of families,
and so the old ideal is vanishing fast. Frenchmen of the right sort
look despairingly into the far past of their own country, and into the
history of foreign nations—English, American, Dutch, Hanoverian—for
models of pure living, respect for authority, law-abidingness, and
attachment to home. Some have set themselves to study Hindoo, Chinese,
and Egyptian models, and to put together from the Proverbs and
Ecclesiastes of Solomon, and the exhortations of Plato and Cicero, an
ideal code of home-life; some have gathered together and published with
loving regret the memorials of French life at its purest, of the
patriarchal ideal which survived even till the seventeenth century—the
age, pre-eminently, of great Frenchmen and women, and of which some
shadows lingered into our own century. From the _naïf_ advice of Louis
IX., the saintly king of France, to his son and daughter, Philip and
Isabel, to the family registers of small yeomen of Provençal valleys
and the grave admonitions of a judge to his newly-married daughter just
before the French Revolution, the same spirit breathes through the
dying addresses of Christian fathers of families in what we only know
as infidel and immoral France. “The seven thousand who bowed not the
knee to Baal” were always represented, though the licentious courts of
the Valois and the Bourbons threw a veil over the virtues of the
country; not one class alone, but all, from the titled proprietor to
the small tradesman and struggling _ménager_, or yeoman, contributed
its quota of redeeming virtue. But it is noticeable that the majority
of these upright men were poor. They could not afford to be idle; they
had large families to support; they had their patrimony to keep in the
family, and, if possible, to increase. All the customs that we are
going to see unrolled before us, the sentiments expressed, the simple,
dull, serious life led, are utterly alien from anything we call
technically French. We shall be surprised at every page, but less so if
we remember that this patriarchal life was generally spent in the
country, and often in mountainous regions and severe climates. While
reading of these scenes some may be reminded of a story placed in a
singular region in the south of France,—the Camargue, not far from
Aigues-Mortes—in which Miss Bowles has embodied the characteristic
traits of a magnificent, healthy, hardy, and upright race. One of these
Provençal farms had much in common with some described in that book.
The reason which makes the author of _La Vie Domestique_ choose the
Courtois family register as the first subject of his two volumes is
that it is the latest that has come to his knowledge; and reproducing,
almost in our own generation, the traits of a vanished society, it is
of more interest and of greater weight as a possible model. The author
of it, descended from a family of lawyers and judges at least two
hundred years old, died in 1828, and his descendants still live in the
valley of Sault—one of those natural republics not uncommon in
mountainous districts—retired from the outer world, faithful to
ancestral tradition, and governing themselves patriarchally according
to their old and never-interrupted communal liberties. There is a vast
field for research, and more for meditation, in the liberties of the
old mediæval states north and south of the Pyrenees; it is startling to
see what bold claims the parliaments of Aragon and Navarre could
enforce, and their Spartan disregard of the kingly office unless joined
to almost perfect virtue. But centralization, the genius of our time,
has ruthlessly declared that sort of liberty antiquated, and, after the
decay of the despotism which the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
began, the liberty of the individual was insisted on rather than that
of the commonwealth.
The valley of Sault was originally independent of any feudal duties,
and though later on its lords, the D’Agoults, paid homage and fealty to
the counts of Provence and then to the counts D’Anjou, they still
retained the sovereign rights of coinage and independent legislation.
The country is rocky and woody; for, though reckless wood-cutting
decreased the forests round this commune, Sault itself remained a
forest oasis, which the provident inhabitants have tried to perpetuate
by planting young oaks on the barren slopes of their hills. The
Courtois were assiduous planters of trees, and a grove of fairly-grown
oaks formed a background to their farm buildings. Quantities of
aromatic herbs grow in this neighborhood, and their distillation into
essences forms an industry of the country. But the beauty that Sault
chiefly lacks is that of water; for, though not far from the famous
fountain of Vaucluse, there is no local stream of any importance. This
is Alpine scenery without Alpine torrents. But, on the other hand,
Sault has a sulphur spring, as yet only locally famous, and the meadows
are green and moist. The principal natural curiosity of the valley is
the _Avens_, a kind of rifts in the earth, like craters, which, at the
rainy season, gape open and absorb floods of rain, leaving only a small
portion to feed the Nesque, a tiny tributary of the Rhone. Beech,
birch, and maple abound, and pasturage forms a surer road to fortune
than agriculture. Yet the small freeholds are pretty equally divided,
and the more advanced among the inhabitants have very clear and
approved notions of practical farming. The custom of selling or
exchanging the paternal acres was, till the last quarter of a century,
unknown, or at least abhorred; and a local tradition dating hundreds of
years back had established a modified right of primogeniture—one of the
sons, generally but not necessarily the eldest, devoting himself to the
care of his aged parents, the settlement of his sisters, the management
of the farm, and the accumulation of a reserve fund from his income for
the unforeseen necessities of the younger branches of the family. His
portion in money was sometimes double, according to the Mosaic
precedent, but it was understood that the Support of the House (such
was the phrase) should use his advantages only for the general benefit
of the family, and also that his wife’s dowry should nearly cover the
deficit caused by the marriage and dowries of his sisters.
Those simple people knew nothing of laws, such as shameful excesses
have made necessary in Anglo-Saxon countries, for the protection,
against the husband and father, of the wife’s fortune and children’s
inheritance. Antoine de Courtois, one of these model yeomen of southern
France, looked upon any alienation of ancestral property, or even any
use of capital, as sheer robbery of his descendants, and says in his
family register: “To sell our forefathers’ land is to renounce our name
and disinherit our children. Never believe that it can be replaced by
other property, and remember that all those who have been ready to
exchange their ancestors’ for other land have ruined themselves.... If
our farm is well managed, it will always bring in more than six per
cent. Any other land you could buy would not bring in three per cent.,
and would ruin you to improve it. You would have a decreased capital
and no income, and it would break your heart.”
The description of the homestead is interesting. The buildings included
the master’s house, with ten rooms on the ground-floor, eight others on
the first floor, three granaries above, with a dovecote, and three
cellars below; a farmer’s house, a shepherd’s, hay-barns and stables, a
courtyard and fountain, a garden and orchard with over a hundred
fruit-trees, a fish-pond, fifty bee-hives, and two hundred sheep. He
had rebuilt much of this himself, and spent ten thousand francs on the
work; and in laying some new foundations he had put his wife’s and
children’s names below the corner-stone. As to farm management, he
emphatically preferred and advised self-work with hired help, instead
of renting the place on shares or otherwise to a farmer with a useless
family. He gave very judicious rules for sowing, hoeing, harvesting,
etc., and impressed upon his son the profit to be derived from bees,
and the increased value of land of a certain kind, if planted with
young oaks. Work he considered the only condition of happiness, as well
as the road to comfort, and he said he would sooner see his sons
shoemakers than idlers. The family profession was the law, though he
himself in his youth studied medicine, successfully enough in theory,
but not in practice, since, after losing his first patient, his
scruples and disgust ended by forcing him to leave his calling. The
business of a notary public was the one he recommended to his son in
the choice of a profession; his family tradition led him in this
groove, where, indeed, he had been preceded by some of the greatest men
in France.
This choice of a state is so much a matter of custom or of personal
inclination that we must carefully discern between things in the
Courtois family which were models and things of indifference. Their
moral qualities alone are universal types; their local customs, worthy
in their own circumstances, would probably be utterly unfit for a
country and race so different as ours. But Courtois’ native town, of
which he was mayor for nearly twenty years, gives an example less rare
in foreign countries than in either England or the United States—that
of supporting an institution containing an archæological museum, a
botanical collection, and a collection of local zoölogy and mineralogy,
besides a library which occupies a separate building, the whole under
the care of a member of the French Archæological Society, M. Henri
Chrestian—an example which it would be well if our own towns of three
thousand inhabitants (Sault has no more) would be public-spirited
enough to follow. It is not the lack of money that debars small rural
towns of such advantages; they generally contrive to keep three or four
barrooms going, a dancing-hall, a Masonic hall, an annual ball and
supper, half a dozen discreditable places for summer picnics, and other
things either useless and showy or downright disreputable. Instead of
paying money year by year for the gratification of folly and temptation
to vice, and putting money in the pockets of men who deliberately trade
on their fellow-men’s weakness or wickedness, why not pay a
subscription the full benefits of which they reap themselves not for
one day or night only in a year, but every day? Where there _is_ a
library in a small town, what books are most numerous? Trashy novels
vilely illustrated, and Saturday newspapers with their ignoble,
misleading, immoral tales and cuts. What a contrast to many a French,
Italian, German village of three to five thousand inhabitants, or even
to some of the island-villages of North Holland, remote and unvisited
as they are!
Antoine de Courtois was the natural outcome of the secluded domestic
atmosphere in which his family had grown up. The doctrines that led to
the excesses of the Reign of Terror—for we must not confound the legal
and rightful reforms of 1789 with the bloody fury of 1793—and the
abuses that hurried on the great dislocation of society, had not
reached his valley. In all lands where the local land-owners had
remained at home and identified themselves with their neighbors,
keeping only as a badge of their superiority a higher standard of honor
and bravery, there was no revolt against the gentlemen. If any village
followed the example of the large cities, it was sure to be owing to
some scapegrace who had left home and learnt a more successful
rascality among the tavern politicians of some seething city, and then
come back to play Robespierre on his own small stage. Courtois married
in the midst of the Revolution, in 1798, and quietly took up the task
of his brother Philip, who had died suddenly without leaving any
children, and whose wife, though only a bride of a few months, devoted
herself all her life to the family interests. Antoine, always humane
and charitable, had given shelter to two of the revolutionary
commissioners, pursued by enemies of an opposite faction then
uppermost, for which he was speedily denounced by an informer and
imprisoned. His widowed sister-in-law travelled to Nice and besought
the interference of the man he had formerly saved—the young
Robespierre. A respite, then a pardon, was granted, and Antoine retired
for a short time to Nice, sheltering himself behind his nominal
profession of medicine, until one night the informer who had betrayed
him came trembling to his door, begging him to save his life. He fed
and clothed him, and gave him money to set him on his way, as well as a
promise to turn his pursuers from his track should he be examined.
Such a man acted as he believed, and might say the Lord’s Prayer with a
clear conscience. His equable temperament, and his firm reliance on
reason as the corner-stone of morality, are very unlike what we
attribute to the typical Frenchman—emotional, unreliable, fantastic, or
affected; the Parisian has blotted out all worthier types from our
sight. His advice to his children on their duty of consulting reason
and moderation in all things, and sternly repressing mere inclination
or passion, goes so far as to seem exaggerated and to banish from life
even its most legitimate pleasures. But he knew the corruption pressing
upon his retreat, besieging it and luring it, and to extreme evils he
opposed extreme remedies. Besides, ancient custom sanctioned, or at
least colored, his advice as to marriage, in which matter not only his
daughters but also his son were not to choose for themselves, but let
their mother choose and decide for them. He required his children to be
wise beyond their years, and would fain have put “old heads on young
shoulders”; but the frightful license he saw around him made the recoil
only natural. Men had need to be Solomons in early youth, when hoary
heads degraded themselves to play at Satyrs. Among other precepts—and
there is not one that could not be matched out of Proverbs and
Ecclesiastes—he insisted on the duty of neither borrowing nor lending;
his teaching was inflexible on this point. “Better go shirtless than
borrow money” was his maxim. In these days of lax and indiscriminate
pity for all misfortune such advice sounds selfish and harsh; it
belongs to the conscience of each man to interpret it and make
exceptions. As to the borrowing we might be inclined to say, “Never
under any circumstances”; but as to the lending there may be
exceptions. In the first you fetter yourself, than which nothing is
less wise; in the second you incur no obligation, and, if you can
afford to lose the sum lent, there is an additional excuse. Courtois’
objection was founded on the principle he set forth elsewhere, that
your property is not your own but your posterity’s, and that you have
no right to diminish it. If he had had any other and absolutely
personal property, the objection would have been no doubt qualified. In
many cases he showed by his own example that he had no objection to
_give_, and to be helpful to his neighbor according to his ability. He
was rigidly opposed to the reading of novels, to games of chance, to
balls and theatre-going; one could almost fancy one’s self listening to
an old Puritan on this subject. But in this respect who is more of a
Puritan than St. Jerome in his instructions to Paula for the education
of her daughter? Reading consisted, with Antoine de Courtois, chiefly
of the Scriptures and of the _Following of Christ_, that universal book
of devotion, with Châteaubriand’s then recently-published _Génie du
Christianisme_. The later development of Christian literature, less
florid than Châteaubriand, might have added other books in his own
language to his restricted library, but they hardly existed in his day.
For instance, he would have sympathized with Joubert, who wrote:
“Whenever the words altars, graves, inheritance, native country, old
customs, nurse, masters, piety, are heard or said with indifference,
all is lost.”
The practical and physical advantages of virtue were always before his
eyes, and he never ceased showing his children how sensible and
rational are the laws of God. They preserved health and gave success;
they ensured happiness and kept peace. Honesty is not only the first
duty of man to his fellow, but is the safest road for one’s self, and
brings with it the confidence, the respect, and the love of one’s
neighbors. On the subject of drunkenness it is worth while to note what
a Frenchman, one of a nation of wine-drinkers—who, it is said, are so
sober as opposed to a nation of ale and spirit drinkers—and of a
generation long preceding any agitation on the temperance question,
says in his solemn advice to his children:
“Nothing is more contemptible than drunkenness, and, in order
that it may be impossible for you to fall into this sin, I
advise you never to drink wine. Water-drinkers live longer and
are stronger and healthier. Be sure of this: it is easy to
accustom yourself to drink no wine, but, once the habit of
drinking wine is formed, it costs a good deal to satisfy it,
and often painful efforts to restrain it within the bounds of
moderation. I never drank wine till I was five-and-thirty, and
I should have done better never to drink any. Wine strengthens
nothing but our passions; it wears out the body and disturbs
the mind.”
He recommended work, not only as a duty but as the essential condition
of happiness, and no one knows how true this is but those who have
tried to do without regular employment. One often hears people wonder
why so-and-so, being so rich, continues in business, and slaves at the
desk instead of enjoying the fruits of his wealth. Nothing is more
natural, unless a man has a taste strong enough to form an occupation,
such as Schliemann had from his boyhood, and was able to indulge after
he earned money enough by business to prosecute researches in the East.
The leisure that some people recommend is only idleness under a veil of
refinement, and no man or woman can be rationally happy unless through
some special occupation which towers above all others. Doing a score of
things, and giving an hour or so to each, never brings any result worth
mentioning; devoting all your spare time to one pursuit strengthens the
mind even where it is not needed to support the body. “If you have no
profession,” says Antoine de Courtois, “you will never be anything but
useless men, a burden to yourselves and a weariness to others.”
Domestic economy is another cardinal virtue of this thrifty French
farmer, and the rule he prescribes—that of laying by one-sixth of one’s
income to form a reserve fund, so as not to encroach on one’s capital
for repairs or other unexpected expenses—is worthy of notice. Going to
law, especially among relations, he utterly abhors, and advises his
son, in cases of dispute, to have recourse to the arbitration of some
mutual friend. On one occasion, when he was compelled to go to law
against a neighbor, he mentions the suit as that of “our mill against
——’s meadow,” and takes the first opportunity to do his adversary a
personal favor, carefully distinguishing between the individual and the
cause. In a word, all the elements of discord and dissolution most
familiar to ourselves, and too unhappily common to cause any surprise,
or even to elicit more than languid blame, are, in this family
register, studiously held up to execration.
Family affection, again, was not restricted to the brothers and
sisters; it included all relations, and was supposed, whenever
necessary, to show itself in practical help. Uncles and aunts were
second fathers and mothers; god-parents were more than nominal
connections; cousins were only another set of brothers and sisters. A
maiden aunt, Mlle. Girard, called in the affectionate _patois_ of
Provence “our good _tata_,” helped to bring up Antoine’s children, and
her brothers, far from wishing her to follow her first impulse, and, on
account of her feeble health, take the veil in some neighboring
convent, argued with her in favor of home life and duties. She died at
the age of fifty-two, a holy death, as her life had been useful,
humble, and charitable. Courtois himself considered marriage the
natural state of man, and said that, for his part, he thought “there
was no true happiness, and perhaps no salvation, outside of the married
state.” But he looked upon it as so much a means to an end that he
deprecated the interference of personal inclination against such
practical considerations as health, virtue, becoming circumstances of
fortune and station. He wisely said that one was only the steward of
one’s own property, and was bound to hand it on unimpaired to one’s
posterity; yet it is possible that he had too little confidence in the
probably wise choice his children would make for themselves. It is true
that the choice of mates by the parents provides in each generation a
balance to the inability of the parents to choose for themselves in
their own case—a sort of poetic retribution; and it is true also that
men and women at the age of parents with marriageable children have
just come to that maturity and perfection of judgment which enables
them to be good guides to their sons and daughters while the latter are
still in that chrysalis state when obedience is the wisest course. But
such an education as he had given them should have made them more
capable of discernment than others, and in his precepts there is
perhaps as much of old tradition as of reaction against the subversive
theories which were rending French society in pieces. How else
interpret such a sweeping assertion as this: “A father is the only man
a young girl need not fear”?—a withering comment, indeed, on the
general state of society. On the important subject of marriage and its
duties Mme. de Lamartine, the mother of the poet, has a beautiful
passage in her journal, written at Milly, near Mâcon, at a small
country house, whose orchards, meadows, and vineyards brought in the
small income of six hundred dollars a year. On this she had a large
family of sons to bring up and workmen to pay, yet the family life was
as dignified and as calm as Abraham’s with his vast possessions. Her
husband she calls a peerless man, “a man after God’s own heart,” and,
as is often the case with the fathers of brilliant men, his character
stands contrasted with that of the poet, as the oak by the side of the
willow. The father of Macaulay was infinitely superior in his moral
character to his amiable, genial, and gifted son—a man of iron,
austerely upright, and a rock on which to depend, “through thick and
thin,” but not what the world calls charming. Here is Mme. de
Lamartine’s judgment, worthy to be graven in the heart of every bride
as she leaves the altar:
“I was present to-day, 5th Feb., 1805, at a taking of the veil
of a Sister of Mercy in the hospital at Mâcon. There was a
sermon, in which the candidate was told that she had chosen a
state of penance and mortification, and, as an emblem of this,
a crown of thorns was put upon her head. I admired her
self-sacrifice, but could not help remembering also that the
state of the mother of a family, if she fulfils her duties, can
match the cloistered state. Women do not think enough of it
when they marry, but they really make a vow of poverty, since
they entrust their fortune to their husbands, and can no longer
use any of it except what he allows them to spend. We also take
a vow of chastity and obedience to our husbands, since we are
hereafter forbidden to seek to please or lure any other man.
Over and above this we take a vow of charity towards our
husbands, our children, our servants, including the duty of
nursing them in sickness, of teaching them as far as we are
able, and of giving them sound and Christian advice. I need
not, therefore, envy the Sisters of Mercy; I have only
faithfully to fulfil my duties, which are fully as arduous as
theirs, and perhaps more so, since we are not surrounded by
good examples, as they are, but rather by everything which
would tend to distract us. These thoughts did my soul much
good; I renewed my vows before God, and I trust to him to keep
me always faithful to them.”[179]
Her life was serious and busy:
“I go to Mass every morning with my children at seven. Then we
breakfast, and I attend to some housekeeping cares; then study,
first the Bible, then grammar and French history—I sewing all
the while.... My chief object is to make my children very pious
and keep them constantly in full occupation.”
They had family prayer, too, and she says in her journal:
“It is a beautiful custom and most useful, if one would have
one’s house, as Scripture recommends, a house of brethren.
Nothing is so good for the mind of servants as this daily
partaking with their masters in prayer and humiliation before
God, who recognizes neither superiors nor inferiors. It is good
for the masters to be thus reminded of Christian equality with
those who are their inferiors in the world’s eyes, and the
children are thus early taught to think of their true and
invisible Father, whom they see their elders beseech with awe
and confidence.”
The Courtois family were cousins of the Girards, one of whom, Philip de
Girard, invented a flax-spinning machine in 1810, and many other
mechanical improvements. In 1823 his father’s property was in danger of
being sold at auction, and, having no capital but his genius, he made a
contract with the Russian government, binding himself to become
chief-engineer of the Polish mines for ten years. He thus saved his
patrimony. A new town grew up around one of the factories established
in Poland on his system, and took his name, Girardow; the present
emperor has given the town a block of porphyry as a pedestal for the
founder’s statue. He, too, was of the old French stock, a dutiful son
and sincere Christian, schooled in tribulation in his own country, but,
notwithstanding his many disappointments as an inventor, happy enough
to have been buried in his own old home.
A better-known name is that of the D’Aguesseau family, a remarkable
house, both for inherited piety and genius. The great chancellor of
this name was a model son to a model father, and all his own children
were worthy of him. Perhaps the La Ferronnays are equally fortunate; as
far as their family life is revealed in _A Sister’s Story_, it seems
cast in the same mould. Few, however, so prominent, and therefore so
open to temptation, as the D’Aguesseaus have given such a sustained
example of high virtue. The chancellor, whose family, always connected
with the law, dated authentically from the end of the fifteenth
century, was dangerously fortunate in his public career. At twenty-two
he was advocate-general to the Parliament of Paris, and
procurator-general at thirty-two, an orator famous all over France, a
historian, a judge, a philosopher, and a writer. His name was
synonymous with several important laws. He held the seals of the
chancellorship for thirty-two years, and died in 1751, over eighty. His
linguistic studies embraced Hebrew and Arabic—rare acquirements at that
time—and he was also a good mathematician. His own saying, which he
applied to his father, is no less true of himself: “The way of the
righteous is at first but an imperceptible spot of light, which grows
steadily by degrees till it becomes a perfect day.” Another of his
maxims was that “public reform begins in home and self-reform.” His
children’s education was his greatest solicitude, even among his public
duties, and one gets an interesting glimpse of him in Mme.
d’Aguesseau’s letters describing the business journeys of inspection on
which he had to go, and which he made with his family in a big coach.
The mother would open the day by prayer, and the sons then studied the
classics and philosophy with their father, while even the hours of
leisure were mostly filled up by reading; for the chancellor wisely
taught his boys to choose subjects of interest out of school-hours,
that they might not identify reading with compulsory tasks. School
teaching he considered only as a basis for continued education by one’s
self, and his ideal of his daughter’s education was the union of
domestic deftness with scientific study. This daughter, in her turn,
left to her sons advice such as truly proved her to be a mother in
Israel. His wife he enthroned as a queen in his heart and his home, and
would smile when others rallied him on his domestic obedience. He
trusted to her for all home matters and expenses; and such women as she
and those she represented were fit to be trusted.
The seventeenth century was essentially the age of great women in
France, and the early part of the eighteenth still kept the tradition.
Mme. de Chantal had a manly soul in a woman’s body, and yet proved
herself as good a housekeeper as an administrator of her son’s estate
while a minor. Prayer, work, and study went hand in hand in these
women, and the D’Aguesseaus were only shining representatives of whole
families and classes of noble wives and mothers. They remind one of
some Scotch mothers and homes, in districts where old customs still
abide; where servants are part of the family, yet never, in all their
loving and rude familiarity, approach to a thought of disrespect or
disobedience; where there is intense love but no demonstration; where
honor and truth are loved better than life, and simplicity becomes in
reality the most delicate and grave courtesy. D’Aguesseau loved farming
as his chosen recreation, and vehemently denounced the rising prejudice
of the young who were ashamed of their father’s simple homestead and
refused to live such rustic lives. The Hebrew ideal—than which no finer
has ever been invented—was his absolute standard of home-life, and how
his father’s character answered to it we shall presently see. The
publication of this manuscript biography and other domestic writings of
the chancellor was due only to long-continued pressure, and his sons
consented only with the hope of doing good to a perverse generation. In
these days, when people are rather flattered than otherwise to see
their names in print, even if it be only in a local sheet, many may
wonder at this reticence which denoted the delicacy of this exceptional
family. Whether the publication did good we can hardly judge; it must
have helped to stop some on a downward career, or at least strengthened
the weak resolves of some few struggling against the current.
The elder D’Aguesseau had singular natural advantages such as the
majority lack, but much of this happy temperament was probably the
result of generations of clean, temperate, and orderly living, such as
his forefathers had been famous for. His son traces a portrait of him
which seems to unite the primitive Christian with the ancient Roman:
“Exempt from all passion, one could hardly tell if he had ever
had any to fight against, so calmly and sovereignly did virtue
rule over his soul. I believe the love of pleasure never made
him lose a single instant of his life. It even seemed as if he
needed no relaxation to balance the exhaustion of his mind,
and, if he allowed himself any at rare intervals, a little
historical or literary reading, a short conversation with a
friend, or a chat with my mother was enough to strengthen his
mind for more work; but these relaxations were so few and far
between that one would have thought he grudged them to himself.
Ambition never disturbed his heart; for himself, he had never
had any, and in his children’s careers he looked only for
opportunities for them to serve their country and avoid
idleness and luxury, which he considered a perpetual temptation
to evil. How could avarice come near a soul so generous?...
Twenty years’ labor on public works and thirty-one in the
council never suggested to him the idea of asking for
anything.[180] ... He died at the age of eighty-one, never
having received any extraordinary gratuity, pension, or grant.
Even his salary, in spite of his share in the distribution of
the public treasury, was always the last to be paid. Mr.
Desmarets, finance minister, said to me one day as we were
walking in his garden: ‘I must say your father is an
extraordinary man. I found out by chance that his salary has
not been paid for some time, though he needs it. Why did he not
tell me? He sees me every day, and he knows there is no one I
would oblige sooner than him.’ I answered with a laugh that the
salary never would be paid, if he waited for my father to ask
for it, for he well knew that the word _ask_ was the hardest in
the world for my father to utter.... What defects could a man
have who was so insensible to pleasure, ambition, even
legitimate self-interest? Nearly all human weaknesses are the
results of these three passions, ... and Despréaux was only
literally in the right when he said of your grandfather: ‘Such
a man makes humanity despair.’ He did not know justice only
through the discernment of his mind; he felt it as the natural
instinct and impulse of his heart, spite of all prejudices and
predilections. Diffident of his own judgment, he feared the
illusions of a first impulse and the snares of a hasty
conclusion. Wisely lavish of his time in listening to causes
and reading the memoranda of his clients, he was never
contented till he had got to the smallest details of the truth,
for to judge aright was the only anxiety or disturbance of mind
he ever experienced. Mindful only of things in the abstract, he
wholly lost sight of names and persons; and if in the exercise
of his functions he was ever known to give way to emotion, it
was only on behalf of endangered justice, never of individuals
as such. In this there was no obstinacy or arrogance. Zeal for
justice and love of truth would often so move him that he was
unable to contain his thoughts, and would admonish others of
the danger of trusting too much to what is erroneously called
common sense, though it be so rare a gift; of the duty of
learning accurately the principles of justice, and of forming
one’s judgment on the experience of the wisest men.”
His gentleness and patience, his prudence and discretion, were no less
conspicuous; his son says further: “No one knew men better, and no one
spoke less of them.” His gentleness was a companion virtue of his
courage. Apparently timid, he was yet impassible; neither moral nor
physical danger awed him.
“From this mixture of justice, prudence, and bravery resulted a
perfect equipoise as little in danger from variations of temper
as from tempests of passion.... He was always the same, always
himself, always lord of his thoughts and feelings. Hence that
groundwork of moderation that kept him in an atmosphere so
serene that pride never puffed him up, nor weakness degraded
him, nor extreme joy upset him, nor immoderate sorrow depressed
him. Duty, ever present to his mind, kept him within the bounds
of the most solid wisdom, and one might epitomize his character
thus: he was a living reason, quickening a body obedient to its
lessons and early accustomed to bear willingly the yoke of
virtue.”
Of lesser qualities, having these greater ones, he could not be
destitute, and in his daily life, his eating and drinking, his
recreations, his domestic relations, he was equally steady and perfect.
He disliked dinner-parties especially, as involving a loss of time,
though, if obliged to be at them, he never went beyond the frugal
portion equivalent to his home meals; he drank so little wine that it
scarcely colored the water with which he mixed it; and as to display,
he was such an enemy to it that he would use only a pair of horses
where his colleagues and subordinates ostentatiously used two pair. He
was sickly of body, but retained his gentle and equable temperament
throughout his life; his servants found him too easy to serve, so
careless was he of his personal comfort; his friends, few but sincere,
found in him another self, so forgetful was he of his interests in
theirs. In conversation he repressed his natural turn for pleasantry,
because he despised such frivolous talents; but his _esprit_ pierced
his gravity at times, and he was always a hearty laugher. Piety was
inborn in him, and his faith was as childlike as his morals were pure.
Scripture was his favorite reading, the Gospels especially, and his
grave devotion in church was a rebuke to younger and more thoughtless
men. He laid aside a tenth of his income for the use of the poor, whom
he looked upon collectively as an additional child of his own; and a
famine, or local distress of any kind, always found him with a reserve
fund ready to help the needy. On the other hand, he practised the
strictest domestic economy, and on principle shunned all display beyond
what was necessary for simple comfort and the respect due to his
official position. We might go further in this eulogium, but, having
pointed out the steadiness of character which was peculiar to him, we
need not enlarge on qualities which he shared with many weaker but
still well-meaning men. All real saints are first true men; wherever an
element of weakness crosses the life of a servant of God there is a
corresponding flaw in his perfection. The death of Henri d’Aguesseau
was worthy of his life; the consideration for others, the solicitude
for some poor clients whose interests he feared would suffer through
the time lost in formalities after his death, the strong reliance on
God, the frequent repetition of the Psalms, “the possessing his soul in
patience,” which distinguished his dying hours, all pointed to the
“preciousness” which it must have worn in God’s sight.
The Chancellor d’Aguesseau walked in his father’s footsteps. Among his
teachings to his son, who at nineteen was leaving home, he insists
especially on the study of Holy Scripture, supplemented by a practice
of marking and bringing together in writing all such passages as relate
to the duties of a Christian and a public life, to serve as a body of
moral precepts for his own guidance. Others, he says, have commented
upon Scripture in this direction, but he does not advise his son to
follow them in their methods, for “the true usefulness and value of
this sort of work is only for the person himself, who thereby profits
at his leisure, and imbues himself with the truths he gathers.” In his
book, _Reflections on Christ_, he says: “The characteristic of Gospel
doctrine is that it is as sublime, while it is also as simple, as
_one_, as God himself. There is but one thing needful: to serve God, to
imitate him, to be one with him. This truth includes all man’s duties.”
Simplicity and uprightness, singleness of purpose and love of truth,
were for him the practical synonym of religion. His father’s death he
calls “simple and great”; Job’s eulogium he emphatically points out as
having been that of “a man simple and upright, fearing God and
eschewing evil.” Other moralists, public and private, have harped, not
unnecessarily, on the same string. The Provençal poet, Frederick
Mistral, adds another element to the definition of goodness—work.
Brought up on a farm, among all the interests and details of
agriculture and the vintage, in a household whose head was his father
and teacher, and where daily family prayer and reading in common ended
a day of hard work, he was a strong and rustic boy. All old customs
were in vogue: the father solemnly blessed the huge Yule-log at
Christmas, and then told his children of the worthy doings of their
ancestors. He never complained of the weather, rebuking those who did
in these words: “My friends, God above knows what he is about, and also
what is best for us.” His table was open to all comers, and he had a
welcome for all but idlers. He would ask if such and such a one was a
good worker, and, if answered in the affirmative, he would say: “Then
he is an honest man, and I am his friend.” The men and women on the
farm were busy, healthy, strong, and pious. The old man had been a
soldier under Napoleon, and had harbored proscribed and hunted
fugitives in the Reign of Terror. His adventures were a never-ending
source of interest to his family, his hired men, and to strangers. We
are perhaps wrong in saying so, but there is always a tendency, when we
see or hear of such men, to say: “There are none such now.” Certainly
there are fewer, but in every age the same lament has been raised. The
“good old times,” if you pursue them closely, vanish into the age of
fable; yet in hidden corners one may always find some of their
representatives, and goodness, alas! has always been exceptional. M.
Taine, in his _Sources of Contemporary France_, wisely says: “In order
to become practical, to lord it over the soul, to become an
acknowledged mainspring of action, a doctrine must sink into the mind
as an accepted, indisputable thing, a habit, an established
institution, a home tradition, and must filter through reason into the
foundations of the will; then only can it become a social force and
part of a national character.” Unfortunately, it takes centuries, or at
least generations, to produce such results; but the continual and
unchanging teaching of religion, running parallel to, and yet distinct
from, all local changes of circumstance, may often supply much of this
natural tradition. In the sixteenth century Olivier de Serres, in a
manual of agriculture, touches on the duties of a landholder, and the
old principles of the Bible are revived in his archaic French. He bids
masters, “according to their gifts, exhort their servants and laborers
to fly sin and follow virtue.”
“He (the master) shall show them how industry profits every
business, specially farming, by means of which many poor men
have built houses; and, on the other hand, how by neglect many
rich families have been ruined. On this subject he shall quote
the sayings of the wise man, ‘that the hand of the diligent
gathers riches,’ and that the idler who will not work in winter
will beg his bread in summer. Such and like discourses shall be
the ordinary stock of the wise and prudent father of a family
concerning his men, whence also he will learn to be the first
to follow diligence and virtue, and to let no word of
blasphemy, of lasciviousness, of foolishness, or of backbiting
ever pass his lips, in order that he may be a mirror of all
modesty.”
Gerebtzoff’s _History of Ancient Russian Civilization_ gives curious
details of the patriarchal rules of life in that country, the respect
lavished on parents and elders, the early-imbibed love of truth, and
the familiar use of proverbs embodying these doctrines. Why do these
things seem new to us, or at least why is their repetition so
necessary? St. Marc Girardin, lecturing at the Sorbonne thirty years
ago on the fifth chapter of Proverbs, distrusted the effect on his
audience of youths “of the period.” He handled the subject manfully,
but so well that his audience caught his own enthusiasm and rained down
applause on those noble, ancient Hebrew maxims, so dignified in theory,
so beautiful in practice. But if the world would not listen to such
teaching, the same precepts would meet it unawares in the books of
classic writers—in the _Republic_ of Plato, in the speeches of Cicero,
the _Politics_ of Aristotle, in the laws of Solon. The ancients
constantly startle us with their maxims of more than human virtue; much
of their heathen teaching puts to shame the practice of their
pseudo-Christian successors. Those among them who do not uphold piety,
filial respect, obedience, and faith belong to a time when literature
as well as morals was degenerating; but it would have required a
Sardanapalus in literature to teach unblushingly what Rousseau taught
to the most polished society of Europe. All law is contained in the Ten
Commandments, and in China, relates one of the missionaries whose
“letters,” unpretentious as they are, are the greatest help to science,
a committee of learned men, on being ordered to report flaws in
Christian doctrine, said they had considered well, but dared not do it,
for all the essential doctrine was already contained in their own
sacred books, the _King_. Again, Christian practice in old times
revived the precept of Deuteronomy to bear the commandments “on the
wrist, and engrave them on the threshold of the house and the lintel of
the door” (Deut. _vi_. 6–9). In Luneburg, Hanover, a farm-house built
in 1000, and which for six hundred years has been in the family of its
present owner, a small yeoman, Peter Heinrich Rabe, has this text over
the door: “The blessing of God shall be thy wealth, If, mindful of
naught else, thou art Faithful and busy in the state God has given
thee, And seekest to fulfil all thy duties. Amen.” English and Dutch,
German and French, houses have more or less such decorations and
reminders on their walls; churches abounded with them, and men and
women wore illuminated texts as jewels. The immutable law of which
Cicero, in his _Republic_, gives a definition worthy of the Bible, and
to deny which, he says, is to fly from one’s self, deny one’s own
nature, and be therefore most grievously tormented, even if one escapes
human punishment; the law of conscience, of which a Chinese family
register says: “Nothing in the world should turn your heart away from
truth one hair’s breadth,” and “If you set yourself above your
conscience, it will avenge itself by remorse; heaven and earth and all
the spirits will be against you”; the law which Père Gratry resumed in
three passages of Scripture: “Increase and multiply, and possess the
earth,” “Man is put on earth to set order and justice in the world,”
and “Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all things else
shall be added unto you”; the law which Garron de la Bévière, a victim
of the Revolution, though himself a sincere advocate of liberty,
translates thus: “He who knows not how to suffer knows not how to
live”; that law which does not deal only in magnificent generalities,
but carries its dignity into the smallest details of practical life, so
that Père de Ravignan could apply it from the pulpit of Notre Dame to
the sore point of a fashionable audience whom he startled by asking if
they paid their debts—that law was the shield and the groundwork of the
heroic old family life of French provinces. Simple tradesmen and
untaught peasants lived under it as blamelessly as gentlemen and
statesmen, and taught their sons the same traditions, the same honesty,
the same truth, the same deference to their conscience, the same fear
of evil for evil’s sake, and not for the punishments it involves or the
misfortunes it often brings on. The custom of keeping family registers
is a very old one; even before St. Louis’ famous instructions to his
children it was common: Bayard’s mother left him a similar manual, and
people of all conditions made a practice of it. From these documents,
and the sentiments written in them from time to time by fathers for the
guidance of their children, M. de Ribbe has collected many memorials of
domestic life in France—chiefly in remote and happy neighborhoods, but
also in more populous and disturbed ones; and the sameness of the
precepts in all is less strange than the likeness they bear to those of
the Chinese family books, which date back often more than 2,000 years.
He has found in the recently-discovered papyri in Egyptian tombs the
same eternal rules, set forth in language almost equal to the simple
grandeur of the Bible, while the Hindoo hymns and books of morals teach
in many instances the same truths in nearly the same words.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR. DRAPER AND EVOLUTION.
At a meeting of Unitarian ministers held at Springfield, Massachusetts,
on the 11th of October, 1877, Dr. J. W. Draper delivered a lecture on
“Evolution: its Origin, Progress, and Consequences.” Prof. Youmans
publishes it in the _Popular Science Monthly_, with the remark that
“some passages omitted in the lecture for want of time are here
introduced”; which means, so far as we can understand, that Dr. Draper,
before allowing the publication of his lecture, retouched it, and
introduced into it some items, views, or considerations which the
lecture delivered to the Unitarian meeting did not contain, but which
he considered necessary as giving the last finish to his composition.
It seems, in fact, that the doctor must have felt a little embarrassed
in the performance of the task which he had accepted; for he well knew
that in speaking to a body of sectarian ministers he could not make the
best use of the ordinary resources of free-thought without breaking
through the barriers of conventional propriety; and he himself candidly
informs his hearers that, when he received the request to deliver this
lecture before them, he was at first disposed to excuse himself, giving
the following reason for his hesitation: “Holding religious views which
perhaps in many respects are not in accordance with those that have
recommended themselves to you, I was reluctant to present to your
consideration a topic which, though it is in truth purely scientific,
is yet connected with some of the most important and imposing
theological dogmas.” This was, perhaps, one of the motives (besides the
want of time) why in the delivery of the lecture some passages were
omitted which have subsequently found their way into the pages of the
scientific monthly.
It would be interesting to know what “imposing theological dogmas” Dr.
Draper considered it to be his duty to respect while lecturing before a
Unitarian audience. Unitarians do not generally overload their liberal
minds with dogmas. Their creed is very short. They simply admit, as
even the good Mahometans do, that there is one God. This is all. What
that one God is they are not required to know; their denial of the Holy
Trinity leaves them free to conceive their God as an impersonal being,
a universal soul, or a sum total of the forces of nature. On the other
hand, their denial of ecclesiastical authority and of the inspiration
of the Scriptures leaves them absolutely free to disbelieve every other
dogma and mystery of Christianity. It seems to us, therefore, that Dr.
Draper, who had no need, and certainly no inclination, to descant on
Trinitarian views or to defend the inspiration of the Bible, ought not
to have feared to scandalize the good souls to whom he was requested to
break the bread of modern science. It is clear that only an unequivocal
profession of scientific atheism could have been construed into an
offence; and even this, we fancy, would have been pardoned, for the
sake of science, by the easy and accommodating gentlemen whose
“liberality of sentiment” triumphed at last over Dr. Draper’s
hesitation.
Whether or not the assembled Unitarian ministers were satisfied with
the lecture, and converted to the scientific views maintained by the
lecturer, we do not know; this, however, we do know: that Dr. Draper’s
reasoning and assertions about the origin, progress, and consequences
of evolution, even apart from all consideration of religious dogmas,
are not calculated to command the assent of cultivated intellects.
The lecture begins with the statement that two explanations have been
introduced to account for the origin of the organic beings that
surround us; the one, according to the lecturer, “is conveniently
designated as the hypothesis of creation,” the other as “the hypothesis
of evolution.” This statement, to begin with, is incorrect. It may,
indeed, be very “convenient” for Dr. Draper to speak of creation as a
mere hypothesis; but the device is too transparent. The creation or
original formation of organic beings by God is not a hypothesis, but an
historical fact perfectly established, and even scientifically and
philosophically demonstrated. Evolution, on the contrary, as understood
by the modern school, is only an empty word and a dream, unworthy of
the name of scientific hypothesis, under which sciolists attempt to
conceal its absurdity. In fact, even the little we ourselves have said
on this subject in some of our past numbers would amply suffice to
convince a moderately intelligent man that the theory of evolution has
no real scientific character, is irreconcilable with the conclusions of
natural history, and has no ground to stand upon except the worn-out
fallacies of a perverted logic. To call it “hypothesis” is therefore to
do it an honor which it does not deserve. A pile of rubbish is not a
palace, and a heap of blunders is not a hypothesis.
“Creation,” says Dr. Draper, “reposes on the arbitrary act of God;
evolution on the universal reign of law.” This statement, too, is
entirely groundless. Creation is a _free_ act of God; but a free act
needs not to be _arbitrary_. We usually call that arbitrary which is
done rashly or without reason. But an act which forms part of an
intellectual plan for an appointed end we call an act of wisdom; to
call it “arbitrary” is to falsify its nature. If Dr. Draper admits that
there is a God, he ought to speak of him with greater respect. But,
omitting this, is it true that evolution “reposes on the universal
reign of law”? By no means. We defy Dr. Draper and all the modern
evolutionists to substantiate this bold assertion. Not only is there no
universal law on which the evolution of species can repose, but there
is, on the contrary, a well-known universal law which sets at naught
the speculations and stultifies the pretensions of the Darwinian
school. The law we refer to is the following: In the generation of
organic beings there is no transition from one species to another. This
is the universal law which rules the department of organic life; and it
is almost inconceivable how a man who is not resolved to injure his
scientific reputation could so far forget himself and his science as to
pretend a blissful ignorance of this known truth, in order to propagate
a silly imposture exploded by philosophy and contradicted by the
constant, unequivocal testimony of nature itself.
Had we been present in the Unitarian audience when the doctor uttered
the assertion in question, we doubt if it would have been possible for
us to let him proceed further without interruption; for the
recklessness of his doctrine called for an immediate challenge. When a
man, in laying down the foundations of a theory, takes his stand upon
the most evident false premises, he simply insults his hearers. Why
should an intelligent man accept in silence such a glaring absurdity as
that “evolution reposes on the universal reign of law”? Why should he
not rise and say: “I beg permission, in the name of science, to
contradict the statement just made, and to express my astonishment at
the want of consideration shown to this learned assembly by the
lecturer”? However contrary to the received usages, such an
interruption would have been highly proper and meritorious in the eyes
of a lover of truth. But, unfortunately, the assembled ministers had no
right to remonstrate. They had requested the doctor to lecture, and to
lecture on that very subject; they knew beforehand the doctor’s views
concerning evolution; and they were not ignorant that his manner of
reasoning was likely to exhibit that disregard of truth of which so
many striking instances had been discovered in his history of the
conflict between religion and science. The assembled ministers were
simply anxious to hear a bit of genuine modern thought; hence, whatever
the lecturer might think good to say, they were bound to listen to with
calm resignation, if not with thankful submission.
Dr. Draper told them, also, that the hypothesis of evolution derives
all the organisms which we see in the world “from one or a few original
organisms” by a process of development, and “it will not admit that
there has been any intervention of the divine power.” But when asked,
Whence did the original organisms spring? he replies: “As to the origin
of organisms, it (the hypothesis) withholds, for the present, any
definite expression. There are, however, many naturalists who incline
to believe in spontaneous generation.” Here we must admire, if not the
consistency, at least the sincerity, of the lecturer. He candidly
acknowledges that, as to the origin of organisms, the theory of
evolution “withholds, for the present, any definite expression.” This
phrase, stripped of its pretentious modesty, means that the advocates
of evolution, though often called upon to account by their theory for
the origin of organic life, and though obliged by the nature of the
case to show how life could have originated in matter alone “with no
intervention of the divine power,” have always failed to extricate
themselves from the difficulties of their position, and have never
offered an explanation deserving the sanction of science, or even the
attention of thoughtful men. The axiom _Omne vivum ex ovo_ still stares
them in the face. They cannot shut their eyes so as to lose sight of
it. At the same time they cannot explain the origin of the _ovum_
without abandoning their principles; for if the first _ovum_, or vital
organism, is not the product of evolution, then its existence cannot be
accounted for except by the intervention of the divine power, which
they are determined to reject; and if the first vital organism be
assumed to have been the product of evolution, then they cannot escape
the conclusion that it must have sprung from lifeless, inorganic
matter—a conclusion which few of them dare to maintain, as they clearly
see that it is absurd to expect from matter alone anything so cunningly
devised as is the least seed, egg, or cell of a living organism. To
confess, therefore, that the evolution theory cannot account for the
origin of the primitive organisms is to confess that the efforts of the
evolutionists towards banishing the intervention of the divine power
and suppressing creation have been, are, and will ever be ineffectual.
But this legitimate inference was carefully kept out of view by the
lecturer, who, not to spoil his argument, hastened to add that “many
naturalists incline to believe in spontaneous generation.” This,
however, far from making things better, will only make them worse. It
is only when a cause is nearly despaired of that the most irrational
fictions are resorted to in its defence. Now, spontaneous generation is
an irrational fiction. Even in our own time, when the world is full of
organic matter, and when the working of nature has been subjected to
the most searching investigations, the spontaneous formation of a
living organism without a parent of the same species is deemed to be
against reason; for reason cannot give the lie to the principle of
causality, by virtue of which nothing can be found in the effect which
is not contained in its cause. Hence very few naturalists (though Dr.
Draper calls them _many_) are so reckless as to support, or countenance
by their example, a belief in spontaneous generation. Nothing would be
easier to them than to imitate Dr. Draper by assuming without proof
what is not susceptible of proof; but, although some scientists have
adopted this convenient course, few have dared to follow them, because
the inadmissibility of spontaneous generation has been confirmed by the
best experimental methods of modern science itself. Now, if this is the
case in the present condition of the world, and with such an abundance
of organic matter, how can any one, with any show of reason, maintain
that in the remote ages of the world, and before any organic compound
had made its appearance on earth, cells and seeds and eggs burst forth
spontaneously from inorganic matter without the intervention of the
divine power?
At any rate, if it would be preposterous to assume that inert,
lifeless, unintelligent matter has the power of planning and making a
time-piece, a sewing-machine, a velocipede, or a wheelbarrow, how can a
man in his senses assume that the same inert, lifeless, and
unintelligent matter has the power to plan, form, and put together in
perfect harmony, due proportion, and providential order the organic
elements and rudiments of that immensely more complicated structure
which we call an _ovum_ or a seed, with its potentiality of life and
growth, and its indefinite power of reproduction? And who can believe
that the same inert, lifeless, and unintelligent matter has been so
inventive, so crafty, and so provident as to devise two sexes for each
animal species, and to make them so fit for one another, with so
powerful an instinct to unite with one another, as to ensure the
propagation of their kind for an indefinite series of centuries?
We need not develop this argument further. Books of natural history are
full of the beauties and marvels concealed in millions of minute
organisms, which proclaim to the world the wisdom of their contriver,
and denounce the folly of a science which bestows on dead matter the
honor due to the living God. Evolution of life under the hand of God
would have a meaning; but evolution of life “without the intervention
of the divine power” means nothing at all, as it is, in fact,
inconceivable.
Dr. Draper quotes Aristotle in favor of spontaneous generation. The
Greek philosopher, in the eighth book of his history of animals, when
speaking of the chain of living things remarks: “Nature passes so
gradually from inanimate to animate things that from their continuity
the boundary between them is indistinct. The race of plants succeeds
immediately that of inanimate objects, and these differ from each other
in the proportion of life in which they participate; for, compared with
minerals, plants appear to possess life, though when compared with
animals they appear inanimate. The change from plants to animals is
gradual; a person might question to which of these classes some marine
objects belong.” This doctrine is unobjectionable; but we fail to see
its bearing on spontaneous generation. Aristotle does not speak here of
a chain of beings genetically connected, nor does he derive the plant
from the mineral, or the animal from the plant. On the other hand, even
if we granted that Aristotle “referred the primitive organisms to
spontaneous generation,” we might easily explain the blunder by
reflecting that a pagan philosopher, having no idea of creation, could
not but err when philosophizing about the origin of things.
We need not follow our lecturer into the details of the Arabic
philosophy. When we are told that the Arabian philosophers “had
rejected the theory of creation and adopted that of evolution,” and
that they reached this conclusion “through their doctrine of emanation
and absorption rather than from an investigation of visible nature,” we
may well dismiss them without a hearing. Dr. Draper seems to be much
pained at the thought that a religious revolt against philosophy
succeeded in “exterminating” such progressive ideas so thoroughly that
they “never again appeared in Islam.” But that which causes him still
greater disgust is that “if the doctrine of the government of the world
by law was thus held in detestation by Islam, it was still more
bitterly refused by Christendom, in which the possibility of changing
the divine purposes was carried to its extreme by the invocation of
angels and saints, and great gains accrued to the church through its
supposed influence in procuring these miraculous interventions.” These
words, and others which we are about to quote, must have given great
pleasure to the assembled Unitarian ministers; for we all know that to
throw dirt at the church is a task singularly congenial to the natural
bent of the sectarian mind. But, be this as it may, whoever knows that
our lecturer is the author of the history of the conflict between
religion and science, so truly described by the late Dr. Brownson as “a
tissue of lies,” will agree that Dr. Draper’s denunciations deserve no
answer. When a man undertakes to speak of that of which he is
absolutely ignorant, the best course is to let him blunder till his
credit is entirely gone. The reader need not be informed that
Christendom never opposed the doctrine of “the government of the world
by law,” and never imagined that there was a “possibility of changing
the divine purposes” through the invocation of angels and saints;
whilst, if “miraculous interventions” brought “great gains to the
church,” the fact is very naturally explained by the principle that
“piety is useful for all things,” and that God’s intervention cannot be
barren of beneficial results. But Dr. Draper, who does not understand
how God’s intervention is compatible with the universal reign of law,
denies all miracles, and denounces the church as a school of deceit,
superstition, and hypocrisy, his hatred of miracles being his only
proof that all miracles are frauds. His assumption is that, because the
natural order is ruled by law, therefore no supernatural order can be
admitted; which, if true, would equally warrant the following: Because
bodies gravitate towards the centre of the earth, therefore no solar
attraction can be admitted.
The papal government, Dr. Draper assures us, could not tolerate
“universal and irreversible law.” How did he ascertain this? Perhaps he
thought that the papal government was embarrassed to reconcile
irreversible law with miracles. But the popes never taught or believed
that a miracle was a _reversal_ of law; they only taught that the
course of nature, without any law being reversed, was susceptible of
alteration, and that this alteration, when proceeding from a power
above nature, was miraculous. We fancy that even Dr. Draper must
concede this, unless he prefers to say with the fool that “there is no
God.”
“The Inquisition had been invented and set at work.” To do what? To
overthrow the “universal and irreversible law”? Certainly not. What was
it, then, called to do?
“It speedily put an end, not only in the south of France but all over
Europe, to everything supposed to be not in harmony with the orthodox
faith, by instituting a reign of terror.” It is scarcely necessary to
remark that what the lecturer calls “a reign of terror” was nothing but
self-defence against the murderous attacks of the Albigenses and other
cut-throats of the same dye, who were themselves the terror of
Christendom—a circumstance which Dr. Draper should not have ignored.
But whilst the Inquisition caused some terror to the enemies of
Christian society, it actually restored the reign of law and secured
the benefits of religious peace to countries which, but for its
remedial action, would have sunk again into a lawless barbarism. And if
the Inquisition “put an end to everything contrary to the orthodox
faith,” no thoughtful man will find fault with it. False doctrines are
a greater curse than even armed rebellions. Dr. Draper will surely not
complain that the United States “put an end” to the rebellion of the
Southern Confederates, though they were gallant fellows and fought for
what they believed to be their right. But, while he finds it natural
that thousands of valuable lives should have been destroyed for the
sake of the American Union, he pretends to be scandalized at the
punishment which the Inquisition, after regular trial, inflicted on a
few worthless and contumacious felons for the sake of religious and
civil peace and the preservation of the great Catholic union. Such is
the delicacy of his conscience! Then he continues:
“The Reign of Terror in revolutionary France lasted but a few
months, the atrocities of the Commune at the close of the
Franco-German war only a few days; but the reign of terror in
Christendom has continued from the thirteenth century with
declining energy to our times. Its object has been the forcible
subjugation of thought.”
This is how Dr. Draper manipulates history. It would be superfluous to
inform our readers that there has never been a reign of terror in
Christendom, except when and where Lutherans, Calvinists, Anglican
Puritans, or infidel revolutionists held the reins of power, and
crowned their apostasy by tyrannical persecution, by plundering, and
burning, and murdering, and demolishing, and prostituting whatever they
could lay their hands on, with that diabolical fiendishness and cool
brutality of which we had lately a new instance in the Paris Commune
here mentioned by the lecturer. This very mention of the Commune, and
of the reign of terror inaugurated by it, is a blunder on the part of
Dr. Draper. The heroes of the Commune belong to _his_ school; they are
infidels; they are men whose thought has not been “subjugated” by the
church; and to confess that their ephemeral triumph constituted a reign
of terror amounts to a condemnation of unsubjugated thought and a
vindication of the principle acted on by the church, that from
unbridled thought nothing can be expected but discord, confusion, and
violence. Yet Dr. Draper, who is a profound chemist, knows how to make
poison out of innocent drugs; and whilst the church aimed only at
_preserving_ the loyalty of her children from the attacks of heresy and
the snares of hypocrisy, the doctor depicts her as “subjugating”
thought. This is just what might be expected. The snake draws poison
from the same flowers from which the bee sucks honey:
Spesso del serpe in seno
Il fior si fa veleno;
Ma in sen dell’ ape il fiore
Dolce liquor si fa.
—_Metastasio_.
We have dwelt longer than we intended on this subject, which is, after
all, only a digression from the principal question; yet Dr. Draper
furnishes us with the opportunity of a further remark, which we think
we ought not to omit. He says: “The Reformation came. It did not much
change the matter. It insisted on the Mosaic views, and would tolerate
no natural science that did not accord with them.” On this fact we
argue as follows. If the reason why Catholics rejected certain theories
was that they were “under a reign of terror,” and that their thought
had been “forcibly subjugated,” it would seem that the Protestants,
whose thought could not be subjugated, who laughed at the Inquisition
and were inaccessible to terror, should have embraced those
long-forbidden theories, were it only for showing to the world that
they had broken all their chains and recovered unbounded liberty. What
could prevent them from throwing away the book of Genesis and reviving
the Arabian theory of evolution? Had they not rejected other parts of
the Bible? Had they not freed themselves from the confession of sins,
explained away the Real Presence, set at naught authority, and
inaugurated free-thought? The truth is that they could not resuscitate
a theory for which they could not account either by science or by
philosophy, and which would have involved them in endless difficulties.
It is common sense, therefore, and not reverence for the Mosaic views,
that compelled them to abide by the Biblical record of creation. The
consequence is that men of common sense had no need of being “forcibly
subjugated” to the Mosaic views, and that the Inquisition had nothing
to do with the matter. Hence Dr. Draper’s declamation against the
Inquisition was entirely out of place in a lecture on evolution. But
his bias against the church led him still further. He wanted to
denounce also the Congregation of the Index; and as he knew of no book
on evolution condemned by it, he charged it with having condemned the
works of Copernicus and Kepler. The reader may ask what these two great
men have done for the theory of evolution. The lecturer answers that
“the starting-point in the theory of evolution” among Christians “was
the publication by Copernicus of the book _De Revolutionibus Orbium
Cœlestium_.” At this we are tempted to smile; but he continues:
“His work was followed by Kepler’s great discovery of the three
laws that bear his name.... It was very plain that the tendency
of Kepler’s discovery was to confirm the dominating influence
of law in the solar system.... It was, therefore, adverse to
the Italian theological views and to the current religious
practices. Kepler had published an epitome of the Copernican
theory. This, as also the book itself of Copernicus, was placed
in the Index and forbidden to be read.”
It is evident that these statements and remarks have nothing to do with
the subject of evolution, and that they have been introduced into the
lecture for the mere purpose of slandering “the Italian theological
views” which were the views of the whole Christian world, and of
decrying the Congregation of the Index, which opposed as dangerous the
spreading of an opinion that was at that time a mere guess, and was
universally contradicted by the men of science. Dr. Draper ignores
altogether this last circumstance, and remarks that “after the
invention of printing the _Index Expurgatorius_ of prohibited books had
become essentially necessary to the religious reign of terror, and for
the stifling of the intellectual development of man. The papal
government, accordingly, established the Congregation of the Index.” It
is a great pity that we have no room here for instituting a comparison
between the intellectual development of the Catholic and of the
Protestant or the infidel mind. Such a comparison would show whether
the _Index Expurgatorius_ has stifled our intellectual development as
much as Protestant inconsistency, and the anarchy of thought which
followed, have stifled that of other people. We are still able, after
all, to fight our intellectual battles and to beat our adversaries with
good arguments, whereas they are sinking every day deeper into
scepticism, and know of no better weapons than arbitrary assumption,
flippancy, and misrepresentation.
The lecturer goes on to say that Newton’s book substituted mechanical
force for the finger of Providence; and thus “the reign of law, that
great essential to the theory of evolution, was solidly established.”
This sentence contains three errors. The first is that the Newtonian
theory of mechanical force suppresses Providence. The second is that
the reign of law was not solidly established before the publication of
Newton’s work. The third is that the establishment of the law of
mechanical forces lends support to the theory of evolution. Is this the
result of “intellectual development,” as understood by Dr. Draper?
Newton, whose intellect was undoubtedly more developed than that of the
lecturer, did not substitute mechanical force for the finger of
Providence, but continued to acknowledge the finger of Providence as
the indispensable foundation of his scientific theory. Nor did he
imagine that his theory was calculated to establish the reign of law.
The reign of law was already perfectly established, so much so that it
was on this very ground that Newton based his deductions. Finally,
neither Newton, nor any really “developed intellect,” ever confounded
the mechanical with the vital forces so as to argue from the law of
gravitation to the law of animal propagation. From this we can form an
estimate of the intellectual development of man by free-thought. The
lecturer blunders in philosophy by contrasting law against Providence;
he blunders in history by attributing to Newton the discovery of the
reign of law; and he blunders in logic by tracing the theory of
evolution to a mere law of mechanics.
Further on Dr. Draper gives a sketch of Lamarck’s theory. Lamarck was
Darwin’s precursor. He advocated the doctrine of descent. According to
him, organic forms originated by spontaneous generation, the simplest
coming first, and the complex being evolved from them.
“So far from meeting with acceptance,” says Dr. Draper, “the
ideas of Lamarck brought upon him ridicule and obloquy. He was
as much misrepresented as in former days the Arabian
nature-philosophers had been. The great influence of Cuvier,
who had made himself a champion of the doctrine of permanence
of species, caused Lamarck’s views to be silently ignored or,
if by chance they were referred to, denounced. They were
condemned as morally reprehensible and theologically
dangerous.”
The fact is, however, that there had been no necessity of
“misrepresenting” Lamarck’s ideas, and that his infant Darwinism was
condemned not only as morally reprehensible and theologically
dangerous, but also as scientifically false. Cuvier had certainly the
greatest influence on the views regarding this branch of knowledge; but
his influence was not the result of a Masonic conspiracy, as is the
case with certain modern celebrities, but the honest result of deep
knowledge and strict reasoning; for men were not yet accustomed to
believe without proofs, and scientists had not yet forgotten
philosophy.
Dr. Draper tells his audience that Geoffroy St. Hilaire “became the
opponent of Cuvier, and did very much to break down the influence of
that zoölogist.” Yes; but did he succeed in his effort? Did he destroy
the peremptory arguments of the great zoölogist? Did he convince the
scientific world, or make even a score of converts? No. The influence
of Cuvier remained unimpaired, and evolution did not advance a step.
Then Mr. Darwin came. Mr. Darwin is, we have reason to believe, the
mouthpiece or chief trumpeter of that infidel clique whose well-known
object is to do away with all idea of a God. Owing to this
circumstance, he was sure to have followers. A few professors in
Germany, and a few others in England, proclaimed with boldness the new
theory; they wrote articles, delivered lectures, printed pamphlets in
his honor; his works were widely advertised and strongly recommended;
and the curiosity of the public, which had been raised by all these
means, was carefully entertained by the scientific press. People read
Darwin and smiled; read Wallace, the friend of Darwin, and were not
converted; read Huxley, the great Darwinian oracle, and remained
obdurate. Only two classes of men took to the new theory—professors of
unbelief and simpletons. Thus Darwinism in Europe, in spite of the
great efforts of its friends, has been a failure. Here in America the
same means have been employed with the same effect. No sooner was
anything published in England or Germany in support of the new theory
than some worthy associate of the European infidels republished it for
the American people. New original articles were also added by some of
our professors; and even Mr. Huxley did not disdain to devote his
versatile eloquence to the enlightenment of our free but benighted
citizens concerning the subject of evolution. What has been the result?
Are the American people converted to the new doctrine? No. They laugh
at it. The failure of Darwinism is as conspicuous and as complete in
America as it has been in Europe.
Has Dr. Draper, after all, converted any of the Unitarian ministers who
attended his lecture? We think not; and the lecturer himself seems to
have felt that his words fell on sceptical ears and failed to work on
the brains or touch the hearts of his hearers. Towards the end of his
lecture he exclaims: “My friends, let me plead with you. Don’t reject
the theory of evolution!” It is manifest from this exhortation that the
audience, in the opinion of the lecturer himself, was still reluctant
to accept the theory. Had the lecturer thought otherwise, he would have
said: “My friends, I need not plead with you. You have heard my
arguments. I leave it to you to decide whether the theory of evolution
can be rejected by intelligent men.” This language would have shown the
earnest conviction of the lecturer that he was right, and that his
reasonings were duly appreciated and approved. But to say, “Don’t
reject the theory,” is to acknowledge that the arguments had not
commanded the assent of the intellect, and that no other resource
remained than a warm appeal to the good-will of the hearers. Such an
appeal, in a scientific lecture, may seem out of place; but it is
instructive, for it leads us to the conclusion that even Dr. Draper was
convinced of the futility of his attempt.
The only argument which we could find in his lecture in support of the
Darwinian theory is so puerile that we believe not one of the assembled
ministers can have been tempted to give it his adhesion. After pointing
out that “each of the geological periods has its dominating
representative type of life,” the lecturer introduces his argument in
the following form:
“Perhaps it may be asked: ‘How can we be satisfied that the
members of this long series are strictly the successive
descendants by evolution from older forms, and in their turn
the progenitors of the latter? How do we know that they have
not been introduced by sudden creations and removed by sudden
extinctions?’ Simply for this reason: The new groups make their
appearance while yet their predecessors are in full vigor. They
come under an imperfect model which very gradually improves.
Evolution implies such lapses of time. Creation is a sudden
affair.”
O admirable philosophy! The predecessors were still vigorous when the
successors made their appearance; _therefore_ the former were the
progenitors of the latter! And why so? Because “evolution implies lapse
of time,” whilst “creation is a sudden affair”! Even a child, we think,
would see that such reasoning is deceptive. But, since Dr. Draper is
bold enough to take his stand upon it, we must be allowed to ask him
two questions.
First, admitting that “creation is a sudden affair,” does he believe
that God could not create the successors before the disappearance of
their predecessors? If God could do this, what matters it that creation
is “a sudden affair”? And if God could not do this, what insuperable
obstacle impeded the free exertion of his power?
Secondly, is there no alternative between genetic evolution and
creation strictly so-called? If between these two modes of origination
a third can be introduced, the doctor’s argument falls to pieces. Now,
“production” from pre-existing materials (earth, water, etc.) in
obedience to God’s command is neither genetic evolution nor creation
strictly so-called, and need not be “a sudden affair.” And this mode of
origination is just the one which seems more clearly pointed out by the
Sacred Scriptures;[181] and therefore it should not have been ignored
by the lecturer, if he wished to argue against the Scriptural record.
Why did he, then, keep out of view this excellent explanation of the
origin of species? Is it because it was convenient to conceal a truth
which could not be refuted?
Thus the only reason by which Dr. Draper attempts to prove the theory
of evolution is a demonstrated fallacy, and the theory falls to the
ground, in this sense, at least: that it remains unproved. But if every
attempt at proving it involves some logical blunder, if it implies
contradictories, if it is based on unscientific assumptions, as is
evident from the argumentations of Darwin, Huxley, Youmans, and other
advanced writers on evolution, and if history, geology, and philosophy
unitedly oppose the theory with arguments which admit of no reply, as
is known to be the case, then we must be allowed to conclude that the
theory, besides being unproved, is fabulous and absurd.
Dr. Draper, after citing some controvertible facts, of which he gives a
yet more controvertible explanation from the Darwinian assumptions,
says:
“Now I have answered, and I know how imperfectly, your
question, ‘How does the hypothesis of evolution force itself
upon the student of modern science?’ by relating how it has
forced itself upon me; for my life has been spent in such
studies, and it is by meditating on facts like those I have
here exposed that this hypothesis now stands before me as one
of the verities of Nature.”
Yes. The student of modern science, if he is unwilling to admit
creation, must appeal to evolution, and call it “one of the verities of
Nature”; but, though he may call it a “verity,” he also admits that it
is a mere “hypothesis,” by which the origin of organisms cannot be
accounted for and against which a host of facts and reasons are daily
objected by science and philosophy.
“In doing this I have opened before you a page of the book of
Nature—that book which dates from eternity and embraces infinity.” Is
this a “verity,” a hypothesis, or an imposture?
“No council of Laodicea, no Tridentine Council, is wanted to endorse
its authenticity, nothing to assure us that it has never been tampered
with by any guild of men.” This is an allusion to the declarations of
councils regarding the authenticity of the Bible. Does, then, modern
science transform educated men into sorry jesters? If so, why does not
Mr. Draper derive the monkey from the gentleman?
“Then it is for us to study it as best we may, and to obey its
guidance, no matter whither it may lead us.” Yes, it is for us to study
the book of nature as best we may; but we must not forget that the
author of this book is God, and that God does not contradict in the
book of nature what he teaches in the book of Genesis. It is for us “to
obey its guidance.” Yes; and therefore it is not for us to pervert its
evidences, as Dr. Draper does, in order to exclude “the intervention of
the divine power.”
As to “whither it may lead us” we have no doubts; but the lecturer
seems to believe that it may lead in two opposite directions. Here are
his words:
“I have spoken of the origin and the progress of the hypothesis
of evolution, and would now consider the consequences of
accepting it. Here it is only a word or two that time permits,
and very few words must suffice. I must bear in mind that it is
the consequences from your point of view to which I must
allude. Should I speak of the manner in which scientific
thought is affected ... I should be carried altogether beyond
the limits of the present hour. The consequences! What are
they, then, to you? Nobler views of this grand universe of
which we form a part, nobler views of the manner in which it
has been developed in past times to its present state, nobler
views of the laws by which it is now maintained, nobler
expectations as to its future. We stand in presence of the
unshackled, as to Force; of the immeasurable, as to Space; of
the unlimited, as to Time. Above all, our conceptions of the
unchangeable purposes, the awful majesty of the Supreme Being
become more vivid. We realize what is meant when it is said:
‘With him there is no variableness, no shadow of turning.’ Need
I say anything more in commending the doctrine of evolution to
you?”
These are, then, the consequences “from the point of view” of the
Unitarian ministers, as the lecturer very explicitly declares As to the
consequences “from the point of view” of advanced scientists, the
lecturer gives only a hint, because, had he spoken of the manner in
which scientific thought is affected, the lecture would have proved
rather too long. It is apparent, however, that the “verity” or the
“hypothesis” which leads the Unitarians to a “Supreme Being” can lead
Dr. Draper and the scientific mind to something different, according to
the manner in which scientific thought is affected. We may well say,
although Dr. Draper preferred not to say it, that it leads to atheism
or to pantheism; for the new “verity” was invented with the aim of
escaping “the intervention of the divine power” and of subjecting
everything in the world to the “universal reign” of an abstraction
called “Law.” Dr. Draper himself tells us, as we have just seen, that
the book of Nature (with a capital N) “dates from eternity and embraces
infinity”; and surely, if the world is eternal and infinite, Nature is
everything, and a personal God becomes an embarrassing superfluity. It
seems, then, that Dr. Draper, when he mentions the divine power or the
Supreme Being, does not speak the language of his “scientific”
conscience, but the language which he considers to express the
convictions of the Unitarian body. Perhaps it would have been more in
keeping with the requirement of the subject, if he had frankly stated
the “consequences” which he, as a scientist, would draw from the
“verity” he had proclaimed; but, as he may have feared that a frank
statement would have created a little scandal, we are inclined to
acquit him of the charge of “scientific” dishonesty—the more so as the
consequences which he deduces, taken in connection with the rest of the
lecture, give a sufficient clue to the private views of the speaker.
It is difficult, however, to understand how the acceptance of the
theory of evolution can lead to “nobler views of this grand universe,”
or to “nobler views of the manner in which it has been developed,” or
to “nobler views of the laws by which it is now maintained.” To us
these “consequences” are incomprehensible; for is it nobler to view
this grand universe as a mere mass of matter than to view it as full of
the divine power of which it is the work? or is it nobler to derive man
from the brute than to view him as the son of God and the image of his
Creator? On the other hand, the laws by which the universe is now
maintained are in direct opposition to the theory of evolution, as all
men of science confess; hence a view of such laws suggested by the
theory of evolution must be a false and contradictory view, and Dr.
Draper, when calling it a “nobler view,” amuses himself at the expense
of his audience. Fancy an assembly of grave men listening in silence to
such rhetoric! and fancy a professor of materialism seriously engaged
in the highly scientific business of beguiling such a grave audience!
It is no less difficult to understand how the theory of evolution makes
us “stand in presence of the unshackled, of the immeasurable, and of
the unlimited.” These epithets do not designate God, for it is manifest
that the theory of evolution has no claim to the honor of showing God
as present in his creatures; nor can they be applied to the universe,
for it is not true that the universe is “unshackled as to Force,
immeasurable as to Space, and unlimited as to Time”; and, even were it
true, it would not be a “consequence” of evolution. What do they mean,
then?
But the most unintelligible of all such “consequences” is that by the
acceptance of the theory of evolution “our conceptions of the
unchangeable purposes, the awful majesty of the Supreme Being become
more vivid.” What “purposes” can the Supreme Being have formed with
reference to a universe which is not subject to “the intervention of
the divine power”? Is it wise to entertain purposes which one has no
power to carry out? Or is the “Supreme Being” of Dr. Draper so unwise
as to cherish purposes which must be defeated by “universal,
irreversible law”? We strongly suspect that his “Supreme Being” is
nothing but the universe itself, and that it is for this reason that he
writes _Force_, _Space_, and _Time_ with capital letters, thus forming
a mock Trinity “unshackled, immeasurable, and unlimited,” but
consisting of material parts and controlled by the laws of matter, with
which “there is no variableness, no shadow of turning.” If so, then Dr.
Draper has no God but the universe, the sun, the moon, and the stars,
light, heat and electricity, gravitation, affinity, and motion; and
this is “the awful majesty” before which he bends his knee in
scientific adoration.
Having drawn these devout “consequences” for the edification of the
meeting, the lecturer, with a happy stroke of audacity, asks his
hearers: “Need I say anything more in commending the doctrine of
evolution to you?” As if he said: “Do you expect that an infidel has
anything more to say in favor of _your_ Supreme Being? Have I not given
you a sufficient proof of deference and self-abnegation by putting
together a few equivocal phrases in honor of _your_ divinity? Need I
torture my brain any longer for the sake of a view which is not mine?”
But, fortunately for Dr. Draper, a sudden recollection of the fact that
Unitarianism and infidelity agree in rejecting the authority of the
_Index Expurgatorius_ suggested to him the following words:
“Let us bear in mind the warning of history. The heaviest blow
the Holy Scriptures have ever received was inflicted by no
infidel, but by ecclesiastical authority itself. When the works
of Copernicus and of Kepler were put in the Index of prohibited
books the system of the former was declared, by what called
itself the Christian Church, to be ‘the false Pythagorean
system, utterly contrary to the Holy Scriptures.’ But the truth
of the Copernican system is now established. There are persons
who declare of the hypothesis of evolution, as was formerly
declared of the hypothesis of Copernicus, ‘It is utterly
contrary to the Holy Scriptures.’ It is for you to examine
whether this be so, and, if so, to find a means of
reconciliation.”
We do not doubt that the lecturer honestly believes what he says about
the “heaviest blow” inflicted on the Holy Scriptures. But we would
inform him that the Congregation of the Index does not make definitions
of faith, and that its authority, however respectable, is disciplinary,
not dogmatic. If he consulted our theologians, he would learn that not
even œcumenical councils are considered infallible as to the _reasons_
by which they support their decisions, but only as to the decisions
themselves. Much less can the theologians of the Index bind our
judgment by giving expression to their theological views. The books
which they forbid are forbidden; but the _reasons_ for which they are
forbidden are not all necessarily incontrovertible, and this suffices
to show that it is not “the Christian Church” that declared the
Copernican system contrary to the Holy Scriptures, for the church never
defined such a point; such a declaration was the expression of a
theological view which was then common, but which had no dogmatic
consequences and could give no “blow” to the Holy Scriptures. Dr.
Draper remarks that evolution, too, has been declared to be “contrary
to the Holy Scriptures.” The fact is true; but he should have added
that the same hypothesis has been refuted by philosophy as a logical
blunder, and rejected by science as a monstrous falsehood. Hence the
two cases are not similar.
“Let us not be led astray,” continues Dr. Draper, “by the
clamors of those who, not seeking the truth and not caring
about it, are only championing their sect or attempting the
perpetuation of their profits. My friends, let me plead with
you. Don’t reject the theory of evolution. There is no thought
of modern times that more magnifies the unutterable glory of
Almighty God!”
How edifying! how pathetic! but how ludicrous on the lips of an
unbeliever! For the God of the lecturer is no creator, as creation is
inconsistent with the pretended eternity of matter; he is not
omnipotent, for he cannot work miracles; he is not provident, for Dr.
Draper rejects all intervention of the divine power in the government
of the universe, and says that “the capricious intrusion of a
supernatural agency has never yet occurred”; whence we see that God,
according to him, would be an intruder, and even a capricious one, if
he dared to meddle with the affairs of the material, moral, or
intellectual world. Such being the God of the evolutionist, who does
not see that the only meaning which can be legitimately attached to Dr.
Draper’s words is that the theory of evolution “magnifies the
unutterable glory of almighty matter” and does its best to suppress
Almighty God?
He gives another grave warning to his clerical hearers:
“Remember, I beseech you, what was said by one of old times:
‘Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to
do. And now I say unto you, if this counsel be of men it will
come to naught; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it,
lest haply ye be found to be fighting against God.’ Shall I
continue the quotation?—‘And to him they all agreed.’”
This quotation from a speech of Gamaliel in the Jewish council would be
appropriate, if the evolutionists, like the apostles, had wrought
public miracles to prove their divine mission. In the case of the
apostles all tended to prove that they were right, and that God was on
their side. They spoke languages that they had never learned, they
cured the sick without medicine, by a word or by their shadow, and
filled the city with wonders which their enemies could not deny. When
Mr. Darwin or Dr. Draper shall give us like evidences of their divine
mission, we will “take heed to ourselves what we intend to do” with
their doctrine; but, as things are now, everything compels us to look
on them as emissaries and ministers of the kingdom of darkness. We
cannot put in the same balance evolution and creation; for all the
weight would be on the side of the latter. A dream, a nonentity, an
unscientific fiction, a paralogism, have no weight; whilst effects
without causes, conclusions without premises, phrases without meaning,
weigh only on the conscience of modern thinkers, but without affecting
in the least the balance of truth. Thus we are not afraid that we “be
found fighting against God” while fighting for creation against
evolution. The matter is too evident to need further explanation.
We are tired of following Dr. Draper through his tortuous reasonings,
and the reader is probably equally tired. On the other hand, there is
little need of exposing the mischievous glorification of modern science
in which the lecturer indulges in the interest of his materialistic
views. When we are told that “profound changes are taking place in our
conceptions of the Supreme Being,” or that “the doctrine of evolution
has for its foundation not the admission of incessant divine
intervention, but a recognition of the original, the immutable _fiat_
of God”—of a God, however, who did not create matter, and who must
respect the dominion of universal and irreversible law under pain of
being stigmatized as a “capricious intruder”—or when we are told that
“the establishment of the theory of evolution has been due to the
conjoint movement of all the sciences,” and that “Knowledge, fresh from
so many triumphs, unfalteringly continues her movement on the works of
Superstition and Ignorance,” we need no great acumen to understand the
meaning of this “scientific” slang. Declamation is the great resource
of demagogues and charlatans. Unfortunately, there are charlatans and
demagogues even among the doctors of science, and their number, though
small, is apt to increase in the same proportion as their vagaries are
diffused among the rising generation. Catholics, thank God! are less
exposed to seduction than sectaries who have no guide but their
inconsistent theories; but even Catholics should be on their guard lest
they, too, be poisoned by the foul and infectious atmosphere in which
they live. Indeed, all the modern errors have been refuted; but when a
taste for error becomes predominant, and such fables as evolution are
styled “science,” then human weakness and human pride are easily drawn
into the vortex of scepticism; and then we must be watchful and pray,
for the time is at hand when _even the elect_, as the Gospel warns us,
shall be in danger of seduction.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
AFTER CASTEL-FIDARDO.
A SOLDIER’S LETTER.
FROM THE ITALIAN.
Wounded, my friend, and dying,
Waiting the end, I lie—
A sword-cut in my right leg,
A ball in my left thigh;
Dying, and ever hoping—
And in that hope I die—
One day—not here—to see you,
But in our home on high.
Of this our earth all thought now
For me has useless grown,
All its bright days are ended,
Its last dark shadow thrown.
For my dear faith so freely
My blood with joy I gave,
And for the Holy Father,
His earthly realm to save.
Content am I, and fortunate,
My duty to have done;
And valorous too, as truly
Became the church’s son.
Yet now our dear Lord calleth,
And in his hands I leave
My cause so dearly cherished:
May he all loss retrieve
Who will not me abandon,
Nor valiant comrades mine,
Nor yet his church, nor Vicar
Who guards his spouse divine!
Dear friend, to me be pitiful;
Pray unto God for me;
Leaving the world, this charity
I beg so earnestly.
This world I leave untroubled,
Save by this one regret:
That none of mine are near me—
Kind eyes that would be wet
With tears of long-tried loving.
My friends, in mercy pray
For my poor soul, that draweth
So near eternal day!
A kiss my blood has tinted
I beg each one receive
That now I send you, waiting
From life a last reprieve;
Hoping one day to give you
The blessed kiss of peace
In our dear, common country—
Fair-shining Paradise.
E’en as I am, earth leaving,
Your true and loving friend,
So shall I be in heaven
With love that knows no end.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
MICHAEL THE SOMBRE.
AN EPISODE IN THE POLISH INSURRECTION, 1863–1864.
CONCLUSION.
On my arrival at the camp I found Father Benvenuto already installed as
head chaplain and everything prepared for my reception. The poor
general had died only two hours after my departure. He had been buried
at Gory; but his soldiers, having heard that the Russians intended to
dig up his body in order to mutilate it in their barbarous fashion, dug
up the coffin and carried it to Koniec-Pol.
The Russians, furious at finding the grave empty, hanged the parish
priest of the village for having given permission for the removal of
the body. The mother of the priest, who was seventy-five years of age,
was dragged to the foot of the gibbet, and, like the Mother of Dolors,
was made to assist at the execution of her only son. When they tried to
remove her she fell down dead. Her soul had flown to heaven after that
of her boy.
No sooner had I entered on my new duties than I determined to start
immediately with my squadron to protect Countess L——’s flight. But
General C——, at the head of the Russian garrison from Kielce, never
ceased pursuing and attacking us, harassing our march day and night; so
that it was not for fifteen days after my departure from the castle
that I was enabled to carry out my plan. My troops, who always saw me
with a frown, which I had adopted to keep them at a greater distance,
had nicknamed me “Michael the Sombre,” and I signed all orders in that
name.
After repeated marches and counter-marches we managed at last to escape
from our enemies, and arrived one evening at Syez after a forced march
of ten hours, I encamped my men in a field about twenty minutes from
the castle, whither I galloped, accompanied only by my orderly, whom I
left at the outer gates to keep watch, while I asked an audience of
Countess L—— for “Michael the Sombre.” A footman admitted me directly
without recognizing me in the least, and took me into a room where a
lamp with a dark-green globe prevented any object from being easily
distinguished. Overcome with fatigue, I threw myself into an arm-chair.
I was full, however, of thankful emotion. God had indeed heard my
prayer and brought me back in safety to be the preserver of those whom
I held so dear. The door opened; the countess and her sister appeared,
and began by the usual formal words of welcome and courtesy, asking me
to be seated—for I had, of course, risen on their entrance. As I did
not answer, and continued looking at them with my eyes full of tears,
they suddenly looked up too, and, with a joint cry, threw themselves
into my arms. I had suffered terribly from hunger, cold, and fatigue
during the past fortnight; but that moment of intense joy made me
forget everything. Five minutes after I was surrounded by all the
children; the youngest had scrambled up on my knees and thrown her arms
tightly around my neck; Sophia had seized my helmet, and, putting it on
before the glass, compared herself to Minerva. Stanislas had unhooked
my sword, and Stephen was trying to take off my spurs. Half the night
was spent in telling one another all that had passed in that eventful
fortnight; and although I made light of my difficulties and position,
yet I saw that the poor countess could hardly bear to realize what I
must still go through before I was released from my command.
This, however, was not a moment for doubt or hesitation. It was
necessary to move immediately before the Russian spies could give the
alarm; so that by daybreak the following morning the countess’
carriage, escorted by my flying column, started on the road to the
frontier. Fortunately, we were not molested on the way, and, when we
arrived at about a quarter of a mile from Myszkow, I halted my
soldiers, and, putting on the ordinary dress of a civilian, I
accompanied the ladies to the station and busied myself with their
passports, tickets, and baggage with all the feverish anxiety of one
who strove to forget the terrible ordeal through which I had yet to
pass before I should be able to rejoin them. When the train came up I
brought the ladies out on the platform, and, having procured a special
compartment for them, made them get into it with the children. Then at
last I could breathe freely. No one had discovered them—they were safe!
“Adieu!” I exclaimed, as I shook hands with them at the carriage-door.
“You are now out of danger, for which I thank God with my whole heart.
You will tell the count that I have fulfilled my promise to him, will
you not? And you will not forget me?” I added with a faltering voice.
They looked at me as if stupefied. “But, Mika,” exclaimed the countess,
“we cannot go without you! You must be joking. It is not possible for
you to stay behind. What on earth is there to detain you?”
“You forget,” I replied as calmly as I could, “my promise to the dying
general; my vow to remain with his troops until replaced, if he would
only grant me this escort; Poland, which I have sworn to defend.”
“But this is dreadful!” murmured the poor countess. “How can we enjoy
our liberty, purchased at such a price?”
Mme. de I—— said nothing. She was as white as a sheet; her hand
tightened on mine, and she fixed her eyes on me as if she were turned
into stone. More fully than the countess did she realize the full peril
of the position. I was broken-hearted; but, fearing lest this scene
should attract the attention of the officials or of any Russian spies,
I left the carriage-door under pretence of having forgotten something.
When I returned the train was already moving out of the station. The
countess rushed to the window and wrung my hand convulsively for the
last time. She could not speak. My eyes followed the receding train
with a feeling of despair in my heart. It was carrying off all I loved
best on earth, and I was alone. All of a sudden I heard my name called
out with a cry of anguish from the carriage, and then, I think, for a
moment I lost consciousness, as if struck by lightning, and remained
motionless and stunned. Till that moment I had not realized the full
bitterness of the sacrifice. I woke from this kind of stupor to hear
voices in hot dispute behind me. I turned round and saw a Polish
soldier, covered with dust and in a tattered uniform, struggling with
two of the porters of the railroad, who were trying to stop him.
“What do you want to do?” I exclaimed. “Who are you looking for?”
“Michael the Sombre,” replied the soldier.
“I am the man,” I replied quietly, drawing him aside out of the station
to a part of the road where we could talk without being heard.
“O sir! make haste,” the poor fellow cried. “Generals O——, De la Croix,
and Zaremba are fighting at Koniec-Pol and are being overwhelmed by the
superior forces of the enemy. If they be not reinforced by two o’clock
they will all be cut to pieces.”
I instantly sent off a messenger to General Chmielinski to warn him of
the danger; and then, without giving myself time to put on my uniform,
I buckled my sword over my black coat, and galloped as hard as I could
to the scene of action. I divided my squadron into three columns, and
sent each, under the command of an officer, in three different
directions. The Russian sentinels consequently gave the alarm on three
sides at once, and the Russians, fancying themselves surrounded by a
large force, were seized with an uncontrollable panic and fled in the
direction of Shepca; Chmielinski’s column, advancing exactly in that
direction, met them, and the three infantry companies of which they
were composed were literally cut to pieces. During the charge a ball
had passed through my boot and wounded me in the right leg. Father
Benvenuto was at my side in a moment and had me removed to Chezonstow,
where the good Mother Alexandra, of whom I have before spoken, was at
the head of the ambulance. She gave me up her own cell and would allow
no one but herself to nurse me. During my illness a division arose
among my troops. They dispersed; some went home, others joined a corps
under the orders of Langewiecz, while the remainder followed Norbut.
When sufficiently recovered from my wound, finding I was still too lame
for active service, I accepted a mission for the Central Polish
Committee at P——, but was unable to obtain my release. From thence I
started for N——, where I made my will and a general confession, and
then started again for the front, having my passport drawn up under the
name of Michael L——. This time I enlisted as a common soldier under the
orders of General Sokol. After the first engagement I was appointed
quartermaster and interpreter to a French officer, Ivon Amie, _dit_ De
Chabrolles. On the next brush we had with the enemy I was promoted to
be sub-lieutenant for having rescued the national flag from a Russian.
Between Secemin and Rudnick we were attacked by six hundred Russians
with two field-pieces. We were only two hundred and fifty men, with no
cannon. Chabrolles, in his mad zeal, rushed forward, pistol in hand,
and fired straight at the men who were loading their guns at only
twenty paces off. Then he turned to give an order, and the enemy’s fire
(both pieces being pointed in his direction) carried off part of his
shoulder. Regardless of his wound, he cheered on his men by word and
deed, and they were on the point of capturing the guns when a Cossack
thrust him through and through with his lance. I was by Chabrolles’
side and fired at his adversary, who fell before he had had time to
draw out his weapon. This sad office devolved upon one of our own men.
Chabrolles, when falling, gave me his hand. “My brother,” he said
faintly, “if you get back to France go to Paris and see my mother. She
is at 37 Rue Clerc au Gros Caillou. Tell her that her son has died as a
brave Christian should die.” Unable to reply, I tore my crucifix out of
my breast and presented it to him. He made a last effort, kissed it
with fervor, made the sign of the cross, and expired, his eyes raised
to heaven.
Our detachment was then entirely defeated. In vain I tried to rally our
men; they fled in the utmost disorder. With a few braver spirits than
the rest I managed, at least, to protect our retreat. I was just
beginning to congratulate myself on our escape when a Cossack, with his
lance at rest, rode straight at me. I had fired off my last pistol.
With one hand I seized my sword to parry the charge; with the other I
pressed my crucifix to my breast. The lance turned aside, went through
the sleeve of my uniform and out at my back without touching my flesh.
If I never believed in a miracle I should at this moment, when I
realized that I was really unhurt, although death had seemed so
inevitable. In this terrible fight we lost, besides Chabrolles, Major
Zachowski and Captains Piotraszkiewicz and Krasmicki. At the close of
the day I was promoted to be lieutenant of the Uhlans.
One day I was ordered to convey some arms and ammunition to a distant
outpost, and loaded the bottom of a britzska with about twenty guns and
swords and fifty revolvers. I was in plain clothes, and my orderly,
Badecki, acted as coachman. The road was supposed to be quite safe.
Judge, then, of our fright when we discovered a large body of Russian
cavalry riding directly towards us. It was too late to think of beating
a retreat. A shudder passed through me; for it was the worst kind of
death which threatened us—not a glorious one on the field of battle,
but a slow torture, or else to be hanged on the nearest tree. I prayed
with my whole heart for deliverance, and felt that the hand of God
alone could save us. After this moment of recollection calm again fell
upon me and my presence of mind returned. The officer who commanded the
corps came up a few seconds after and asked me who I was and where I
was going. I replied “that I was the German tutor of Princess Ikorff (a
Russian lady), and that I was going to Kielce to buy books.” My story
was confirmed by my Berlin accent; and as at this moment the Prussians
were in odor of sanctity with their brethren, the Russians, the officer
simply bowed and let us pass without interruption or suspicion. But the
last Cossack of the band drew near to the carriage-door. “Noble Sir!”
he exclaimed in that cringing voice which is natural to the race, “give
me some kopecks to drink your health.” In the state of excitement I was
in I did not think of what I was doing, and threw him three ducats
instead of kopecks. The poor fellow was so amazed that he hastened to
show his gratitude after the Cossack fashion—that is, by kissing my
feet—and calling me by every imaginable title: prince, duke, etc. This
was a terrible moment for me. The guns were under my feet, only hidden
by a slight covering of hay, the least displacement of which would have
exposed them. God, in his mercy, did not allow it, and my Cossack,
after a thousand obeisances and calling down on my head every blessing
from St. George and St. Nicholas, left me and rejoined his companions.
I arrived at my destination without further alarms, my heart filled
with thankfulness to Him who had so mercifully preserved us from the
worst of deaths.
About the beginning of September Gen. Iskra was attacked by a strong
corps, and I was sent off to his relief with about one hundred men. The
Russians were repulsed; but we lost in this skirmish our Italian
doctor, M. Vigani, and M. Loiseau, a French officer of artillery.
During the night the Russians, having received reinforcements, returned
to the attack. We were too few in numbers and too exhausted to attempt
to fight, and retreated on Pradla. During this retreat my horse, which
belonged to a private in the corps, made a false step and fell. I had
fired the last barrel of my revolver, and one of my legs had got
doubled up under my horse, which made me powerless. At this moment a
Cossack galloped straight at me. I felt that my last hour was come, and
recommended my soul to God.
“Yield thyself, rebel!” he cried out in bad Polish.
“A Frenchman dies, but never yields,” I replied.
My enemy hesitated for a moment, and then lowered his sword, which he
had already raised to cut me down.
“Listen,” he said: “In the Crimea a Frenchman who had me at his mercy
spared my life; for his sake I will spare thine. But give me all the
money thou hast.”
I threw my purse to him, which contained about twenty roubles. The
Cossack helped me to rise, and then said:
“Now fly for thy life; for my comrades are at hand, and they will not
spare thee!”
During the whole war this was the only instance of humanity I ever
heard of on the part of the Cossacks, and I gladly record it here.
The following day Princess Elodie C—— came to the camp, at the head of
a deputation of Polish ladies, to thank me for my devotion to the cause
of Poland.
One day I was sitting, sadly enough, under a pine-tree. My troops,
silent and sombre, were warming themselves by a great fire. For two
days we had eaten nothing. As for me, I was thinking of the absent, and
felt terribly lonely. When I looked up I saw two beautiful, intelligent
heads watching me, as if saying: “Are we, then, nothing to you—we who
have shared all your sufferings and dangers?” They were my two only
friends and companions: Al-Mansour, my Arab horse, and Cæsar, my
faithful Newfoundland dog. I got up and caressed them both. “O my best
friends!” I exclaimed, “you will be with me till death, and if you
survive me you will mourn for me more than any one else.” And as I
kissed them my eyes filled with tears. Al-Mansour laid his head on my
shoulder, and Cæsar licked my hand. They were my only comfort. One
minute after a courier arrived to beg for reinforcements. Gen.
Iċzioranski was fighting `c at Piaskowa-Scala. I whistled to Cæsar, who
was an excellent bearer of despatches, and would even fight to defend
them, and fastened a note under his collar. Then, showing him the
direction he was to take, I cried: “Hie quickly, Cæsar! and return as
soon as you can.” And the dog started off like a shot.
We mounted and galloped to Piaskowa-Scala. The action was short, and we
managed to free Iċzioranski, who was surrounded on all sides. At the
very moment when the Russians were giving way Al-Mansour bounded with
me up in the air, gave a terrible cry, and fell. I had hardly time to
get my feet out of the stirrups. He had been shot by a ball in the
chest. The poor beast had a moment of convulsion, and then turned his
beautiful, soft eyes towards me, as if to implore my help; then his
legs stiffened and he trembled again all over. I bent over him and
passed my hand through his thick and beautiful mane, calling him for
the last time; and then ... I covered my face with both hands and
sobbed like a little child. Al-Mansour had been a real friend to me. I
had had him when quite young and unbroken; I had trained him entirely
myself, and from Breslau to Warsaw I defy any one to have found a more
beautiful or intelligent animal. I alone could ride him; he never would
allow any one else on his back. For four years I had ridden him every
day. The countess had given him to me, and I had brought him with me to
the camp. Alas! he was no longer the splendid beast which used to
excite the admiration of everybody in the castle stables. Fatigue and
privations of all kinds had reduced him to a skeleton, so that his old
grooms would not have known him again. I only loved him the more; and
it used almost to break my heart when I saw him, for want of hay, oats,
or even straw, eating the bark of trees to deaden the pangs of his
hunger. He loved me as much as I loved him. I used to talk to him, and
he understood me perfectly and answered me after his fashion. Although
people who read this may laugh at me, it was yet a fact, which I am
ready to maintain, that when I was wounded Al-Mansour had tears in his
eyes; and nothing on earth will ever efface his memory from my heart.
Another anecdote which I must relate here refers to a lad—a very
child—whom I had in my squadron, and whose name was Charles M——. At
fifteen years of age he was a perfect marvel of cleverness, and had
received, besides, an excellent education. He was born in Paris, his
father being a Polish exile, and his mother, after twenty years’
residence in France, still yearned for the arid plains and marshes of
Poland. “_Boze è Polska_!” (God and Poland)—those were the first words
she taught her boy to pronounce; and Charles could never separate his
worship of one from the other. This double love, strengthened by all
the surroundings of his childhood, became in him a kind of fanaticism.
When the insurrection broke out in Poland Charles was a boarder in the
Polish college of Batignolles. He was just fifteen. From that moment
his life became a continual fever. To go to Poland to fight, and, if
necessary, to die for the soil of his fathers were the thoughts which
took such possession of the lad that they became irresistible. He saved
from his pocket-money and from whatever he gained in prizes the sum
necessary for the journey, and, when he thought he had enough, he
escaped from the college, leaving a note to explain his intentions,
and, after many difficulties, arrived at the camp.
I was then in command of the second squadron of Uhlans, under Gen.
Sokol. Charles came straight to me to be enrolled. I flatly refused to
accept him, saying he was too young and too weak to bear arms.
“What does it matter if one’s arm be weak,” he exclaimed, “if hatred
for our oppressors drive my blows home? It is true that I have only the
height of a child, but in my love for Poland I have the heart of a man,
and I will fight like a man!”
I remained inflexible. At that moment the general came into my tent and
asked what was the question in dispute. I told him. After a moment or
two of reflection he turned to me and said:
“You must accept him. I am apt to judge of character by people’s heads;
and this one is filled with indomitable energy and courage.”
Charles was consequently enlisted, to his intense joy. I got him a
little pony, and arms proportioned to his size, and he fought by my
side like a lion in every encounter.
After the fight at Piaskowa-Scala we returned to the camp, having
fortunately found some provisions. The night was so dark that we were
obliged to light torches, which the soldiers carried at certain
distances. Passing before a pine-tree, the new horse I was riding
suddenly shied and nearly threw me. I looked to see what had frightened
him, and discovered a black object hanging from a branch of the tree. I
called a soldier to bring his torch, that we might find out what it
was. The light fell on the hanging form; it was my dear dog, Cæsar. On
the trunk of the tree was fastened a paper with this inscription: “We
hang the dog until we can hang his master.” I was thunderstruck.
Al-Mansour, Cæsar, both my friends in one day, perhaps at the very same
hour! “Nothing, then, is left to me!” I exclaimed with bitterness,
feeling that my poor dog was quite cold—“nothing, not even those poor
faithful beasts who loved me so much.”
“Yes,” said a voice in my ear, “a countryman is left to you, and, if
you will, a friend!”
I turned round; it was little Charles, who was holding out his hand to
me with looks full of sadness and sympathy. I pressed the child’s hand.
“Charles!” I exclaimed, “we will try and avenge them.” And spurring my
horse, I left the fatal spot far behind me in a few minutes.
A day or two later we went to join the larger corps of General
Chmielinski at the camp at Tedczyjowa. When I say “camp” I make a
mistake. None existed; we had only a few miserable tents and hardly any
baggage. The men slept by parties of ten in the woods, on the cold
ground, with such coverings or sheepskins as they could get together;
many had only cloth cloaks. At break of day the _réveil_ sounded,
ordinarily at the entrance of some glade where the vedettes could
embrace a wide space. At the first bugle sound the soldiers emerged
from the forest. The men were gentle and sad. The indomitable and calm
energy of their souls was reflected on their faces, though blanched
with cold and worn with hunger and sufferings of every description.
They had a kind of interior brightness in their look that cast over
them a sort of sacred halo, before which I believe the veriest sceptic
would have bowed with reverence. These men were all possessed with one
idea: to die for their faith and their country. Nothing else, indeed,
was left for them. The struggle was becoming more hopeless every day,
and they knew it; yet they never dreamt of giving it up. The roll-call
over and the sentries relieved, Father Benvenuto came in the midst of
us, and every knee was bowed before the sacred sign he bore—the sign of
our redemption. There was indeed something glorious in that prayer in
the open air, joined in audibly by all those men, united in one thought
and in one wish, who were fighting with the certainty of eventual
defeat, but who only asked of God the grace not to falter or turn back
from the path which duty and the love of their country had marked out
for them, albeit that path might have no issue but exile or death.
Happy were those who fell in battle! They went at once to swell the
glorious army of martyrs. The others, when not hanged, chained in a
long and mournful procession, were sent to Siberia after that terrible
word of farewell addressed to fathers and mothers, and wives and
children, gathered sobbing by the roadside: “_Do nie widzenia!_”—Never
to meet again. Many of these poor fellows were fastened to an iron bar,
sometimes ten of them together, and carried off in the direction of
Kiew. Those who survived the horrors of the march or the lash of their
drivers were taken across Greater Russia. A “soteria,” or company, of
Cossacks surrounded these innocent men on every side as they toiled on
and on, loaded with chains and treated worse than the vilest criminals.
The lance and the whip were the only answer to pleas of exhaustion or
sickness. A resigned silence was the sole refuge from the brutality of
their escort, whose only orders were _not to spare the blood of those
Polish dogs_. Any complaint brought down a hailstorm of blows on the
unfortunate victims, even when not followed by death. Truly, the
sufferings endured by the Poles will never be known till the day when
all things shall be revealed.
When we arrived at the camp we found that Father Benvenuto had preceded
us by four or five hours. He had been commissioned to receive about one
hundred volunteers who had arrived that morning from Galicia. The
greater part of them were dressed in the gray _kontusz_ (or Bradenburg
greatcoat), with the large leathern girdle of a _géral_ (a
mountaineer). On their heads they wore the _roqatka_ (a kind of square
cap, something like the _czapka_ of the Lancers). They generally had a
common fowling-piece with two barrels, and a little hatchet in their
waistbands. Each had a canvas bag and a hunting-pouch. These might be
considered as the flower of the flock. They were mostly students from
Lemberg and Cracow. Others were peasants dressed in short tunics with
scythes in their hands. These were the _kopynicry_ (or mowers),
half-soldiers, half-peasants, and famous in all the struggles of
Poland. Besides these there were men of every age and condition of
life, but all animated with the same patriotic spirit: citizens,
villagers, Catholics, Protestants, Jews even, some wearing black coats,
others workmen’s blouses. Their arms were as varied as their costumes:
parade swords, sabres blunted in the great wars with Napoleon, old
muskets of Sobieski’s days, halberds, and even old French weapons. Some
had only hunting-knives and sticks. This curious assemblage of
discordant elements, which anywhere else would have seemed grotesque,
assumed under the circumstances an imposing, and even a touching,
character.
At the extreme end of the glade Father Benvenuto was praying before a
great Christ stretched on his cross. When he rose he fastened an
amaranth and white flag (which was the Polish banner) to the end of a
lance. This flag bore on one side the picture of Notre Dame de
Czenstochowa, the patroness of Poland; on the other a Lithuanian
cavalier with the white eagle. He fixed the lance in the ground before
the cross, and then made a sign to the volunteers to lay down their
arms and draw near. When each had taken his place the good priest
remained for a moment in silent prayer and recollection. His thin
cheeks with their prominent cheekbones, his long white beard, his
forehead furrowed with wrinkles and glorious wounds, and his tall and
commanding figure gave him an appearance of energy, strength, and
majesty which impressed the beholders with deep and affectionate
veneration.
“Brothers!” at last he said, “it is a holy and yet a fearful cause to
which you are about to devote yourselves. It is one beyond mere vulgar
or animal courage; and before you enroll yourselves in our
ranks—before, in fact, you engage yourselves any further in the
matter—it is right you should know and fully realize what awaits you
and what is expected of you.”
The patriots listened respectfully, their heads bare, standing before
the crucifix and the banner. Around them, and as if to protect them,
stretched the virgin forests, those fortresses of the Polish
insurgents, while the sun shed its pale rays over the whole scene.
“What you have to expect,” continued the good father, “is this: You
will suffer daily from hunger, for we have no stores; you will have to
sleep on the bare ground, for we have no tents; you will have to march
more often with bare feet than with shoes and stockings; you will
shiver with cold under clothes which will be utterly insufficient to
protect you from the rigors of this climate. If you are wounded, you
will fall into the hands of the Muscovites, who will torture you. If
you are afraid and refuse to go forward, your own comrades have orders
to shoot you.”
“We are prepared for everything,” they replied simply.
The good father continued:
“Have you a family? They may as well mourn for you beforehand; for we
have no leave in our ranks, except to go to the mines of Siberia or to
death. Have you reconciled yourselves to God? I can only lead you to
death and prepare you to meet it. Are you ready to die for your
country?” He paused, and then added: “There is still time to draw back.
I can facilitate your return to your homes. Weigh the matter well
before you decide.”
“No, no!” they exclaimed with one voice, “we will not turn back. We
wish to fight to-day, to-morrow—when you will—but to fight and die for
our country. A cheer for Poland! Another cheer for our Mother!”
“My brethren,” began the venerable priest again, “do not give way to
illusions. You are lost if you imagine that you can conquer the enemy
in a few months. Woe be to us all if we forget that it is a giant’s
struggle in which we are engaged, and that a whole generation must
perish before we can expiate the sins of our fathers! Therefore I ask
you again: Are you ready to march to battle, knowing that in the end
you _must_ be defeated, that you _must_ be overpowered by numbers, and
that you have nothing to hope for either in victory or
defeat—_nothing_, not even glory, which lays its crowns of laurel on
the graves of the brave?”
Here his voice faltered; but, mastering his emotion, the venerable old
man, lifting his eyes to heaven and stretching out his hands towards
the crucifix, exclaimed with almost superhuman enthusiasm: “O my God!
thou who knowest the hearts of all men, give to these thy servants the
spirit of courage, self-sacrifice, and faith. Blot out the memory of
our beloved Warsaw from their hearts, and with it the remembrance of
their mothers, their sisters, their betrothed! Let them henceforth see
naught but the glorious army of martyrs and their mother Poland, torn
and blood-stained. Let their ears be closed to all whispers of home,
and be open only to hear the laments of the widows and orphans, the
groans from the depth of the dungeons, the cries which the east wind
brings us across Muscovy from the Siberian mines! May they have but one
thought, one wish, one will—to pursue and annihilate this Russian
vampire, which for nearly a century has fastened on the breasts of our
Virgin of Poland, and has become drunk with her tears and with her
blood!”
“May God hear and grant thy prayer!” replied the volunteers with one
voice. “What thou willest we will; what thou commandest we will do.
Lead us to death or to torture; we will not shrink from either.”
A look of deep joy lit up for a moment the old man’s face and made him
seem as one inspired. He blessed the banner, and then gave out the
Polish national hymn, _Boze cós Polske przesz tak licznie wieki_, of
which the following is an English translation:[182]
I.
O God! who gave Poland her wonderful dower
Of faith through long ages, of strength and of glory,
And now spreadst that faith like a shield o’er an hour
The saddest and darkest of all in her story
CHORUS.
Great God! to thine altars we suppliants come;
Give us back the blest freedom of faith, hearth, and home.
II.
O thou who, in pity, and touched by her fall,
Still strengthenst thy children to fight in thy name.
And showeth the world, ‘midst her sorrow and thrall,
The deeper her suffering, the brighter her fame;
III.
O God! whose all-powerful arm can o’erthrow
The proudest of kingdoms, like huts built on sand,
Avert from thy children these dark clouds of woe.
Raise the hopes of the Poles; give them back their dear land.
IV.
Give back to old Poland her bright days of yore,
To her fields and her cities the blessings of peace.
Give plenty, give freedom, give joy as before;
Oh! cease to chastise us and fill us with grace.
V.
O merciful God! by thy marvellous might
Keep far from us slaughter and war’s fierce despair;
‘Neath the sway of the angel of peace and of light
Let all be united in love and in prayer.
Great God! to thine altars we suppliants come;
Give us back the blest freedom of faith, hearth, and home.
The soldiers, kneeling, repeated this in chorus, and, rising, gave
another cheer for Poland. Then Gen. Chmielinski, who was standing to
the right of Father Benvenuto, turned to them and said: “Now, my
children, go and rest and recruit your strength. You will need it all;
for the enemy we have to fight is strong and numerous, and many among
us will appear before God to-morrow.”
The soldiers did as they were bid, and prepared themselves to pass the
night as comfortably as they could, feeling that it was indeed the last
many would spend on earth. I was going to do the same when I was sent
for by Gen. Sokol, whom I found talking over plans with Gen.
Chmielinski. “Lieut. L——,” he said to me, “we are very anxious for
exact information as to the amount of the Russian force. Are you
tired?”
“Yes, but not enough to refuse a perilous mission. What is there to be
done?”
“To go with a picked body of men on whom you can rely, and reconnoitre
the Russian strength and position; but, for heaven’s sake, be very
prudent. You know the full extent of the danger.”
“Yes. Thanks for having chosen me,” I replied; and, bowing to the two
officers, I withdrew and told Badecki to have my horse saddled
immediately. Whilst I was looking to the loading of my pistols young
Charles M—— came up.
“Lieutenant,” he exclaimed, “you are going to reconnoitre the Russian
army?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Why do you ask?”
“Will you let me go with you?”
“No, my boy. To-morrow’s fight may be a serious one, for which you will
need all your strength.”
The poor little fellow made a wry face, but went and lay down again at
the foot of a tree. I only took with me Badecki and an old soldier
named Zeromski, who had distinguished himself in the campaign of 1830.
He had an austere and severe countenance, which, however, brightened
into the sweetest and gentlest smile possible when you spoke to him. He
was as laconic as a Spartan and kept himself always aloof; but under
fire his bravery was heroic, and almost amounted to rashness. His
comrades had nicknamed him _Stalowy-serce_ (heart of steel).
We reconnoitred the enemy’s position without being discovered, and were
returning towards the edge of the camp, when my horse stumbled against
the root of a tree and fell on one knee. My orderly, Badecki, looked at
me anxiously, shook his head, coughed, sighed, and turned uneasily in
his saddle.
“What on earth is the matter, Badecki?” I exclaimed. “One would think
you were sitting on a wasp’s nest.”
“Lieutenant,” he answered, sighing, “it is because your horse stumbled
just now.”
“Well, and what is that to you?” I replied.
“Don’t you know, lieutenant, that if a horse stumbles before a battle
it forebodes misfortune to his rider? I always remarked that in the
campaign of 1830.”
“Oh! you believe that, do you?” I said, smiling. “And you,
Zeromski—have you remarked it too?”
“No, I have not done so myself, but I have been always told so.”
Arrived at the camp, I hastened to give in my report to General Sokol.
He thanked me warmly, and added:
“Now is your opportunity, lieutenant, to win your captain’s epaulets.”
“Yes, general, or a good sabre-cut. I hope it may be one or the other.”
Sokol laughed and said:
“It is certain that, if these unlicked cubs of Russians are as numerous
as you say, they will give us trouble.”
Leaving the general’s quarters, I went and wrapped myself up in my
bear-skin, and, throwing myself under a tree, fell asleep in a moment.
I was completely worn out with fatigue.
Only two hours later, however, I was awakened by the sentries being
relieved. The day had just dawned. The first thing which recurred to my
memory was Badecki’s words. I had a sort of presentiment that they
would turn out to be true. After a few moments of fervent prayer I took
out my pocket-book and made a slight sketch of the spot where the
battle would most likely be fought, and where, perhaps, that very night
they would dig my grave. I wrote a few lines with the sketch, folded
them up, and directed it.
Scarcely had I made my last preparations in this way than our advanced
posts gave the signal that the enemy was approaching. It was part of
the army of Gen. C——, and consisted of two battalions of infantry,
several _soterias_ of Cossacks and dragoons, and four pieces of
artillery. They numbered upwards of three thousand men. We had only
twelve hundred, many of whom were but raw recruits.
Very soon every soul was on the alert and armed. Father Benvenuto was
the first to appear.
“My children!” he cried, “many amongst us will fall this day. You are
all, thank God! prepared for whatever may be his will. Kneel, and I
will give you all a last absolution and benediction.”
Every one knelt with the venerable priest, who prayed for a few minutes
in a low voice and commended us all to God. Then, rising, he added with
emotion:
“My children, I absolve you and bless you all, in the name of the
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”
“Amen!” we all responded, and rose filled with fresh strength and
courage.
“Let every one of you do his duty,” continued he; “that is all I will
say at this moment to patriots who wish to free our dear and holy
Poland or die in the attempt.”
The men went silently to take each his place in the ranks. Gen. Zaremba
was to assume the chief command that day.
“What will do us the most mischief and paralyze our operations,” he
said, “are those field-pieces. If they had not those cannon we should
win.”
Count S——, captain of artillery, came forward. “If you will give me
leave, general, I will go and spike their guns. Are there two hundred
men amongst you who will follow me to certain death? Let them make the
sacrifice of their lives for the safety of all.”
Nearly a thousand men volunteered for this terrible service, though
they knew perfectly well that, in all probability, not one would return
alive.
“Well,” exclaimed the general, “we are twelve hundred men; let us draw
lots.”
A few minutes later the two hundred, favored by fate and their own
heroism, separated themselves from the rest and gathered round their
intrepid leader, forming what might well be called the _phalanx of
death_. Charles M—— burst into tears at not having been one of those
selected.
“Don’t be afraid,” I said to him; “to-day we shall all be equally
favored.”
The general then disposed of his small force in the best manner he
could. He desired no one to fire a single shot till the enemy was
within one hundred paces. Those among the sharpshooters and zouaves who
had breech-loaders were to reserve their second shots till those who
had only single-barrelled guns were reloading. In the event of
confusion or defeat I was ordered with my Uhlans to charge the
fugitives, always taking care to double back with my column behind the
fusileers. These dispositions having been made, and distinct orders
given to each corps, we all remained at our posts in silence, awaiting
the enemy’s approach. On they came, in the well-known serried masses of
the Russian troops, and not a shot was fired till they arrived at the
appointed distance. Then, with a shout and a sharp cry, the signal was
given, our men fired, and upwards of one hundred Russians fell. So
unprepared were they for this sudden discharge that the men behind the
front rank fell back, in spite of the efforts of their officers, and,
scattering to the right and left, became the victims of my Uhlans or
were cut to pieces by the scythes of the _kopinicry_. Then the Russians
in their turn fired, and twenty of our Poles fell. This was the moment
chosen by Count S—— and his two hundred heroes to dash in amidst the
Russian artillery and try and silence their cannon. Passing through the
Russian ranks like a flash of lightning, the count and my brave old
Zeromski succeeded in spiking two of their field-pieces. Whilst ramming
in his gun a ball broke the count’s arm; the next took off his head.
Zeromski had his head broken by the butt-end of a musket, and fell at
the very moment when he had succeeded in spiking a gun to the cry of
“_Niech zeja Polske_!” (Hurrah for Poland!)
We could not look on in cold blood and see the horrible massacre of
these two hundred. Comrades and all with one accord threw themselves
into the enemy’s ranks. The voice of our officers fell on dead ears; we
were engaged in a hand-to-hand fight with equal fury on both sides. Now
and then, when our Poles gave way before superior numbers, the Russian
artillery had time to load their remaining guns, and when our poor
fellows came back to the charge they were simply mowed down before the
heavy fire that opened upon them. But still no one thought of
self-preservation, only how to deal the hardest blows. All strategy or
tactics had become impossible, and officers and men alike fought inch
by inch for their lives. From the first moment when the fighting had
become general I was attacked by a quartermaster of dragoons. We both
fought with swords; but I was so exhausted that I could hardly keep my
saddle, and all I could do was to try and parry the strokes of my
adversary. All of a sudden a violent cramp seized my right arm; but at
that critical moment I heard the voice of little Charles behind me:
“Hold on for a minute longer!” he cried; and, galloping with his pony
across a heap of dead, he fired off his pistol close to the head of my
enemy, who dropped without a word. But at the same instant I saw the
heroic child stagger and turn deadly white; a ball had struck him in
the chest.
“Adieu, lieutenant! Adieu, brother!” he murmured, as he slipped off his
horse to the ground. “My poor mother! How she will cry! My Lord and my
God, have mercy upon me!”
Those were his last words. I bore him on my shoulders, and carried him
out of the field of battle, and laid him down under a tree. I put my
hand on his heart; it had ceased to beat. The generous child had died
to save me. He had a beautiful smile on his face, and two tears
glistened on his cheeks. I closed his eyes, and, kissing his forehead,
said: “Sleep in peace, my brave boy! If I survive this day I will carry
these tears to your poor mother.”
I called two of the pioneers, and told them to dig a separate grave for
poor Charles, that his body might not fall into the enemy’s hands; and
then, jumping on the horse of a Cossack who had just been killed, I
threw myself again into the fray. All my strength had come back. I
fought like one possessed; and this over-excitement lasted till I felt
the cold steel going through me. A Cossack had thrust his lance into my
left breast. I lifted up my heart to God for one moment, and then fell,
pressing my crucifix convulsively. My orderly, seeing me fall, carried
me off rapidly to a carriage which was already full of wounded men.
Thanks to Father Benvenuto, who never ceased watching over me, I came
back to life again and met the loving and sisterly eyes of Mother
Alexandra, who again insisted on my sharing her cell. I was in great
danger for five days, and, if I did not sink under my sufferings, it
was owing to the devoted care of which I was the object. One night my
secret was well-nigh discovered. Mother Alexandra had been called away
to some other patient and had left me to the care of a young sister. My
fever ran high, and, being delirious, I tore off the bandages from my
wound and threw them away. Frightened at my state, the sister luckily
ran to fetch Mother Alexandra, exclaiming: “Come as quickly as you can;
the lieutenant is dying!” She flew back to me, and remained alone by my
bedside. Her presence calmed me at once, and I allowed her to bandage
me up again and stop the blood, which had burst out in streams from the
wound.
In the same house we had forty-five wounded from this battle, wherein
the Poles had displayed prodigies of valor. The Russian loss was very
great, and if they were not altogether crushed, it was owing to their
numerical superiority. As it was, they retired in good order, for we
had not sufficient men to follow them in their retreat. When I was
allowed to go out of my cell I went to see my comrades. I helped the
sisters in dressing their wounds, and, when my strength would allow me,
I used to read aloud to them as we sat round the stove. At the end of a
month, out of forty-five wounded thirty-two were convalescent.
At the end of six weeks I felt myself strong enough to bear the motion
of a horse, and so accepted a mission for my old general, who, by the
orders of the Central Committee, came to take the command of the forces
in the place of General Iskra, who had been condemned to death for high
treason. As ill-luck would have it, on this occasion my usual
good-fortune deserted me and I fell into the hands of a Russian patrol,
who seized me, tied my hands behind my back, and marched me off to the
little town of Kielce. As I was still very weak and walked with
difficulty, they accelerated my march by blows from the butt-ends of
their muskets. At Kielce I was taken straight to the headquarters of
Gen. C——. All Polish soldiers who had fallen into the hands of this
brute since the beginning of the war had been hanged. From the window,
close to which I had been placed, I could see the gibbet, with two
shapeless bodies hanging from it on which birds of prey were already
feasting. The sight filled me with horror, and feeling sure this time
that my last hour was at hand, I recommended my soul to God, made a
fervent act of contrition, and prepared myself as well as I could to
die.
The general came in for the usual interrogatory, and frowned when he
looked at me.
“You are from the rebel army?” he exclaimed in bad Polish.
“I do not know any rebels,” I replied proudly. “I am of the army of
the Crusaders.” (We called the war a Crusade, and all of us wore a
white cross sewed on our uniforms.)
At this reply General C——’s face darkened and, with a furious gesture,
he made a step toward me. “Do you know,” he cried, “to what fate you
have exposed yourself by falling into my hands?”
“Yes, perfectly,” I replied, turning my head in the direction of the
dead bodies.
“And you are not afraid?”
“No. I belong to a nation which does not know the feeling.”
“Yet you are very pale.”
“Oh!” I replied eagerly, “do not think it is from fear. Six weeks ago I
was wounded in an engagement with your troops, and to-day I have gone
out for the first time.”
Here the Muscovite smiled.
“What is your age? Nineteen? Do you know that there are very few Poles
as young as you are who would face death in this way without a
shudder?”
“But I am not a Pole; I am French.”
“Do you speak the truth?”
“I never lie,” I replied, presenting him my man’s passport.
He examined it carefully.
“This saves you,” he said at last, beginning to be almost civil. “We
have not yet the right to hang the French, even though they may have
fought with the rebel troops. I shall send you with an escort across
the frontier of Silesia; but if ever you again set foot on Russian soil
you will be hanged without mercy and without shrift.”
I was sent out of his presence, escorted by two Cossacks, thoroughly
unlicked bears, who had orders to shoot me on the least suspicious
movement on my part. I had the pleasure of these gentlemen’s society in
a third-class carriage during the whole journey from Myszkow to
Szczakowa—that is, for four mortal hours. You can imagine, therefore,
that I did not breathe freely till I had stepped out of the carriage
and found myself once more on Silesian soil, released from their
attentions.
I felt now that my vow had been kept and my promise fulfilled. I had
shed my blood for Poland, and any further effort on my part would have
been worse than useless.
I determined, therefore, to rejoin the countess and her children, who
were at that moment at the waters of Altwasser. I pass over the joy of
our reunion. We soon went on to Dresden for the winter, and once more
that happy family were together, though in exile.
I heard soon after that Father Benvenuto had been struck by a ball in
the heart at the battle of Swientz-Krszysz, at the very moment when he
was lifting up the crucifix to bless his soldiers. The memory of this
saint will be for ever revered in Poland, and in the hearts of all
those who had the happiness of knowing him. With his heroic death I
close my account of this episode in a war which, however mistaken on
the part of those who first conceived so hopeless an attempt, was
carried on to the last with a faith, a courage, and a patriotism that
deserve to be immortalized in the history of any country, and will
redound to the eternal honor of this persecuted and unhappy people.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE LATE DR. T. W. MARSHALL.
The _renaissance_ of English Catholic literature has been a growth of
the last quarter of a century. From the time when Dr. Newman became a
convert to the church there has been a continual stream of the most
ardent Catholic literature, didactic, controversial, and devotional. Of
devotional works we need hardly speak at all, since they are much the
same in all Catholic countries, and are mostly modelled on one spirit
of one faith. Of works which are didactic it is superfluous to say
anything, for all teachers of the Catholic faith teach the same thing.
But of works which are controversial it is desirable to take notice,
because they indicate the peculiar spirit of the age, the nature of the
anti-Catholic opposition, and the growth or the decay of old
prejudices. There is probably no literature in any country in the world
which is so full of original lines of pure controversy as that of the
modern English school of Catholic converts. Nor is there any difficulty
in accounting for this fact. When we remember that English converts
have stepped across that huge gulf which divides old-fashioned
Protestantism from Catholicity; that they have brought with them from
the “Establishment” the most perfect knowledge of all the arguments
which can be devised against the acceptance of “the faith”; that they
are often highly educated men, who have been as “intellectually” as
they have been “spiritually” converted—we should be surprised if they
did not sometimes write controversy with both a newness and a richness
of intuition.
For example, let us take the great Dr. Newman, whose vast stores of
digested learning often sparkle or are sweetened with delicious touches
of the perception of the humorous—a boon to his readers which is not
only due to his wit but to the drolleries of the old heresy which he
has left. Or let us take Dr. Faber—that “poet of Catholic dogmas,” as a
Protestant lady has described him—and note the exquisite appreciation
with which he contrasts Catholic truths with their denial or their
imitation in Protestantism. These two writers could not have written as
they have done unless they had been brought up as Protestants. They
might have been equally luminous and profound; they might have wanted
nothing of Catholic science; but their appreciation of contrast, which
is one of the essentials of humor, could not have been nearly so
developed.
Yet, delightful as it would be to dwell on the rich gifts of these two
writers—the profound Newman and the poetical Faber—it is with reference
to another writer that we would say something at this time—to one who
has but recently passed away. Dr. T. W. Marshall, who twice visited the
United States, and who gained great repute as a lecturer, was among the
most gifted of the controversialists—in some senses he was unique—who
have contributed to English Catholic literature. We are not speaking of
his learning, though this was considerable; nor of his reasoning power,
though this, too, was very striking; for there are many English
Catholic writers who, both in learning and in reasoning, may be
esteemed to have surpassed Dr. Marshall; but we are speaking of him as
a “pure controversialist,” as one who made controversy his sole
pursuit, or who, at least, will be always remembered as a polemic, and
this both as a speaker and as a writer. Now, in the capacity of a
polemic—of a “popular” polemic—we have affirmed that Dr. Marshall was
unique; and let us indicate briefly in what respects.
We have spoken at the beginning of the immense advantage which is
possessed by those Catholics who attempt to write controversy when
their first years have been passed in the camp of the Anglican
“Establishment,” and so they have learned all its secrets. Dr. Marshall
was “bred and born” an Anglican. He was the descendant of a long line
of Protestants. He was educated at two English public schools, and
subsequently spent three years at Cambridge; emerging from the
university to “take orders” in the Establishment, and soon becoming
incumbent of a parish. Finding his lot cast in a pleasant rural
district, where he had but very few clerical duties, he devoted his
spare time to the study of the Fathers; and, while reading, he made
copious notes. The present writer, who had the happiness to be his
pupil, remembers well with what avidity he used to devour the big tomes
which he borrowed from the not distant cathedral library. Finding, as
he read on, that the Fathers were “strangely Roman Catholic,” that
“they most distinctly were none of them Protestants,” he may be said to
have read and to have written himself into the faith, which he embraced
the moment that he realized it. And no sooner was he received into the
Catholic Church than he devoted all his talents to the proving to
English Protestants the truths of which he himself was convinced.
_Christian Missions_ was his first great work, though it had been
preceded by more than one brilliant pamphlet; and _My Clerical Friends_
and _Protestant Journalism_ followed in much later years. Besides these
works there was the unceasing contribution to more than one of the
English Catholic papers, to several magazines or periodicals, and also
to a few secular weeklies. It may be remembered with what raciness, and
at the same time with what depth, he used to punish “our Protestant
contemporaries” for their inventions and their puerilities about the
church. His series on the “Russian Church” was especially brilliant,
and produced much sensation among High-Churchmen. But his many other
series, such as “Fictitious Appeals to a General Council,” “Sketches of
the Reformation,” “Two Churches,” “Modern Science,” were all deserving
of most careful digestion, and produced their due effect upon
Anglicans. It was when probing the Ritualists, week after week, with
the most terrible weapons of Catholic logic, that Dr. Marshall was
seized with his last illness, and he laid aside for ever that pen
which, for thirty years, had been the dread of many insincere
Protestants.
If we examine critically into the merits and demerits of this
accomplished theologian and controversialist, we shall find three
points in particular which mark him off from other men, and which
render him, as we have said, unique. First, he had the capacity of
uniting extensive learning with a lightness, even a gayety, of style;
weaving scores of quotations into a few pages of easy writing, without
ever for a moment becoming dull. He played and he toyed with any number
of quotations, as though he had them all at his fingers’ ends; and he
“brought them in” in such a way that, instead of cumbering his pages,
they made them more diverting and light. Let it be asked whether this
one particular art is not worthy of universal imitation? Nine out of
every ten of even good polemical writers “drag their quotations in by
the head and shoulders,” or hurl them down upon the pages as though
they had been carted with pitch-forks and had to be uncarted in similar
fashion. A lightness and a tripping ease in the introduction of
quotations is one of the most captivating of gifts; for it takes the
weight off the learning, the drag off the style, the “bore” off the
effort of controversy. It would be very easy to name half a score of
good books, vastly learned and admirably fitted for the shelves, which
are simply rendered unreadable by that after-dinner sleepiness which
comes from too heavy a table. Now, is it not desirable that even wise
men should make a study of this art of trippingly weaving
quotations?—for, as a matter of fact, a quotation badly used might just
as well not be used at all. Dr. Marshall made quotations a grace of his
style, instead of an interruption of his text; and so neatly did he
“Tunbridge-ware” them into his pages that they fitted without joint and
without fissure. This is, we think, a great merit; and if Dr. Marshall
had done nothing more than suggest to learned writers that it is
_possible_ to quote immensely yet trippingly, he would have rendered a
service to all polemics. He has been, perhaps, “an original” in this
respect; or, if not an original, he has at least been unique in the
excellence of the practice of the art.
The second feature in his writings which strikes us as admirable is an
individuality in the neatness of expression. Short sentences, quite as
pithy as short, with a calm grace of defiant imperturbability, make his
writings equally caustic and gay. Scholarly those writings certainly
are; they have all the honeyed temperance of art and much of the
perfection of habit. No one could write as Dr. Marshall could write
unless he had made writing his study. No doubt style “is born, not
made”; but most styles are better for education, and we could name but
few writers of whom we could say that their style was apparently _more_
natural than it was acquired. Of Dr. Newman it might be said “the style
is the man,” for there is a personal repose in his writings; and we
could imagine Dr. Newman, even if he had not been a great student,
still writing most beautifully and serenely. “The perfection of Dr.
Newman’s style is that he has no style” was a very good remark of a
learned critic; but then we cannot talk of such very exceptional men as
giving a rule for lesser writers. Now, Dr. Marshall had a very marked
style. It was ease, with equal art and equal care. The care was as
striking as the ease. This, it will be said, proves at once that Dr.
Marshall was not what is called “a genius.” Well, no one ever pretended
that he was. A man may be both admirable and unique without having one
spark of real genius; and a man may have graces of style, with highly
cultured arts of fascination, and yet be no more than just sufficiently
original to attract a marked popular attention. Few men attain even to
this standard; and certainly, as writers of controversy, very few men
even approach to it. What we assert is that to be “controversially
unique” a writer must be exceptional in certain ways, and especially in
the two ways we have particularized—namely, light quoting and light
writing. We return, then, to the opinion that for neatness of
phraseology; for the “art,” if you will, of suave cuttingness; for the
clever combination of the caustic with the calm, of the profoundly
indisputable with the playful, Dr. Marshall was really remarkable. He
could say a thing quietly which, if robbed of its quietness, would have
been, perhaps, a veritable insult. Perhaps it was the more pungent
because quiet; and here we touch the third and last of the literary
characteristics which we propose to notice briefly at this time.
“Milk and gall are not a pleasing combination,” observed a
gentleman—who was an Anglican at the time—after reading _Our Protestant
Contemporaries_. He added that he did not care for milk—he was too old
to find it sufficiently stimulating—but he objected to gall, at least
when it was directed against some favorite convictions of his own mind.
Most persons will agree with this old gentleman, who, however, became a
convert to the church. Yet it may be said that there are two apologies
which may be offered for this defect—if defect, indeed, it be—of “milk
and gall.” First, let it be remembered that the keen perception of the
ridiculous, which is generally a characteristic of superior minds,
finds its richest exploration in what, from a certain point of view,
may be regarded as those immense fields of folly which are popularly
denominated English Protestantism. To the humorous mind there is
nothing so humorous as the mental gymnastics of Protestants. To
suppress this humorous sense becomes impossible to any writer who does
not look on gloom as a duty. Dr. Newman only suppresses it in this way:
that his huge mind works above the mere playground, or avoids it as too
provocative of games. He descended into it once in _Loss and Gain_, and
he became fairly romping towards the close; now and then, too, we can
detect the laughing spirit which only veils itself, for decorum, in his
grave writings; but he feels probably that _his_ weapons are too sharp
to need satire, for he is not a controversialist, but a reasoner. When
he does, for the moment, write satire, he shows what he could do, if he
would; but we are glad that the normal attitude of his mind is rather
didactic than playful.
Of lesser writers we cannot expect that their discrimination should be
hampered by a grave sense of doctorship; it is not necessary that they
should sit in professors’ chairs; they are writing for the million,
whose perceptions of what is true must be aided by their perceptions of
what is false. Moreover, the English mind, not being normally
humorous—which is a great national loss in all respects—requires to be
jolted and jerked into an attitude which would be most useful for the
intelligence of truth. If we could only get Englishmen to see the
comedy of heresy, they might soon want the gravity of truth; but they
are constitutionally dull in apprehending those fallacies which
southern peoples can see through in a moment. Now, a writer who can
teach Englishmen to laugh at their Protestantism, to appreciate its
anomalies and its shams, to see the difference between a parson and a
priest, between ten thousand opinions and one faith, and generally to
get rid of morbid sentiment and prejudice, and to look at things in a
thoroughly healthful way, has “taken a line” which is as salutary for
feeble souls as is bright mountain air for feeble bodies. Dr. Marshall
used to laugh _with_ Protestants at their shams much more than he used
to laugh _at_ the victims. But it is true that there was sometimes an
acerbity in his remarks which gave offence to those who loved not the
humor. Could this be helped? Be it remembered that acerbity, in the
apparent mood of expression, is often more intellectual than it is
moral; it is simply an attitude of conviction, or it is the natural
vexation of a profound religious faith which cannot calm itself when
protesting against folly. Nor do we think it at all probable that, if
there were _no_ gall in controversy, more converts would be made to the
truth. And, after all, what do we mean by the word “gall”? Is humor
gall? Is satire gall? Is even acerbity, when it is obviously but
vexation, a fatal undoing of good? Much will depend on the mood of the
reader. Some readers like spice and cayenne even in their “religious”
opponents. Most readers know that mere literary temperament cannot make
a syllogism out of a fallacy. All readers distinguish between caprices
of temperament and the attitude of the reason and the soul. It is only
on account of the mental babes among Protestants that it is to be
regretted that all Catholics are human. For the ordinary, strong reader
a good dash of human nature is much better than is too much of “the
angel.” Take mankind for what they are, and we like the honesty of the
irritation which sometimes puts the gall into the milk. It might be
desirable that our first parent had not fallen. If he had not fallen we
should not have had controversy. But since he has fallen, and since we
must have controversy, we must also of necessity have gall.[183]
We have only to express regret that so useful a writer as Dr.
Marshall has passed away out of the ranks of controversialists. As a
speaker, too, Dr. Marshall was most delightful; indeed, he spoke
quite as well as he wrote. At the time when he was in the United
States it was thought by some persons that Dr. Marshall was quite the
model of a speaker; for he was at once gentle and commanding, refined
yet highly pungent, scholarly yet most easy to be understood. These
praises were allowed by every one to be his due. We have, then, to
lament the loss of a really richly-gifted Catholic, who, though an
Englishman, was cosmopolitan. And when we remember that such men as
Dr. Marshall (with Dr. Faber, or Mr. Allies, or Canon Oakeley) were
born Protestant—intensely Protestant—Englishmen, we can appreciate
what was involved in their conversion to the church, both in the
intellectual and in the purely social sense. Conversion means more
than a change of conviction to such Englishmen as have been born of
Protestant parents; it means the revolution of the whole life of the
_man_, as well as of the whole life of the Christian. Such men seem
to be born over again. When they have passed away we can say for
them, with as much hope as charity, _Requiescant in pace_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAPAL ELECTIONS.
II.
In the twelfth century the cardinals of the Holy Roman Church were in
full and undisputed possession of the right of electing the Sovereign
Pontiff; and although the exercise of this right is commonly attributed
to the Sacred College, only from the passing of the famous decree of
the Third Council of Lateran, in 1179, beginning _Licet de vitanda
discordia in electione Romani Pontificis_ (cap. vi. _de Elect._), it
rather supposes the cardinals to be already the sole papal electors,
and merely determines what majority of their votes shall constitute a
valid election.[184] Factious and semi-ignorant persons have often
protested against this exclusive right of the cardinals to elect the
visible head of the church. Of such a kind was Wycliffe, whose
diatribe, _Electio Papæ a cardinalibus per diabolum est introducta_,
was condemned by the Council of Constance (artic. xl. sess. viii.); and
Eybel, whose errors were exposed by Mamacchi, under his poetical name
of Pisti Alethini, as a member of the Academy of the Arcadians.[185]
In early times, when the pope died at Rome the cardinals met to elect a
successor in the Lateran or the Vatican basilica, or in the cathedral
of any other city in which they might have determined to hold the
election. Conclave is the term used exclusively for many centuries for
the place in which the cardinals meet in private to elect a pope; but
it was used in the early middle ages of any room securely shut,[186]
just as, among the ancient Romans, _conclave_ was a covered and
enclosed apartment or hall that could be fastened with a lock and
key—_cum clavi_. Long before the pontificate of Gregory X. the
cardinals who assembled for a papal election met in some part of a
large and noble building—generally the sacristy of a cathedral—where
they transacted the business of the day, and returned after each
session to their private abodes. The gloss _Nullatenus_, on the decree
of Alexander III., says that if two-thirds—the majority required—of the
cardinals will not agree upon a candidate, they should be closely
confined until they do—_includantur in aliquo loco de quo exire non
valeant donec consenserint_—and mentions several popes elected after
the cardinals had been subjected to a reasonable duress. This is
precisely the conclave. It was not, however, until the year 1274 that
the mode of procedure in a papal election was settled—after the
incursions of the barbarians and the many vicissitudes to which the
Holy See then became subject had deranged the earlier and apostolic
manner—and the rules and regulations of the modern conclave were
published. After the death of Clement IV. in Viterbo, on Nov. 22, 1268,
the eighteen cardinals composing the Sacred College met there to elect
his successor; but not agreeing after a year and a half, although the
kings of France and Sicily, St. Bonaventure, General of the
Franciscans, and many influential, learned, and holy men came in person
to urge them to compose their differences and relieve the church of her
long widowhood, they were all got together one day, by some artifice,
in the episcopal palace, which was instantly closed upon them and
surrounded with guards. Even this imprisonment did not change their
temper, and after some further delay the captain of the town, Raniero
Gatti, took the bold resolution of removing the entire roof and
otherwise dilapidating the edifice, in hopes that the discomforts of
the season, added to their confinement, might break the stubbornness of
the venerable fathers.[187] This move succeeded, and a compromise was
effected among the discordant cardinals on the 7th of September, 1271,
in virtue of which the papal legate in Syria, Theobald Visconti,
Archdeacon of Liege, was elected. This was not the first time that
extraordinary and almost violent measures had been taken to bring the
cardinals to make a prompt election. At Viterbo the captain of the town
coerced their liberty; at Naples the commandant of the castle bridled
their appetite when, after the death of Innocent IV., in 1254, he
diminished day by day the quantity of food sent in to them—_cibo per
singulos dies imminuto_—until they agreed upon a worthy subject.[188]
Gregory X., who was so singularly elected at Viterbo while far away in
Palestine, called a general council, which met at Lyons on May 2, 1274.
Five hundred bishops, over a thousand mitred abbots and other
privileged ecclesiastics, the patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch,
the grand master of the famous Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, the
kings of France and Aragon, besides ambassadors from Germany, England,
Sicily, and other important nations, took part in it. The pope was
resolved to establish the manner of electing the Roman Pontiff on a
better principle, and now drew up a constitution which, in spite of
considerable opposition from the cardinals, was read between the fourth
and fifth sessions, and finally received the approbation of the
fathers. This is substantially the code that still regulates the
conclave. The original constitution, which had been suspended by some
popes and not observed by the cardinals in several elections, was
introduced into the body of canon law[189] by Boniface VIII., in order
to impress it, if possible, with a more solemn and perpetual obligation
of observance; and when some of the cardinals, incensed at the transfer
of the see to Avignon, maintained that, despite all this, the Sacred
College could modify or abolish it at discretion, it was confirmed by
the General Council of Vienne and their factious spirit reproved. This
conciliar decree has also a place in the canon law, where it is found
among the Clementines (_Ne Romani, 2 de elect._)[190]
“Where the danger is known to be greatest,” says the preamble to Pope
Gregory’s constitution, “there should most care be taken. How many
risks and what great inconvenience a long vacancy of the Holy See
entails is shown by looking back upon the disorders of other days. It
is, therefore, wise that, while diligently engaged in reforming minor
evils, we should not neglect to provide against calamity. Now,
therefore, whatever our predecessors, and particularly Alexander III.,
of happy memory, have done to remove a spirit of discord in the
election of the Roman Pontiff, the same we desire to remain in full
force; for we do not intend to annul their decrees, but only by our
present constitution to supply what experience points out to be
wanting.”
The whole decree may be divided into fifteen paragraphs, which are
called the Fifteen Laws of the Conclave. They are summarized as
follows:
On the death of the pope the cardinals, having celebrated for nine days
his obsequies in the city where he died, shall enter the conclave on
the tenth day, whether absent colleagues have arrived or not, and be
accompanied by a single attendant, whether lay or clerical, or at most,
in case of evident necessity, by two attendants. The conclave shall be
held in the palace last occupied by the pope, and there the cardinals
must live in common, occupying a single spacious hall not cut off by
curtains or partitions, and so carefully closed on every side that no
one can secretly pass in or out. One room, however, may be cut off for
private purposes—_reservato libero ad secretam cameram aditu_—but no
access shall be allowed to any cardinal, nor private conversation with
nor visits to him, except from those who, by consent of all the other
cardinals, may be summoned to consult on matters germane to the affair
in hand; nor shall any one send letters or messages to their lordships
or to any of their familiars, on pain of excommunication. A window or
other opening shall be left in the hall of conclave, through which the
meals are introduced, but it must be of such a size and shape that no
human being can penetrate thereby. If, after three days from the
opening of the conclave, no election has been made, the prelates
appointed to attend to this shall allow each cardinal no more than one
dish at dinner and supper during the next five days, after which only
bread and water until they come to a conclusion. The cardinals shall
take nothing from the papal treasury during the vacancy of the see; but
all its revenues are to be carefully collected and watched over by the
proper officers. They shall treat of nothing but the election, unless
some imminent danger to the temporalities of the Holy See may demand
their attention; and, laying aside all private interests, let them
devote themselves entirely to the common weal; but if any cardinal
shall presume to attempt by bribes, compacts, or other arts to entice
his brethren to his own side, he shall suffer excommunication, nor
shall any manner of agreement, even if sworn to, be valid. If a
cardinal draw off from the conclave, or should he retire from motives
of health, the election must still proceed; yet, if he recover, he
shall be readmitted. Cardinals arriving late or at any stage of the
proceedings, as also those who may be under censures, shall be
received. No one can give his vote outside of the conclave. Two-thirds
of the votes of all the electors present[191] are requisite to elect;
and any one not radically disqualified[192] is eligible to the Papacy.
The feudal superiors of the territory and the municipal officers of the
city in which the conclave is held are charged to observe these
regulations, and shall swear in presence of the clergy and people to do
so. If they fail to do their duty they shall be excommunicated, be
declared infamous and lose their fiefs, and the city itself shall be
interdicted and deprived of its episcopal dignity. Solemn funeral
services are to be held in every important place throughout the
Catholic world as soon as news arrives of the pope’s death; prayers are
to be recited daily and fast days appointed for the speedy and
concordant election of an excellent pontiff.
In this provident constitution of Gregory X. are contained in brief the
rules and regulations which have ever since governed the conclave. In a
few points, however, its severity has been relaxed, particularly by
Clement VI. in the bull _Licet de Constitutione_, dated December 6,
1351; and in others some small modifications have been introduced, in
accordance with the manners and customs of a more refined age, by
Gregory XV. (Ludovisi, 1621–1623) in his comprehensive ceremonial.[193]
Thus Clement VI. (De Beaufort, 1342–1352), while recommending the
greatest frugality at table during the seclusion of the conclave,
removed the alimentary restrictions and left it to the cardinals
themselves to select the kind, quality, and amount of their food, but
forbade the prandial civilities of sending tidbits from one table to
another. The same pope allowed each cardinal to have his bed enclosed
by curtains, and to have two attendants, or conclavists, in every case.
The monastic simplicity of a common sleeping-room was done away with in
the sixteenth century, when each cardinal was allowed the use of a
separate cell, which Pius IV. commanded should be assigned by lot. When
a cardinal’s name and number have been drawn, his domestics upholster
it with purple serge or cloth, if their master was created by the late
pope; but if by a former one, with green—a difference in color that was
first observed in the conclave for the election of Leo X. A few
articles of necessary furniture, such as a bed, table, kneeling-bench,
and a couple of chairs, complete the interior arrangements. On the
outside of his cell each cardinal affixes a small escutcheon emblazoned
with his arms, which serves as a substitute for that vulgar modern
thing called a door-plate. While great care is still taken to hinder
suspicious communications between the conclave and the outer world, it
is no longer prohibited to visit a cardinal or member of his suite,
although the colloquy must be held at some one of the entries, and
whatever is spoken be heard by the prelates doing duty there. Instead
of the single small window—more like an _oubliette_ than anything
else—which Gregory prescribed, openings in the shape of pivotal or
revolving wooden frames, like those used in nunneries and called
_tours_ in French, were adopted at the suggestion of Paride de’ Grassi,
master of ceremonies to Leo X. Eight of them are always connected on
different sides with the hall of conclave, wherever it may be. The ten
days before the conclave can open begin from the very day of the pope’s
death; but sometimes a much longer time has elapsed—as, for instance,
after the death of Alexander VI., when the violence of Cæsar Borgia and
the presence of a French army in Rome occasioned a delay of thirty
days; and again, when Cardinal Ferreri was arrested on his way from
Vercelli to the conclave by the Duke of Milan, his loyal colleagues
waited for him eight days beyond the usual time. The conclave in which
Julius III. was elected in 1550 was not opened until nineteen days
after his predecessor’s death, to oblige the French cardinals, who had
not yet all arrived at Rome. In early ages, before it became customary
to give the hat to occupants of episcopal sees other than the seven
suburbican ones, and when cardinals were strictly bound to reside _in
curia_—_i.e._, to live near the pope of whose court they were the
principal personages—there was generally no necessity for a
considerable delay. Anastasius the Librarian[194] says that Boniface
III., in the year 607, made a decree forbidding any one to treat of a
future pope’s election during the lifetime of the living one, or until
three days after his death; but, as Mabillon shows,[195] this three
days’ delay was observed in the Roman Church long before the seventh
century, as appears from the despatch sent to the Emperor Honorius
after the death of Pope Zosimus in the year 418. It is not known when
it began to be observed as a law. In many cases an election took place
either on the very same day that a pope died or on the following one,
particularly during the era of persecutions and in the tenth and
twelfth centuries, when the seditious disposition of the populace and
the factions of rival barons made any unnecessary delay extremely
hazardous. During the fifteenth, sixteenth, and following centuries the
conclaves have generally been short, averaging about two weeks each.
But during the greater part of the middle ages, after the supremacy of
the Sacred College during the vacancy of the Holy See was undisputed,
and the cardinals had little to fear from princes or people, their own
dissensions often occasioned an interregnum of months, and even years,
to the discredit of their order and the scandal of the Christian world.
The election should take place in Rome, if possible, because Rome is,
or ought to be, the ordinary residence of the Sovereign Pontiffs; but
both before and after Pope Gregory’s constitution many elections have
been held elsewhere, according as the Curia was in one place or
another. Urban II. was elected in Terracina; Calixtus II. in Cluny;
Lucius III. in Velletri; Urban III. in Verona; Gregory VIII. in
Ferrara; Clement III., Alexander VI., Honorius III. in Pisa; Innocent
IV. in Anagni; Alexander IV. and Boniface VIII. in Naples; Urban IV.,
Gregory X., and Martin IV. in Viterbo; Innocent V. in Arezzo; Honorius
IV., Celestin V., and Clement V. in Perugia. During the stay of the
popes in France John XXII., Benedict XII., Clement VI., Innocent VI.,
Urban V., and Gregory XI. were elected at Avignon. John XXIII. was
elected at Bologna, and Martin V. at Constance, since whom all his
successors, except Pius VII., have been elected in Rome. The law of
Gregory X. commanded that the conclave should be held there where the
last pope died—_Statuimus ut, si eundem pontificem in civitate, in quâ
cum sua curia residebat, diem claudere contingat extremum, cardinales
omnes conveniant in palatio, in quo idem pontifex habitabat_—because in
one sense, as of ancient Rome,
... Vejos habitante Camillo,
Illico Roma fuit;
and of modern Rome, _Ubi Papa, ibi Roma_. When, however, he was absent
only on some extraordinary occasion, the election was to be held in
Rome itself, no matter where he died. Gregory XI., who brought back the
see from Avignon, intending to return to France on business and to
better his health, but wishing to assure an Italian election and the
permanent re-transfer of the Holy See to Rome, made a decree on March
19, 1378, ordering a majority of the cardinals, should his death occur
during his absence, to meet in any part of Rome, or, if more
convenient, in some neighboring city, and there elect a successor.
Clement VIII. restricted the place of holding the conclave to Rome
alone, in a bull issued October 6, 1529, on occasion of his journey to
Bologna to crown the Emperor Charles V., and in another one, dated
August 30, 1533, when going to France to confer with Francis I.
When Pius IV. had a mind to go to Trent and preside in person at the
council, he declared on September 22, 1561, that a papal
election—should one become necessary by his death while away—was to be
held in Rome, unless it were under an interdict, in which case in
Orvieto or Perugia. Clement VIII., when going to Ferrara to receive
back the fief which had reverted to the Holy See on the death of
Alphonsus d’Este, declared on March 30, 1598, that, should he die
before returning, the subsequent election was to be held nowhere but in
Rome. Long usage, continued up to the beginning of the present century,
has consecrated the Vatican as the most proper seat of the conclave.
The first pope elected there was Benedict XI. in 1303, and the next was
Urban VI. in 1378. When Honorius IV., of the great house of Savelli,
died where he had lived and held his court, in his family mansion on
the Aventine, some remains of which are seen near the convent of _Santa
Sabina_, the cardinals, in scrupulous observance of the first law of
Gregory’s constitution, met there and elected his successor, Nicholas
IV., on February 22, 1288. Eugene IV. in 1431, and Nicholas V. in 1447,
were elected in the Dominican convent of the Minerva, the great
dormitory of the friars being fitted up for the cardinals, and the
election itself being held in the sacristy behind the choir, over the
door of which a large fresco painting and a Latin inscription
commemorate the event. There were several projects on foot in the
seventeenth century to establish with every possible convenience, and
in accordance with the prescriptions of the Roman ceremonial of
election, a hall of conclave which should serve for all future
occasions. The venerable Lateran and the more modern Quirinal each had
its advocates, and Pius VI. is said by Cancellieri to have intended the
vast and magnificent sacristy building which he erected alongside of
St. Peter’s for such a purpose; but his immediate successor was elected
in Venice on account of the French troubles, and all of _his_
successors have been elected in the Quirinal palace.
On the pope’s death the Sacred College, or apostolic senate of Rome,
succeeded to the government of the States of the Church. All the
officers of the government were instantly suspended until provision was
made to carry on the public business. Only the chamberlain of the Holy
Roman Church, the grand penitentiary, and the vicar-general, who are
always cardinals, continued to exercise their powers by a privilege
granted to them by Pius IV. The chamberlain (camerlengo) was the
executive or head of the government, acting as a quasi-sovereign, and
was consequently honored with a special guard and allowed to coin money
stamped with his family arms and the distinctive heraldic sign of the
vacancy of the see, which is a pavilion over the cross-keys. With him
were associated three other cardinals, each for three days at a time,
one from each of the three orders, beginning with the dean, the first
priest, and first deacon, and so on in turn of seniority. The secretary
of the Sacred College, who is always a prelate of very high rank, was
prime minister and transacted all the correspondence and other
relations of the cardinals with foreign ambassadors and the
representatives of the Holy See at foreign courts. Clement XII.
provided that if the chamberlain and grand penitentiary should die
during the conclave, the cardinals are to elect a successor to him
within three days; but if the cardinal-vicar die, the vicegerent, who
is always a bishop _in partibus_, succeeds _ex-officio_ to his
faculties. The Sacred Congregation of Rome are privileged to transact
business of small importance through their secretaries, and even to
finish affairs of whatever importance, if at the pope’s death they were
so far advanced as to need only the secretary’s signature.
If a cardinal fall ill and choose to remain in conclave, provision is
made to take his vote; but he may retire, if he wish, losing his vote,
however, which cannot be given outside of the conclave or by proxy. If
he recover he is obliged in conscience to return, because it is a duty
of his office, and not a mere personal privilege, to take part in papal
elections. All cardinals, unless specially deprived by the pope before
his death of the right of electing and of being elected, can vote and
are eligible, even if under censures. Thus, cardinals De Noailles and
Alberoni were invited to the conclave at which Innocent XIII. was
elected; but cardinals Baudinelli-Saoli and Coscia had been deprived,
the one by Leo X. and the other by Clement XII., of what is called in
canon law the active and passive voice. The cardinals may elect whom
they please; nor is it necessary to be either a member of the Sacred
College or an Italian to become pope. In former ages the choice of
subjects was more confined than it is at present; for we learn from the
acts of a council composed chiefly of French and Italian bishops,
convened at Rome in 769 by Stephen III., _alias_ IV., to condemn the
anti-pope Constantine, who was not even a cleric, that no one who was
not either a cardinal-priest or deacon could aspire to the
Papacy—_Nullus unquam præsumat ... nisi per distinctos gradus
ascendens, diaconus aut presbyter cardinalis factus fuerit, ad sacrum
pontificatus honorem promoveri_.[196]
Nevertheless, in view, presumably, of the greater good of the church,
many persons have since been elected who did not answer to this
description. This was the case with Gregory V. in 996; Sylvester II. in
999; Clement II. in 1046; Damasus II. in 1048; Leo IX. in 1049; Victor
II. in 1055; Nicholas II. in 1058; Alexander II. in 1061; Calixtus II.
in 1119; Eugene III. in 1145; Urban IV. in 1261; Gregory X. in 1271;
Celestine V. in 1294; Clement V. in 1305; Urban V. in 1362, and Urban
VI. in 1378, since whom no one not a cardinal has been elected,
although several have come near being chosen. At the conclaves at which
Adrian VI. and Clement VII. were elected Nicholas Schomberg, a
celebrated Dominican and archbishop of Capua, received a number of
votes; and as late as the middle of the last century, at the conclave
from which proceeded Benedict XIV., Father Barberini, ex-general of the
Capuchins and apostolic preacher, was repeatedly voted for. No matter
what may have been a man’s previous condition, he can be elected; and
there are not a few instances of persons of ignoble birth or mean
antecedents having been exalted to the Papacy, which they have
illustrated by their virtues or their learning: “Choose the best, and
him who shall please you most of your mother’s sons (_children of the
Catholic Church_), and set him on his father’s throne”[197] (_as
vicegerent of God in his kingdom on earth_).
However, since Sixtus V. (1585–1595), who is said to have been a
hogherd in his youth, all the popes have belonged to noble families;
for, says Cardinal Pallavicini, the celebrated Jesuit and historian of
the Council of Trent, nobility of birth, although no necessary
condition, adds dignity and splendor to the pontificate—_reca
grandecoro ed ornamento al pontificato_.[198] But then he belonged to a
princely family himself and wrote two centuries ago.
Almost every European nationality has had a representative on the papal
throne; but for several centuries the Italians have jealously guarded
its steps from any one but themselves, and perhaps with reason so long
as the pope was temporal sovereign of a large part of the Peninsula.
Adrian V., of Utrecht (1522–1523), was the last _foreigner_ ever
allowed to wear the tiara, and he for his relations with the powerful
emperor Charles V., rather than for his undoubted virtues and learning;
and yet so great was the indignation of the Romans when his name was
announced that the cardinals were insulted and some of them maltreated
as they left the conclave. But if a Hollander might be tolerated for
some grave political reasons—not a Frenchman under any condition. In
the conclave of 1458 the worthiest subject to very many of his brethren
seemed the Cardinal d’Estouteville, Archbishop of Rouen—the same who
built the magnificent church of San Agostino at Rome. But _Timeo Danaos
et dona ferentes_; so when there was a fine chance of his getting the
requisite number of votes, Orsini and Colonna, as heads of the Roman
party, deliberately turned the tide in favor of Piccolomini, although
his record was bad and his health not good. When Clement V. (Bertrand
de Got, archbishop of Bordeaux, 1505–1514) was elected, he summoned the
Sacred College to Lyons to assist at his coronation. When the order
reached the cardinals old Rosso Orsini, their dean, rose and said: “My
venerable brethren, soon we shall see the Rhone—but, if I know the
Gascons, the Tiber will not soon see a pope again.” And so
D’Estouteville, with all his wealth and learning and high connections,
was made to feel that
Necdum etiam causæ irarum sævique dolores
Exciderant animo.
Gregory X. prescribed that a strict watch should be kept over the
conclave wherever it might be held. When held in Rome the
representatives of the noblest families have a principal part in
maintaining order in the city and protecting the cardinals from any
kind of interference. The marshal of the Holy Roman Church and guardian
of the conclave watches over the external peace and quiet of the Sacred
College. This is one of the highest offices held by a layman at the
Roman court. It is hereditary, and belonged for over four hundred years
to the great baronial family of Savelli until its extinction. It passed
in 1712 to the princely family of Chigi. The very ancient and now ducal
family of Mattei was charged with preserving the peace of the _Ghetto_
and _Trastevere_. For this purpose it used to raise and equip a small
body of troops which was kept up as long as the conclave lasted. The
majordomo of the late pope is _ex-officio_ governor of the conclave
since the time of Clement XII. (Corsini, 1730–1740). Although he also
exercises some external jurisdiction, he is more particularly required
to attend to the domestic wants of the cardinals and preserve order
within the palace where the conclave may be held. Delegations from the
various colleges of the Roman prelacy—apostolic prothonotaries,
auditors of the pope, clerks of the chamber, etc.—taking their orders
daily from the governor, are to be stationed at one or other of the
_Ruote_, or turnstile windows, during the whole of the conclave.
_Prælati_, says Pius IV.,[199] _ad custodiam conclavis deputati, sub
pœna perjurii et suspensionis a divinis, maxima et exquisita diligentia
utantur in inspiciendis ac perscrutandis epulis, aliisve rebus, ac
personis conclavi intrantibus, ac de eo exeuntibus, ne sub earum rerum
velamine literæ, aut notæ, vel signa aliqua transmittantur_.
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when every species of
gambling and games of chance was practised with frenzied passion in
Italy, it was very common in Rome, although prohibited under severe
penalties by Pius IV. and Gregory XIV. as a sort of sacrilege, to bet
on the cardinals whose “backers” thought they had a chance of being
elected.
The collect _Pro eligendo Pontifice_—that God may grant a worthy pastor
to his church—is said at all Masses throughout the world from the
beginning of the conclave until news arrives of the pope’s election. In
Rome there is a daily procession of the clergy from the Church of St.
Lawrence _in Damaso_ to St. Peter’s basilica (if the conclave be held
in the Vatican), chanting the litany of the saints and other prayers.
When the procession arrives there a Mass _de Spiritu Sancto_ is said by
a papal chaplain in a temporary chapel fitted up near the main entrance
to the conclave. The singing is by the papal choir.
The literature, if we may call it so, of papal elections is varied and
extensive. Besides the letters, bulls, and conciliar decrees of
twenty-eight popes from Boniface I. in 419 to Pius IX., there is a host
of writers on the subject, some of whom are distinguished for piety and
learning, while others are noted for their hatred of the Holy See.
Almost every conclave from Clement V.’s down has had its chronicler or
historian. The oldest special treatise extant on a papal election is
one written by Cardinal Albericus, a monk of Monte Cassino, in 1050—_De
Electione Romani Pontificis, liber_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE HOLY CAVE OF MANRESA.
_DIGITUS DEI EST HIC!_
It is difficult to bring it home to one’s mind that Manresa is a place
of petty industries and striving for worldly gain; that it ever had a
hand in war or bloodshed, or, indeed, ever took any active part in the
turmoil of ordinary life; for its very name has for more than three
hundred years been almost synonymous with solitude and ascetic piety,
on account of the _Santa Cueva_, or Holy Cave, so celebrated throughout
the Christian world, where, amid the ecstasies of divine contemplation
and the severities of the most rigorous penance, St. Ignatius de Loyola
laid the foundation of the Society of Jesus, and by the infusion of
supernatural light, to use the expression of the Congregation of the
Rota, composed his famous _Spiritual Exercises_—a work which, said St.
Francis de Sales two hundred years ago, “has given as many saints to
the church of God as it contains letters.”
But Manresa is, in fact, a busy, thriving place of about fifteen
thousand inhabitants, on the direct railway line from Barcelona to
Zaragoza. It is a centre of industry, and contains a number of cotton
and woollen mills by no means in harmony with its mediæval walls and
towers that rise up out of the plain, gray and time-worn, and with many
a mark of ancient conflict. For it is a walled town, and was in
existence before the Roman conquest. We should say _city_, for so it
has been styled ever since the ninth century, at least; and Don Jaime
of Aragon, by a diploma of April 22, 1315, conferred on it, for its
loyal services, the perpetual title of _buena y leal ciudad_. Nay,
more, after Marshal Macdonald came here in 1811, and burned five
hundred houses and factories, and slaughtered many of the inhabitants
with a ferocity almost unequalled, the Spanish Cortes gave it the
qualification of _muy noble y muy leal_ city (for these Spanish towns
have their gradations of titled rank, of which they are as jealous as
an ancient hidalgo of his family quarterings), on account of the
bravery of the people, who rallied in their desperation and madness,
and, pursuing the enemy, amply avenged their dead in true national
fashion.
We arrived at Manresa after dark, and, as there was not a single
vehicle at the station, we gave our travelling-bags to a porter, and
followed after him on foot through narrow, ascending, tortuous,
dimly-lighted streets to the Fonda de San Domingo, very Spanish in
character, with a court full of diligences and stables on the ground
floor, and an enormous dining-room above, out of which opened the
bedrooms—at least, ours did. This was by no means favorable to repose,
for the hilarity of its _habitués_ was kept up to a late hour, to say
nothing of the singing and music in the neighboring streets. This would
not have surprised us in Andalucia, but in an industrious place like
Manresa we expected to find that labor had laid its repressing hand on
the people, as is so often the case with us in the north. But the
elastic temperament of the race causes a rebound as soon as the hour of
toil is over. Then the dance and the song have their time, and
castanets and the tambour take the place of the shuttle and the
spindle. Manresa is noted for the publication of romanceros, ballads,
and complaintes, illustrated with coarse engravings, which are sold
under the general name of _pliegos_. This kind of literature is a key
to the character of the people, and therefore not without its interest;
but the sound of these jolly songs in such a place, and at so late an
hour, was, it must be confessed—unreasonable as we may appear—very much
to our disgust; for not only were we fatigued with our journey, but our
thoughts were continually wandering off to the lonely cave and its
mystic tome.
We were up betimes in the morning, notwithstanding, and, seeing the
tower of a church from our window, we hurried out; for all through
Spain, as in Italy, if there is anything worth seeing in a town, it is
certainly the churches. However, it was not a question of art with us,
though by no means insensible to the grand in architecture or to the
beautiful in painting and sculpture. The church we soon came to had
given its name to the Fonda. It was the church of St. Dominic, an
edifice of the fourteenth century, formerly connected with a Dominican
convent. It is a grim, mouldy church, with a tomb-like atmosphere about
it—and, indeed, it is partly paved with memorial stones of those who
sleep in the damp vaults below. But it was quiet and solemn, and there
was a certain grave simplicity about it peculiar to the Dominican
churches in Spain. A priest was saying Mass in subdued tones at the
very altar where St. Ignatius once saw the glorious Humanity of our
Saviour at the elevation of the Host, and a few people were kneeling
here and there on the flag-stones, praying devoutly. St. Dominic and
the dog with a flaming brand still seemed to be keeping watch and ward
over the place, though his children are banished from his native land.
The adjoining convent often gave St. Ignatius hospitality, and it was
at one of its windows, after being tempted to despair in view of his
sins, that he exclaimed: “Lord, I will not do aught that will offend
thee!” He often made the _Via Crucis_ in the cloisters, bearing a large
wooden cross on his shoulders from station to station, shedding floods
of tears over the divine Sufferer. This cross is still religiously
preserved, and bears the inscription:
Enecvs A
Lohola porta
bat hanc crv
cem, 1522
—Ignatius de Loyola bore this cross, 1522.
We found Manresa exceedingly picturesque by daylight, rising abruptly,
as it does, out of the valley of the Llobregat on one side and that of
the Cardoner on the other. The railway station is at the foot of the
eminence, with the river between, and the effect of the steep cliffs,
crowned by the noble and loyal city, is very striking. Directly
opposite, as if it sprang out of the mount, rises the Seo, a venerable
cathedral of the fourteenth century, beautifully mellowed and embrowned
by time. Further to the left are the spires of the Carmen and the tower
of San Miguel; while at the right, but lower down, built into the very
side of the cliff, so that it seems like a continuation of it, is the
church of the Jesuits, with the Santa Cueva which gives celebrity to
the city. One would like to see the Holy Cave in its primitive
simplicity; but such was the devotion of pilgrims who came here in
thousands after the canonization of St. Ignatius that, to save it from
being carried off piecemeal, it was found necessary to place some
safeguard around it, and it is now enclosed within the walls of the
church.
Crossing the bridge that leads from the station, and walking along the
opposite bank beneath the long arms of the umbrageous plane-trees for
five minutes, we turned to the left, and, going up a short street,
found ourselves directly beneath the overhanging cliff, which is
tapestried with vines and the delicate fronds of the maiden-hair, kept
green and fresh by little cascades of clear water that come trickling
down the rocks with a pleasant murmur, glittering like the facets of a
thousand jewels in the bright morning sun. Here is the Holy Cave,
though no longer open on the side of the valley, towards which turn
with interest so many hearts from the ends of the earth. We passed
beneath the church walls, with its long line of sculptured saints, of
rather coarse workmanship in the Renaissance style, but producing a
striking effect from the valley below. One more turn to the left up a
steep path, and we were on the terrace leading to the entrance. A
statue of St. Ignatius is over the door. One always recognizes his
striking physiognomy, with the noble dome of solemn thought that crowns
it, and we saluted it with reverence and love, as we had done in many a
strange land, as a symbol of the paternal kindness we had met with from
the order to which he has bequeathed his spirit.
The church consists of a single aisle, with four small chapels on each
side, and a latticed gallery above for the inmates of the residence.
There is nothing remarkable about it, and, in fact, it was never
completed according to the original plan, owing to the suppression of
the order in Spain. Seeing an open door on the gospel side of the
sanctuary, we went directly towards it and found ourselves in a long,
narrow passage lined with portraits of the Jesuit saints, and, at the
further end, a doorway secured by a strong iron grating, above which is
graven:
SANTA CUEVA.
Finding the grating ajar, we pushed it back, and, descending three
stone steps, found ourselves in the Holy Cave. It is long and narrow,
being about thirty feet in length, seven in width, and about the same
in height. A small octagon window is cut through the wall that closes
the original entrance, and there is a feeble lamp hanging before the
altar, but neither gives light enough to disperse the gloom, and, as
there was no one in the cave, it was as silent and impressive as a
tomb. You could only hear the pleasant rippling of the water over the
rocks without. The pavement is the solid rock, and the upper part of
the cave is in its rough state, but the lower part of the walls is
faced with marble, and jasper, and a series of bas-reliefs that tell
the history of the saint. An inscription on the wall says:
“In this place, in the year 1522, St. Ignatius composed the book of
_Exercises_, the first written in the Society of Jesus, which has been
approved by a bull from his Holiness Paul III.”
At the right, as you enter, is a projection, or shelf, in the wall, on
which the _Spiritual Exercises_ were written, and there is a cross
hollowed in the rock where the saint used to trace the holy sign before
beginning to write. One’s first impulse is to kiss the ground where his
holy feet once stood, and pray where he so often prayed. St. Ignatius
said he learned more in one short hour of prayer in the cave of Manresa
than all the doctors in the world could have taught him. Here, like St.
Jerome, trembling before the judgments of God, he used to smite his
breast with a hard stone. Here he wept over the sufferings of Christ,
with whose bodily Presence he was often favored, as well as the
presence of the angels and their Queen. “Flow fast, my tears,” wrote he
in this very place, “break forth, my heart, in bitter sighs, that I may
weep worthily over the sorrows of my Saviour! O Jesus! may I die before
I cease to have a horror of sin. God liveth, in whose sight I stand;
for while there is breath in me, and the spirit of life in my nostrils,
my lips shall not give utterance nor my heart consent to
iniquity.”[200]
A phalanx from his right hand is preserved here in a crystal reliquary,
set in gold and jewels, on which is graven the Scriptural exclamation
of Pope Paul III. after reading the Constitutions of St. Ignatius:
Digitus Dei est hic. Paulus III.
—The finger of God is here!...
Over the altar is a large bas-relief of the saint, kneeling before a
cross in the Holy Cave and gazing up at the Virgin, who, enthroned on a
cloud, is dictating to him the _Spiritual Exercises_, according to the
constant local tradition. This relief is framed in black marble with
white mouldings, and on each side are angels of white marble playing on
musical instruments. These, as well as the other sculptures, were done
by Francisco Grau, a Manresan artist of local celebrity. Among the
others is one in which St. Ignatius, arrayed like the Spanish
_caballero_ he was, with sword in hand, is keeping his vigil before the
altar of Our Lady of Montserrat. In the next he is giving his rich
garments to a beggar, coming down from the mount. Beyond is the miracle
of the Pozo, of which we shall speak further on, and many such.
There were, at the time of our visit, four Jesuit Fathers in the
adjoining _Casa_, and a daily service was held in the Santa Cueva. Many
indulgences are attached to the place, on the usual conditions, granted
by Pope Gregory XV. and other pontiffs. The cave, of course, was
regarded from the time of St. Ignatius as a place singularly favored by
Heaven. In his day it belonged to Don Fernando Roviralta, a great
friend of the saint. He lived to be over a hundred years of age, and at
his death he bequeathed it to his nephew, Don Mauricio Cardona, who
sold it January 27, 1602, to the Marquesa de Ailona, who in the
following year gave it to the Jesuits. As soon as it fell into their
possession means were used to ornament it, and in the course of time a
_Casa de retiro_ was built adjoining, with a church intended to be one
of the finest in Catalonia. The Countess of Fuentes, a native of
Manresa, gave one thousand escudos to ornament the Holy Cave. Don Pedro
Osorio, commissary-general of Lombardy, came here on foot from
Barcelona when seventy years of age, and presented eight thousand
escudos for the same purpose. And finally the crown took it under its
protection, and Philip V. gave it a valuable chalice on which were
graven the royal arms. Not only Don John of Austria, but several of the
kings of Spain, came here to visit a place of historic as well as
religious interest, for the mysterious influences that have gone out of
this Holy Cave have been a power in the world. The public documents of
Manresa show the devotion of the Christian world to have been such that
some days in the year 1606 there were more than a thousand visitors,
many of whom came from a distance. They used to carry away with them
pieces of the Holy Cave, which they preserved as relics. A fragment was
sent to Queen Margaret of Austria, who had it set in gold surrounded by
rubies and diamonds, and wore it on festivals of great solemnity.
When St. Ignatius came to Manresa there were only about a thousand
families in the place, it having been reduced by wars and pestilence to
one-fourth its former size. It is said that he stopped at the bridge
leading to the city to pray at the chapel of Nuestra Señora de la
Guia—Our Lady of Guidance—and was there supernaturally directed to the
cave. It was then surrounded by shrubs and brambles, and was almost
inaccessible. Though so near the city, it seemed retired, for it lay
towards the broad valley, and was shaded by thorn-bushes and the
cistus, which gave it an aspect of solitude. The pavement was uneven,
and it was much smaller than at the present day. The birds of the air
made it their home, and water trickled down the walls. The first thing
the saint did was to prostrate himself on the ground and kiss it, then,
with a sharp stone, trace a cross on the wall, still to be seen.
From the windows of the passage now leading to the Santa Cueva is the
same landscape St. Ignatius had before him from the mouth of the cave;
only in his day the country was wilder, and therefore more beautiful,
if possible, and there were no factories, no railway, in the valley to
disturb the peaceful solitude. It is certainly a landscape of
surpassing beauty, and we could imagine his exaltation of soul in
gazing at it; for St. Ignatius had the soul of a poet and was a great
admirer of nature. He loved to walk in the meadows and gardens, to
observe the form, color, and odor of flowers; and from time to time,
when at Rome, used to go forth on his balcony to look at the starry
heavens, as if to refresh his soul.
Directly beneath the cliff is the swift-gliding stream, and, beyond it,
a hill crowned with the tower of Santa Catalina, then dark with sombre
pines and gigantic oaks, but now descending in gentle terraces covered
with the silvery olive. At the left opens the smiling valley of the
Llobregat, covered with perpetual verdure, once called the Valle del
Paraiso—the Vale of Paradise—and in the distance, against the bluest of
heavens, rise the marvellous pinnacles of Montserrat, the sacred
mountain of Spain.
Over the present entrance to the Holy Cave is an ancient stone
crucifix, once part of the famous Cruz del Tort, at which St. Ignatius
so often went to pray. On the eve of his festival, 1627, the Christ was
seen, to the astonishment of every one present at Vespers, to exude
blood, first from the side, then from the hands and feet, and finally
from the thorn-crowned head. We went to visit the cross from which it
was removed for preservation. On leaving the Santa Cueva we kept on, up
the side of the hill, by a circuitous road the saint must often have
trod, then towards the east by an old narrow street. We passed a
crucifix in a niche, with red curtains before it, and a hanging lamp.
Just beyond came several peasants with scarlet Catalan caps, broad
purple sashes, blue trowsers, black velvet jackets, and alpargatas
laced with wide blue tape across their white stockings. They were
driving mules that looked as gay as their owners, with their heads
streaming with bright tassels and alive with tinkling bells. We soon
came to a house on which was a fresco representing the Virgin appearing
to St. Ignatius. Just opposite this was a terrace on the edge of the
hill, where stood the Cruz del Tort, a lofty stone cross with several
stone steps around the base. It was on these steps that St. Ignatius,
while praying here one day, as he was accustomed to do, and shedding
floods of tears, had the mystery of the Holy Trinity made clear to him
by some vision which he compares to three keys of a musical instrument.
His eyes were opened to a new sense of divine things. His doubts fell
off like a garment. His whole nature seemed changed, and he felt ready,
if need were, to die for what was here made manifest to him. On the
cross is this inscription:
Hic habvit St. Ignativs
Trinitatis visionem, 1522.
While we were saying a prayer at the foot of the cross a peasant woman,
who was passing by, stopped to tell us how San Ignacio came here to do
penance and had a vision of God. The terrace occupies an opening
between the houses which frame an incomparable view over the valley of
the Llobregat, with the solemn turrets of Montserrat in full sight. The
tall gray cross against that golden sky, with the Vale of Paradise
spread out at the foot, is certainly one of the most ravishing views it
is possible to conceive. Steps descend from the cross, winding a little
way down the side of the cliff, which is covered with ivy, to a pretty
fountain fed by clear water bubbling from the rocks.
Turning back from the Cruz del Tort, and passing through the suburbs,
we soon came into the city among streets that looked centuries old. We
passed San Antonio in a niche, and soon came to a small Plaza with a
painting of St. Dominic at the corner, and in the centre a stone
obelisk with a long inscription, of which we give a literal
translation:
“To Ignatius de Loyola, son of Beltran, a native of Cantabria,
the founder of the Society of Jesus, who, in his thirtieth
year, while valiantly fighting in defence of his country, was
dangerously wounded, but being cured by the special mercy of
God, and inspired with an ardent desire to visit the holy
places at Jerusalem, after making a vow of chastity, set forth
on the way, and, laying aside his military ensigns in the
temple of Mary, the Mother of God, at Montserrat, clothed
himself in sackcloth, and in this state of destitution came to
this place, where with fastings and prayers he wept over his
past offences, and avenged them like a fresh soldier of Christ.
In order to perpetuate the memory of his heroic acts, for the
glory of Christ and the honor of the Society, Juan Bautista
Cardona, a native of Valencia, bishop of Vich, and appointed to
the see of Tortosa, out of great devotion to the said father
and his order, dedicates this stone to him as a most holy man
to whom the whole Christian world is greatly indebted, Sixtus
V. being pope, and Philip II. the great and Catholic king of
Spain.”
On another side is the following:
“This monument, having been overthrown during a time of
calamity, has been restored and commended to posterity by the
most noble ayuntamiento of the city of Manresa, out of
ineffaceable love, Pius V. being Sovereign Pontiff, Carlos IV.
king, and Ignacio de la Justicia governor of the city. 1799.”
Bishop Cardona, the first to set up this monument, was an able writer
of the golden age of Spanish literature, and a man of such vast
knowledge that he was employed by Philip II. in the formation of the
royal library at the Escorial. He was a great admirer of St. Ignatius,
and left an inedited manuscript, now in the National Library, entitled
_Laus St. Ignatii_.
While we were standing before this obelisk we were agreeably convinced
that, notwithstanding all the ravages of pestilence and the massacres
of the French, the good and loyal city was in no danger of being
depopulated; for the doors of a large edifice on one side of the square
opened, and forth came a swarm of boys that could not have been
equalled, it seemed to us, since the famous crusade of children in the
thirteenth century. They came from a school in what was once the
Jesuits’ college, built out of the ancient hospital of Santa Lucia,
where St. Ignatius used to minister to the sick, and sometimes seek
shelter himself. This was what we were in search of. Connected with the
college is the modern church of St. Ignatius, and from one side of the
nave you enter the old church of the hospital, which has been carefully
preserved. Here we found the Capilla del Rapto, a small square chapel,
opening into the aisle and covered with frescos. It is so called
because it was here St. Ignatius lay rapt in ecstasy from the hour of
complines on the eve of Passion Sunday till the same hour on the
following Saturday. It was during this wonderful withdrawal into the
spiritual world that the foundation of the Society of Jesus was
revealed to him, as is stated in an inscription on the wall. For more
than two centuries a solemn octave has been annually celebrated here in
commemoration of this divine ecstasy. Beneath the simple altar lies the
saint in effigy, wearing the coarse robe which made the _gamins_ of
that day call him _El Saco_, or Old Sackcloth, till they found out he
was a saint. Over the altar is a painting of the Rapto, in which,
unable to endure the vision of Christ Glorified with mortal eyes, St.
Ignatius is mercifully rapt in ecstasy. Angels bend around him, holding
the banner of the Holy Name that has become the watchword of the
Society. _In hoc vocabitur tibi nomen._ On one side of the chapel he is
represented catechising the children, and on the other he stands in his
penitential garments, exhorting the patients of the hospital, while
some lord, doubtless Don Andrés de Amigant, is kneeling to him in
reverence.
The original pavement of stone is covered with a wooden floor to
preserve it, but a brass plate, on which is inscribed the name of
Jesus, is raised to show the spot where the saint’s head lay in his
ecstasy. The stone is worn with kisses, and has been partly cut away by
pilgrims. Behind the chapel is the room where he used to teach children
the catechism, and there is the same old stone stoup for holy-water
that was used in his day. Here, too, is an inscription:
Serviendo en este Hospital
Ignacio a gloria Divina,
Enseñaba la Doctrina
En las piedras de este umbral.
A few months after his arrival at Manresa St. Ignatius fell ill and was
taken to this hospital among the poor with whom he now identified
himself. But Don Andrés de Amigant, a nobleman of the place, soon had
him removed to his own house, where he and his wife nursed him till he
recovered. It was a pious custom of theirs to take two patients from
the hospital every year, and tend them as if our Saviour in person. For
this Don Andrés was styled “Simon the Leper” by the wits of Manresa,
and Doña Iñés, his wife, was called Martha. This admirable charity had
been practised in the family nearly two hundred years. It appears by a
MS. in possession of the Marquis de Palmerola, its present
representative, that a remote ancestor of his, Gaspar de Amigant,
introduced the practice into his family in 1364, out of devotion. He
added two rooms to his house, where he kept two poor patients,
providing every remedy and means of subsistence, and, as soon as they
recovered, diligently sought out others to supply their places, that,
as he said, so religious an exercise might never be wanting in his
family. How faithful his descendants were to so holy a practice appears
from the statement that Juan de Amigant in 1478, having, “according to
his custom,” received a woman named Ignès Buxona into his house, she
bequeathed to him when she died, having no relations, the patronage of
the benefice of San Francisco in the Seo of Manresa.
Many traditions concerning St. Ignatius have been preserved in this
pious family. A cross has been recently discovered on the wall of the
chapel of _S. Ignacio enfermo_ during some repairs, similar to that in
the Santa Cueva. And there is a curious old family painting
commemorating his illness in the house. The convalescent saint is
represented sitting up in bed, supported by the left hand of Don
Andrés, who with his right offers him a cup of broth. Behind are Doña
Angela, his mother, Doña Iñés, his wife, and all the other members of
the household, each one with some restoring dish in hand. In front of
the bed is the inscription:
Stvs
Ignativs
de Loyola
lang
vens
—that is, St. Ignatius ill.
At the foot of the bed is another:
Hæc omnia evenervnt 22 Ivlii anno 1522.
—All these things took place July 22, 1522. His illness, by this,
appears to have occurred about four months after his arrival at
Manresa.
The honor of having St. Ignatius was disputed by many noble families of
the place. In the _patio_ of one of the houses he sometimes visited, in
the street called Sobreroca, is a picture of him, now indulgenced by
the diocesan authority.
The college of St. Ignatius was founded in 1603. The ayuntamiento of
Manresa, touched by a discourse during the Lent of 1601 at the Seo,
purchased the ancient hospital of Santa Lucia, and established the
Jesuits here soon after. The college became a flourishing institution,
and they were before long able to build a new church and adorn the
precious chapel of the Rapto.
When Carlos III. issued the decree for the expulsion of the Jesuits,
April 3, 1767, the residence at Manresa was at first overlooked, and
the fathers, as usual, celebrated the octave of the _Maravilloso
Rapto_. On the very day it ended, April 11, the eve of Palm Sunday, at
the same hour when St. Ignatius awoke from his mysterious trance,
crying: “Ay Jesus! Ay Jesus!” the venerable fathers were seized and
carried away amid the tears of the citizens to Tarragona, where they
were put on a vessel of war, and, with nine hundred from Aragon, were
transported to Ajaccio. The island of Corsica had on it at one time
three thousand Jesuits who, for no crime, had been barbarously torn
from their native land. Among them were the venerable Pignatelli and
several who were eminent for letters. But on the 15th of August, 1769,
Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio, who proved the scourge of
Spain.
The churches of the Jesuits were dismantled and the temporalities sold.
The vestments and sacred vessels were given to poor churches of the
diocese, but even these were mostly sold afterwards to help to defray
the expenses of the war of independence. The chalice of Philip V.,
given to the Santa Cueva, was, however, saved.
Manresa has the glory of having been the first city in Catalonia to
sound the war-cry against Bonaparte, and by the battle of Bruch, in
which a handful of men routed the French army, to convince Spain that
the Great Captain’s troops were not invincible. After the French had
captured Tortosa they came to Manresa, and the house of the Santa Cueva
was turned into a barrack and the church into a stable. With the
restoration of the Bourbons returned the Jesuits. At Manresa the people
rang the bells, and went out to meet them with cries of _Viva la
Compañia_! The mules were taken from their carriages, and men drew them
to the Seo, where the clergy and people with tears of emotion chanted
the _Te Deum_. On July 25, 1816, they were reinstated in their former
places, the keys of the Santa Cueva were presented to them in a silver
basket, and on the 31st of July the festival of St. Ignatius was
celebrated with solemn pomp in the Seo, with a congratulatory discourse
on the restoration of the society.
Manresa has always been a religious city, as is to be seen by the
number of solidly-built churches and the remains of its monastic
institutions. When St. Ignatius quitted the place it is said there was
hardly a person left unconverted. And when he was canonized there was a
general explosion of joy, exhibited in Spanish fashion by dances,
comedies, Moorish fights, illuminations, fireworks, salvos of
artillery, triumphal arches and bowers—all of which contrast strangely
with the penitential life of the saint in his cave.
There is something very friendly and cordial about the people.
Inquiring our way to the Seo of an old woman, she said as she pointed
it out: “Go with God; may he preserve you from all ill.”
We went on through the steep, narrow streets, which are often hewn out
of the rock. The houses show traces of war and violence, and would be
gloomy but for the galleries and hanging gardens with flowers and
orange-trees. The women were gossiping from balcony to balcony. The
_plazas_ were lively with trade. Everywhere was an interesting picture
of Spanish life. In one place we passed a group of women around a well,
washing at a huge tank, beating their clothes with wooden paddles, all
laughing, all talking, all looking up with a flash of wonderful
expression in their brown faces.
The Seo is an immense Gothic edifice, the first stone of which was laid
October 9, 1328, but the crypt is several centuries older. The nave is
of enormous width, which gives it an air of grandeur, and there are
some fine stained windows, though greatly injured by the French. It is
gloomy, but, when lighted up for a solemn service, presents an imposing
appearance. There are queer Saracens’ heads on the walls of the choir,
and steps lead to one of those subterranean churches full of solemn
gloom so favorable to meditation and solitary prayer.
Among the notable things to be seen at Manresa is the Pozo di Gallina,
where took place what is called the _primer milagro_ of St. Ignatius.
Tradition says, as he was crossing the principal street of the city,
called Sobreroca, on his way from the Carmen to the hospital of Santa
Lucia, he met a child crying for fear of her mother, because the hen
she was carrying home had escaped and fallen into an old well close by.
Touched by her grief, the saint paused a moment, as if in prayer, and,
while he stood, the water in the well rose to the brim, bringing with
it the hen, which with a smile he restored to the child and went on his
way. An oratory was afterwards built here, and the healing virtues of
the water—such is the power of charity—have often been experienced by
the people of Manresa, as is testified by the inscription from the pen
of the learned Padre Ramon Solá:
Disce, viator, amor quid sit quo Ignatius ardet
Testis aqua est, supplex hanc bibe, doctus abi.
S. Ignacio de Loyola
en el año del Señor de 1522
hizo aqui el primer milagro
sacando viva á flote hasta el
borde una gallina ya ahogada.
This favored hen naturally became an object of special care, and it
seems to have become the ancestress of an illustrious breed which kings
did not disdain to have set before them at table.
We can fancy this _gallina resucitada_ laying now and then an egg, as
Hawthorne says of the Pyncheon hens, “not for any pleasure of her own,
but that the world might not absolutely lose so admirable a breed.”
Brillat-Savarin pretended that the redeeming merit of the Jesuits was
the discovery and introduction of the turkey into Europe.[201] Had he
only known of this race of hens, rendered meet for the palates of
princes by their great founder, they might have had an additional title
to his approbation. Father Prout, speaking of the Jesuits being accused
of having a hand in every political disturbance for the last three
hundred years, compares them to Mother Carey’s chickens, which always
make their appearance in a storm, and, for this reason, give rise to a
belief among sailors that it is the _fowl_ that has raised the tempest!
How ominous, then, was this Spanish hen of Manresa! We could not find
out whether there are any scions of this time-honored race still living
in their ancestral coops, or whether they were all suppressed with the
order as dangerous to the state; but we do know that six of the
breed—three _pollos_ and three _pollas_—in a line direct from the
famous hen, were, in the beginning of the year 1603 (the miracle of the
Pozo, it must be remembered, took place in 1522), sent to her Catholic
majesty, Queen Margaret of Austria, who received them with as many
demonstrations of pleasure as would have been consistent with royal
etiquette in Spain.
We trust no supposititious egg was ever smuggled into the nest of this
illustrious _gallina_ to deteriorate the breed. Père Vanière, a learned
French Jesuit of note in the last century, has described in an able
Latin poem, part of which has been translated by Delille, the sorrows
of a poor old hen when she found, for instance, that she had hatched a
brood of ducks, which became the torment of her life by their
inclination for water. As Hood has it:
“The thing was strange—a contradiction
It seemed of nature and her works,
For little chicks beyond conviction
To float without the aid of corks.”
Imagine, then, the woes of this maternal hen, in her new-fledged pride
of race, should any Moorish or Guinea fowl taint her ennobled Spanish
blood!
There is a hotel at Manresa, called the Chicken, of about the same
stamp as the San Domingo, though Mr. Bayard Taylor, whose experience in
such matters transcends ours, satisfied himself that, “although the
Saint has altogether a better sound than the Chicken, the Chicken is
really better than the Saint!”
It was one of St. Ignatius’ favorite devotions, while at Manresa, to
visit the sanctuary of Our Lady of Viladordis, on the banks of the
Llobregat, about three miles from the city. The last time he went there
he gave his hempen girdle of three strands to the tenant of a
neighboring farm-house who had often offered him hospitality, and
assured him that as long as he and his posterity should continue to aid
the poor they would never lack the means of a decent livelihood, and,
though they might not attain great wealth, they would never be reduced
to absolute poverty; which prophecy has been fulfilled to the present
day, for the family still continues to exist. In this rural church a
solemn jubilee is celebrated every year on Whitmonday in memory of St.
Ignatius. Over the altar is a picture of the saint inscribed: “St.
Ignatius, founder of the Jesuits, in the year 1522, the first of his
conversion, frequented this church of Our Lady of Viladordis, and here
received singular favors from Heaven, in memory of which this devout
and grateful parish dedicates this portrait, Feb. 19, 1632.”
In 1860 Queen Isabella II., the great-granddaughter of Carlos III.,
came to Manresa, and, after visiting the Santa Cueva, expressed a wish
to the city authorities that a monument so important in the religious
history of Spain, and associated with the chief glory of Manresa,
should be carefully preserved. This excited fresh interest. Spontaneous
contributions from the _devotos de S. Ignacio_ flowed in for the
restoration of the church and the ornamentation of the cave. To the
former was transferred the miraculous image of Nuestra Señora de la
Guia, before which St. Ignatius often used to pray. Pope Pius IX.
conferred new indulgences on the Holy Cave, and its ancient glory had
already revived when the revolution of September, 1868, broke out,
overthrowing the royal government and compelling the Jesuits once more
to take the road of exile. But the bishop of the diocese has watched
over the cave, and it continues to be visited by pilgrims from all
parts of the world.
A visit to the Santa Cueva marks an era in one’s life; for it is one of
those places that produce an ineffaceable impression on the soul. Thank
God! there are such places where the claims of a higher life assert
themselves with irresistible force. Who that ever made a retreat with
the _Spiritual Exercises_ in hand has not turned longingly to the Holy
Cave in which they were written? Followed there, they seem to acquire
new significance and authority. Wonderful book, that for three hundred
years has on the one hand been regarded with admiration and love, and
on the other been the object of distortion and abuse! Some have gone so
far as to declare it a book of servilism and degradation; others, more
happy, look upon it as an inexhaustible mine of wise directions in the
practice of virtue. The sons of St. Ignatius have never ceased to
meditate on the little volume which embodies the religious experience
of their founder. They cherish it the more for giving them so large a
draught in the chalice of ignominy, and they carry it with them through
the wilderness of this world, as the children of Israel did the ark, to
ensure their happy progress in the spiritual life. Pope Paul III., in
his bull _Pastoralis Officii_, says: “Out of our apostolic authority
and certain knowledge, we approve, we praise, we confirm by this
document these teachings and these spiritual exercises, exhorting in
the Lord, with all our might, the faithful of both sexes, one and all,
to make use of these _Exercises_, so full of piety, and to follow their
salutary directions.”
Manresa may well be proud of her Holy Cave, for it was here the great
soul of St. Ignatius was tempered for his vast undertakings. But he did
not indulge in any spiritual dalliance. His work once planned, he went
boldly forth to achieve it.
“Forth to his task the giant sped;
Earth shook abroad beneath his tread,
And idols were laid low.
“India repaired half Europe’s loss;
O’er a new hemisphere the cross
Shone in the azure sky,
And, from the isles of far Japan
To the broad Andes, won o’er man
A bloodless victory!”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE MIRACLE OF SEPTEMBER 16, 1877.
ABRIDGED FROM THE FRENCH OF M. HENRI LASSERRE.
In the month of August, 1874, Canon Martignon, previously
_curé-archiprêtre_ of Algiers, arrived at Lourdes. He was a man of
about forty years of age, and while in Africa had been attacked by an
affection of the chest which entirely deprived him of the use of his
voice; he had therefore crossed the Mediterranean to seek healing in
the city of Mary.
At the rocks of Massabielle he prayed, drank of the miraculous font,
and bathed in the piscina, but without obtaining the cure he sought.
Not disheartened, he resolved to make a novena. This, too, was
unaccompanied by any change for the better.
“Well, then,” he said, “I will make a novena of weeks.” And he took up
his abode at Lourdes for sixty-three days.
On the sixty-fourth day, finding himself in absolutely the same state,
he left for Pau, to seek a temporary alleviation in the mildness of its
climate. But soon reproaching himself for having quitted Lourdes, and
regarding his having done so as an act of weakness and a want of faith,
and, moreover, possessing in the depth of his heart a conviction that
sooner or later the Blessed Virgin would grant his prayer, he returned
to the sacred grotto and took up his abode in the town.
An invalid, he constituted himself the guide and guardian of the sick
and suffering. Pilgrims who of late years may have spent any time at
Lourdes will recollect having seen there a priest, still young, with a
long, light beard, a distinguished countenance, with a bright
earnestness and sweetness in the expression of the eyes; a tall, slight
figure, the chest somewhat narrowed and the shoulders bent by
suffering—a priest who led the blind, assisted the lame and infirm, to
the piscina, and spent the whisper of his failing voice in cheering and
consoling the afflicted. This was the Abbé Martignon.
“If Our Blessed Lady does not cure me this time,” he would say,
smiling, “I have made up my mind for a novena of years, then a novena
of centuries; and after that I will stop.”
He had the joy of seeing several of the sick of whom he had been the
guide and stay miraculously cured; but he himself, though experiencing
at times some slight alleviation, did not obtain the complete recovery
he sought.
Did he at last feel that there was some secret resistance on the part
of the Blessed Virgin to grant the favor he solicited? We do not know;
but it seemed to us that, while his faith continued the same and his
charity ever on the increase, the virtue of hope was with him gradually
turning into that of resignation—or, to speak more accurately, that he
was _postponing_ his hope. Happy to remain in this corner of the earth,
on which the feet of the Queen of Heaven had rested, and to pray daily
at the sacred grotto, he did not begin the novena of years and of
centuries of which he had smilingly spoken.
“I stay here,” he would say, “at the disposal of Our Lady of Lourdes,
like a person sitting in an ante-chamber waiting for an audience. She
will hear me when she pleases. My turn will come; I shall have my hour
or minute, and will take care not to let it escape me.”
For this hour and this minute he waited three years. Then, a few months
ago, he felt an impulse within him urging him to knock again at the
heavenly gate. He resolved to make a novena which should end on the
Feast of Our Lady of the Seven Dolors. He had not observed that, this
being a movable feast, the first day of the novena would this year
(1877) coincide with the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin,[202] and that
his prayer would thus go, as it were, from the birth of Mary to the
last sigh of Jesus—from the cradle of the Mother to the sepulchre of
her Son.
Had the Abbé Martignon been cured he would have returned to Algeria;
and we imagine that if at first the Blessed Virgin refused his request,
it was because she had no intention of so soon granting leave of
departure to such a servant. Neither God nor his priest were losing
anything by this refusal. When such and such a temporal blessing—that
is to say, the copper coin—is denied to our prayers, it is because the
gold and the rich increase are being laid up in store for us, either in
this world or the world to come. Besides, a new mission had been
imposed on the ardent zeal and charity of the Abbé Martignon: one which
flowed naturally from the function to which he devoted himself of
consoling the afflicted.
From the commencement of his sojourn at Lourdes he had found a man more
suffering than the sick and more tried than the ordinarily afflicted,
and to him also he had ministered aid and support. He to whom we
allude—the Abbé Peyramale—had had the signal honor of receiving a
message from heaven, and of accomplishing, in spite of every obstacle,
the divine command. But the Blessed Virgin, doubtless reserving for him
a higher place, had said: “I will show him how much he must suffer for
love of me”; and the most unlooked-for troubles had been sent to
torture his heroic heart.
By a strange contrast he was at the same time on Calvary and on Thabor.
While his name was celebrated throughout Christendom, while he was
blessed by the people whose beloved father and patriarch he was, he had
also, especially during these latter times, the bitter pain of being
misjudged, forsaken, and obstinately persecuted in that matter which he
had most at heart—in his zeal for the Lord’s house. Like the Cyrenian,
he was the man bearing the cross, and his robust shoulders were bruised
and bleeding beneath the sacred burden, while around his sufferings, as
around those of his Master, many shook their heads, saying: “He has
been the instrument of Mary; let her now help and deliver him!”
When, at the time of the apparitions, now nearly twenty years ago, he
had asked Our Lady to make roses bloom in the time of snow, she, who
was in that same place to work so many miracles, refused this one, and
to the priest whom she had chosen replied by the austere word,
“_Penance_.” The illustrious Abbé Peyramale, the priest of the
Immaculate Conception, had thus been condemned to suffer. It was he of
whom, for some years, the Abbé Martignon was the filial comforter and
the friend of every hour.
It is not our purpose here to dwell on the sorrows beneath the weight
of which sank the venerable curé of Lourdes; we would only call to mind
that, when the basilica of the grotto was completed and enriched with
the gifts of all the world—the basilica which was to be the point of
arrival for the processions commanded by Our Lady—he undertook to
rebuild the parish church, which ought to be their point of departure.
He died at his work, without having been able to complete it, and
having more than once announced his death as a sort of necessity—a last
sacrifice on his part in the interest of the house of God.
The unfinished church had stopped at the height of the arches. Aid on
which he had been led to rely had failed him, and his efforts had been
impeded by inconceivable hostilities.
“I shall not enter the promised land,” he would say; “I shall only see
it afar off. _I must die to repair the ruin._ When I am here no more,
all difficulties will be smoothed. My death will pay all”—sorrowful
words, which brought tears to his eyes and to the eyes of those who
loved him! We ourselves had the sad consolation of being present at his
departure. God chose the Feast of the Nativity of Our Blessed Lady to
open the gates of eternity to her faithful servant.
Around the death-bed of Mgr. Peyramale were his brother and other
relations, his _vicaires_, friends, and those of his flock who had been
able to penetrate into his room. Among this tearful family was the Abbé
Martignon, broken down with grief, and scarcely thinking of himself,
his malady, or his cure, or yet of his novena to Our Lady of the Seven
Dolors, which, by a curious coincidence, was to begin that same day.
Mgr. Peyramale, after a long agony, had just rendered his last sigh to
earth and his immortal soul to God. In that hour of grief and
desolation his friend, while raising his heart to her who is the
_Consolatrix Afflictorum_, recollected his promised novena.
What was passing in his mind? Kneeling by that bed and holding in his
the lifeless hands of the curé of Lourdes, he remained for some time
bowed down in silence. Then, rising, he said to some of those present:
“I have just said the first prayer of my novena to Our Lady of Sorrows,
and made my request for a cure, in presence of these holy remains; and
I conjure Our Lady of Lourdes to permit that in her own name, and _on
the ninth day_, our friend may himself transmit to me the answer”;
adding: “The choice God has made of the 8th of September to call to
himself the Priest of the Apparitions sufficiently authorizes me to
associate his first remembrance (_souvenir_) with my humble
supplication.”
Side by side with a great sorrow a great hope from this moment entered
in and possessed the heart of the sick priest. The thought of recovery
did not, assuredly, lessen his grief for the loss of his friend; but
seeing himself henceforth alone in France, it was a happiness to him to
know that his protector was in heaven, and that it would be doubtless
owing to the intervention of that friend, next to that of God and Our
Blessed Lady, that he should receive the favor so long solicited.
He spoke of this with conviction. It seemed to him that, with such an
intercessor, the Blessed Virgin would, _on the ninth day_, put herself
in some sort at the disposal of his prayer. He even wrote to Paris, to
the Rev. Père Picard of the Assumption, to tell him of his hope.
Already he spoke of what he would do when he was cured, and how he
would employ himself in furthering the unfinished work of the curé of
Lourdes. He prayed with fervor; friends joined him in his novena; and
thus the time went on until Saturday, the 15th of September—the eve of
_the ninth day_.
On this Saturday, in the morning, he received a telegram to tell him
that M. and Mme. Guerrier were on their way to Lourdes, and to ask if
he would kindly meet them at the station with a carriage.
M. and Mme. Guerrier were utterly unknown to him. A letter only, which
he had received from the curé of St. Gobain twenty-four hours before
the telegram, informed him that Mme. Guerrier had for several years
been suffering from a very serious illness, and was starting for
Lourdes to seek a cure, full of faith that it would be granted. This
lady and her husband were earnestly recommended to the Abbé Martignon,
as this was their first visit to the city of the Blessed Virgin.
The canon gladly undertook this act of charity, and went to the station
in good time to meet the three o’clock train. Leaving him for a time
occupied with his Breviary in the waiting-room, we will relate by what
series of circumstances M. and Mme. Guerrier were brought to Lourdes on
that day.
M. Edouard Guerrier, judge of the peace at Beaune, married, about
fifteen years ago, Mlle. Justine Biver, a religious and excellent lady.
Her father was a distinguished physician, and her two brothers occupied
high commercial positions, one being general director of the Company of
St. Gobain, and the other director of the celebrated glass
manufactories of St. Gobain and Chauny.
God had blessed this union with three children, healthy and
intelligent, to whose training and education their mother devoted
herself, bringing them up especially in the love of God and of the
poor.
Thus passed eleven years of unbroken happiness. In 1874, however, a
dark cloud suddenly over-shadowed this clear sky. The health of Mme.
Guerrier broke down rapidly, and violent headaches, frequent faintings,
and increasing weakness were succeeded by a general state of paralysis,
which seized successively several important organs of the frame. The
spine and lower limbs became powerless, and the sight dim and
enfeebled. The sufferer was unable to sit up in bed, and obliged to
remain always lying down. Finally the lower limbs became not only
incapable of movement but insensible to pain, so that, if pinched or
pricked, they remained without feeling. During the long fits of
fainting it often seemed as if life must become extinct. Death was
knocking at the door, and mourning had already entered the home lately
so bright with happiness.
Unable to continue the education of her children, the poor mother could
only assist them in their religious duties. Night and morning they
knelt at her bedside, adding to their prayers an earnest petition for
her recovery.
In this state Mme. Guerrier had continued about two years, when Alice,
her eldest girl, was about to make her First Communion, on April 2,
1876. This great day constantly occupied the thoughts of this Christian
mother. She thought of it for her child, and also a little for herself.
It seemed to her as if, in coming to take possession of this young
heart, the compassionate Saviour would surely bring some relief to her
own great needs, and leave in the house some royal token of his visit
and sojourn there. Had he not, on entering the house of Simon Peter,
healed the sick mother-in-law, enabling her to rise and serve him?
“I am certain of it,” she said. “On that day I shall get up and walk.”
Alice made her First Communion on the appointed day; and in the evening
the priest who had prepared her, and a few members of the family, were
assembled at dinner. No change, however, had taken place in the state
of the sick lady, and her place was remaining empty, as for so many
months past, when, at the moment the party were about to sit down to
table, suddenly recovering her lost powers, she rose, dressed, and came
to take her place amid her family circle. Her sight was clear, the
spine had recovered its strength, and she walked and moved with the
same ease as before her illness.
The priest intoned a hymn of thanksgiving, all present answering. Every
one felt that He who that morning had given himself in the divine
Banquet was invisibly present at the family feast. During the night
Mme. Guerrier’s sleep was calm and profound; but in the morning, when
she attempted to rise, her limbs refused their service, having fallen
back into their helpless state. Was it, then, a dream or an illusion?
Was it an effect of the nerves, the imagination, or the will?
The day of her daughter’s First Communion He would not disappoint the
mother’s hope and faith.... But afterwards he willed her to understand
that, for purposes known to him alone, she was still to bear the weight
of her trial. The intolerable headaches returned no more, the faintings
ceased, and the sight remained clear and distinct. From this day the
resignation of Mme. Guerrier, already very great, became greater still.
Her soul as well as her body had received grace from on high. The
dimness of vision which had hidden from her the faces of her husband
and children had disappeared before the breath of Heaven, and, although
she remained infirm and always stretched upon her bed, she was filled
with thankfulness and joy. From the beginning of her illness she had
never seen her aged parents. She lived at Beaune, in the Côte d’Or, and
they at St. Gobain, in the department of Aisne, one hundred and forty
leagues away, and, Dr. Biver being then in his eighty-second year, any
journey was a difficulty to him. His daughter longed to see him once
more, and from April to September this longing continued to increase.
In vain the exceeding risk as well as difficulty of travelling in her
state was represented to her; she at last persuaded her husband to
consent to the imprudent undertaking upon which she had set her heart.
As the physicians had foreseen, the journey very seriously aggravated
Mme. Guerrier’s sufferings, which increased to such a degree that, even
after some weeks of repose, it was impossible for her to attempt to
return to Beaune. The slightest movement often brought on an alarming
crisis.
The consequence of such a state, under existing circumstances, was
nothing less than the breaking up of the family. The husband, on
account of his duties as judge of the peace, was compelled to reside at
Beaune, while the condition of his wife rendered it impossible for her
to quit St. Gobain. She had asked to have her children with her, and
thus, between every two audiences, when possible, M. Guerrier took a
journey of one hundred and forty leagues and back, in order to spend a
few days with those who made all the happiness of his life.
Nearly a year passed in this way. A moment of improvement was
constantly watched for which might permit Mme. Guerrier to travel; but
this moment was waited for in vain. On the contrary, the paralysis was
beginning to affect the left arm, and the thought of her journey
thither made that of the homeward one very alarming.
Last August, M. Guerrier being at St. Gobain in the same painful state
of hope deferred, his wife astonished him by saying: “My dear, I wish
to make a pilgrimage to Lourdes. I shall be cured there. You must take
me.”
M. Guerrier, seriously alarmed at this proposal, energetically
withstood an idea which he believed could not be acted upon without a
fatal result.
“My dear wife, you are asking impossibilities,” he said. “Think what it
has cost us for having, eleven months ago, yielded to your wishes by
attempting the journey from Beaune to St. Gobain! Remember that from
that time you have not even been able to bear being carried into the
garden or drawn a few paces in a sofa-chair. And yet you would venture
to travel across France, to a part of the country where we are utter
strangers, with the pleasant prospect of being unable to get away
again! Do not think of it, dearest! It would be tempting God and
running a risk that would be simply madness.”
“I am certain that I shall be cured at Lourdes,” was the answer, “and I
wish to go thither.”
It was a struggle of reason against faith and hope, and, both parties
being resolute, the struggle lasted for some days. Mme. Guerrier’s
faith, however, communicated itself to her two brothers; they advised
her husband to grant her wish, and he, weary of contention, at last
gave a reluctant consent. Provided with a medical certificate as to the
state of his wife’s health, he requested of the minister a few weeks’
leave of absence, in order to take her to the Pyrenees.
It was on Saturday, the 8th of September, Feast of the Nativity, that
the journey was resolved upon.
M. Guerrier felt, however, no small anxiety at the prospect (in case
his worst fears should be realized) of finding himself in a place
where, knowing no one, he could expect no aid or support beyond the
services to be had at hotels.
“If only,” he said, “I knew of any one there who could guide us a
little! I shrink from this plunge into the unknown.”
On the 10th or 11th of September the Abbé Poindron, curé of St. Gobain,
saw, announced in a newspaper, the death of Mgr. Peyramale, and in the
account given of his last moments observed the name of the Abbé
Martignon. He went immediately to M. Guerrier, and said: “You will have
some one at Lourdes to receive and direct you. I know Canon Martignon,
and am writing to recommend you particularly to his kind care. On the
way telegraph to him the hour of your arrival. He will be prepared for
it.”
The exact time of the dreaded departure was then fixed for Wednesday,
the 12th of September. It was arranged that the travellers should stop
at Paris for a day’s repose, and that the rest of the journey should,
if possible, be made without another halt until they reached Lourdes.
An invalid carriage was engaged of the railway company to be in
readiness.
Great was the anxiety of the family.... The children, however, rejoiced
beforehand, implicitly believing that their mother would be cured:
Marie, the youngest, who never remembered seeing her otherwise than in
bed and infirm, exclaimed: “Mamma will come back to us like another
mamma, and we shall have a mamma who can walk.”
“And,” joined in little Paul, who in this respect had sometimes envied
other children of his acquaintance, “mamma will be able to take us on
her lap.”
“Yes,” said Alice, “she will come back quite well.”
In order to spare Mme. Guerrier’s aged father the uncertainties and
anxieties which preceded the decision, he had not been told what was in
contemplation until everything was arranged, and the only thing that
remained was to obtain his consent.
The venerable physician was deeply moved on hearing from his daughter
her intention of visiting that distant sanctuary to seek from the
Mother of God a cure which human science had proved powerless to
effect. He consented without hesitation, and, when the moment of
departure arrived, raised his hands over his afflicted child in a
parting benediction.
The journey was painful. At Paris it was not without great difficulty
that Mme. Guerrier was transported to the house of her brother, M.
Hector Biver.
Their brother-in-law, M. Louis Bonnel, professor at the _lycée_ at
Versailles, met them there. “I have just ascertained,” he said, “that
Henri Lasserre is at Lourdes. I knew him formerly; he is a friend of
mine. Here is a letter for him.” And thus it was that the writer of the
present account was enabled later to learn all its details.
Notwithstanding the courage of the sick lady, her prostration was so
complete when the train entered the station at Bordeaux that her
husband dared not allow her then to go further, and insisted on her
again taking a day’s repose.
* * * * *
On Saturday, the 15th of September, the travellers arrived at Lourdes.
The Abbé Martignon was at the station, having prepared everything
necessary. Two porters bore Mme. Guerrier to a commodious carriage, and
the three repaired to the furnished apartments of Mme. Detroyat, where
the abbé had engaged a room. This room was on the first or second
story, and the helpless state of Mme. Guerrier rendered it absolutely
necessary that she should have one on the ground floor. The canon had
not been made aware of this, and was consequently in much perplexity.
“Do not be uneasy,” said Mme. Detroyat. “You are very likely to find a
room that will suit you, close by, at the house of M. Lavigne.”
M. Lavigne is the owner of a very pleasant house, surrounded by shrubs
and flowers. The garden gate opens on the highroad which passes through
Lourdes and forms its principal street. The house is in the lower part
of the town, between the _cité_ and the station.
M. Lavigne, with the greatest kindness, put his house at the disposal
of the pilgrims, and thus they were soon installed in a large room on
the ground floor, temporarily transformed into a bedroom and opening
into the garden.
After resting for a time they repaired to the grotto; M. Guerrier
having engaged two men-servants to assist him in lifting his wife from
the carriage to the foot of the statue of Mary Immaculate. It was then
about five o’clock. There it was that we first saw Mme. Guerrier. Her
husband gave us the letter of M. Louis Bonnel, and thus we became
acquainted with the trials of this family.
The prayer of Mme. Guerrier was ardent and absorbed. Motionless and
fixed, as if in ecstasy, her gaze never quitted the material
representation of the Holy Virgin, who had appeared where now her image
stands, and whom she had come so far to invoke. Everything in her
countenance and aspect expressed faith and hope.
Before setting out Mme. Guerrier had received absolution, and as much
as possible disposed her soul for the reception of the great grace she
implored. She was ready. Her husband, though a practical Christian, was
still a little behindhand. Burdened as he had been with all the weight
of temporal anxieties, he had not been quite so active in arranging for
his spiritual needs. With an exceeding watchfulness he had attended to
everything relating to the comfort of his charge, but the preparation
of himself he had delayed, awaiting for this, the decisive moment and
the latest hour.
At Lourdes this hour came.
Late in the evening he requested the Abbé Martignon to hear his
confession. As he had all along intended, he desired on the morrow to
receive Holy Communion with his wife.
And thus in the sacrament of penance, after the avowal of his faults,
he had the consolation of pouring out his troubles and deep anxieties
into the sympathizing heart of his confessor. The details of these
confidences are the secret of God, but this we know well: that the
confessor, who is God’s lieutenant for the time, and who, in the name
of the Father of all, pronounces the words of pity and pardon, often
experiences, more fully than other men, the sentiment of deepest
compassion. And great was the compassion of the Abbé Martignon for the
misfortune of this distressed husband, for the sufferings of the wife,
and the mourning of their family. He put aside all consideration of
himself to think only for them. Not that he forgot his own sufferings,
or the bright hope with which he was looking forward to the morrow; on
the contrary, he remembered this; but a thought of a higher order,
which had already presented itself to his mind, recurred to him now,
and he at once acted upon it.
“Let your wife have confidence,” he said to his penitent, “and do you
have confidence as well. I saw her when she was praying this evening at
the grotto. She is one of those who triumph over the heart of God and
compel a miracle.” Then, telling him about his own novena, he added:
“To-morrow, then, at eight o’clock I shall celebrate the Mass which is
my last hope!... Well, say to Mme. Guerrier that not only will I say
this Mass _for her_, but that, _if I am to have a share in the sensible
answer which I solicit, I give up this share to her_. I make over to
her intention all the previous prayers of this novena, and _I
substitute her intentions for mine_, so that, if the answer is to be a
cure, _it shall not be mine but hers_. Let her, before she goes to
sleep to-night, and to-morrow on awaking, associate with her prayers
the name of Mgr. Peyramale, and at eight o’clock come, both of you, to
my Mass at the basilica. I have good hope that something will happen.”
In accepting with simplicity such an offer as this M. and Mme. Guerrier
could not measure the heroism and the extent of the sacrifice which the
Abbé Martignon was making in their favor. For this the knowledge of a
long past was necessary—a past of which they knew nothing.
The sick lady did not fail to mingle in her prayers the name of Mgr.
Peyramale, and towards eight o’clock in the morning she was taken to
the basilica to be present at the last Mass of this novena, her feeling
of assured confidence in her recovery being singularly strengthened by
the noble act of self-denial made in her favor.
Since the previous day the crypt and upper church had been filled by
the pilgrims from Marseilles. It would have been difficult to carry a
sick person through the dense multitude, especially one to whom the
least shock or movement caused suffering and fatigue. One of the first
chapels on entering was therefore chosen in which to say the Mass. It
happened to be the first on the left, dedicated to Ste. Germaine
Cousin.
Mme. Guerrier heard the Mass seated on a chair, her feet, absolutely
inert, being placed on a _priedieu_ in front of her.
While reading the epistle the remembrance of Mgr. Peyramale suddenly
presented itself with extraordinary clearness before the mind of the
celebrant, when he came to the last lines, and saw these words, whose
striking fitness impressed itself irresistibly upon him:
“The Lord ... hath so magnified thy name this day that thy praise shall
not depart out of the mouth of men, who shall be mindful of the power
of the Lord for ever; for that thou hast not spared thy life by reason
of the distress and tribulation of thy people, but in the presence of
the Lord our God _thou hast repaired our ruin_.”[203]
“I must die to repair the ruin,” had often been the words of Mgr.
Peyramale.
At the moment of the Elevation all were kneeling except the paralyzed
lady. In her powerlessness she was compelled to remain reclining, the
sacred Host being brought to her where she lay.
Scarcely had she received the Blessed Sacrament when she felt in
herself a strange power which seemed as if impelling her to rise and
kneel, while an inner voice seemed to command her to do so.
Near to her knelt her husband, absorbed in prayer and thanksgiving
after Communion. He heard the soft rustling of a dress, looked up, and
saw his wife kneeling by his side.
Respect for the holy place alone prevented the exclamation of wonder
that rose to his lips. Instinctively he looked towards the altar—it was
at the moment of the _Dominus vobiscum_—and his eyes met those of the
priest, which were radiant with joy and emotion. At the Last Gospel
Mme. Guerrier rose without effort and continued standing. As for her
husband, he could scarcely remain upright, his knees trembled so. He
gazed at his wife, afraid to speak to her or to believe the testimony
of his senses, while she remained praying and giving thanks in the
greatest calmness and recollectedness of spirit.
The priest laid aside his sacred vestments and knelt at a corner of the
altar to make his thanksgiving, with what fervor may be imagined.
The sign he had asked had been given, luminous and unmistakable, _on
the ninth day_, when, at the Mass said by himself, the requested answer
came which by an heroic act of charity he had transferred to another.
Whatever may have been the joy of the recovered lady, that of the
priest was greater still. His friend, the Curé Peyramale, now in
heaven, had already begun to manifest his presence there, while the
circumstances attending the miracle seemed to show that Mary herself
took in hand the glorification of the faithful servant who had been
here below the minister of her work.
* * * * *
Neither the Abbé Martignon nor those who had accompanied him had then
paid any attention to the details of the little side-chapel into which
a hand more delicate and strong than that of man had led them; and yet
the stones, the sculptures, and inscriptions there were so many voices
which repeated the same name. It was the first chapel on entering, and
the commencement of the basilica. Under the window, on three large
slabs of marble, is inscribed an abridged account of the eighteen
apparitions, including the message with which Bernadette was charged by
Our Blessed Lady: “Go and tell the priests that I wish a chapel to be
built to me here”—a message which indicated the mission and the person
of him who had dug the foundation and laid the first stone.
Above the great arch which forms the entrance to this chapel is
inscribed the word “_Pénitence_”—the answer to the request for roses to
bloom in February, and which spoke of suffering; while on the right of
the altar, over the smaller arch leading to the next chapel, the
sculptor has represented Simon the Cyrenian bearing the cross of Jesus.
On the altar is carved the young shepherdess saint (also of the south
of France) who seemed best to typify the favored child of
Lourdes—namely, the pure and innocent Ste. Germaine Cousin. Bernadette
was wont to say: “Of all my lambs I love the smallest best.” Ste.
Germaine is represented with a lamb at her feet, while behind her is
the dog, symbol of _Vigilance_, _Fidelity_, and _Strength_, these
virtues recalling the energetic pastor who had never suffered
persecution to touch the child of Mary.
If, in granting this cure, Our Lady of Lourdes had not intended
specially to associate with it the remembrance of her servant, would
she not have chosen another _moment_ than this ninth day, asked for
beforehand, another _place_ than this significative chapel, and another
_circumstance_ than the last Mass of the novena made by that servant’s
intimate friend? In all these delicate harmonies of detail we seem to
perceive the divine hand.
* * * * *
We resume the narrative.
After her act of thanksgiving Mme. Guerrier rose from her knees, calm
and serene, without the least excitement, physical or moral, but still
radiant from the heavenly contact, and, turning to her husband, she
said: “Give me your arm, dear; let us go down.”
Still fearing that what he saw was too good to last, M. Guerrier wished
to summon the porters.
“No,” said the Abbé Martignon; “let her walk.”
Taking her husband’s arm, she pressed it for a moment to her heart,
full of happiness and gratitude; then, with a firmer step than he,
descended the two steps of the chapel and crossed the nave.
The Marseilles pilgrims thronged the church, singing the power of the
Immaculate Mother of God, not knowing that close beside them, in a
little side-chapel, during the stillness of a Low Mass, that benignant
power had just been put forth.
On leaving the basilica Mme. Guerrier descended with ease the
twenty-five steps of the stone flight at the foot of which the carriage
was waiting.
The coachman gazed at Mme. Guerrier in amazement and remained
motionless, until, on a sign from her husband, he got down and opened
the door.
“No,” said the cured lady; “I wish to go to the grotto.”
“Certainly; we will drive there.”
“Not at all. Your arm is enough. I will walk.”
“She is cured,” said the Abbé Martignon; “let her do as she wishes.”
So, all together, they walked to the grotto.
Here Mme. Guerrier made her second act of thanksgiving before the image
of Mary Immaculate. Then, after drinking of the miraculous spring, she
went to the piscina, in which, though cured, she wished to bathe. After
this immersion she lost entirely a certain stiffness which had
remained, and which had somewhat impeded the free play of the
articulations.
She made a point of returning on foot to the town, the carriage
preceding at a slow pace; but about half-way the Abbé Martignon said,
smiling: “Madame, _you_ are cured, but I am not; and I must own that I
can go no further. In charity to me let us get into the carriage.”
“Willingly,” she replied, and, hastening to it, she sprang lightly in.
They traversed Lourdes, until, a little below the _old_ parish church,
they turned into the Rue de Langelle, and stopped near the rising walls
of the _new_ one.
Mme. Guerrier and her companions alighted, and, descending some steep
wooden steps, entered the crypt. Here was a tomb, as yet without
inscription. She sprinkled some holy water over it with a laurel spray
that lay there, and then knelt down and made her third act of
thanksgiving by the venerated remains of Mgr. Peyramale.
During the week which had followed the death of this holy priest no
pilgrimage had appeared in the mourning town. It was on this same day
of glory that the first, that of Catholic Marseilles, came to pray at
his tomb, and thus the first crown (from a distance) placed upon it
bears the date of the event we have just related: “_Les Pélerins
Marseillais, 16 Septembre, 1877_.”
When M. and Mme. Guerrier returned to the house of M. Lavigne great was
the joy of those who had so kindly received them. They regarded this
miracle as a benediction upon their house, and heard with deepest
interest the details of what had taken place.
“Madame,” then said M. Lavigne, “are you aware into what place exactly
Providence led you in bringing you to us?... You are in the house which
was the presbytery of Lourdes at the time of the apparitions; and you
occupy the room in which M. le Curé Peyramale questioned Bernadette and
received from her mouth the commands of the Blessed Virgin.”
After remaining some days at Lourdes M. and Mme. Guerrier returned to
St. Gobain. The journey was rapid and without fatigue. Passing over its
earlier details, we quote the following portions of a letter from M.
Guerrier, now before us:
“When we reached Chauny my wife’s younger brother, M. Alfred Biver, was
waiting for us at the station, full of anxiety; for, in spite of the
letters and telegrams, he could not believe. What was his surprise when
my beloved wife threw herself into his arms!—a surprise from which he
could not recover, and which drew from him repeated exclamations during
the drive of fourteen or fifteen kilometres from Chauny to St. Gobain.
We drove rapidly, for we were eager to reach home. How long the way
appeared! At last there was the house! It was then about five in the
evening. We saw the whole family waiting for us, great and small:
sisters, sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces, and, above all, our dear
little ones—all were at the door, eager to make sure that their
happiness was real.
“Ah! when they saw their mother, sister, aunt alight alone from the
carriage and hasten towards them, it was a picture which no human
pencil could paint. What joy! what tears! what embraces! The mother of
my Justine was never weary of embracing the daughter whom Our Lady of
Lourdes restored to her upright, walking with a firm step—cured.
“Detained by his eighty-three years, her father was in his sitting-room
up a few stairs. We mounted; he was standing at the door, his hands
trembling more from happiness than age, and his noble countenance
glistening with tears.
“‘My daughter!...’
“Mme. Guerrier knelt before him. ‘Father,’ she said, ‘you blessed me
when, incurably afflicted, I started for Lourdes; bless me now that I
return to you miraculously cured—as I said I should....’
“And, as if nothing were to be wanting to our happiness, it so happened
that this very day was the _fête_ of her who returned thus triumphantly
to her father’s house. What a glad feast of St. Justine we celebrated!
“But this is not all. The family had its large share; the church also
must have hers. The excellent curé of St. Gobain, the Abbé Poindron,
had obtained from the lord bishop of Soissons authority to have solemn
benediction in thanksgiving for the incomparable favor that had been
granted to us.
“On the day after our arrival, therefore, we repaired to the parish
church, through crowds of awestruck and wondering people. The bells
were ringing joyously, and the church was full as on days of great
solemnity. Above the congregation rose the statue of Notre Dame de
Lourdes, and, facing it, a place was prepared for her whom Mary had
deigned to heal. The priest ascended the pulpit, and related simply and
without comment the event that was the occasion of the present
ceremony, after which some young girls, veiled and clad in white, took
upon their shoulders the statue of Our Lady of Lourdes, and the
procession began; my dear wife and myself walking immediately behind
the image of our heavenly benefactress, amid the enthusiastic singing
of hymns of praise and the triumphal sound of the organ.... Then the
_Te Deum_ burst forth. Our Lord God was upon the altar....”
If earth has festivals like this, what must be the festivals of
Paradise?
* * * * *
Here we would fain close our narrative, leaving the hearts of our
readers to sun themselves in these heavenly rays. But in this world
there is no light without a shadow. In the letter we have just quoted
M. Guerrier, after speaking with fervent gratitude of the heroic
charity of Canon Martignon, says how earnestly he and his are praying
for the restoration of his health. Alas! these prayers are not yet
granted. A few weeks after the event here related he left Lourdes for
Hyères, being too ill to return, as he had desired, to his own
archbishop in Algiers.
In the midst of her joy Mme. Guerrier has a feeling very like remorse.
“Poor Abbé Martignon!” she lately said to us; “it seems to me as if I
had stolen his cure.”
No! This lady has, it is true, received a great and touching favor; but
assuredly a still more signal grace was granted to that holy priest
when he was enabled to perform so great an act of self-renunciation and
charity—an act which bestows on him a resemblance to his divine Master,
who said: “Greater love than this no man hath, to lay down his life for
his people.” Let us not presume to pity him, for he has chosen “the
better part.”
May his humility pardon us the pain we shall cause him by publishing,
contrary to his express prohibition, this recent episode of his life!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PIUS THE NINTH.
In the afternoon of Thursday, February 7, our Holy Father, Pope Pius
IX., died.
In his person passes away one who to two hundred millions of spiritual
subjects was the greatest figure of the age, and who to all the rest of
the world, if not the greatest, was certainly the most conspicuous. The
history of the last thirty years—that larger history that takes within
its scope the whole human family rather than this or that nationality
or people—will in after-times centre around him. It will be seen that
he has had a hand in shaping it, though to-day it may seem that that
hand was brushed rudely aside or lifted only in impotent menace against
the irresistible movements and the natural aspirations of the age. Time
is a great healer and revealer of truth; and time will deal gently and
justly with the memory of Pius IX. When the smoke of the long battle
that has been raging in Europe, and more or less over all the world,
during the last half-century, shall have finally cleared away, and
men’s eyes be better prepared to regard all things honestly, truth, now
obscured and hidden, will come to light, and the persistent action,
misnamed reaction, of Pius IX. will appear to have been the truest
wisdom and the soundest policy.
The field, of which this wonderful life is the central figure, is so
vast, its lights and shadows so changing, its surface so diversified,
and the events with which it is crowded are so many and so great, that
one shrinks from attempting to picture it even faintly. Yet we cannot,
even with the brief time allowed us, permit the Holy Father to go to
his grave without a tribute of admiration and respect for his memory,
however inadequate that tribute may be. Into the minute details of his
life we do not purpose here to enter. These are already sufficiently
well known, and there are ample sources of information from which to
gather them. We purpose rather passing a rapid glance over the most
prominent events that mark the career of the Pope, that give it its
significance and make of it one of the most remarkable in history.
Whoever attempts to deal with Pius IX., with a view to what the man
was, what he achieved, what he failed to achieve, the meaning, the
purport, and the influence of his life, must necessarily regard him in
a twofold aspect: first, as a temporal prince, a man occupied with
human and secular affairs; secondly, as the supreme head of the
Catholic Church, the vicar of Christ on earth, and the father of the
faithful. As the one his life was a failure, outwardly at least. He has
gone to his grave shorn of all his earthly possessions and dignities;
and his successor will enter into office much as the first pontiff
entered, with no authority save that bequeathed him by his divine
Master. As the second—as supreme pastor of the church—Pius IX. yields
to none of his illustrious predecessors in point of moral and real
dignity and grandeur. This is the strange and significant contrast in
the man’s life: the decadence and utter loss of the temporal power and
principality of the church under his reign, with a contrary deepening
and strengthening of the bonds that bind him to the faithful as their
spiritual father and guide. In both these aspects we shall look at him:
as a prince who failed in much that he attempted, and as a spiritual
ruler who grew stronger by his very losses; under whom the church has
marvellously, almost miraculously, developed; and who leaves it to-day
in a spiritually stronger condition than perhaps it has ever been in.
As a temporal sovereign there may have been greater popes than he; as a
spiritual, few, if any, have surpassed him. And much, very much of the
growth of the church within the period of his troubled reign is
undoubtedly to be attributed to the personal influence of the pontiff,
to his own high example of virtue and burning zeal, and to the keen eye
he had for the church’s truest interests and welfare.
He was ushered into a revolutionary epoch, in a time when disaster was
heaped upon the church and on civil society. Lacordaire says of
himself: “I was born on the wild and stormy morning of this nineteenth
century.” The same is true of him who became Pius IX. He was born at
Sinigaglia, May 13, 1792, while Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette were
prisoners and waiting for the scaffold to release them from their woes.
Napoleon I. had not yet arisen. The United States had not much more
than come into being. Joseph II. ruled and reigned in Austria. France
was in the hands of the progeny of Voltaire. Sardinia did not exist.
Catholic Ireland did not exist politically. Australia was almost an
unknown land. It was a period of moral earthquakes. The progeny of
Voltaire were very active in the propagation of their doctrines; and
Italy, which for centuries had been the battle-ground of kings and the
theatre of petty rival factions, offered an inviting soil for the evil
seed. In 1793 the heads were struck off from Louis and his queen; the
Goddess of Reason was enthroned in Notre Dame; and the reign of
“liberty, fraternity, equality” began and ended with—“death.”
Then came that grim child of the Revolution, Napoleon, and changed
everything. He had an eye to religion, and he wanted a sort of tame
pope whom he might use as a puppet. Italy felt his iron heel, and
things went from bad to worse there. It saw the pope, with others of
its treasures, carried off by this rough-and-ready conqueror. In 1805
this same conqueror had himself crowned “King of Italy”—king of a
kingdom which did not exist, save as a pillage-ground for whoever chose
to enter. In 1808 the Papal States were “irrevocably” incorporated with
the French Empire. So decreed the omnipotent conqueror. Where is his
empire now? Where was it and where was he a few years afterwards? He
was eating his heart out at St. Helena; his empire had vanished; and
the pope whom he had captured and imprisoned was back in Rome.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ROME PREPARED FOR REVOLUTION.
All this time the young Giovanni Mastaï-Ferretti was pursuing his
studies as conveniently as he could under such circumstances. We do not
recall these events in the earlier life of the boy idly, but with a
very distinct purpose: to show that when in 1846 Pius IX. was elevated
to the Papacy, and to the guardianship of the church’s temporalities,
he stepped into no bed of roses. He stepped, on the contrary, into a
very hot-bed of revolution—a revolution that, with less or more of
secrecy, had overspread Europe, and that found its most convenient as
well as its most necessary centre of attack in Rome and in the Papal
States. Italy had long been the prey of Europe. The people had suffered
terribly from foreign invasions. They suffered almost equally from home
intrigues and jealousies. With all this the popes had nothing to do. It
was simply a repetition of the history of the Italian peninsula from
the disruption of the Roman Empire down. The outer barbarians were
always knocking at her gates and trampling on her soil, invited there
by native quarrels.
It is necessary to bear these things well in mind, in order to judge
rightly of the difficulties against which Pius IX. had to contend. He
was elected to an impoverished and disturbed principality, to a centre
of revolution in an era of revolution. All Italy groaned with trouble.
The people were ripe for any mad-cap scheme which should profess to
better their condition. There was revolution in the air, all around
them, all over the world. There were burning ideas afloat of people’s
rights, and people’s wrongs, and people’s futures. Schemes of
regeneration for the human race were abundant as the schemers; and some
of these were very keen, far-sighted, and resolute men. Mazzini was one
of them. His policy was simple enough, and it is the policy of all his
followers to-day: For the people to rule you must first destroy the
rulers—kings; before destroying the kings, who (in Europe at least) are
the representatives of authority, you must destroy the priests who
preach submission to lawful authority. Death to the priests! death to
the kings! and then, long live the people!
That, we believe, is a fair presentation of the Mazzini programme for
the regeneration of Italy and of the rest of the world. It has its
fascinations for empty minds and empty stomachs, and the masses of the
people, particularly of the Italians, just about the time of which we
write had both empty minds and empty stomachs. The people of the Papal
States, in common with the people of all the other Italian States, and,
indeed, of states generally, were not in the happiest condition
possible. Wars and foreign invasions and constant turmoil from day to
day are not the best agents of good government. So Pius IX. came to an
uneasy throne.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PIUS IX. AS A POLITICAL REFORMER.
The cry of the Roman people, of the whole Italian people, as of all
people just then, was for reform. They wanted a share in the
government; and there was no harm in that. The new pontiff began his
reign by at once setting about practical reform. His scheme was
excellent. The details of it must be found elsewhere. Practically it
amounted to letting the people have a just and rational share in the
government. It was not universal suffrage. But the Papal States were
not the United States; and there are intelligent and patriotic men in
the United States even who begin to doubt about the actual efficacy of
universal suffrage as a panacea for all political or social evils. It
is not long since Mr. Disraeli laid down the daring doctrine in the
English House of Commons that universal suffrage was not a natural
right of man, to which doctrine nobody seemed to object. The Pope,
then, set earnestly and practically to work at every kind of reform. He
set on foot a scheme of government which should admit the laity to
their lawful place in civic functions. He looked to the laws of
commerce, which were in a very bad state. He struck at vicious
monopolies, in return for which the monopolists struck viciously at
him. He was very careful about the finances, his treasury being low
indeed, or rather non-existent. He advised the people, who, under the
impulse of a steady conspiracy, seized every opportunity at the
beginning of his reign of getting up festivals in his honor, to spend
their money at home, or hoard it for an evil hour, or devote it to some
charitable or educational purpose. He was clement to political
offences. He was kind and charitable to the oppressed Jews of Rome, and
removed their civil disabilities before England thought of doing so.
All this is matter of fact, beyond question or dispute. It was
recognized by the outer world. All the crowned heads of Europe, with
the exception of Austria and the Italian principalities, who found
themselves in a position of painful contrast, sent their hearty
congratulations to the Pope; and the voice of New York—non-Catholic New
York—joined in with them. The Pope was, for the time being at least,
the most popular man in the world as well as in Italy. And he deserved
his popularity, for he was real and resolute in what he attempted.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WHY HE FAILED AS A REFORMER.
How, then, came the sad sequel? Why did all this fail? Pius IX. looked
even beyond the Papal States in his political schemes. He wished for a
united Italy. He was a true Italian. He proposed a confederation of the
Italian States, which, without infringing on any people’s rights,
should constitute one Italy, show a united front to the foreigner, and
remove all excuse for foreign interference. Why was this, too, a
failure?
Because it was intended that it should be a failure. Because the men
who used the clamor for reform as an agitating force among the people
wanted nothing so little as actual reform, least of all in the prince
of the church. Good government was what most they feared; for good
government makes, as far as government can make, people happy and well
off and reconciled to order. But order and contentment among the people
were precisely what Mazzini least desired.
Pius IX. was in heart and soul and act a reformer of reformers. As a
temporal ruler he desired nothing in this world so much as the welfare
and happiness of his people, and he took all honest means to bring
about that happiness and welfare. But he was met at the outset by a
strong and wide-spread conspiracy—a conspiracy that had existed long
before his time, that had laid its plans and arranged its mode of
action, and that was ready to do any diabolical deed in order to carry
its purpose through. The very willingness of the Pope to concede
reforms helped it. It took him up and petted and played with him. The
clubs that roamed the streets and shouted themselves hoarse with _Viva
Pio Nono!_ and _Viva Pio Nono solo!_ were instruments of the
conspirators. The offices which the Pope threw open to the laity were
seized upon by conspirators. His guards and soldiers were corrupted and
led by corrupt officers and generals. Some of the clergy even felt the
contamination. Ministry after ministry was tried and changed, and only
succeeded in exasperating the minds of the people, as it was intended
they should. The Pope had faith in human nature, and could not believe
but that the honest measures which he devised for the benefit of his
subjects would be honestly accepted by them. Although he knew of the
conspiracy against his throne and against society, perhaps he scarcely
realized its depth and intensity. The horrible assassination of De
Rossi undeceived him, and the reformer and gentle prince had to fly for
his life and in disguise from his own subjects.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRIUMPH OF THE REVOLUTION.
Not two years of his reign have passed, and the Pope is already an
exile at Gaeta. Pandemonium reigned in Rome. It was not the secret
societies alone who brought all this about. They were aided by some, at
least, of the crowned heads of Europe; and Palmerston, as infamous a
politician as ever conspired against the right, was hand and glove with
them, ably seconded by Gladstone, whose recent attack on the Pope
cannot have surprised those who remembered his political career.
Meanwhile Piedmont was creeping to the front in Italy, and though at
first Mazzini was as thoroughly opposed to Charles Albert as to the
Pope and the priests, the conviction grew upon the conspirators that
kings might sometimes be utilized as well as killed, and that Italy
might, for the time being at least, be united under the Sardinian. This
conviction only came slowly, and there was a man at the head of affairs
in Piedmont who was keen in reading the signs of the times, and who
never missed a chance. Cavour utilized the secret societies, and the
secret societies utilized Cavour. In like manner Louis Napoleon, then
coming to the front in France, utilized, and was in turn utilized by,
them. Palmerston, Cavour, Louis Napoleon, a dangerous and powerful
triad, were with the conspirators, while Austria blundered on with
characteristic stupidity, actually courting the fate which has since
overtaken it.
It may be said that we concede too much power to the secret societies.
Who and what are they after all? A handful of men working in the dark,
led by crack-brained enthusiasts who write inflammatory letters and
publish silly pamphlets at safe distances from the scene of action.
They are more than this, however. They are well organized, and they
trade on real wrongs and disaffection too well grounded. Certainly, in
the earlier period of the Pope’s reign men were far from being, as a
whole, well governed in Europe. They were not at rest; they had not
been at rest from the beginning of the century. Reforms from their
rulers came very slowly and grudgingly. The conspirators possessed all
the daring of adventurers, and spread out a political _El Dorado_
glittering before the hungry eyes of bitter and disappointed men. In
such a state of affairs the wildest chimeras seem possible to the
common mind, and in this lies the real strength of secret societies,
which find their growth cramped only where men are freest and best off,
as among ourselves.
A fair idea of what the reign of “the people” meant may be gathered
from the state of Rome while the pontiff was in exile at Gaeta. It was
cousin-german to the reign of the _Commune_ in Paris in more recent
days. And for this the Pope was driven from his own city. These were
the reformers who could not be satisfied with the Holy Father’s
rational measures of real reform. These were the “heroes” honored by
England, by the United States, by all the enlightened and advanced men
of all lands. It was for opposing and condemning these that Pius IX. is
regarded by enlightened non-Catholics as a reactionist of the worst
type, a foe to progress, an enemy to popular liberties. A government of
assassins was preferred by the world, or at least by a very large
portion of it, to the mild and beneficent sway of Pius IX. For
condemning cut-throats he is against the spirit of the age; and for
refusing to honor men like Mazzini and Garibaldi—men who openly
professed and caused to be practised murder as a necessary political
instrument—he is condemned as one who refused to recognize the
progressive spirit of the times in which we live.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE POPE AND LOUIS NAPOLEON.
While the Pope was at Gaeta, and while Rome was in the hands of what,
without fear of contradiction, may be described as the vilest of vile
rabbles, the baleful star of Louis Napoleon was rising over France. He
was false from the very beginning to the Pope, and the Pope understood
him. But he was tricky and adroit. He had the born conspirator’s liking
for mystery and secrecy and intrigue. He seemed by nature incapacitated
to speak and act openly. He never was a friend to the Pope. By means
that are already known and stamped in history he came to the lead of
what, in spite of all vicissitudes and awful changes, remained at heart
a Catholic nation. The trickster realized his position and trimmed his
sails accordingly. He cared nothing for the Pope or for Catholicity;
but the French people did. Moreover, the protection of the Pope and
French predominance in Italy was a part of the Napoleonic legend, and
likely to advance his own cause. French cannon, then, and French
bayonets cleared the way for the return of the Pope to Rome. Not
France, Catholic France alone, but all the world, had been shocked at
the awful excesses perpetrated by the revolutionists in Rome, as was
the case earlier still at the outbreak of the first French Revolution.
France only anticipated Europe in its action by staying the reign of
blood.
Louis Napoleon thenceforth assumed the character of protector of the
interests of the Holy See. He was the persistent enemy of those
interests. He was altogether opposed to ecclesiastical rule in an
ecclesiastical state. This friend and protector of the Pope labored all
his political life, and used the great influence of a Catholic nation,
to bring about what has since been consummated: the robbery of the
States of the Church, the invasion of the Holy See, the Piedmontese
ascendency in Italy, and the reducing of the head of the Catholic
Church to a political cipher in his own states. Yet intelligent men are
surprised at the ingratitude displayed by Pius IX. towards Louis
Napoleon! Pius IX. loved France; he despised the dishonest trickster to
whose hands the fate of so noble a nation was for a time committed. He
despised him, for he knew him with that instinctive knowledge by which
all honest and open natures detect duplicity and fraud, under whatever
smiling guise they may appear. Some good qualities the man may have
had. Open honesty was not one of them. Some regard for the Catholic
religion he may have had. He never allowed it to interfere with his
schemes or with the schemes of those of whom after all he was a tool,
never a master. Louis Napoleon knew perfectly well that the Pope
understood him and his schemes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE POPE AGAIN AS A REFORMER.
Pius IX. returned to Rome in 1850. He immediately set to work to repair
the losses which his subjects had sustained during his absence. He
proceeded in his work of reform. Within seven years he succeeded in
clearing off the enormous debt with which the country had been saddled.
The French commission, of which M. Thiers was a member, appointed to
examine and report on the political wisdom and practical value of the
institutions granted to his states by Pius IX., reported to the
Republican Government (1849):
“By a large majority your commission declares that it sees in
the _motu proprio_ (the Pope’s decree reorganizing the
government of the Pontifical States) a first boon of such real
value that nothing but unjust pretensions could overlook its
importance.... We say that it grants all desirable provincial
and municipal liberties. As to political liberties, consisting
in the power of deciding on the public business of a country in
one of the two assemblies and in union with the executive—as in
England, for instance—it is very true that the _motu proprio_
does not grant this sort of political liberty, or only grants
it in the rudimentary form of a council without deliberative
voice.
“... That on this point he (the Pope) should have chosen to be
prudent, that after his recent experience he should have
preferred not to reopen a career of agitation among a people
who have shown themselves so unprepared for parliamentary
liberty, we do not know that we have either the right or the
cause to deem blameworthy.”
And Palmerston, whose testimony is surely as unbiassed as that of
Thiers, said of the same act in 1856:
“We all know that, on his restoration to his states in 1849,
the Pope published an ordinance called _motu proprio_, by which
he declared his intentions to bestow institutions, not indeed
on the large proportions of a constitutional government, but
based, nevertheless, on popular election, and which, if they
had only been carried out, must have given his subjects such
satisfaction as to render unnecessary the intervention of a
foreign army.”
We have gone into this matter of reform and home government in the
Papal States at some length, because it is precisely on this ground of
all others that the temporal power of the popes is attacked. Priests
are unfit to rule, it is said; their business is with the souls of men,
to tend to spiritual wants. They should have no concern with the things
of this world. This may be all very well, and is a very convenient way
of disposing of rights and properties which do not belong to us. If the
invasion of the Papal States and their occupation by a hostile power is
justified on the ground that the Pope was a priest, and, _because_ a
priest, unfit to rule his subjects, that at least is intelligible. We
have seen, however, that Pius IX. was in heart and in act a wise and
just ruler, who aimed at doing nothing but good, and who did nothing
but good, to his people, but who was steadily prevented from doing all
the good he wished and attempted to do by conspiracy at home and
abroad. Had he been left alone to work out the constitution he framed,
to carry through the reforms he proposed and entered upon, it is beyond
question that the States of the Church would have been more happily
governed and more peacefully ordered than any states in the world. But
he was prevented from ruling as he wished as well by the opposition of
governments, such as those of Palmerston, Cavour, and Louis Napoleon,
as by the organized conspiracy within his own domains—a conspiracy that
sprang from causes with which he had had nothing to do, which assailed
him because by his very position he was the symbol and type and
fountain-head of all earthly order, and which would not be reconciled
to good. He trod on volcanic ground from the beginning. All that a good
man could do to dissipate the evil elements he did. But the conspiracy
abroad and the conspiracy at home were too much for him. Indeed, the
existence of the Papacy as a temporal power always depended on the
sense of right and the good-will of men. There have been a few fighting
popes in other days; but as a matter of fact the Papacy has always been
a power built essentially on peace; and if powerful enemies insisted on
invading it, it was always open to them. The pope, like the Master
whose vicar he is, is “the prince of peace.”
It is needless here to enter into the details of the intrigues and
events that led up to the invasion of the Papal States, and to their
forced blending into what is called united Italy. We cannot here go
into the question as to when invasion is necessary and justifiable.
Common sense, however, is a sufficient guide to the doctrine that no
invasion of another’s territory or property is justifiable or
necessary, unless the holder of that property is incapable; unless that
property has been and is being grossly abused; unless those who live on
that property invite the invasion on just grounds; and unless the
invader can guarantee a better holding and guardianship of the
property, a reform in its administration, a sacred regard for rights
that are sacred. If any man can show us that any one of these
conditions was fulfilled by the Sardinian invasion of the Papal States,
we are open to conviction. Nor in this matter are we taking the rights
and property of the church as something apart from ordinary rights and
property, though they are so. We base our whole opposition to this most
infamous usurpation and robbery on known and accepted natural rights
common to all property and holders of property. It is useless to tell
Europe that it solemnly sanctioned a sacrilege. Europe has forgotten
the meaning of the word sacrilege. It has still some sense of what
robbery and wrong mean, though constant practice in robbery and wrong
and nefarious proceedings has so blunted its moral sense that it can
always readily connive at the wrong, especially when the wrong is done
to the Catholic Church.
We invite all honest men to contrast the condition of the Papal States
to-day, under the present Italian _régime_, with their condition under
the Papal _régime_. They cannot show that that condition is bettered.
All Italy is in a chronic state of legal and secret terrorism. There
was no terrorism under Pius IX. The people groan under taxes such as in
their worst days they never had to sustain. Parliamentary
representation and freedom of election in Italy is a farce. As for the
social and moral effects of the invasion, they have been dwelt upon so
often and are so patent that they need no mention here. Pius IX. failed
as a political leader and ruler, not because he was not a wise and just
and benevolent ruler, but because, as we said, it was intended that he
should fail. The combinations against him were too powerful. The wonder
is that he withstood them so long. But history will faithfully record
that the last ruler—the last, at least, as things are at present—of the
temporalities of the church was the best and most just prince in
Europe, and the one who cared most for the material and moral advance
of his people.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PIUS IX. AS HEAD OF THE CHURCH.
So much for one aspect of the Pope’s life and character. It is a sad
and a saddening one—the one in which he is most bitterly and unjustly
assailed. Thus far the story has been one of a long and disastrous
failure. We turn now to look at him in his greater character as Pontiff
and High-Priest of the Catholic Church
Here the heart lifts, the eyes grow dim, the pen falters, as we glance
across the ocean and see the meek old man who has done so much for the
church, who has served her so faithfully, who has given her so high and
holy an example of undaunted faith, of burning zeal, of universal
charity, of meekness and long-suffering, laid out at last on the bier
to which the eyes of all the world turn in sorrowing sympathy and
respect. In this is his true triumph. In the midst of universal
disaster the great and mighty church, which was entrusted to him in a
condition that was truly deplorable, so far as its existence in the
various states of the world went, has gathered together its strength,
has renewed its youth like the eagle, has flown abroad on the wings of
the wind to the uttermost parts of the earth. In 1846 how stood the
church in Europe? In England the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill had not yet
been passed. The Act of Catholic Emancipation had only been granted in
1829. Ireland was still a political nonentity. Catholicity in France
was suffering under the worst features of the Napoleonic Code. In
Austria it was strangled by Josephism. In all places it was under a
ban. In the United States and Australia it was still almost a stranger.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
WONDERFUL GROWTH OF THE CHURCH.
But a new spirit was awakening among men. The American Revolution was
productive of important results to mankind. The French Revolution,
which followed, gave a startling impetus to these. All over the world
men were rising to a new sense of their natural rights. The awakening
found expression in deplorable and revolting excesses here and there,
but there were some right principles under the mass of extravagances
and chimeras afloat. These principles good, earnest Catholics hastened
to grasp and utilize. They beat the progeny of Voltaire, they beat the
liberal philosophers, the apostles of liberty, equality, and
fraternity, with their own weapons. They gave the right and lawful
meaning to those words and would not surrender their claims. Thus
uprose O’Connell, who gave the cue and the lead to so many other
illustrious champions of civil and religious liberty. O’Connell roared
and thundered in England, and made himself heard over the world.
Montalembert and Lacordaire and the unfortunate De Lamennais took up
the great Irish leader’s cry in France. Görres sharpened his pen in
Germany. Balmes arose in Spain. Brownson was won over in the United
States. Louis Veuillot found the antidote to his infidel poison, and
the school of Voltaire found one of their doughtiest warriors heart and
soul in the Catholic ranks. A crowd of men, equally illustrious or
nearly so, sprang up and around these leaders. Catholic laymen took
heart, entered zealously into good works and political life, and many a
one lent his powerful pen and voice to the service of the church, in
places often where the priest could not well enter. Catholicity
assumed, if we may so say, a more manly and aggressive tone. The
children of Voltaire were wont to laugh at it as a thing of cassocks
and sacristans. They were astonished to find the young, the
enthusiastic, the noble entering on what was veritably a new crusade,
and defending their faith courageously and ably wherever they found it
attacked. What Pius IX. had attempted in his temporal dominions had
actually and, as it were, spontaneously come to pass in the spiritual
domain. The laity assumed their lawful place in the life of the church.
The Holy Father encouraged them in every way possible; and his aged
eyes have been gladdened by witnessing in all lands a new army of
defenders of the faith growing up and disciplined, and daily increasing
in numbers, strength, and usefulness.
He saw the faith in France and in the German states revive wonderfully.
Able and zealous bishops were appointed; the education of the clergy,
on which he always insisted with especial vehemence, was very carefully
cultivated. Bands of missionaries followed the newly-opened rivers of
commerce and carried the faith with them to new lands. The Irish famine
of 1846–1847 sent out a missionary nation to the United States, to
Australia, to England itself. Priests went with them, or followed them,
and in time grew up among them. While Sardinia was confiscating church
property, destroying monasteries and institutions of learning, and
turning priests and monks out of doors, England and her possessions and
the United States were beginning to receive them, and, in accordance
with the principles of their government, letting them do their own work
in their own way.
And so the church has gone on developing with the greatest impetus in
the most unpromising soil. Already men say wonderingly that it is
strongest and best off in Protestant lands. Pius IX. had the happiness
of creating the hierarchy in England, in the United States, and in
Australia, in the British possessions—wherever the faith is to-day
reputed to be in the most flourishing condition. But all this has not
come about by accident. There was a very active, keen, and observant
man at the head of affairs. It is wonderful how the Pope, with the
troubles that were for ever pressing upon him regarding the affairs of
the Papal States, could have found time to attend to those wider
concerns of the universal church. But if he loved Rome and its people
with a love that was truly paternal, his first care was always for the
church of which he was the guardian. His heart was in every work and
enterprise for the advancement of the faith. His eye was all-seeing.
His prayers were unceasing.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
GREAT EVENTS OF THE PONTIFICATE.
The definition of two great dogmas marks the pontificate of Pius IX.
and will make it memorable for ever in the annals of the church: the
dogma of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mother, and of
the Papal Infallibility. The last was a death-blow to schism and
heresy. We do not mean that schism and heresy will die out because of
it. But it roots them out of their holes; and henceforth they will know
that over them hangs a voice, not often used, indeed, or idly, but
which, once it has uttered its last and final and solemn decision, is
irrevocable. The scenes that Rome witnessed in its last declining days
as the city of the popes will dwell in the memory of men. The bishops
of all the earth, in numbers unprecedented, flocking to what was vainly
thought to be the rocking chair of Peter, was perhaps one of the most
striking testimonies to a scoffing and unbelieving age of the immense
vitality of the faith, of the vastness, the splendor, and renown of the
Catholic Church. A more solemn testimony still was the joyful
acceptance by the faithful of the dogma of Papal Infallibility, which,
it was thought by those who knew not the Catholic faith, would rend the
church asunder. The canonization of the martyrs of Japan, the thronging
of the bishops and faithful to Rome on the occasion of the various
jubilees, and the crowning event of last year, when all the Catholic
world assisted at the celebration of the fiftieth episcopal jubilee of
Pius IX., are other events that mark this great pontificate with
significance and splendor. These last were as much personal tributes to
the man as of respect to the supreme head of the church, and they
showed, if aught were needed to show, that Pius, stripped of his
dominions, bereft of his possessions, imprisoned in the Vatican, lived
and reigned as, perhaps, no other pope lived and reigned in the hearts,
not of a small section of his people, but of all the great church that
covers the earth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE POPE’S PERSONAL CHARACTER.
One feature of all others marks the character of Pius IX. Personally
the meekest and most yielding of men, he was always filled with the
sense of his position and his sacred charge. We do not mean that as
Pope he was proud, overbearing, intolerant. He was anything but that.
But in all that touched the faith and the sacred prerogatives that had
been placed in his pure hands he was simply inflexible. He would not
yield a jot of them. He would not compromise. He would not temporize. A
singularly open, honest, and frank character, ready to trust all men,
he seemed to scent out danger from afar off when it threatened what was
dearer to him than life—life was always a small matter in his eyes—the
chair of Peter and the faith of Christ. The utterances of his bulls and
encyclical letters, the speeches that he delivered, sometimes off-hand,
on important subjects, bear all one tone, never contradict one another.
They are resolute and bold and breathe authority throughout. He saw
from the first the movement of the age, and that it was moving in a
false direction. The movement was, in one word, towards a complete
rejection of divine authority, of divine revelation, and consequently
of the church as a divine institution, and of all authority save such
as men choose to set up for themselves. From his first papal allocution
to the Syllabus of Errors to be condemned, he always struck at this
spirit, and this spirit recognized its vigilant foe and master. Hence
the rage with which his utterances were received in the courts of
Europe and by the infidel press. But he never swerved from his course.
He was never weary of condemning what he knew to be wrong; and the
state of public opinion to-day regarding rights that were once held as
sacred even by large and powerful non-Catholic bodies is a sufficient
vindication, if any were needed, of the pontiff’s course. Rights,
natural and supernatural, are everywhere invaded. The cloister is
desecrated. The home is threatened with disruption by divorce and an
easy marriage that is no marriage. Innocent infants are no longer
consecrated to God. “Free” thought finds its issue in “free” religion,
and free religion means no religion. The sense of right has yielded to
the sense of force. Education is handed over to infidels. This is the
larger growth of the conspiracy that swept away the States of the
Church only by way of a beginning to a wider sweeping that was to
desolate the earth.
All this was what Pius IX. felt coming on and resisted to his last
breath. He guarded the church well, and, if human judgment be allowed
to follow him, he goes before his divine Master with a clean heart and
untroubled conscience, having done his work thoroughly. We shall miss
that majestic figure from our busy scene. We shall miss the grand old
man seated prophet-like on the now bare and barren rock of Peter, the
storms of the earth roaring around and threatening to overwhelm him,
and he calm and unmoved, his head lifted above them clear and lovely in
the white light of heaven. We shall miss the face that we all know as
we know and cherish the picture of a father: with its large, bright
eyes, its sweet lips, and that smile that could only come from a heart
free from guile and clear from constant communings with heaven. Set the
men of the age beside him, and see how they dwarf and dwindle away. Set
Cavour, Louis Napoleon, Bismarck, Thiers, Palmerston, those known as
the greatest among the leaders of men, by Pius IX., and what a
contrast! The story of the struggle that he waged is told in this. Ages
stamp themselves in the men they deify. In brutal, debased, but
“civilized” pagan Rome statues were set up to men like Nero and
Domitian and Claudius and Diocletian; and these were the gods of the
degenerate Romans. The gods of to-day, the idols of the people, are the
men we have mentioned above and the lower brood of the Mazzinis,
Garibaldis, Victor Emanuels, Gambettas. To the worshippers of these
heroes Pius IX. was a despot and a ruler of a brood of despots, an
enemy of the human race. The gown of the cleric has become the garb of
ignominy and darkness; the blood-red cap of the revolutionist the
beacon of liberty and light. The intellectual stream of Voltaire and
the Voltairists, the men of “science” of to-day, filters down into the
mud and blood of the rabble. These dainty gentlemen prepare the
dynamite, leaving others more ignorant to fire it. This is the progress
that Pius IX. stigmatized, and these the lights of the age whom he
condemned. But his work has been effectual. He guarded the vineyard of
the Lord. He made straight its paths. He weeded it well and watered it,
if not with his heart’s blood, with the labors and sufferings of a long
life that never knew rest or thought but of good to the whole human
race. He has left to the world the example of a life of unspotted
virtue, of large and wise charity, of undaunted courage and zeal, of
meekness and childlike simplicity. He goes to his grave amid the tears
and benedictions of the mightiest body on earth, followed by the
sorrowing sympathy of all who esteem piety, honor integrity, and admire
courage.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
MORNING OFFICES OF PALM SUNDAY, HOLY THURSDAY, AND GOOD FRIDAY.
Together with a Magnificat for Holy Saturday and a few selections
for the Tenebræ Function. Arranged and edited by Edwin F.
MacGonigle, St. Charles’ Seminary, Overbrook, Pa.
The publication of this work is another comforting evidence of the
reality of the revival of a better taste amongst church musicians, and
of the demand of church people for a style of music at the divine
offices which, at least, shall not outrage every sentiment of religious
reverence and respect which they have for the house of God.
Although giving but few selections from the vast number of sentences,
anthems, etc., enjoined to be sung during the great week, the choice
made proves that there is a more general knowledge of the Rubrics than
has hitherto prevailed amongst church musicians, and a consequent
desire to produce the offices of the church in their entirety. It will
also serve a purpose—to us a very desirable one—which is to turn the
attention of choir-masters and organists to the _sanctioned chant
melodies_ for the Holy-Week services, which are, in our judgment, after
long experience, quite unequalled by any musical melodies that were
ever written.
We fail to see any possible reason for a harmonized _morceau de
musique_ to take the place of the cantor’s chanting of the _Recordare_
at the _Tenebræ_ function, nor can we discover any special merit in the
composition itself. The works of Sig. Capocci seem to us to be better
suited for exhibition at one of our “Vesper Series” concerts at
Chickering and other halls than for practical use _in choro_ before an
altar—unless, indeed, the hearing of a musical concert is to be the
proper and most edifying manner of satisfying the precept of hearing
Mass devoutly, or of piously assisting at Vespers and Benediction.
Can the editor give any authority for the whining _Fa_# in the first
member of the cadence of the _Benedictus_, No. 1, here treated as
_Do_#? Sig. Capocci may have so written it; but then he ought to have
known better.
Those who use concerted music for their church services, and who
possess capable singers, will no doubt be pleased to add this
publication to their collection of “church music.”
A VISIT TO THE ROMAN CATACOMBS. By Rev. J. Spencer Northcote, D.D.,
canon of Birmingham. London: Burns and Oates. 1877. (For sale by The
Catholic Publication Society Co.)
This book is another proof of the untiring attention that Canon
Northcote continues to devote to the object of his special studies—the
Roman Catacombs, to which, as he modestly tells us, he first applied
himself in 1846. The length of time that he has devoted to the subject,
his diligence, scholarship, and perfect orthodoxy, make him the
standard authority among English-speaking Catholics on all matters
connected with those wonderful subterranean cemeteries which are
inexhaustible mines of treasure to students of Christian antiquities,
and points of attraction to all really learned, as well as to some
ignorant and conceited, visitors to Rome. The traveller to the Tiber
and the Seven Hills who does not visit the Catacombs has not seen one
of the three Romes, and returns with a very inadequate knowledge of the
Eternal City. A study of the Roman Catacombs is as necessary to enable
one to understand the manners and customs of the early Christians, and
to appreciate the various stages of the doctrines and practices of the
church from apostolic times to the period that followed the triumph of
religion under Constantine, and its splendid development of ritual and
of ceremonial during the middle ages, as the careful examination of the
deeply-planted roots of a mighty oak is wanted to show the lover of
nature how so noble a tree grows up the monarch of the forest, “and
shooteth out great branches, so that the birds of the air may lodge
under the shadow of it” (Mark iv. 32).
We are glad to learn from the preface of this short but interesting and
instructive _Visit to the Roman Catacombs_ that a second and enlarged
edition of the _Roma Sotteranea_ of the same author, published in
conjunction with Rev. W. R. Brownlow in 1869, and which will contain
the substance of De Rossi’s recently-issued third volume, is in
preparation. We shall heartily welcome it. The present little book
contains a great amount of information in a convenient, attractive, and
well-written form.
MATERIALISM: A Lecture by P. J. Smyth, M.P., M.R.I.A., Chev. Leg.
d’Hon. Dublin: Joseph Dollard. 1877.
This is a strong and outspoken defence of Christianity by a layman from
the lecture platform against the attacks of materialism on religion as
addressed to popular assemblies under the cloak of science. The lecture
reaffirms the primitive convictions of the soul and the common consent
of mankind against the unsupported assertions of the modern materialist
school. The Irish people have heroically withstood the assaults made
against their religious faith—assaults more cruel and persistent than
have been even charged upon the Spanish Inquisition—and that, too, from
a nation which boasts of being the champion of religious liberty. It is
a cheering sign to see that they are fully able to defend their faith
with personal intelligent conviction against the materialism of the
demagogues of science. Ireland has a class of thoroughly-educated
laymen, and when religion is invaded from every quarter, as it is in
our day, it is time that men who have deep and strong religious
feelings should speak out in words which are fraught with the power of
intelligent conviction and in tones which will make themselves heard.
Mr. Smyth’s lecture is solid, manly, and eloquent, and we hope to hear
from him again and often.
RECORDS OF A QUIET LIFE. By Augustus J. C. Hare, author of _Walks in
Rome_, etc. Revised for American readers by William L. Gage. Boston:
Roberts Brothers. 1876.
The author of this volume, in presenting the picture of the Hare
family, labored under the impression that he was revealing a model life
to the public. Confined to non-Catholics, perhaps he and the writer of
the American preface were not mistaken, and this class of readers will
derive profit from its perusal. The Hares were Anglican clergymen, in
charge of parishes, and with families. The volume furnishes pictures of
the performance of their parochial duties, the life of their family
circles, and the characteristics of their members. The Hares were above
the common run of men of their class in intellectual gifts and
scholarly attainments. They appear to have done their best to fulfil
the duties of their position with the incoherent fragments of Christian
truth which their sect teaches. A Catholic feels after reading this
volume as if he had been passing through a picture-gallery of
second-class artists. Our counsel to non-Catholic readers is: read
these _Records_, and then take up the _Life of the Curé of Ars_, or
_The Inner Life of Père Lacordaire_, or _A Sister’s Story_, or _The
Life of Madame Swetchine_, and you will understand, if not fully
appreciate, our meaning.
IS THE HUMAN EYE CHANGING ITS FORM UNDER THE INFLUENCES OF MODERN
EDUCATION? Edward G. Loring, M.D. New York. 1878.
This is a very clever _brochure_ upon a very vexed question—namely,
does compulsory education of the young under certain bad hygienic and
dietetic conditions produce ocular deformity, and is such deformity
hereditary? Dr. Loring produces certain eminent German oculists who
state that myopia (near-sightedness) is certainly hereditary. The
doctor only partially agrees with the German _savants_ whom he cites,
and believes that no organ having reached its highest state of
perfection, as has the human eye, can be changed by hereditary
transmission, unless under conditions that affect the human organism as
a whole, and that it would take ages to accomplish this under the most
favorable conditions. The doctor explains why educated Germans as a
rule are myopic by stating that the German forcing system for children
under fifteen is radically wrong, and, moreover, that Germans as a
nation are not fond of out-door sports. He further argues that their
manner of cooking and sanitary arrangements are bad; all which, under
certain conditions, will tend to produce hereditary myopia. Americans,
it is stated, exhibit in some respects an inclination to follow the
German plan rather than adhere to the traditional educational system of
our ancestors of the English race.
Children, the doctor argues, must not be pushed in their studies until
after fifteen, at which period the danger from over-use of the eye is
diminished; and it is thus that watchmakers, type-setters, and other
artisans who continuously use their eyes upon minute objects have
better sight than the studious professional man or laborious scientific
worker. We may sum up the article in a few lines when we say that
nothing good, either physical or mental, can accrue from forcing young
minds beyond a certain extent, and that we have reached, possibly
passed, the ultimum in our present system of education. Encourage, as
far as possible, out-door sports, and let the heavy mental work be done
after fourteen. Give our children air and light, lest harm be done to
the race.
AN AMERICAN ALMANAC AND TREASURY OF FACTS, STATISTICAL, FINANCIAL, AND
POLITICAL, FOR THE YEAR 1878. Edited by Ainsworth R. Spofford,
Librarian of Congress. New York and Washington: The American News
Company.
Few persons in this country are more competent to compile a volume such
as this than the Librarian of Congress. Himself a practical bookseller,
he brought years of the necessary experience to his aid. The results of
this experience are manifest in the intelligently-arranged and
trustworthy volume before us. It contains a vast amount of really
useful information, on agriculture, politics, banks, finances,
libraries, the census, chronology, commerce, the post-office, gold and
silver coinage, education—in fact, on every practical subject about
which persons need ready and accurate information. Its statistics can
be relied on as trustworthy. It is preceded by a short “History of
Almanacs,” in which Mr. Spofford enumerates several that have appeared
of late years, though he has forgotten to mention the _Illustrated
Catholic Family Almanac_, now in its tenth year. This, we presume, was
an oversight; for, if we are not mistaken, it has been a guide to some
of the statisticians in Washington with regard to the statistics of
Catholic colleges and institutions of learning conducted by Catholics.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnotes
-----
Footnote 1:
Macaulay.
Footnote 2:
_Marble Faun_, vol. ii. p. 129, Tauch. Ed.
Footnote 3:
John Dwight’s translation.
Footnote 4:
See _Sum_ of St. Thomas, i. 2, cviii.
Footnote 5:
Words of Pius IX.
Footnote 6:
Lutheran I am not; nor Zwinglian; still less Anabaptist. In short. I
am one who believes in, honors, and respects the holy, true, and
Catholic Church.
Footnote 7:
Childlike simplicity.
Footnote 8:
_The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease, and Heredity_,
_etc._ By R. L. Dugdale. With an Introduction by Elisha Harris, M.D.
New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons.
Footnote 9:
THE CATHOLIC WORLD, June, 1876, “Hammond on the Nervous System.”
Footnote 10:
_Some Remarks on Crime-Cause._ Richard Vaux.
Footnote 11:
_St. Hedwige, Duchess of Silesia and Poland_. By F. Becker. Collection
of Historical Portraits. No. VIII. Herder & Co., Freiburg in Breisgau
and Strassburg. 1872.
Footnote 12:
Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Footnote 13:
Belatucadus was also the name of a divinity worshipped by the ancient
Britons. A rock situated a little to the north of Belenus still
retains the name of Tombalaine or Tombalène, formerly _Tumba Beleni_.
Several strange legends linger about both these rocks. The ancient
poem of _Brut_, of which a MS. copy is preserved in the archivium of
Mount St. Michael, has the story of King Arthur, Sir Launcelot, and
Elaine, and makes out the etymology of the northern rock to be Le
Tombe (d’)Elaine.
Footnote 14:
These priestesses were in the habit of selling to the seafaring men
who came to consult them arrows of pretended virtue in calming
tempests, if thrown into the sea, during a storm, by one of the
youngest sailors on board. In the ancient Druidic poem called _Ar
Rannou_, or _The Series_, where the _Child_ says, “Sing me the number
Nine,” the _Druid_ answers, “... Nine Korrigan with flowers in their
hair, robed in white wool, dancing around the fountain in the light of
the full moon.” (See De Villemarqué, _Barzaz Breiz_, p. 6.) Pomponius
Mela designates as _Garrigena_ (evidently Korrigan Latinized) the
“nine priestesses or sorceresses of the Armorican Isle of Sein.”
Footnote 15:
Monsieur de la Fruglaye mentions the existence, near to Morlaix, of a
vast forest which has been submerged by the ocean. In a black and
compact stratum, which is covered for the most part by a fine white
sand, he found traces of very ancient and abundant vegetation: whole
trees thrown in every direction—yews, oaks, large trunks, and green
mosses. Beneath this layer the soil appeared to be that of meadows,
with reeds and rushes, etc. Here all the plants were undisturbed and
in a vertical position, and the roots of the ferns still had their
downy coating. (See _Observations sur les origines du Mont St.
Michel_. Maury.)
A similar, though gradual, sinking of the coast is going on on the
western coast of France and England, also at Alexandria, Venice, Pola,
and the coast of Dalmatia, besides other localities.
Footnote 16:
See _Itinéraire dans le Mont St. Michel_, par Edouard Le Héricher.
Footnote 17:
_Proceedings at the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Free-Religious
Association, held in Boston, May 31 and June 1, 1877_. Boston:
Published by the Free-Religious Association, 231 Washington Street.
1877.
Footnote 18:
Vide Moehler’s _Symbolism_.
Footnote 19:
_The Impeachment of Christianity_, p. 6.
Footnote 20:
Ibid. p. 1.
Footnote 21:
P. 26.
Footnote 22:
P. 23.
Footnote 23:
P. 29.
Footnote 24:
P. 28.
Footnote 25:
_Is Romanism Real Christianity?_ p. 14.
Footnote 26:
P. 22.
Footnote 27:
P. 28.
Footnote 28:
P. 28.
Footnote 29:
P. 29.
Footnote 30:
P. 30.
Footnote 31:
P. 33.
Footnote 32:
P. 34.
Footnote 33:
P. 40.
Footnote 34:
P. 42.
Footnote 35:
The fact of St. James having taken this journey has been generally
considered indubitable, although Baronius held it as uncertain.
Mariana, in his history, affirms that all written documents were
destroyed in Spain, first by the persecution of Diocletian, and
afterwards by the Moorish invasion and its attendant wars. The silence
of ancient testimony is thus fully explained, and the learned Suarez,
writing on the subject, says: “It matters little that the local
histories of the time make no mention of this journey of St. James;
for, besides that nothing happened in it so extraordinary or notorious
that the renown thereof would necessarily spread abroad, Spain had at
that period no writers careful to collect the facts of her history,
and strangers would not be likely to know anything about it,
especially as being of a religious nature, concerning which men would
not trouble themselves at all.... If St. Luke had not left in writing
the acts of St. Peter and St. Paul, many of their journeyings would be
forgotten, or rest only upon such traditions as might be preserved by
the churches they founded.”
Footnote 36:
Tome vi. _Aprilis_.
Footnote 37:
_In fest. Sancti Isidori, lect. 2a._
Footnote 38:
See the account as given by John de Beka in the _Chronicle of
Utrecht_.
Footnote 39:
Datum Viterbii, XII. Kalend. Junii.
Footnote 40:
We published last month an article on the Indian question, based
chiefly on the official reports to and of the Board of Indian
Commissioners. We publish this month a second article on the same
question by another writer, one who is personally familiar with the
matter of which he treats, and whose observations and suggestions on
so important a subject cannot fail to command attention.—ED. C. W.
Footnote 41:
Audax omnia perpeti,
Gens humana ruit per vetitum nefas.
Footnote 42:
“Gentiles have often said before me that Mormonism is as good as any
other religion, and that Mr. Joseph Smith ‘had as good a right to
establish a church as Luther, Calvin, Fox, Wesley, or even bluff King
Hal’” (_The City of the Saints_, by Richard F. Burton).
Footnote 43:
It was one of Mr. Finney’s doctrines that whenever we pray with
sufficient faith, God, so to speak, is bound not only to answer the
prayer, but to give us the precise thing we ask for; in other words,
that we know better than God what is good for us. “There are men and
women still alive and among us,” says Dr. Spring, “who remember the
circumstances of the death of Mrs. Pierson, around whose lifeless body
her husband assembled a company of _believers_, with the assurance
that if they prayed in faith she would be restored to life. Their
feelings were greatly excited, their impressions of their success
peculiar and strong. They prayed, and prayed again, and prayed _in
faith_. But they were disappointed. There was none to answer, neither
was there any that regarded.” The italics are Dr. Spring’s.
Footnote 44:
_Remarkable Visions._ By Orson Pratt, one of the Twelve Apostles of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Liverpool, 1848.
Footnote 45:
Mormon books contain representations of six plates of brass, inscribed
with unknown figures, which are said to have been dug out of a mound
in Pike County, Illinois, in 1843. Like those which Moroni is supposed
to have revealed to Joseph Smith they are described as bell-shaped and
fastened together by a ring. But the evidence that any such plates
were ever found is not satisfactory, and the characters on the
published pictures of them bear little or no resemblance to those
which Joseph Smith presented to the world as a fac-simile of a part of
the Book of Mormon.
Footnote 46:
Many suppose that Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum fabricated plates
of some basemetal and imposed them upon their credulous followers. But
if they had gone to the trouble of doing this it is probable that they
would have shown them to a number of people, and not confined the
exhibition to a handful of their immediate associates. The mere fact
that evidence as to the existence of any plates at all is so defective
seems to us conclusive that there were none—not even forged ones.
Footnote 47:
“Revelation given to Joseph Smith, Jr., May, 1829, informing him of
the alteration of the manuscript of the fore part of the Book of
Mormon.”—_Covenants and Commandments_, sec. xxxvi.
Footnote 48:
Five thousand copies were printed, yet the first edition is
excessively rare. The later editions differ a little from the
original. The “third European edition,” which is now before us, was
published at Liverpool in 1852.
Footnote 49:
Oliver Cowdery was expelled from the church some years later for
“lying, counterfeiting, and immorality,” and died a miserable
drunkard. Sidney Rigdon attempted to rule the church by revelation
after the death of Joseph Smith, and, being “cut off” at the demand of
Brigham Young, led away a small sect of seceders. Parley P. Pratt,
having induced a married woman to become his polygamous wife, was
killed by the outraged husband. Orson Pratt is still living, and one
of the ablest of the Mormon leaders.
Footnote 50:
Although these lectures bear Smith’s name, it is understood that they
were really written by Sidney Rigdon.
Footnote 51:
_Autobiography of Joseph Smith_, quoted by Stenhouse.
Footnote 52:
This is quoted by Capt. Burton, but he does not give his authority.
Footnote 53:
About the time of the invention of Mormonism Robert Owen’s communistic
propaganda was making an extraordinary sensation in America. In his
“Declaration of Mental Independence” at New Harmony, July 4, 1826,
Owen declared that man had up to that hour been the slave of “a
trinity of monstrous evils”—Irrational Religion, Property, and
Marriage.
Footnote 54:
In the “Revelation on Celestial Marriage” Joseph Smith is styled “him
who is anointed both as well for time and for all eternity; and that,
too, most holy,” and it is added: “I have appointed unto my servant
Joseph to hold this power in the last days, and there is never but one
on the earth at a time on whom this power and the keys of this
priesthood are conferred.” Hence a government by the quorum of
apostles, in the Mormon idea, can never be anything but an
interregnum. They believe that Heaven will not fail to send them a
“prophet, seer, and revelator,” and, as Brigham succeeded Joseph, so
they look for some one in the appointed time to succeed Brigham. _Uno
avulso, non deficit alter_.
Footnote 55:
To avoid unpleasantness, the “Legislature of Deseret” annually
re-enacts _en bloc_ the laws of the territorial legislature of Utah.
Footnote 56:
_The Mormon Prophet._ By Mrs. C. V. Waite. Cambridge. 1866.
Footnote 57:
Address by Brigham Young in the Salt Lake City Tabernacle. April 9,
1852, four months before the publication of Joseph’s “Revelation.”
Footnote 58:
“You believe that Adam was made of the dust of this earth. This I do
not believe. I never did and I never want to, because I have come to
understanding and banished from my mind all the baby stories my mother
taught me when I was a child” (Sermon by Brigham Young, Oct. 23,
1853).
Footnote 59:
Joseph Smith professed to get this version by inspiration.
Footnote 60:
They made it over to him as trustee, retaining, however, the use of
it. Thus an additional tie was made to keep them true to the faith.
Brigham could at any time take away all that they possessed, and if
they left the Territory they would have to go penniless.
Footnote 61:
See the whole passage in the _Popular Science Monthly_ for November,
1872.
Footnote 62:
The site of the fort in New York attacked by Champlain in 1615 has
only recently been determined, although a number of leading historians
have been discussing it for some years.
Footnote 63:
A foot or more of soft black soil (_humus_) on the bottom of the
cellar refuted the suspicion entertained by some that this excavation
was of more recent origin than the ancient buildings.
Footnote 64:
Indians, some of whom are no mean anatomists, have since pronounced
one of them to be part of a _vertebra_ in all probability human.
Footnote 65:
Even at this day our pagan Ojibwas make such a use of human bones.
They either carry them in their “medicine bags” as “manitous” or grind
them to powder, which they apply especially to their puncturing
instruments. In diseases of the head the powder of the skull is used;
in the case of a sore leg, that of the _tibia_ or _femur_, etc.
Footnote 66:
_Short Studies on Great Subjects._ By James Anthony Froude, M.A. New
York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.
Footnote 67:
Alexandre de Saint-Cheron. Introduction to Harber’s translation of
Ranke’s _History of the Papacy_. Second edition. Paris. 1848.
Footnote 68:
Prince Bismarck.
Footnote 69:
_North American Review_, Sept.-Oct., 1877, art. on “Perpetual Forces.”
Footnote 70:
The word “royal” has so degenerated in these days that we feel no
scruple in applying it to Victor Emanuel.
Footnote 71:
Froude’s _History of England_, vol. ii. p. 447. Scribner & Co. 1870.
Footnote 72:
_St. Louis and Calvin_, p. 149. Macmillan & Co.
Footnote 73:
“Let them not come forth
Till the ninth ripening year mature their worth.”
—Horat. _Ars Poet_., 388, Francis’ trans.
Footnote 74:
“Than if far Cadiz, Libya’s plain,
And either Carthage owned your sway.”
—Horat. _Carm._ ii. 2.
_En passant_, it may be said that this stanza, which begins
“Latius regnes, avidum domando
Spiritum quam si,” etc.,
furnishes a curious parallel to the words of Holy Writ, Prov. xvi. 32:
“He that ruleth his spirit [is better] than he that taketh cities.” It
is far from being the only passage in Horace which in spirit, if not
in letter, suggests the inspired writers so strongly as to tempt one
to believe that he must have had some acquaintance with them. Cf.
Virgil’s _Pollio_.
Footnote 75:
Byron, however, if we are to take literally the well-known lines in
_Childe Harold_, can scarcely rank with true lovers of our Horace:
“Then farewell, Horace, whom I hated so,
Not for thy faults, but mine; it is a curse
To understand, not _feel_, thy lyric flow,
To comprehend but never love thy verse.”
Footnote 76:
“Why is all _journeyman-work_ of literature, as I may call it, so much
worse done here than it is in France?... Think of the difference
between the translations of the classics turned out for Mr. Bohn’s
library and those turned out for M. Nisard’s collection!”—M. Arnold,
_Essays in Criticism_, Am. ed., p. 51.
Footnote 77:
“I can understand that we must not make form everything in poetry. But
why, in dealing with an art, we should take no account of the
_technique_ of that art, should make light of those who excel in its
_technique_, I do not understand at all.”
Footnote 78:
“With a mind undisturbed take life’s good and life’s evil,
Temper grief from despair, temper joy from vain-glory;
For, through each mortal change, equal mind,
O my Dellius, befits mortal born.”
—Horat. _Carm._ ii. 3, Lord Lytton’s trans.
Footnote 79:
“Fell Care climbs brazen galley’s sides;
Nor troops of horse can fly
Her foot, which than the stag’s is swifter—ay,
Swifter than Eurus when he madly rides
The clouds along the sky.”
—_Carm._ ii. 16, Martin’s translation.
Footnote 80:
We do not here forget such songs as Shakspeare’s “Come away, come
away, Death,” or Ben Jonson’s “See the chariot at hand here of Love,”
or the anapests and dactyls in the madrigals. But we think it cannot
be gainsaid that the general tendency of the earlier poets was to
simple rhythms, and that the intricate arrangements of rhyme and
novelties of metre in which modern poets delight were little known to
them, or, if known, little relished.
Footnote 81:
“Fled are the snows; and the green, reappearing,
Shoots in the meadow and shines on the tree.”
Footnote 82:
_Note by the author of the article._—The import of this needs some
further explanation. Since the body is full of various and contrary
physical forces, these must come either from the soul as the active
principle giving the _materia_ of the body its first being, or from
the elements which are the chemical components of the blood, bones,
and other integral parts of the body. The soul cannot furnish them,
because it does not possess them. Therefore the elements remain, and
the material substance remains, and they are not divested of their
substantial formality.
Footnote 83:
Viz., that the modern theory destroys the unity of substances, and
particularly the unity of the human nature or substance.—_Author of
the article_.
Footnote 84:
Cant. iv. 7.
Footnote 85:
Ex. xvi. 33; Heb. ix. 4.
Footnote 86:
See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, July, 1877, “The European Exodus.”
Footnote 87:
Among the Catholic colleges whose teaching staff is wholly or mainly
German, and whose students are largely of German birth, we may
mention the Redemptorist Convent and House of Studies at Ilchester,
Maryland, which has a staff of 11 learned professors; St. Charles
Borromeo’s Seminary of the Congregation of the Precious Blood,
Carthagena, Ohio; St. Joseph’s College, Cincinnati, conducted by the
Brothers of the Holy Cross; Seminary of St. Francis of Sales,
Milwaukee; College of St. Laurence of Brundusium, Calvary, Ohio,
conducted by the Capuchin Fathers; St. Vincent’s Abbey of the Order
of St. Benedict, Beatty’s Station, Pennsylvania, with a staff of 25
professors; St. Francis’ Monastery, Loretto, Pennsylvania; St.
Francis Solanus’ Convent of the Franciscan Fathers, Quincy, Illinois;
St. Joseph’s College, conducted by the Franciscan Fathers, at
Teutopolis, Illinois; Franciscan College, Allegany, New York; St.
Ignatius’ College, Buffalo; Franciscan Collegiate Institute,
Cleveland; Gymnasium of the Franciscan Fathers at Cincinnati; St.
Joseph’s College, Rohnerville, California, under the direction of the
Priests of the Precious Blood; and St. John’s College, conducted by
the Benedictines, at St. Joseph, Minnesota. We may add in this place
that thirteen of our sixty-eight American prelates are of German
birth or descent.
Footnote 88:
See THE CATHOLIC WORLD, August, 1877, “Colonization and Future
Emigration.”
Footnote 89:
By Carlyle.—ED. C. W.
Footnote 90:
_The Beginnings of Christianity._ With a View of the State of the
Roman World at the Birth of Christ. By George P. Fisher, D.D.,
Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale College, etc. New York:
Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.
Footnote 91:
Mr. Leeser, a late eminent Jewish scholar and minister of a synagogue
in Philadelphia, translated the original text of Gen. i. 11: “The
Spirit of God _was waving_ over the face of the waters.”
Footnote 92:
Wisdom i. 14, 15.
Footnote 93:
P. 5.
Footnote 94:
Pp. 393–395.
Footnote 95:
Pp. 464, 465.
Footnote 96:
We should prefer to say contrived by the human intelligence,
constructed and directed by the human will.
Footnote 97:
P. 465.
Footnote 98:
P. 66.
Footnote 99:
Pp. 137–139.
Footnote 100:
P. 140.
Footnote 101:
P. 42.
Footnote 102:
_Short Studies on Great Subjects._ By James Anthony Froude, M.A. New
York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1877.
Footnote 103:
We cannot, in the space of an article of this kind, give chapter and
verse for every statement we may make. Limits forbid this. In saying
that incoherency and inconsistency mark the Protestant tradition
throughout, we are aware that we make a very large and very grave
assertion. To those who feel inclined to doubt its truth we would
recommend as the readiest and fullest confirmation of it the very
able series of articles on the Protestant tradition which appeared
last year in the London _Tablet_—a series that, enlarged and carried
further, we should like to see published in book-form.
Footnote 104:
Mr. Froude probably means the children of Catholic parents, who were
encouraged by the state to apostatize, and thereby enter into the
possession of their family estates; as otherwise there was no legal
possibility of a Protestant being injured by a Catholic.
Footnote 105:
_The English in Ireland in the Eighteenth Century_. By James Anthony
Froude, M.A. Vol. I. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1872.
Footnote 106:
Herein is plainly confirmed the view we took of Mr. Froude’s theory
of might and right in our last article, “Mr. Froude on the Revival of
Romanism,” Dec., 1877.
Footnote 107:
The Great Hall at Westminster, so called from William Rufus, who
built it (1097) for a banqueting-hall—and kept his word.
Footnote 108:
See, for the true character of this much-maligned and really
lamb-like sovereign, Froude’s _History of England_. Yet—so harsh is
the judgment of men—it is this very prince of whose robber—we should
say resumption of the church lands the Protestant antiquary, Sir
Henry Spelman, writes: “God’s blessing, it seemeth, was not on it;
for within four years after he had received all this, and had ruined
and sacked three hundred and seventy-six of the monasteries, and
brought their substance to his treasury, ... he was drawn so dry that
Parliament was constrained to supply his wants with the residue of
all the monasteries of the kingdom, great ones and illustrious, ...
by reason whereof the service of God was not only grievously wounded
and bleedeth at this day, but infinite works of charity were utterly
cut off and extinguished.”
Footnote 109:
_Riding the wild mare_—i.e., playing at see-saw. The kneeling of the
ox refers to an old English superstition that at midnight on
Christmas Eve the oxen would be found kneeling in their stalls.
Footnote 110:
A peculiar peal of bells rung at Christmas-tide on the church-bells
in Languedoc—doubtless, like _Noel_, from _natalis_.
Footnote 111:
_Du Darwinisme: ou l’homme singe_. Paris, 1877, page 170.
Footnote 112:
_On the Intrusion of certain Professors of Physical Science into the
Region of Faith and Morals_: An address delivered to the members of
the Manchester Academia of the Catholic Religion by J. Stores Smith,
Esq.
Footnote 113:
_Manuel d’une Corporation Chrétienne_, par Léon Harmel. Tours, Marne,
Paris: au Secrétariat de l’œuvre des Cercles Catholiques d’Ouvriers,
10 Rue du Bac. 1877.
Footnote 114:
1 Tim. iii. 7.
Footnote 115:
Cyprian, Epist. lxvii.
Footnote 116:
Celestine, Epist. ii. 5.
Footnote 117:
_De Clericis_, lib. i, cap. vi.
Footnote 118:
Lib. v. _Biblioth._ ad. not. 118.
Footnote 119:
_De Concord. Sacerd. et Imp._, lib. viii. cap. ii.
Footnote 120:
_Vet. et Nov. Ecclesia Discipl._, par. ii. lib. ii. cap. i.
Footnote 121:
Epist. v.
Footnote 122:
Epist. lv. No. vii., ed. Tauchnitz, Lipsiæ. 1838.
Footnote 123:
_Apud Wouters, Hist. Eccl. Comp._, vol. i. p. 65.
Footnote 124:
1 Cor. x. 24.
Footnote 125:
1 Tim. ii 11.
Footnote 126:
Cfr. Alzog’s _Church Hist._, Papisch & Byrne, vol. i. p. 396.
Footnote 127:
See Chrysostom, _De Sacerdotio_, iii. 15.
Footnote 128:
See Graziani, _Lettera di S. Clemente Primo Papa e Martire ai
Corinti_, ... _corredata di note critiche e filologiche_, Rome, 1832.
Footnote 129:
Cfr. Devoti, _Inst. Can._, lib. i. tit. v. sect. i. par. vii., in
note.
Footnote 130:
See Augustine, Epist. clv.; Synesius, Epist. lxvii.; Baronius, ad an.
304; Baluze, _Miscell._, ii. 102.
Footnote 131:
_H. E._, vi. 43.
Footnote 132:
Compare Tertullian, _Apol._, xxxvii.
Footnote 133:
Cfr. Novaes, whose voluminous, erudite, and orthodox work, the _Lives
of the Popes_, is enriched with preliminary dissertations on every
subject relating to the Papacy and the Cardinalate.
Footnote 134:
De Rossi, in his _Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana, Anno iv._,
Jan.-Feb., 1866, has given the reasons for the preponderating
influence which the cardinal-deacons had in the affairs of the
church, and for their frequent succession to the Papacy. Indeed, it
became in the third and fourth centuries an almost invariable rule to
elect the archdeacon to succeed to the chair of St. Peter.
Footnote 135:
Cap. _Si duo_, viii, dist. lxxix.
Footnote 136:
Strange to say, Vigilius did, although not immediately succeed to the
Papacy, and is reckoned the sixty-first in the series of pontiffs.
Footnote 137:
See the controversy apud Ferraris, _Bibliotheca_, Art. “Papa.”
Footnote 138:
Const. _Prudentes Bullar. Rom._, tom. iv. par. ii. page 90.
Footnote 139:
Pagi, _Breviarium RR. FP._, vol. i. p. 129, _in vita Symmachi_.
Footnote 140:
In a curious old ballad sung in low French by the Scotch in the
king’s service occurs the contemptuous line, _Les Romains bien tout
villain mutinail_. Francisque-Michel, _Les Ecessais en France_.
Footnote 141:
_Apologia del Pontificato di Benedetto X._, par. i. cap. ii. num. 2.
Footnote 142:
Odoacer, the first king of Italy in olden times, become so by
violence and usurpation like the first king of Italy of modern times,
and the first to interfere in a papal election, was captured in
March, 493, and put to death by his victorious rival, Theodoric.
Footnote 143:
Darras, _General History of the Catholic Church_, vol. ii. p. 66.
Footnote 144:
Some writers, it must be said, attribute the imposition of this
odious burden to the Gothic kings. Graveson, who agrees with them,
says (_Hist. Eccl._, tom. ii. page 62) that the money was always
distributed in alms to the poor.
Footnote 145:
Cap. _Quia Sancta_, xxviii. Dist lxiii.
Footnote 146:
Paul the Deacon, _apud Pagi_ (_Breviarium, RR. PP._, tom. i. p. 350).
Footnote 147:
When a successor to the throne was elected or appointed during the
emperor’s lifetime he was called King of Rome or of the Romans.
Footnote 148:
Ad an. 884.
Footnote 149:
_In Ord. Rom._ cap. xvii. page 114.
Footnote 150:
Ad an. 884.
Footnote 151:
_De Nummo Argenteo Benedicti III._, pag. 22 et seq.
Footnote 152:
_Vet. et Nov. Eccl. Discipl._, part ii. lib. ii. cap. xxvi par. 6.
Footnote 153:
_Primacy of the Apostolic See_, p. 243.
Footnote 154:
_Die Deutschen Päpste_, 2 vols., Regensburg, 1839.
Footnote 155:
See a long and interesting note to the point headed, _Quali
consequenze discendano dalla condizione della chiesa romana al secolo
x._ in Mozzoni’s _Tavole Cronologiche critiche della Storia della
Chiesa Universale_. _Secolo Decimo_, Rome 1865.
Footnote 156:
Cap. _In Nomine Domini_, i. dist. xviii.
Footnote 157:
Ix., cap. _Licet, 6. de Elect._
Footnote 158:
Bede’s _Ecclesiastical History of England_, p. 217. Edited by J. A.
Giles, D.C.L. (Henry G. Bohn).
Footnote 159:
This thought is taken from St. Teresa.
Footnote 160:
One of the most recent and significant signs of change in the
Anglican communion is the movement in favor of confession. It may be
well to inform our readers that the above article is from the pen of
Mgr. Capel, than whom no man in England probably is better fitted
from his position, knowledge, and experience to treat of such a
subject.—ED. C. W.
Footnote 161:
This strange narrative, which has never hitherto been published in
any language, is the autobiography of a friend of the Lady Herbert of
Lea, who has translated it for THE CATHOLIC WORLD.—ED. C. W.
Footnote 162:
_The Final Philosophy; or, System of Perfectible Knowledge issuing
from the Harmony of Science and Religion_. By Charles Woodruff
Shields, D.D., Professor in Princeton College. New York: Scribner,
Armstrong & Co. 1877.
Footnote 163:
Have we no word to express shortly the meaning of the fine German
word “_Thaten-drang_”?
Footnote 164:
_Katholische Stimme_.
Footnote 165:
Sparks’ _Life of Arnold_, p. 218.
Footnote 166:
Pp. 25–27.
Footnote 167:
The remains of St. Honorat are now in a church at Cannes.
Footnote 168:
Near Cap Roux is an inlet called Aurèle from the old Roman road along
the shore.
Footnote 169:
Is. i. 18.
Footnote 170:
1 Cor. xv. 31.
Footnote 171:
_Report of the Joint Special Committee to investigate Chinese
Immigration_. Washington, 1877.
Footnote 172:
“Who, perched on one foot, as though ’twere a feat,
Some hundreds of verses an hour would repeat.”
—Horat., _Sat._ i. 4, 9.
Footnote 173:
A couplet from this great work is quoted in the _Dunciad_:
“So when Jove’s block descended from on high
(As sings thy great forefather, Ogilby),
Loud thunder to its bottom shook the bog,
And the hoarse nation croaked, “God save King Log!”
Footnote 174:
“And iron slumber fell on him, hard rest weighed down his eyes,
And shut were they for ever more by night that never dies.”
—_Æneid_, x. 745–746, Morris’ translation.
Footnote 175:
The translation of the Earl of Lauderdale appeared before Pitt’s, but
it was really completed before Dryden’s, and the latter had the use
of it in MSS. in preparing his own, as he admits in his preface. Some
three or four hundred of the earl’s lines were adopted by Dryden
without change.
Footnote 176:
“There is her temple, there they stand an hundred altars meet,
Warm with Sabæan incense smoke, with new-pulled blossoms sweet.”
—_Æneid_, i. 415–416, Morris’ trans.
Footnote 177:
“Whence she with kindness prompt
And eyes glistering with smiles,”
Carey gives it, which is certainly English, but—
Footnote 178:
_La Vie Domestique, ses Modèles et ses Règles—d’après les documents
originaux_. Charles de Ribbe. Paris: Edouard Baltenweck.
Footnote 179:
In regard to the heroic virtue that can be practised in the married
state there can be no question. As little can there be any question
that in the scale of perfection the religious is the higher
state.—ED. C. W.
Footnote 180:
He refused the chancellorship when Boucherat gave up the seals, but
did his work effectually as commissioner of finance and overseer of
public work in the south and west of France between 1650 and 1690.
Footnote 181:
_Dixit etiam Deus: Producant aquæ reptile anima viventis, et volatile
super terram.... Producat terra animam viventem in genere suo ... et
factum est ita._—Gen. i. 20, 24.
Footnote 182:
The translation is from the graceful pen of Lady Georgiana Fullerton.
Footnote 183:
As for “gall,” there is, according to the writer’s own showing, more
of fallen than regenerate humanity in it. The less gall, then, the
better. The Holy Father has recently favored the Catholic press by
selecting St. Francis de Sales as its patron saint. The more closely
writers adhere to the saint’s spirit the nearer they will approach
their divine model, and the more abundant will their labors be in
good fruits.—ED. C. W.
Footnote 184:
Marchetti, _Critica al Fleury_, vol. ii. p. 193.
Footnote 185:
_Ad auctorem opusc. Quid est Papa?_ vol. ii. p. 112.
Footnote 186:
Du Cange, _Gloss._, ad verb.
Footnote 187:
Macri, _Hierolexicon_, ad verb. _Conclave_.
Footnote 188:
Biondo da Forlì, lib. vii. decad. 2.
Footnote 189:
Cap. _Ubi periculum. 3 de Elect. in 6_.
Footnote 190:
Ne Romani electioni Pontificis indeterminata opinionum diversitas
aliquod possit obstaculum vel dilationem afferre; nos, inter cætera
præcipue attendentes, quod lex superioris per inferiorem tolli non
potest, opinionem adstruere, sicut accepimus satagentem, quod
constitutio felicis recordationis Gregorii Papæ X. prædecessoris
nostri, circa electionem præfatam edita in concilio Lugdunensi, per
coetum cardinalium _Romanæ ecclesiæ_ ipsa vacante modificari possit,
corrigi vel immutari, aut quicquam ei detrahi sive addi, vel
dispensari quomodolibet circa ipsam seu aliquam ejus partem, aut
eidem etiam renunciari per eam tanquam veritati non consonam de
fratrum nostrorum consilio reprobamus, irritum nihilominus et inane
decernentes, quicquid potestatis aut jurisdictionis, ad Romanum, dum
vivit, Pontificem pertinentis (nisi quatenus inconstitutione prædicta
permittitur) coetus ipse duxerit eadem vacante ecclesia exercendum,
_etc._
Footnote 191:
Voting by proxy is not recognized in the conclave.
Footnote 192:
Such, for instance, is a woman, a manifest heretic, an
infidel—_i.e._, one who is not baptized.
Footnote 193:
_Cæremoniale continens ritus electionis Romani Pontificis, cui
præfiguntur Constitutiones Pontificiæ, et Conciliorum decreta ad eam
rem pertinentia._ Romæ, 1622, in 410.
Footnote 194:
_Lib. Pontif._, tom. iv., _in vita Bonif_.
Footnote 195:
_Mus. Ital._, cap. xvii. p. 112.
Footnote 196:
Labbé, _Concil._, tom. vi. col. 1721.
Footnote 197:
4 Kings x. 3.
Footnote 198:
_Hist. of Alex. VII._
Footnote 199:
_Const. In eligendis Bullar. Rom._, tom. iv. part ii. pag. 145.
Footnote 200:
_Spiritual Exercises_. Second Day.
Footnote 201:
Turkeys were introduced into France by the Jesuits in 1570, in which
year they were first eaten at Mézières, department of Ardennes, at
the marriage of Charles IX. and Elizabeth of Austria.
Footnote 202:
The Feast of Our Lady of Dolors is on the 3d Sunday of September.
This Sunday, in 1877, fell on the 16th—_i.e._, the ninth day after
the Nativity of Our Lady, which is on the 8th of September.
Footnote 203:
Hodie nomen tuum ita magnificavit, ut non recedat laus tua de ore
hominum, qui memores fuerint virtutis Domini in æternum, pro quibus
non pepercisti animæ tuæ propter angustias et tribulationem generis
tui, sed subvenisti ruinæ ante conspectum Dei nostri (Epistle in the
Mass of Our Lady of the Seven Dolors, third Sunday in September).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
● Transcriber’s Notes:
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○ Typographical errors were silently corrected.
○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only
when a predominant form was found in this book.
○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_)
and text that was bold, is enclosed by equal signs (=Now!=).
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