BOOKS RECEIVED.
From P. O'Shea, New York. Nos. 13 and 14 of the GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH, by M. l'Abbé J. E. Darras.
From P. Donahoe, Boston. PARRA SASTHA; or, The History of Paddy Go-Easy, by William Carleton.
From Ticknor & Fields, Boston. LYRICS OF LIFE, by Robert Browning.
From Charles Scribner, New York. Froude's History of England. Vols. III. and IV.
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL, II., NO. 9.—DECEMBER, 1865,
From Le Correspondant
GENERAL DE LA MORICIÈRE.
I.
It is the sad destiny of those who outlive their generation to be called upon to speak over the graves of friends, companions, and chiefs who have the happiness of being the first to depart. Forced to envy those who precede them their lot, they readily yield to the temptation of beguiling their regrets by recalling their memory; and while thus essaying to lighten their own griefs, they think, perhaps not justly, that they have something of which to remind forgetful contemporaries, or which they may teach an indifferent posterity.
The élite of the men who date from the early years of the century begin already to be decimated by death, and this death which strikes them with a premature blow, while in the full possession of the gifts which God had lavished on them, has often been preceded by a disgrace or a retreat so prolonged that we naturally regard them as having long since entered into history. Their stern and melancholy fate, aggravated by the inconstancy of their country, may at least serve to lengthen the perspective from which our eye contemplates them.
What can less resemble the times in which we live than those early and splendid years of the parliamentary royalty in which Léon de la Moricière was first revealed to France and to glory? A whole powerful generation, delivered from military despotism and the imperial censorship, enfranchised, brought up, or completed by the free and loyal régime of the Restoration, was then in full sap and full bloom. A constellation of rare men, men of original powers and popular renown, appeared at the head of all the great departments of the national intelligence, and fulfilled the first condition of the life of a people that are free and master of their destiny. The nation was governed or represented by its most eminent men. All its living forces, all its real wants, all its legitimate interests, were represented by men of an incontestable superiority. The names of Casimir Perier, Royer-Collard, Molé, Berryer, Guizot, Thiers, Broglie, Fitz James, Villemain, Cousin, Dufaure, gave to the contests of the tribune and to the country itself an éclat never surpassed, not even in 1789. Lamartine, Victor Hugo, and Alfred de Musset stamped poetry with a character as original as ineffaceable. Ary Scheffer, [{290}] Delaroche, Delacroix, Meyerbeer, in the arts; Cuvier, Biot, Thénard, Arago, Cauchy, in the sciences; Augustin Thierry, Michelet, Tocqueville, in history and political philosophy, opened new paths, into which rushed the ardent and high-spirited youth of the nation. Lacordaire and Ravignan made radiate from the Christian pulpit a halo of eloquence and popularity unknown since Bossuet.
Perhaps this fertile opening of political, intellectual, and moral life did not encounter an analogous development in the military life; perhaps this purely civil glory extinguished the necessary attraction of the glory of arms. To this doubt, the army of Africa takes upon itself to reply.
In the ranks of that army new men, predestined to glory, began forthwith to appear. Each year, each day, augmented their renown. The true soldiers of free and liberal France were found. We learned to greet in that army a new line of soldiers, as chivalric, as formidable, as brave, as the bravest among their fathers, and adorned with virtues but too often wanting in our soldiers in former times —modest and austere virtues, civic virtues, which were the honor, and in the hour of danger the salvation, of their country. The illustrious Changarnier is the only one of that glorious phalanx that can receive here below the homage of our loyal gratitude. Of his noble companions, some, like Damesme, Négrier, Duvivier, Bréa, gave themselves to be killed in the streets of Paris in 1848, so that France might remain a civilized country; others, and the most illustrious, Cavaignac, Bedeau, La Moricière, have died one by one, obscurely and prematurely, rendered by implacable destiny useless to the country they had saved. This oppresses the heart, and certainly does no honor to our times.
Among all those valiant knights, the youngest, the most sympathetic, the most brilliant, and the most rapidly popular, was this same La Moricière, who has just been torn from us by death while still so full of fire, light, and life, of strength and faith, of physical and moral strength, of faith in God and in the future of France. Although few to-day know, or, having known, remember, that the future conqueror of Abd-el-Kader, a simple lieutenant of engineers at the taking of Algiers by Marshal Bourmont, faithful to the traditions of his royalist race, accompanied to the coast almost alone that disgraced and proscribed conqueror, and then returned to take his rank in the army where he was to conquer the most brilliant renown, without suspecting, assuredly, that he himself would one day experience injustice, ingratitude, proscription, exile, and forgetfulness. [Footnote 41] But all the world knows that the name of La Moricière, as that of Changarnier, is inseparably connected with the most dramatic episode of our African history—the two expeditions against Constantine. The pencil of Horace Vernet has made us all familiar with those prodigious exploits; he has made live again for us the immovable intrepidity of Changarnier, inclosed in the square battalion that saved the army on occasion of the first retreat, and then the impetuous daring of La Moricière at the head of his Zouaves, the red fez on his head, the white burnous on his shoulder, rushing the first up to the breach, where he was soon to disappear in the cloud of smoke and dust, in the midst of a fearful explosion, to be found again, his eyes almost destroyed, under a formless group of soldiers blackened with powder, their garments charred, and their flesh burnt. [Footnote 42] From that day he was married to fame. All France felt what has been so well rendered by Tocqueville in a private letter dated November, 1887: "I am even more interested in La Moricière than I can [{291}] explain. He carries me away in spite of myself; and when I read the account of his storming of Constantine, I seem to see him arrive first at the summit of the breach, and my soul for the moment is with him. I love him also, I believe, for France; for I cannot help believing that there is a great general in that little man." [Footnote 43]
[Footnote 41: I must be permitted to refer for all the details of the military career of General de la Moricière to the article of M. de in "Le Correspondant" for April, 1860.]
[Footnote 42: "Les Zouaves et les Chasseurs à pied,"by his Royal Highness the Duke d'Aumale, 1855. "Histoire de la Conquête d'Alger,"by Alfred Nettement.]
[Footnote 43: Tocqueville, born the 29th of July, 1805, was nearly of the same age with La Moricière, who was born the 6th of February, 1806. Before being colleagues in the Chamber of Deputies and in the ministry, they had, still young, met in 1828 at Versailles, where Tocqueville was a judge auditor, and where he received a visit from La Moricière, then hardly out of the Polytechnic School. In a letter of that date which is found in the precious collection published by M. Gustave de Beaumont, Tocqueville traces a portrait of the future hero which remained a striking likeness to his last days: "I must say that I have been charmed with him personally; I thought I saw in him all the features of a truly remarkable man. I who am habituated to live among men profuse in words with little meaning, was wholly surprised at the craving for clear and distinct understanding with which he seemed to be constantly tormented. The sang-froid with which he stopped me to demand an account of one idea before proceeding to another, which several times a little disconcerted me, and his manner of speaking of only what he perfectly understands, have given me an opinion of him superior to almost any that I have ever formed of any man at first sight.">[
Incorporated with the Zouaves from the foundation of the corps in 1830, it was he who, in gaining with them all his grades up to that of colonel, created the European reputation of that unequalled troop, at the same time that by his vigilant activity in the Arab bureaus, he preluded his remarkable faculties as an organizer and administrator. Major-general at thirty-four, lieutenant-general at thirty-seven, governor-general of Algeria ad interim at thirty-nine, he never quitted Algeria till he had rendered it for ever French by forcing Abd-el-Kader to surrender his sword to the Duke d'Aumale, a young and meritorious prince, whose own rising glory was soon to set unexpectedly in the sad night of exile. He quitted Algeria in the beginning of 1848, and bore with him a reputation whose brightness was dimmed by not a shade or a breath. His courage, his rare strategic ability, the number and splendor of his victories, were enhanced by the most rigid integrity and at the same time by a humanity and a generosity all the more meritorious from the pain it must have cost his impetuous nature to exercise it in favor of barbarous enemies who massacred and mutilated our soldiers who were taken prisoners. [Footnote 44]
[Footnote 44: "In leaving the shores on which he had landed young and obscure, and which he quitted illustrious without appearing old, he bore with him a recollection more precious than the fame of his heroic deeds; his glory was without a stain, his hands, always burning for the combat, were sullied by no abuse of victory. When the irritation against an enemy that massacred our soldier prisoners was at its height. La Moricière, pursuing one day a tribe that was in insurrection notwithstanding their oaths, and having driven them to the sea, he suddenly halted his columns and suspended his vengeance. What fear had seized his intrepid soul? He himself tells us: 'In the disposition of mind in which our soldiers then were, that vengeance might have been too severe!' Beautiful and touching words, which reveal the man in the warrior, and attest a fear of excess in the bosom of a courage that paused at no obstacles."—Le General de la Moricière, by Viscount de Meaux, p. 11.]
He re-entered France, already invested with a sort of legendary halo, and was everywhere recognized as the true type of disinterested heroism, intelligent boldness, moral dignity, independence a little haughty, and liberal instincts, which become the armies of France, at least such as they were then. Race apart, these Africans, as brilliant as original in the military history of Europe, as foreign to the brutal manners of the soldier of fortune led by Gustavus Adolphus and Frederic II. as to the savage and cruel pride of the lieutenants of Napoleon, showed themselves always the citizens of a free country, the missionaries of civilization, as well as the first soldiers in the world.
But military glory did not suffice for La Moricière. Sensible to an attraction then all powerful, he aspired to enter political life, and as soon as he was initiated into it he relished it, and devoted himself to it with that passion which he carried into everything he undertook. In 1846 he solicited and obtained the suffrages of his fellow-citizens. Elected to the Chamber of Deputies, he took his place with the moderate opposition. By a privilege rarely accorded, it was given him to conquer at once, on this new and [{292}] difficult battle-field, a distinction and an authority almost as fully acknowledged and as legitimate as that which he had gained on the theatre of his exploits in Algeria.
La Moricière was born with the gift of eloquence—that gift which is the first condition neither of the love of liberty nor of the exercise of power, but which is seldom separated from either in countries and times which permit free discussion. He united the three qualities, very rare, which the prince of contemporary orators, M. Thiers, exacts of those who aspire to govern—knowledge of public affairs, ability to expose them lucidly and in order, and the weight of character necessary to defend them. But, against the ordinary rule, his eloquence was not at all the result of labor. With him the orator was not slowly disengaged, as with the most illustrious, step by step, in a continuous progress toward perfection; he revealed himself at once as a bold and successful improvisator, who, on a chosen ground, had nothing to fear from anybody. He jeered those who passed for eloquent without having his extemporary facility. "You Academicians," said he, "must always retire to make the toilet of your speech, and are never ready when you are wanted." As for him, he was always ready, and it was a real pleasure to hear him, and to see him spring to the tribune, to mount it as if it were his horse, stride it, so to speak, and master it at a single word, with the ease of the perfect horseman—then broach the most complicated questions, provoke the most formidable adversaries, even M. Thiers himself, overcome the tumult, regain and fix the distracted attention, instruct and charm even those whom he failed to convince. His eye sparkling, his head aloft, his voice thrown out by jerks, he seemed always in speaking to be sounding a charge. He managed figures, metaphors, arguments, with as much celerity, dash, and freedom as his Zouaves. Supple and impetuous, bounding as the panther, he turned around his adversary, as if seeking his vulnerable point, before springing upon and prostrating him. Rarely did he descend from the tribune without having moved his auditory, enlightened a question, corrected a misapprehension, repaired a defeat, prepared or justified a victory. Never was the celebrated word of Cato on the Gauls, Rem militarem agere et argute loqui, more exactly verified. Under this relation, as under so many others, he was the most French of the Frenchmen of our age.
This double superiority was manifested with an éclat as sudden as complete in the midst of the frightful dangers of the revolution of February, 1848. Named minister by a last effort of expiring legality, he presented himself with his accustomed intrepidity before the insurgent populace. The populace mistook and outraged him: dragged from his horse, wounded with the thrusts of a bayonet, he with difficulty escaped with his glorious life from the cowardly assassins. When the Provisional Government issued from the mob, he would neither serve it nor combat it. But he promised to accept the Republic, and to be loyal to it, if it would preserve the army. That army was about to become, in the hands of the National Assembly and under the orders of the African generals, the last bulwark of European civilization. When the terrible days of June came to show the depth of the abyss excavated by February, La Moricière was then by the side of his friend Cavaignac, who, become his chief, after having been his lieutenant, and retained himself from personally engaging in the struggle by his duties as head of the executive, hastened to confide to him the principal part in repressing the most terrible insurrection that ever broke out in the most revolutionary city in the world. Those who were there—those who breathed the inflamed atmosphere of those solemn and terrible days, run through those narrow streets incumbered with barricades and heaps of the [{293}] slain, and where flowed literally streams of blood, those deserted quays and blocked-up quarters, whose silence was broken only by the sublime horror of the cannonade—those who were obliged to deliberate through three days and two nights amidst the roar of that cannonade, while came alternately messages of death and bulletins of the most sad but most necessary victories—those alone can know by what means and at what cost their country could really be saved, without violating the laws of justice, honor, or humanity. Those who were not there will never form a conception either of the extent of the danger or of the yawning gulf in which he came so near being swallowed up, nor of the mixture of determined energy and invincible patience needed to vanquish those misguided but intrepid masses inured to war, and desperate, and whose blows too large a number of former military officers directed against the inexperience of the Gard Mobile or the hesitation of the troops that had just entered Paris.
La Moricière, more than any other, was the man for the occasion. His fiery temperament protected him from that patriotic sadness which overcast the countenance of General Cavaignac all through the bloody crisis which must raise him to supreme power. In exposing himself as at Constantine, for a longer time, and to still greater danger than at Constantine, in rushing himself the first against the barricades, defended by adversaries far more formidable than Arabs or Kabyles; in prolonging the struggle with a revolution madder than that of the insurgents. La Moricière finally succeeded in wresting Paris from the insurrection. The confidence with which he inspired the troops, the high spirits and gaiety, the heroic recklessness which he mingled with his indomitable resolution, triumphed over every obstacle, and decided the victory. Thanks to that victory, and to that alone, France was drawn from the abyss and saved from barbarism.
Hence, on his return from the fearful struggle, he was greeted only with a unanimous shout of enthusiasm and gratitude. Cavaignac hastened to set his seal to the general acclamation by associating him to his government as minister of war.
There was then a short period of confidence, of union, of calm, and of relative security. Those days must have been sweet to the two friends placed at the head of the country which they had just saved, and which gave them freely the gratitude which they had so richly merited. Their union, intimate and loyal, cordial and frank, contributed often to the charm and well-being of that bright interval. It received an official and touching consecration during the discussion of the constitution, on the occasion of the articles relative to the public force. It was a beautiful scene. An imprudent member, apropos of the promotion, a little irregular, of the future Marshal Bosquet, accused the minister of war of acting from private friendship, and spoke of those whom chance and fortune had placed at the head of the army. La Moricière remained calm under the insult, but Cavaignac, seated by his side on the ministerial bench, was indignant, and, ascending the tribune, and addressing the aggressor, said: "There is one thing that astonishes me; it is that you, sir, who were there, on the soil of Africa, as well as me,—that you could see no other motive for the elevation of that man but chance and fortune. As for me, if I am surprised, it is to see him in the second rank, while I am in the first." A noble word, and worthy of the noblest antiquity, such as could sometimes, by the side of others by no means felicitous, fall from the lips of the proud and loyal Cavaignac, then still the idol of the fickle enthusiasm of conservative France, and which was so soon to leave him only the right to say, with not less of modest dignity, "I have not fallen from power; I have descended from it."
La Moricière was then at the [{294}] apogee of a fortune which nobody was disposed to regard as excessive or usurped. At the age of forty he was everywhere known, was invested with universal popularity, and was the second man of France. The superiority he had won on the battle-fields of Africa and at the much more formidable barricades in the streets of Paris, he maintained and exercised in the councils of his country and on the uncertain and perilous soil of the tribune. [Footnote 45] Even when individuals were not of his opinion, which was often the case with his friends of the evening as with those of the morrow, they regretted or were astonished not to agree with him; they ceased not to admire him, and were drawn toward him. It was known, it was felt, that however the passions of the moment might mislead him, the miserable instincts of envy, servility, selfishness, mean ambition, or thirst for wealth, could never find a place in his robust and manly heart. We loved him even when we were forced to oppose him. Beside, we knew not yet how much better and further on many essential points he saw, in his transports and gruffness, than many others more calm or more experienced, and who were, though in a different manner, as much deceived as he.
[Footnote 45: "Never has been pushed farther the intelligence, and the power of labor, with the passion or struggle under all the forms which create public life."'—Discours du Général Trochu sur la tombe de la Moricière à Saint-Philibert de Grand-Lieu.]
Moreover, in the public life of free nations and great assemblies, if the clashing of opinions and the collision of self-loves give birth to noisy or passionate dissents, they are rarely deep or lasting. This is evident from what is seen every day and has been for a long time in England. One is not forced there to brood in silence and darkness over animosities which their very impotence renders incurable. Often, on the contrary, in that open-day life, friendships the most serious, and alliances the most sincere, succeed to misunderstandings or transports which with well-born souls cannot survive the action of time and the lights of experience, when people are agreed on the great conditions of liberty, dignity, probity, and honor, without which all is null of itself. But more than this, La Moricière, a short time before getting power, gave to what was then called the conservative reaction a pledge the best fitted of all to make us forget the dissensions which had separated him from us. It was he who directed the first steps of the Roman expedition, and imprinted on it from the outset its real character, that of defending the Pope, and assuring the liberty and the security of the visible head of the Church.
To him is due the honor of initiating that expedition, of which twelve years later he must write the sorrowful epilogue with the blood of the young martyrs of Castelfidardo. To him and to the assemblies belongs the glorious responsibility of that grand act of French politics, which has been too often thrown at us as a crime, by the Caesarian democracy, hoping to gain the right to give to others an homage not their due.
Even afterwards, when the substitution of Prince Louis Napoleon for General Cavaignac had removed him from office, when the dismissal of his friends, Odillon-Barrot, Tocqueville, and Dufour, had involved his resignation of his embassy to Russia, which he had accepted at their request—when, in fine, the conservative party met him often among its most active opponents, before dividing and turning against itself. La Moricière preserved in the eyes of all a position apart and a marked ascendency. In the present he had no peer, and the future, whatever might happen, seemed to reserve to him a place always eminent, and always preponderant in the destinies of France and of Europe.
II.
In one day, or, rather, in one night, all this present and all this future crumbled. La Moricière, at the age of forty-five, falling from the most enviable position a French soldier could occupy, without its being possible to reproach him with the shadow of a crime or even of a fault, saw for ever closed to him all access to either of the two careers in which he had won so much glory, and in which he walked as the peer, or the superior, of all his contemporaries. His military and public life was closed. The most brilliant of our soldiers succumbed to a military revolution. The statesman and the tribune, so in love with popular sympathies, was swept away by a movement sanctioned by a popularity none could dispute. He was broken when the law was broken with the assent of the people; he was broken for having remained faithful to an opinion which had for it constitutional right and the inviolability of oaths; broken much less by the unmerciful demands of victory than by the forgetfulness and abandonment of France; broken for not having comprehended that France had wholly changed her gait and her tendencies, and no longer held anything which she had pretended to hold and to love ever since 1814. He must then, in his turn, undergo those prodigies of inconstancy and ingratitude with which the contemporary public delights to visit princes when they are liberal, and superior men when they are honest.
No cup of bitterness was spared him: I mean bitternesses of the mind and the heart, the most poignant and the most unbearable of all; and I speak not for him alone, but also for his valiant and unfortunate companions in glory and in exile. In the first years of his exile he met, outside of his family and his wife, little sympathy in that Belgium where Catholics especially were almost all under the fascination of the conqueror. At that period of life when we have the full consciousness of our strength and our resources, when the employment of the gifts received from God is a prime necessity, he saw himself condemned to forego not only the exercise of power and the management of great affairs to which he had become accustomed, but all public life, and, indeed, all active life. In vain he repeated the device of his generous rival and friend Changarnier, Happiness is gone, but honor remains; in vain he spoke and wrote with Count de Maistre after Tilsit, Europe is Bonaparte's, but my heart is mine; he was forced to experience a long while the mortal tediousness of the dead calm after the salutary and quickening excitements of the storm, and to sink into a wearisome idleness, the mother, as Fouquet says to Pignerol, of despair. He had to bear the laceration of impatience, that mortal despite, that sterility of walks and books for a man of his condition, that lassitude of a life deprived of all occupation, that fatigue of doing nothing of which the bare thought made Saint-Simon shudder, and held him fast in the ante-chamber of Louis XIV.
But there was for him a more cruel trial still, a thousand times more bitter, of which neither Fouquet nor Saint-Simon had the remotest conception.
France was on the point of making war, a great war; and these valiant guards, these great war-chiefs, are not to be there! From Africa are drawn the battalions they formed, which they commanded, and so often led to victory. These battalions are now to march under other chiefs to new victories. Themselves so long first and alone, on whom the eyes of France and of Europe were so long accustomed to be fixed—themselves all glowing with military ardor, full of vigor and patriotism—having never failed their country, honor, or justice, are now condemned to inaction, to forgetfulness, to nothingness; noted subalterns rise and seize the first rank in the eyes of the world!—who can tell, who can conceive, the anguish, the torture of these men, so illustrious, so intrepid, and, be it not forgotten, so innocent, so irreproachable before the country and the army?
The "Epoque" tells us to-day that a word, a single word, had sufficed to recall them to France, and to commands in the Crimea, the baton of the marshal, and all the augmented splendor and prosperity which victory brings in its train. Nothing is known of it. Always is it a fact that this word, whether it would have been listened to or not, was not spoken, and since it was not, it no doubt ought not to have been spoken.
What, moreover, was that marshal's baton so cruelly stolen from those who had so well earned it? Those grades, decorations, gildings, and salaries, the vulgar food of vulgar souls, were they what attracted, what inflamed, these heroic souls? No, a thousand times no. It was danger; it was devotedness, enthusiasm, action, the service of France, the love of country, the love of the noble flag which they had borne aloft for twenty years; the glorious brotherhood of arms with so many good soldiers and brave officers, their own offspring, so to speak; the burning desire, a thousand times legitimate, of adding new laurels to those already won; in a word, it was HONOR—and it was precisely honor that condemned them to silence, to inaction, to death—the real death and the only death they had ever dreaded.
Never did Calderon, the great Spanish poet, in those famous dramas of his which always turn on the imperious exigencies, the merciless refinements, the torturing delicacies of honor, imagine a situation more striking, a trial more acute, a narrower pass, or a yoke more crushing. The trial was submitted to, the pass was traversed, the yoke was borne to the end. All we cannot say, and what we do say is nothing by the side of the suffering we have seen, felt, known, and shared. Perhaps a day will come when these tortures of the soul will be comprehended and rewarded with the admiration which is their due. But who knows? To hope that, it is necessary to believe in the justice of history, and who knows if there will be again any history worthy of the name? We may well doubt it, when we mark what is passing around us in an age which for a long time boasts of having regenerated history, and when we see liberals make the panegyric of the 10th of August, Christians applaud the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and writers in high credit with their several parties undertake to rehabilitate the reign of terror, the Inquisition, and the Roman empire.
Nothing was wanting, we have said, to the evil fortune of our friend. After years of exile in Belgium, his only son fell ill in France. And while were debated with the desolate father the conditions of his return, the son, the only hope of his family, died. When at length he was permitted to return, it was too late; he received not the last sigh of his child. He was inconsolable. "They restore me my country," he said; "but who will restore me my child?" It was no longer his country, such as he had known it, that was restored to him—the country, above all, by which he had been so well known, so proudly boasted, and so admired. The real exile is not in being torn from our native country, but in remaining in it and finding no longer that which made it specially dear to us. La Moricière perceived it only too soon. But he comprehended the difference alike of time and men, and conformed with an intelligent and manly resignation, which held in nothing from his adhesion, and which took nothing from the energy of his convictions or the dignity of his attitude. For the rest, he had brought back with him from the land of his exile neither the illusions of the emigré, blind animosities, nor mean or noisy bitterness. And yet he was not at the end of his cross.
There remained to him a last human good, a last plank saved from shipwreck!—his old popularity among [{297}] his contemporaries, and the companions in that shipwreck, near his old political friends, in the bosom of the party which he had not only served and defended, but, above all, had honored and protected with his glory. That popularity he risked totally in the most abandoned, the most contested, and the most vilipended cause in the world. He risked all, and he lost! A priest whom he had known as a soldier in Africa, under the flag of France, before becoming his relation and his friend, offered him, in the name of Pius IX., an opportunity of braving new perils, with the certainty of being vanquished in the desperate struggle. He ran thither. Forthwith a long and loud howl of insult and derision rose from the bosom of the whole so-called European democracy. He was dragged to the gemoniae—both he and the young warriors that followed in his footsteps. A hideous clamor arose from the lowest depths of human baseness, from the Thames to the Arno, and pursued with invectives, railleries, and calumnies the devoted band and their heroic chief. The vapid calumniators of disinterested virtue spoke all at once, and spoke alone; France and Europe justified them. New Italy blushed in her turn to find herself approached by men bold enough to dare to fight and die under the colors of a pontiff and a father. She asked and obtained freedom to crush them. But she essayed to kill them with falsehood before attacking them with the sword, and by falsehoods such as the world had not heard since the imperial trap set at Bayonne in 1808. A Cialdini dares call, in an order of the day to his army, La Moricière and his companions "mercenaries thirsting for gold and pillage," and King Victor Emmanuel announces to the Emperor of the French that he "is marching his troops into the Marches and Umbria to re-establish order there in relation to the temporal authority of the Pope, and, if it should be necessary, to give battle to the revolution on the Neapolitan territory." [Footnote 46] Eight days after the troops of the king pounced, ten to one, on the little army of La Moricière. The obscure burgh of Castelfidardo is immortalized by that butchery. Pimodan perished there by a death worthy of his chief, who sought refuge in Ancona, and capitulate when his last gun was dismounted. This French general—and what a general!—gave up his sword to the Piedmontese! His young companions, prisoners like himself, passed over Italy in the midst of insults and outrages. La Moricière, himself released as soon as the work of spoliation was consummated, returned to France, where he met the scoffs and jeers of those who insulted his departure.
[Footnote 46: Circular of M. Thouvenel, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 18th October, 1860. The "National Opinion," a worthy "Moniteur" of Piedmont, adds in its number for Sept. 14, 1860: "Victor Emmanuel proposes precisely to protect the Holy Father and his temporal authority against the enthusiasm of the volunteers.">[
From that moment all was accomplished or marching toward the end foreseen and determined. The darkest forebodings, the saddest predictions, are verified. Christian France is resigned, and Europe has habituated herself to what five years ago appeared to be the nec plus ultra of impossible iniquity. People have even come to regard confining the spoliation within its present limits as a benefit which, if assured, would make a Te Deum break forth from the whole Catholic world, asleep or deceived.
La Moricière had seen and suffered all this, and it was only the last phase of a disgrace which lasted fifteen years without relaxation and without revenge. As his life, rent asunder, drew toward its end, by an insolent freak of fortune, by a contrast and a coincidence the strange mystery of which will astonish the future, Abd-el-Kader arrives in France to be received there as a sovereign!
The conqueror and the conquered, it is said, met in the street: La Moricière on foot, confounded with the [{298}] multitude; Abd-el-Kader with all the pomp of his official train, and the grand cordon of the Legion of Honor on his breast. They exchanged a single look. After which, the prisoner of 1847 is found sufficiently avenged on the prisoner of the 2d of December; pursuing his course with loud din, caressed, feasted, toasted by courtiers, functionaries, and freemasons, presented to the universitarian youth as the type of modern civilization and the religion of large souls, Abd-el-Kader quitted triumphantly the soil of France, to return with his wives, who accompanied him, to his palace in the East; La Moricière entered his house to die there, and he did die there, all alone, forgotten by the multitude, unknown by the rising generation, and buried in the silence of the flatterers and satellites of fortune. The death of this great servant of France is announced by the official journal among the "Miscellaneous Facts," after an article on conducting water into Paris! At the decline of day his coffin, in being directed toward a village cemetery, traverses obscurely the streets of that Babylon which he had saved, really saved, from barbarism—those very streets lately ploughed by the pompous cortège of a marshal of France, named grand master of freemasonry by an imperial decree.
Whilst the Cialdinis, the Fantis, and so many authors and fomentors of the guet-apens of Castelfidardo, so many other violators of the law of nations and of their sworn faith, survive and triumph, rolling in opulence and prosperity. La Moricière, for having been faithful to law, to honor, and to religion, is extinguished and disappears, vanquished, ignored, forgotten.
I have said that I suspect the judgments of history, because history is almost always the servant or the priestess of Success; but its recitals are always instructive, and I consent that it be questioned to ascertain if it furnish many instances of a destiny more tragic.
III.
But after having touched the bottom of the abyss, the soul rises to contemplate and adore the grandeur and glory of adversity. La Moricière, we know and confess it, triumphant and satisfied, marshal of France, conqueror at Alma or Magenta, hailed by the curiosity of the eager multitude, fat and heavy by prosperity, had not risen above the throng of successful generals, had attained no other glory than military glory, with which France in all times has been smitten, and in all times been saturated. His image, placed in its rank in the galleries of Versailles, in the midst of so many others, would have awakened in the souls of the visitors only a transient and commonplace emotion; but La Moricière, betrayed by fortune, disgraced, proscribed, insulted; La Moricière, conqueror of anarchy and victim of the dictatorship; La Moricière, condemned by his sense of honor to the punishment of an obscure idleness; La Moricière, beaten at Castelfidardo and a captive at Ancona; La Moricière, submitting to the wrongs of fate with a modesty and a gravity wholly Christian, then dying all alone, but standing with the crucifix in his hand—is a personage of another stamp, and rises at once from the ranks of the herd to the loftiest height of human admiration. This is a glory apart, which re-youths the soul, which stimulates and purifies it, and which it would not exchange for any other. This is a spectacle such as history too rarely offers, such as we Frenchmen, we Catholics, too docile worshippers of force and fortune, have special need of. Yes, this glory is enviable, and in reality the most enviable of all glories. In vain nature rebels, reason and faith unite to proclaim it. We are all moved by the recollection of Catinat, old, retired, and resigned in his retreat, and recalling there, as says Saint-Simon, "by his simplicity, his frugality, his contempt of the world, his peace of mind, and the uniformity of [{299}] his conduct, the memory of those great men who, after triumphs the best merited, returned tranquilly to their plough, always loving their country, and little affected by the ingratitude of Rome, which they had so well served." But Catinat, really unfortunate; Catinat, a prisoner, exiled, disgraced; Catinat, removed at the flower of his age from the command of armies, had been much greater still, and, as our La Moricière have recalled St. Louis in chains. The ancients said that the good man struggling with adversity is the most worthy, if not alone worthy, of the favor of God. Christianity adds, that it is a sight the most necessary and salutary to the heart of man.
La Moricière was chosen among us to give this high lesson in all its majesty and in all its beauty. He has shown that double character of docility under trial, and of empire over misfortune, which makes great men and great saints. It was because there was in him the stuff of a great Christian.
Trials and exile rapidly developed in his soul the germs of faith which early domestic education had planted, and which pure and noble examples near him led him to admire and cherish. By his marriage with the granddaughter of the Marchioness of Montagu, he entered a family in which calamities the most atrocious and the most unexpected, borne with superhuman energy, had left in the soul only a sublime serenity, and compassion greater still for the executioners than for the martyrs. Inflamed by the recitals of a mother-in-law who continued to the last his most devoted and enthusiastic friend, he had the first thought of a publication destined to count among the treasures of our history, and of which he himself dictated the first draft. [Footnote 47] In learning to appreciate the action of Christian virtue on the most touching victims of the Reign of Terror as on the obscure duties of domestic life, he was conducted further and higher still. A study, an active study, ardent and profound, of the doctrines and results of religion, became henceforth his principal occupation, and he continued it with unwearied perseverance to his last moments. Once a Christian in practice as well as in belief, he would be so openly, and no more recoil before human respect and the disdains of infidelity than before the Arabs or the barricades. He was seen at the foot of the Christian pulpit, following the words of the preacher with deep attention, and the lively gesticulation habitual to him, marking on his nobly chiselled features an expressive assent and sometimes an impatient contradiction, as if he felt that he must in his turn mount the tribune and reply. One day, at Brussels, a former colleague and friend, who had known him quite different from what he was now, found him bending over his maps, tracing the progress of our army in the Crimea. To hold them unrolled he took the books which he now generally, and which were the Catechism, his mass-book, the Imitation of Jesus Christ, and a volume of Père Gratry. At sight of these four witnesses of a preoccupation so novel, the visitor could not dissemble his surprise. "Yes, indeed," said the general, "I use these, I occupy myself with that. I do not wish, like you, to remain with my feet dangling in the air, between heaven and earth, between light and darkness. I wish to know whither I go, and by what I am to hold. I make no mystery of it."
[Footnote 47: "Anne Dominique de Noailles, Marquise de Montagu." Rouen, 1859. It May be well to remind the American reader that the Marquise de Montagu, grandmother of General La Moricière's wife, was a sister of Madame Lafayette, who so heroically shared the prison of Olmntz with her husband, and whoso faith and purity gave a superhuman strength and energy to her noble character.—THE TRANSLATOR. ]
This public courage against the enemies of the faith availed him from God the unhoped for and incomparable gift of magnanimous patience, which he needed to enable him to accept and bear his trials, and to offer to God all the goods of his glorious life, which he had sacrificed. The progress of [{300}] that great soul, becoming every day more obvious, was manifested especially by his resignation in presence of the heavy cross which was inflicted on him.
"We welcome the cross at a distance," says Fénelon, "but shrink from it when close by." It was not so with La Moricière. He had seldom welcomed the cross when afar, but when it came home to him, he embraced it, raised it up, and bore it even to the tomb, with a supernatural generosity, serenity, and simplicity. The crucifying experience which, according to Fénelon, is always needed to detach us from ourselves and the world, found in him no revolt, no fainting, no feebleness. He entered this new career and walked in it to the end with the vehement and obstinate resolution of a man of war determined to become a man of God.
A great genius has said it concerns the honor of the human species that souls born to suffer should know how to suffer well. La Moricière was not born to suffer; he was born to combat, to command, to conquer, and to dazzle; nevertheless, when life became to him only one long suffering, he learned how to suffer well, to suffer as a Christian, as a soldier of Christ, as the conqueror of evil—to suffer not during fifteen days or fifteen months, but through fifteen years, till death came to relieve him from his post.
All of us who have known and visited him in this second and sorrowful phase of his existence, owe to him great and valuable lessons, which his memory and the stern example of his death must render for ever sacred to us. Doubtless, the acts of the saints, the examples of the heroes of the Christian life, their trials and their triumphs, transmitted by historians or commentators to their spiritual posterity, are much; but they are nothing, or next to nothing, in the real presence, if I may so speak, of a man marked with the seal of election, of a confessor, not merely of the faith, but of virtue, patience, resignation, and Christian abnegation. What history, what preaching, could avail so much as a clasp of that valiant hand, an accent of that vibrating voice, a look of that lion's eye, coming to the support of a truth recognized, asserted, and practised by a soul of that temper?
No; the flame of that beautiful eye, so limpid and so proud, will never be forgotten by any who have once seen it, whether touched with the surprise of generous indignation or softened by sympathy and the desire to persuade; and that flame, always living in our memory, will continue to illumine for us the mysteries of life and suffering.
Besides, no exterior metamorphosis accompanied the deep and salutary change in his interior. Such as he was seen on the field of battle, or in the assemblies of which he was a member, in the most brilliant and the most agitated portion of his career, such he was in the solitude and obscurity of his new life. He was as vehement and as dazzling as ever, with all his fire and all his charm, with his exuberance of life, youth, originality, enthusiasm, which seemed always anxious to overflow on all and on everything around him. Only sourness, wrath, irritation even the most legitimate, seemed swallowed up in one master passion, the passion for good—seeking and accepting the will of God, in the love of souls.
Nothing in him was worn-out or enfeebled, but all was pacified, reduced to order, animated with a higher and purer inspiration. The touching forgetfulness of his human glory, humanly buried, rendered him only the more dear and the more sacred to his friends. These friends were still numerous; and friends, relations, old comrades, old colleagues, we were all proud of him, all under his charm as soon as he reappeared, for too brief moments, amongst us. Nothing, indeed, could be more natural, for I cannot too often repeat that he preserved in his private relations all his old fascination, and all his old [{301}] attractiveness. Essentially French, with all the good and generous instincts of our country; essentially modern, also, in the turn of his mind, his ideas, and his convictions, having nothing stern, morose, or superannuated in his religion, and willing to place at the service of the old law, and the old faith, all the resources of modern civilization, which none better knew or more justly appreciated; in fine, he remained a liberal in spite of so many disappointments, so many defections, and so many mad crimes committed in the name of liberty—a liberal certainly more moderate and more practical than in the days of his youth, but liberal altogether a soldier, as affirms to us one of those valiant knights who fought with him at Castelfidardo. He thought with the new generation, and held liberty a thing so beautiful and so good that he was willing to accept it frankly and cordially whatever the hand that offered it.
As the price of his suffering, God granted him the conversion of his soul. As the price of his conversion, it was given him to fix for a last time the eyes of Europe and of posterity on himself, by a struggle as unequal as generous, in the service of a cause as legitimate as abandoned. All has been said both before and since his death on the epic grandeur and the Christian heroism of the sacrifice he made for the Papacy, so basely betrayed. It was, as repeated over and over again, not the sacrifice of his life, which he had a hundred times exposed with joy on the field of battle, but the sacrifice of his name, his reputation, his military glory, the victories he had won. Se et ante actos triumphos devovit, according to the truly Roman device of the medal offered him by the magistracy of Rome. "He marched," says General Trochu, "with weakness against force, a signal and rare honor which remains attached to his name in the judgment of all honest men of all creeds and of all countries."
Let us endeavor to define clearly what it was, aside from the justice of the sovereign and the sanctity of the right he went to defend, that marks his devotion with a character of exceptional grandeur and purity, which places him—dare I say it?—almost above Lescure and Larochejaquelein. He was not young, obscure, and inexperienced, as were those heroes so pure; he was not attracted by novelty, the irresistible charm of the unknown, the chances of the struggle, or the fortune of battle; he was vanquished in advance, and he knew it; he marched in cool blood to an inevitable defeat, and a defeat not simply material. To yield to that sublime seduction of a duty which can end only in a catastrophe, he was obliged to break with most of his political friends. He knew perfectly to what he exposed himself; he knew thoroughly the cosmopolitan power and implacable fury of the party which he was sure to stir up against him. He knew that clerical unpopularity is that which is the hardest to efface, and the last that is pardoned. He knew it, and as formerly before the breach of Constantine, he threw himself, head lowered, against it. He had the noble courage to be unpopular, and so became unpopular even to heroism. Taking the man such as we have known him, with his character, his age, and his antecedents, I fear not to affirm that in no epoch has Christian chivalry ever conceived anything more difficult, more meritorious, more worthy of eternal memory.
Thus in what must be his check, God granted him here below a glory as rare as refined and imperishable. He counts in the first ranks of those who are the seconds for God in the great duel between good and evil—men predestined to be sponsors for the good, for honor and justice. [Footnote 48]
[Footnote 48: Mgr. Dupanloup "Oraison funébre du morts de Castelfidardo."]
A handful of young men, miserably scanty in numbers, alone responded to an appeal of so magnificent, so seductive an example; and of all the symptoms [{302}] of the decadence or transformation of European society, there is none more alarming, more humiliating, than that very paucity of their numbers. Their small number honors them, but accuses us, said, with too much truth, a brave man, who died at the very moment he was going to join them. But this small number sufficed for what La Moricière sought, and for all that he regarded as possible. It sufficed to represent the honor of Catholic France in the midst of the cowardly abandonment of Europe. Above all, it sufficed to strip the lying mask from Piedmontese usurpation, and to spot with blood the hypocritical hands about to be placed on the shoulder and the white tunic of the Vicar of Jesus Christ.
This done, nothing remained for La Moricière but to die as he has died. Death came suddenly, but it did not take him unprepared. It found him on foot, vigilant, decided, invincible, as when, in the times of his youth, he looked it every day in its face. It found him armed with a force and a faith it found not in him then. In seeing it approach he "unhooked his crucifix as he formerly unhooked his sword." The word is from a bishop and it will remain: "She was sweet toward death, as she had been sweet toward life," said Bossuet of his Henrietta of England. He would have said of our hero, that he was strong against death, as he had been strong against life. He would have greeted with his immortal accents that death of the soldier which was also, and above all, the death of a saint. What more admirable or more complete! That last night after a day divided between private and public prayer, and the study of the history of the Church in which he will have a page—a page how resplendent! [Footnote 49] That word only to call a priest—that only cry to procure the grace of absolution—those rapid moments passed while standing in solitude, the crucifix in his hand—and, in fine, the supreme moment which finds him in full adoration on his knees before his God!—can there be conceived a life more generously, more Christianly finished, a death more happy in its suddenness? Behold him saved from tasting, drop by drop, the bitterness of separation from his family—his noble wife, always so worthy of him, and whom God had given for his companion and his light, and his daughters, whom he adored with the tenderness and passionate anxiety of an old soldier. Behold him transported at once from his obscure and wearisome idleness into eternal activity, into a splendor and a glory which no one can henceforth take from him! What a triumphant exit from his exile here below! What a triumphant entry into the heavenly country, the army of the elect, of the confessors of the faith, the chevaliers of Christ! Te martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.
[Footnote 49: It is well known that on Sunday, the eve of his death, he assisted for the last time at the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament, in the village church of Plouzel. He remained there kneeling through the whole office. On his return he read "l'Histoire de l'Eglise," by the Abbé Darras. It was his last reading. The volume was open, near his bed, when he rose to call a domestic to go for the parish priest, who barely arrived in time to receive his last sigh.]
How he now loves and esteems those fifteen years of human disgrace, during which divine grace invaded his soul, and led him through thorns and the cross, scoffs, jeers, disasters, bitterness, anguish, to the Christian coronation of his career!
"I will go," said the Bishop of Orleans, in speaking of the graves of the young soldiers of La Moricière, immolated under his eyes in his last battle,—"I will go there, to cast a look toward heaven and demand the triumph of justice and eternal honor on the earth; I will go there to relieve my heart from its sadness and to strengthen my soul in its faintings. I will learn from them to keep burning within me zeal for the Church and zeal for souls,—to devote myself to the struggle of truth and justice, even to the last whisper of my voice and my last sigh."
And we will go, and the great and dear bishop will come with us;—we [{303}] will go and ask, and learn all that we lack, near that grave opened on the barren heath in Bretagne, at the foot of an unrecognized cross, where lie the remains of the immortal chief of those victims—of him who, as Duguesclin, Duguesclin his countryman, had well deserved to sleep among the kings at Saint-Denis. So long as there shall be a Christian France, that distant and solitary tomb will appear to the soul clothed with a solemn grandeur and a touching majesty. Far from the intoxications of the battle-field, far from the theatre of his struggles and his successes, under that mound of earth which will cover to the day of judgment that brave heart and that victorious arm,—there, there with love it will go to invoke that great soul, betrayed by fortune and magnified by sacrifice. It is there that it will admire without reserve the warrior, the statesman, who preserved unstained his honor—the honor of the soldier, of the citizen, and of the Christian. It is there that it will be needful to go to learn the emptiness of human hopes, and at the same time that there is even in this world true greatness and real virtue. That grave will tell us how necessary it is to despise iniquitous victories, and to serve in the army of justice against the army of fortune; to protest against enervating indolence, against servile compliances, against the idolatry of Success; to place above the poor tinsel of a false greatness fidelity to convictions deserted, to the torn flag of liberty denied, to friends persecuted, to the proscribed, and to the vanquished. That tomb will teach us, in the confusion and instability of the present, to preserve before all things integrity of character, which makes all the power and all the value of the man here below. But from that tomb will come forth at the same time a harder and a more necessary lesson still. It will teach us how to be gentle and strong in adversity; to find calm and joy in suffering; to bear it without depression and without sourness; to consent, where need is, to be only a useless servant, and to gain thus eternal life. Yes, all this will be revealed by the grave of him who will not be forgotten, because he united in his life things too often separated; because he was not only a great captain, a great servant of his country, a faithful soldier of liberty, an honest man, a great citizen, but also a great Christian, an humble and brave Christian, who loved his soul, and has saved it.
CH. DE MONTALEMBERT.
From The Month.
CONSTANCE SHERWOOD.
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
BY LADY GEORGIANA FULLERTON.
CHAPTER XVII.
When I had been a short time in my Lady Lumley's chamber, my Lord Arundel sent for his granddaughter, who was wont, she told me, at that hour to write letters for him; and I stayed alone with her ladyship, who, as soon as Lady Surrey left us, thus broke forth in her praise:
"Hath any one, think you. Mistress Sherwood, ever pictured or imagined a creature more noble, more toward in disposition, more virtuous in all her actions, of greater courage in adversity or patience under ill-usage than this one, which God hath sent to this house to cheer two lonely hearts, whilst her own is well-nigh broken?"
"Oh, my Lady Lumley!" I exclaimed, "I fear some new misfortune hath befallen this dear lady, who is indeed so rare a piece of goodness that none can exceed in describing her deserts. Hitherto she hath condescended to impart her sorrows to her poor friend; but to-day she shut up her griefs in her own bosom, albeit I could read unspoken suffering in every lineament of her sweet countenance."
"God forgive me," her ladyship replied, "if in speaking of her wrongs I should entertain over-resentful feelings toward her ungracious husband, whom once I did love as a mother, and very loth hath my heart been to condemn him; but now, if it were not that I myself received him in my arms what time he was born, whose life was the cause of my sweet young sister's death, I should doubt he could be her son."
"What fresh injury," I timidly asked, "hath driven Lady Surrey from her house?"
"Her house no longer," quoth Lady Lumley. "She hath no house, no home, no husband worthy of the name, and only an old man nigh unto the grave, alas! and a poor feeble woman such as I am to raise a voice in her behalf, who is spurned by one who should have loved and cherished her, as twice before God's altar he vowed to do. Oh," cried the poor lady, weeping, "she hath borne all things else with a sweet fortitude which angels looking down on her must needs have wondered at. She would ever be excusing this faithless husband with many pretty wiles and loving subterfuges, making, sweet sophist, the worst appear the better reason. 'Men must needs be pardoned,' she would say, when my good father waxed wroth at his ill-usage of her, 'for such outward neglect as many practice in these days toward their wives, for that it was the fashion at the court to appear unhusbandly; but if women would be patient, she would warrant them their love should be requited at last.' And when news came that Phil had sold an estate for to purchase—God save the mark!—a circlet of black pearls for the queen; and Lord Arundel swore he should leave him none of his lands but what by act of parliament he was compelled to do, she smiled winsomely, and said: 'Yea, my lord, I pray you, let my dear Phil be a poor man as his father wished him to be, and then, if it please God, we may live in a cottage and be happy.' And so turned away his anger by soft words, for he [{305}] laughed and answered: 'Heaven help thee. Nan! but I fear that cottage must needs be Arundel Castle, for my hands are so tied therein that thy knavish husband cannot fail to inherit it. And beshrew me if I would either rob thee of it, mine own good Nan, or its old walls of thy sweet presence when I shall be dead.' And so she always pleaded for him, and never lost heart until . . . Oh, Mistress Sherwood, I shall never forget the day when her uncle, Francis Dacre—wisely or unwisely I know not, but surely meaning well—gave her to read in this house, where she was spending a day, a letter which had fallen into his hands, I wot not how, in the which Philip—God forgive him!—expressed some kind of doubt if he was truly married to her or not. Some wily wretch had, I ween, whispered to him, in an evil hour, this accursed thought. When she saw this misdoubt written in his hand she straightway fell down in a swoon, which recovering from, the first thing she did was to ask for her cloak and hat, and would have walked alone to her house if I had not stayed her almost by force, until Lord Arundel's coach could be got ready for her. In less than two hours she returned with so wan and death-like a countenance that it frighted me to see her, and for some time she would not speak of what had passed between her lord and herself; only she asked for to stay always in this house, if it should please her grandfather, and not to part from us any more. At the which speech I could but kiss her, and with many tears protest that this should be the joyfullest news in the world to Lord Arundel and to me, and what he would most desire, if it were not for her grief, which, like an ill wind, yet did blow us this good. 'Yea,' she answered, with the deepest sigh which can be thought of, 'a cold, withering blast which driveth me from the shelter which should be mine! I have heard it said that when Cardinal Wolsey lay a-dying he cried, "It were well with me now if I had served my God with the like zeal with which I have served my king," or some words of that sort. Oh, my Lady Lumley!' the poor child exclaimed, 'if I had not loved Philip more than God and his Church, methinks I should not thus be cast off!' 'Cast off,' I cried; 'and has my graceless nephew, then, been so wicked?' 'Oh, he is changed,' she answered—'he is changed. In his eyes, in his voice, I found not Philip's looks, nor Philip's tones. Nought but harshness and impatience to dismiss me. The queen, he said, was coming to rest at his house on her way to the city, and he lacked leisure to listen to my complaints. Then I felt grief and anger rise in my breast with such vehemency that I charged him, maybe too suddenly, with the doubt he had expressed in his letter to my Lord Oxford. His face flushed deeply; but drawing up haughtily, as one aggrieved, he said the manner of our marrying had been so unusual that there were some, and those persons well qualified to judge, who misdoubted if there did not exist a flaw in its validity. That he should himself be loth to think so, but that to seek at that moment to prove the contrary, when his fortunes hung on a thread, would be to ruin him.'
"There she paused, and clasped her hands together as if scarce able to proceed; but soon raising her head, she related in a passionate manner how her heart had then swelled well-nigh to bursting, pride and tenderness restraining the utterance of such resentful thoughts as rose in her when she remembered his father's last letter, wherein he said his chief prop and stay in his fallen estate should be the wife he had bestowed on him; of her own lands sold for the supply of his prodigal courtiership; of her long patience and pleading for him to others; and this his present treatment of her, which no wife could brook, even if of mean birth and virtue, much loss one his equal in condition, as well dowered as any in the land, [{306}] and as faithful and tender to him as he did prove untoward to her. But none of these reproaches passed her lips; for it was an impossible thing to her, she said, to urge her own deserts, or so much as mention the fortune she had brought him. Only twice she repeated, 'Ruin your fortunes, my lord! ruin your fortunes! God help me, I had thought rather to mend them!' And then, when he tried to answer her in some sort of evading fashion, as if unsaying, and yet not wholly denying his former speech, she broke forth (and in the relation of this scene the passion of her grief renewed itself) in vehement adjurations, which seemed somewhat to move him, not to be so unjust to her or to himself as to leave that in uncertainty which so nearly touched both their honors; and if the thought of a mutual love once existing between them, and a firm bond of marriage relied on with unshaken security, and his father's dying blessing on it, and the humble duty she had shown him from the time she had borne his name, sufficed not to resolve him thereunto, yet for the sake of justice to one fatherless and brotherless as herself, she charged him without delay to make that clear which, left uncertain, concerned her more nearly than fortune or state, and without which no, not one day, would she abide in his house. Then the sweet soul said she hoped, from his not ungracious silence and the working of his features, which visibly revealed an inward struggle, that his next words should have been of comfort to her; but when she had drawn nigh to him, and, taking his hand, called him by his name with so much of reproachful endearment as could be expressed in the utterance of it, a gentleman broke into the room crying out: 'My lord, my lord, the trumpets do sound! The queen's coach is in sight.' Upon which, she said that, with a muttered oath, he started up and almost thrust her from him, saying, 'For God's sake, be gone!' And by a back-door,' she added, 'I went out of mine own house into the street, where I had left my Lord Arundel's coach, and crept into it, very faint and giddy, the while the queen's coach did enter the court with gay banners waving, and striking-up of music, and the people crying out, "God bless the queen!" I cry God mercy for it,' she said, 'but I could not say amen.' Now she is resolved," my Lady Lumley continued, "never to set her foot again in any of her husband's houses, except he doth himself entreat her to it, and makes that matter clear touching his belief in the validity of their marriage; and methinks she is right therein. My Lord Arundel hath written to remonstrate with his grandson touching his ill-usage of his lady, and hath also addressed her majesty thereupon. But all the comment she did make on his letter, I have been told, was this: 'That she had heard my Lord Arundel was in his dotage; and verily she did now hold it to be so, for that she had never received a more foolish letter; and she did pity the old white horse, which was now only fit to be turned out to grass;' and other biting jests, which, when a sovereign doth utter them, carry with them a rare poignancy."
Then my Lady Lumley wiped her eyes, and bade me to be of good cheer, and not to grieve overmuch for Lady Surrey's troubles (but all the while her own tears continued to flow), for that she had so noble and religious a disposition, with germs of so much virtue in it, that she thought her to be one of those souls whom Almighty God draws to himself by means of such trials as would sink common natures; and that she had already marked how, in much prayer, ever-increasing good works, and reading of books which treat of wholesome doctrine and instruction, she presently recalled the teachings of her childhood, and took occasion, when any Catholics came to the house, to converse with them touching religion. Then, with many kind expressions, she dismissed me; and on the stairs, as I went out, I met [{307}] Lady Surrey, who noticed mine eyes to be red with weeping, and, embracing me, said:
"I ween Lady Lumley hath been no hider of my griefs, good Constance, and, i' faith, I am obliged to her if she hath told thee that which I would fain not speak of, even to thee, dear wench. There are sorrows best borne in silence; and since the last days we talked together mine have grown to be of that sort. And so farewell for to-day, and may God comfort thee in thy nobler troubles, and send his angels to thine aid."
When I returned to Holborn, Mistress Ward met me with the news that she had been to the prison, and heard that Mr. Watson was to be strenuously examined on an approaching day—and it is well known what that doth signify—touching the names of the persons which had harbored him since his coming to England. And albeit he was now purposed steadily to endure extreme torments sooner than to deny his faith or injure others, she did so much apprehend the weakness of nature should betray him, that her resolve was taken to attempt the next day, or rather on the following night, to further his escape. But how, she asked, could my father be dealt with in time touching that matter? I told her I was to see him on the morrow, by means of an order from Sir Francis Walsingham, and should then lay before him the issues offered unto his election. She said she was very much contented to hear it; and added, she must now secure boatmen to assist in the escape who should be reliable Catholic men; and if in this she did succeed, she feared not to fail in her design.
At the hour I had fixed upon with Hubert, on the next day, he came to carry me to the prison at Bridewell. Mistress Ward prevailed on Mr. Congleton to go thither with us, for she was loth to be seen there in company with known persons, and added privily in mine ear, "The more so at a time when it may happen I should get into trouble touching the matter I have in hand." When we reached the place, Hubert presented to the gaoler Sir Francis's letter, which was also signed by the governor, and I was forthwith conducted to my father's cell. When I entered it, and advanced toward that dear prisoner, I dared not in the man's presence to show either the joy or grief I felt at that meeting, but stood by his side like one deprived of the power of speech, and only struggling to restrain my tears. I feared we should not have been left alone, and then this interview should have proved of little use or comfort; but after setting for me a chair, which he had sent for—for there was only one small bench in the cell—this officer withdrew, and locked the door on me and that dear parent, whose face was very white and wan, but who spoke in as cheerful and kind a manner as can be thought of, albeit taxing me with wilfulness for that I had not complied with his behest that none should come to visit him. I would not have the chair which had been sent for me—for I did hold it to be an unbecoming thing for a daughter to sit down in her father's presence (and he a priest), who had only a poor bench to rest his limbs on—but placed myself on the ground at his feet; which at first he misliked, but afterward said it should be as I pleased. Then, after some affectionate speeches, wherein his great goodness toward me was shown, and my answers to them, which disburthened my heart of some of the weight which oppressed it, as did likewise the shedding of a few tears on his hand, which was clasped in mine, I spoke, in case time should press, of Sir Francis's offer, and the condition thereunto attached, which I did with a trembling voice, and yet such indifferent tones as I could affect, as if showing no leaning to one way of thinking or the other, touching his acceptance of these terms. In the brief time which did elapse between my speaking and his reply, methinks I had an equal fear lest he should [{308}] assent or dissent therein—filial love mightfully prompting me to desire his acceptance of this means of deliverance, yet coupled with an apprehension that in that case he should stand one degree less high in the favor of God and the eyes of men. But I was angered with myself that I should have mine own thoughts therein, or in any way form a judgment forestalling his, which peradventure would see no evil in this concession; and forecasting also the consequences which should ensue if he refused, I resolved to move him thereunto by some such words as these: "My dearly beloved father, if it be possible, I pray you yield this small matter to those that seek to save your life. Let the minister come to satisfy Sir Francis, and all shall be well, yea, without your speaking one word, or by so much as one look assenting to his arguments."
I dared not to meet his eyes, which he fixed on me, but kept kissing his hand whilst he said: "Daughter Constance, labor not to move me in this matter; for far above all other things I may have to suffer, nothing would touch me so near, or be so grievous to me, as to see you, my well-beloved child, try to persuade me unto that which in respect of my soul I will never consent to. For, I pray you, first as regards religion, can I suffer any to think, albeit I should give no cause for it but silence, that my faith is in any wise shaken, which peradventure would prove a stumbling-block to others? or, touching truth and honesty, shall I accept life and freedom on some such supposition as that I am like to change my religion, when I should as soon think to cast myself into hell of mine own free will as to deny one point of Catholic belief? No, no, mine own good child; 'tis a narrow path which doth lead to heaven, and maybe it shall prove exceeding narrow for me ere I reach its end, and not over easy to the feet or pleasant to the eye; but God defend I should by so much as one hair's-breadth overpass a narrowness which tendeth to so good a conclusion; and verily, to be short, my good child, tender my thanks to Sir Francis Walsingham—who I doubt not meaneth excellently well by me—and to young Master Rookwood, who hath dealt with him therein; but tell them I am very well pleased with my present abode as long as it shall please God to keep me in this world; and when he willeth me to leave it, believe me, daughter Constance, the quickest road to heaven shall be the most pleasing to me."
His manner was so resolved that I urged him no further, and only heaved a deep sigh. Then he said, kindly: "Come, mine own good child, give me so much comfort as to let me hear that thou art of the same way of thinking in this matter as thy unworthy but very resolved father."
"My dear father," I replied, "methinks I never loved you so well, or honored you one half so much as now, when you have cast off all human consolation, yea, and a certain hope of deliverance, rather than give occasion to the enemies of our faith to boast they had prevailed on you, in ever so small a matter, to falter in the open profession thereof; and I pray God, if ever I should be in a like plight, I may not prove myself to be otherwise than your true child in spirit as in nature. As to what shall now follow your refusal, it lieth in God's hands, and I know he can deliver you, if he doth will it, from this great peril you are in."
"There's my brave wench," quoth he then, laying his scarred hand on my head; "thy mother had a prophetic spirit, I ween, when she said of thee when yet a puling girl, 'As her days, so shall her strength be.' Verily God is very good, who hath granted us these moments of peaceful converse in a place where we had once little thought for to meet."
As I looked upon him, sitting on a poor bench in that comfortless cell, his noble fair visage oldened by hardships and toils rather than years, his eyes so full of peace, yea of contentment, that [{309}] joy seemed to beam in them, I thought of the words of Holy Writ, which do foretell which shall be said hereafter of the just by such as have afflicted them and taken away their labors: "There are they whom we had some time in derision and for a parable of reproach. We fools esteemed their life madness and their end without honor. Behold, how they are numbered with the children of God, and their lot amongst the saints."
At that time a knock against the wall was heard, and my father set his ear against it, counting the number of such knocks; for it was Mr. Watson, he said, beginning to converse with him in their wonted fashion. "I will tell him I am engaged," quoth he, in his turn tapping in the same manner. "But peradventure he hath somewhat to communicate," I said.
"No," he answered, "for in that case he would have knocked three times at first, for on this signal we have agreed." Smiling, he added, "We do confess to each other in this way. 'Tis somewhat tedious, I do admit; but thanks be to God we lack not leisure here for such duties."
Then I briefly told him of Mistress Ward's intent to procure Mr. Watson's escape.
"Ay," he said, "I am privy to it, and I do pray God it may succeed. It should be to me the greatest joy in the world to hear that good man was set free, or made free by any good means."
"Then," I added, "will you not join in the attempt, if so be she can convey to you a cord? and the same boat should carry you both off."
"Nay," he replied; "for more reasons than one I am resolved against that in mine own case which in Mr. Watson's I do commend. This enterprise must needs bring that good woman, Mrs. Ward, into some sort of danger, which she doth well to run for his sake, and which he doth not wrong to consent unto, she being of a willing mind to encounter it. For if the extremity of torture should extort the admissions they do seek from him, many should then grievously suffer, and mostly his own soul. But I have that trust in God, who hath given me in all my late perils what nature had verily not furnished me with, an undaunted spirit to meet sufferings with somewhat more than fortitude, with a very great joy such as his grace can only bestow, that he will continue to do so, whatever straits I do find myself in; and being so minded, I am resolved not again by mine own doing to put mine own and others' lives in jeopardy; but to take what he shall send in the ordinary course of things, throwing all my care on him, without whose knowledge and will not so much as one hair of our heads doth fall to the ground. But I am glad to be privy to the matter in hand for Mr. Watson, so as to pray for him this day and night, and also for that noble soul who doth show herself so true a Christian in her care for his weal and salvation."
Then, changing to other themes, he inquired of me at some length touching the passages of my life since he had parted with me, and my dispositions touching the state of life I was about to embrace, concerning which he gave me the most profitable instructions which can be thought of, and rules of virtue, which, albeit imperfectly observed, have proved of so great and wholesome guidance to my inexperienced years that I do stand more indebted to him for this fine advice, there given me, than for all other benefits besides. He then spoke of Edmund Genings, who, by a special dispensation of the Pope, had lately been ordained priest, being but twenty-three years of age, and said the preparation he had made for receiving this holy order was very great, and the impression the greatness of the charge made upon his mind so strong, that it produced a wonderful effect in his very body, affecting for a time his health. He was infirmarian at Rheims, and labored among the sick students, a very model of piety and [{310}] humility; but vivamus in spe was still, as heretofore, his motto, and that hope in which he lived was to be sent upon the English mission. These, my father said, were the last tidings he had heard of him. His mother he did believe was dead, and his younger brother had left La Rochelle and was in Paris, leading a more gay life than was desirable. "And now I pray you, mine own dear honored father," I said, "favor me, I beseech you, with a recital of your own haps since you landed in England, and I ceased to receive letters from you." He condescended to my request, in the words which do follow:
"Well, my good child, I arrived in this country one year and five months back, having by earnest suit and no small difficulty obtained from my superiors to be sent on the English mission; for by reason of the weakness of my health, and some use I was of in the college, owing to my acquaintanceship with the French and the English languages, Dr. Allen was loth to permit my departure. I crossed the seas in a small merchant-vessel, and landed at Lynn. The port-officers searched me to the skin, and found nothing on me; but one Sledd, an informer, which had met me in an inn at Honfleur, where I had lodged for some days before sailing for England, had taken my marks very precisely; and arriving in London some time before I landed in Norfolk, having been stayed by contrary winds in my longer passage, he there presented my name and marks; upon which the queen's council sent to the searchers of the ports. These found the said marks very apparent in me; but for the avoiding of charges, the mayor of the place, one Mr. Alcock, and Rawlins the searcher, requested a gentleman which had landed at the same time with me, and who called himself Haward, to carry me as a prisoner to the lord-lieutenant of the county. He agreed very easily thereunto; but as soon as we were out of the town, 'I cannot,' says this gentleman, 'in conscience, nor will not, being myself a Catholic, deliver you, a Catholic priest, prisoner to the lord-lieutenant. But we will go straight to Norwich, and when we come there, shift for yourself, as I will do for myself.'
"Coming to Norwich, I went immediately to one of the gaols, and conferred with a Catholic, a friend of mine, which by chance I found out to be there imprisoned for recusancy. I recounted to him the order of my apprehension and escape; and he told me that in conscience I could not make that escape, and persuaded me I ought to yield myself prisoner; whereupon I went to my friend Haward, whom, through the aforesaid Catholic prisoner, I found to be no other than Dr. Ely, a professor of canon and civil law at Douay. I requested him to deliver to me the mayor's letter to the lord-lieutenant. 'Why, what will you do with it?' said he. 'I will go,' I said, 'and carry it to him, and yield myself a prisoner; for I am not satisfied I can make this escape in conscience, having had a contrary opinion thereon.' And I told him what that prisoner I had just seen had urged. 'Why,' said Haward, 'this counsel which hath been given you proceedeth, I confess, from a zealous mind; but I doubt whether it carrieth with it the weight of knowledge. You shall not have the letter, nor you may not in conscience yield yourself to the persecutors, having so good means offered to escape their cruelty.' But as I still persisted in my demand, 'Well,' said Mr. Haward, 'seeing you will not be turned by me from this opinion, let us go first and consult with such a man,' and he named one newly come over, who was concealed at the house of a Catholic not very far off. This was a man of singular wit aid learning, and of such rare virtues that I honored and reverenced him greatly, which Mr. Haward perceiving, he said, with a smile, 'If he be of your opinion, you shall have the letter, and go in God's name!' When we came [{311}] to him, he utterly disliked of my intention, and dissuaded me from what he said was a fond cogitation. So being assuaged, I went quietly about my business, and travelled for the space of more than a year from one Catholic house to another in Norfolk and Suffolk, ministering the sacraments to recusants, and reconciling many to the Church, which, from fear or lack of instruction or spiritual counsel, or only indifferency, had conformed to the times. Methinks, daughter Constance, for one such year a man should be willing to lay down a thousand lives, albeit, or rather because, as St. Paul saith, he be 'in journeyings often, in perils from his own nation, in perils from false brethren' (oh, how true and applicable do these words prove to the Catholics of this land!), 'in perils in the city, in perils of the wilderness, in perils of the sea.' And if it pleases God now to send me labors of another sort, so that I may be in prisons frequently, in stripes above measure, and, finally, in death itself, his true servant,—oh, believe me, my good child, the right fair house I once had, with its library and garden and orchard, and everything so handsome about us, and the company of thy sweet mother, and thy winsome childish looks of love, never gave me so much heartfelt joy and comfort as the new similitude I experience, and greater I hope to come, to my loved and only Master's sufferings and death!"
At this time of his recital my tears flowed abundantly; but with an imparted sweetness, which, like a reflected light, shone from his soul on mine. But to stay my weeping he changed his tone, and said with good cheer:
"Come now, my wench, I will presently make thee merry by the recital of a strait in which I once found myself, and which maketh me to laugh to think on it, albeit at the time, I warrant thee, it was like to prove no laughable matter. It happened that year I speak of that I was once secretly sent for by a courtlike gentleman of good wealth that had lived in much bravery, and was then sick and lying in great pain. He had fallen into a vehement agitation and deep study of the life to come; and thereupon called for a priest—for in mind and opinion he was Catholic—that he might learn from him to die well. According to the custom of the Church, I did admonish him, among other things, that if he had any way hurt or injured any man, or unjustly possessed other men's goods, he should go about by-and-by to make restitution according to his ability. He agreed to do so, and called to mind that he had taken away something from a certain Calvinist, under pretence of law indeed, but not under any good assurance for a Catholic conscience to trust to. Therefore, he took order for restitution to be made, and died. The widow, his wife, was very anxious to accomplish her husband's will; but being afraid to commit the matter to any one, her perplexed mind was entangled in briers of doubtfulness. She one day declared her grief unto me, and beseeched me, for God's sake, to help her with my counsel and travail. So, seeing her distress, I proffered to put myself in any peril that might befall in the doing of this thing; but, indeed, persuaded myself that no man would be so perverse as of a benefit to desire revengement. Therefore committing the matter to God, I mounted on horseback, and away I went on my journey. When I came to the town where the man did dwell to whom the money was to be delivered, I set up my horse in the next inn, that I might be readier at hand to scape immediately after my business was despatched. I then went to the creditor's house, and called the man forth alone, taking him by the hand and leading him aside from the company of others. Then I declared to him that I had money for him, which I would deliver into his hands with this condition, that he inquired no further either who sent or who brought it unto him, or what [{312}] the cause and matter was, but only receive the money and use it as his own. The old fellow promised fair, and with a good will gave his word faithfully so to do, and with many thanks sent me away. With all the speed I was able to make, I hastened to mine host's house, for to catch hold of my horse and fly away. But forthwith the deceitful old fellow betrayed me, and sent men after to apprehend me, not supposing me this time to be a priest, but making the surmise against me that forsooth I was not a man but a devil, which had brought money of mine own making to bewitch him. All the people of the town, when they heard the rumor, confirmed the argument, with this proof among others, that I had a black horse, and gave orders for to watch the animal diligently, whether he did eat hay as other horses, or no. As for me, they put a horse-lock about my leg, shut me up close in a strong chamber, and appointed a fellow to be with me continually, night and day, which should watch if I did put off my boots at any time, and if my feet were like horses' feet, or that I was cloven-footed, or had feet slit and forked as beasts have; for this they affirmed to be a special mark whereby to know the devil when he lieth lurking under the shape and likeness of a man. Then the people assembled about the house in great numbers, and proffered money largely that they might see this monster with their own eyes; for by this time they were persuaded that I was indeed an ill spirit, or the very devil. 'For what man was ever heard of,' said they, 'which, if he had the mind, understanding, and sense of a man, would, of his own voluntary will, and without any respect or consideration at all, give or proffer such a sum of money to a man utterly unknown?' God knowcth what should have ensued if some hours later it had not chanced that Sir Henry Stafford did ride into the town, and, seeing a great concourse of people at the door of the inn, he stopped to inquire into the cause; which when it was related to him, he said he was a magistrate, and should himself examine, face to face, this limb of Satan. So I was taken before him into the parlor; and being alone with him, and knowing him to be well-disposed in religion, albeit conforming to the times, I explained in a general manner what sort of an errand had brought me to that place. Methinks he guessed me to be a priest, although he said nothing thereon, but only licensed me to depart and go away whither I would, himself letting me out of the house through a back-door. I have heard since that he harangued the people from the balcony, and told them, that whilst he was examining me a strong smell of sulphur had come into the chamber, and a pack of devils carried me off through the window into the air; and he doubted not I had by that time returned to mine own lodging in hell. Which he did, I knew, for to prevent their pursuing me and using such violence as he might not have had means to hinder."
"It was not, then," I asked, "on this occasion you were apprehended and taken to Wisbeach?"
"No," he answered; "nor indeed can I be said to have been apprehended at all, for it happened in this wise that I became a prisoner. I was one day in Norwich, whither I had gone to baptize a child, and, as Providence would have it, met with Haward, by whose means I had been set at liberty one year before. After ordinary salutations, he said to me, 'Mr. Tunstall' (for by that name only he knew me), 'the host of the inn where you were taken last year says I have undone him, by suffering the prisoner I had promised to deliver to escape; for he having been my surety with the mayor, he is threatened with eight months' imprisonment, or the payment of a large fine. He hath come to this town for to seek me, and hath seized upon me on this charge; so that I be only at liberty for six hours, for I [{313}] promised that I would bring you to him by four o'clock (a Catholic merchant yielding him security thereof), or else that I should deliver him my body again. 'I am content,' he said, 'so that I have one of you two.' So either you, Mr. Tunstall, or I, must needs go to prison. You know my state and condition, and may guess how I shall be treated, if once I appear under my right name before them. You know, also, your own state. Now, it is in your choice whether of us shall go; for one must go; there is no remedy; and to force you I will not, for I had rather sustain any punishment whatsoever.' 'Now God be blessed,' I cried, 'that he hath thrown me in your way at this time, for I should never while I lived have been without scruple if you had gone to prison in my stead. Nothing grieveth me in this but that I have not finished off some business I had in this town touching a person in some distress of mind.' 'Why,' said Haward, 'it is but ten o'clock yet; you may despatch your business by four of the clock, and then you may go to the sign of the Star and inquire for one Mr. Andrews, the lord-lieutenant's deputy, and to him you may surrender yourself.' 'So I will,' I said; and so we parted. At four of the clock I surrendered myself, and was straightway despatched to Wisbeach Castle, where I remained for three months. A message reached me there that a Catholic which had led a very wicked life, and was lying on his death-bed, was almost beside himself for that he could get no priest to come to him. The person which delivered this advertisement left some ropes with me, by which means I escaped out of the window into the moat with such damage to my hands that I was like to lose the use of them, and perhaps of my life, if these wounds had mortified before good Lady l'Estrange dressed them. But I reached the poor sinner, which had proved the occasion of my escaping, in time for to give him absolution, and from Mr. Rugeley's house visited many Catholics in that neighborhood. The rest is well known to thee, my good child. . . ."
As he was speaking these words the door of the cell opened, and the gaoler advertised me I could tarry no longer; so, with many blessings, my dear father dismissed me, and I went home with Mr. Congleton and Hubert, who anxiously inquired what his answer had been to the proposal I had carried to him.
"A most resolved denial of the conditions attached to it," I said, "joined to many grateful acknowledgments to Sir Francis and to you also for your efforts in his favor."
"'Tis madness!" he exclaimed.
"Yea," I answered, "such madness as the heathen governor did charge St. Paul with."
And so no more passed between us whilst we rode back to Holborn. Mr. Congleton put questions to me touching my father's health and his looks,—if he seemed of good cheer, and spoke merrily as he used to do; and then we all continued silent. When we arrived at Ely Place, Hubert refused to come into the house, but detained me on the outward steps, as if desirous to converse with me alone. Thinking I had spoken to him in the coach in an abrupt manner which savored of ingratitude, I said more gently, "I am very much beholden to you, Hubert, for your well-meaning toward my father."
"I would fain continue to help you," he answered in an agitated voice. "Constance," he exclaimed, after a pause, "your father is in a very dangerous plight."
"I know it," said I, quickly; "but I know, too, he is resolved and content to die rather than swerve an inch from his duty to God and his Church."
"But," quoth he then, "do you wish to save him?"
I looked at him amazed. "Wish it! God knoweth that to see him in safety I would have my hand cut off,—yea, and my head also."
"What, and rob him of his expectant crown—the martyr's palm, and all the rest of it?" he said, with a perceptible sneer.
"Hubert!" I passionately exclaimed, "you are investigable to me; you chill my soul with your half-uttered sentences and uncertain meanings! Once, I remember, you could speak nobly,—yea, and feel so too, as much as any one. Heaven shield you be not wholly changed!"
"Changed!" quoth he, in a low voice, "I am changed;" and then abruptly altering his manner, and leaving me in doubt as to the change he did intend to speak of, he pressed me to take no measures touching my father's release till he had spoken with me again; for he said if his real name became known, or others dealt in the matter, all hope on Sir Francis's side should be at an end. He then asked me if I had heard of Basil lately. I told him of the letter I had had from him at Kenninghall some weeks back. He said a report had reached him that he had landed at Dover and was coming to London; but he hoped it was not true, for that Sir Henry Stafford was very urgent he should continue abroad till the expiration of his wardship.
I said, "If he was returned, it must surely be for some sufficient cause, but that I had heard nothing thereof, and had no reason to expect it."
"But you would know it, I presume, if he was in London?" he urged. I misliked his manner, which always put me in mind of one in the dark, which feeleth his way as he advances, and goeth not straight to the point.
"Is Basil in England?" I inquired, fixing mine eyes on him, and with a flutter at my heart from the thought that it should be possible.
"I heard he was," he answered in a careless tone; "but I think it not to be true. If he should come whilst this matter is in hand, I do conjure you, Constance, if you value your father's existence and Basil's also, let him not into this secret."
"Wherefore not?" I quickly answered. "Why should one meet to be trusted, and by me above all other persons in the world, be kept ignorant of what so nearly doth touch me?"
"Because," he said, "there is a rashness in his nature which will assuredly cause him to run headlong into danger if not forcibly withheld from the occasions of it."
"I have seen no tokens of such rashness as you speak of in him," I replied; "only of a boldness such as well becomes a Christian and a gentleman."
"Constance Sherwood!" Hubert exclaimed, and seized hold of my hand with a vehemency which caused me to start, "I do entreat you, yea, on my bended knees, if needs be, I will beseech you to beware of that indomitable and resolved spirit which sets at defiance restraint, prudence, pity even; which leads you to brave your friends, spurn wholesome counsel, rush headlong into perils which I forewarn you do hang thickly about your path. If I can conjure them, I care not by what means, I will do so; but for the sake of all you do hold dear, curb your natural impetuosity, which may prove the undoing of those you most desire to serve."
There was a plausibility in this speech, and in mine own knowledge of myself some sort of a confirmation of what he did charge me with, which inclined me somewhat to diffide of mine own judgment in this matter, and not to turn a wholly deaf ear to his advertisement. He had the most persuasive tongue in the world, and a rare art at representing things under whatever aspect he chose. He dealt so cunningly therein with me that day, and used so many ingenious arguments, that I said I should be very careful how I disclosed anything to Basil or any one else touching my father's imprisonment, who Mr. Tunstall was, and my near concern in his fate; but would give no promise thereupon: so he was forced to content himself with as much as he could obtain, and [{315}] withdrew himself for that day, he said; but promised to return on the morrow.
CHAPTER XVIII.
When at last I entered the house I sought Mistress Ward; for I desired to hear what assistance she had procured for the escape of the prisoners, and to inform her of my father's resolved purpose not himself to attempt this flight, albeit commending her for moving Mr. Watson to it and assisting him therein. Not finding her in the parlor, nor in her bed-chamber, I opened the door of my aunt's room, who was now very weak, and yet more so in mind than in body. She was lying with her eyes shut, and Mistress Ward standing by her bedside. I marked her intent gaze on the aged, placid face of the poor lady, and one tear I saw roll down her cheek. Then she stooped to kiss her forehead. A noise I made with the handle of the door caused her to turn round, and hastening toward me, she took me by the hand and led me to her chamber, where Muriel was folding some biscuits and cakes in paper and stowing them in a basket. The thought came to me of the first day I had arrived in London, and the comfort I had found in this room, when all except her were strangers to me in that house. She sat down betwixt Muriel and me, and smiling, said: "Now, mine own dear children, for such my heart holds you both to be, and ever will whilst I live, I am come here for to tell you that I purpose not to return to this house to-night, nor can I foresee when, if ever, I shall be free to do so."
"O, what dismal news!" I exclaimed, "and more sad than I did expect."
Muriel said nothing, but lifting her hand to her lips kissed it.
"You both know," she continued, "that in order to save one in cruel risk and temptation of apostasy, and others perhaps, also, whom his possible speaking should imperil, I be about to put myself in some kind of danger, who of all persons in the world possess the best right to do so, as having neither parents, or husband, or children, or any on earth who depend on my care. Yea, it is true," she added, fixing her eyes on Muriel's composed, but oh how sorrowful, countenance, "none dependent on my care, albeit some very dear to me, and which hang on me, and I on them, in the way of fond affection. God knoweth my heart, and that it is very closely and tenderly entwined about each one in this house. Good Mr. Congleton and your dear mother, who hath clung to me so long, though I thank God not so much of late by reason of the weakening of her mind, which hath ceased greatly to notice changes about her, and you, Constance, my good child, since your coming hither a little lass commended to my keeping. . . . ." There she stopped; and I felt she could not name Muriel, or then so much as look on her; for if ever two souls were bound together by an unperishable bond of affection, begun on earth to last in heaven, theirs were so united. I ween Muriel was already acquainted with her purpose, for she asked no questions thereon; whereas I exclaimed, "I do very well know, good Mistress Ward, what perils you do run in this charitable enterprise; but wherefore, I pray you, this final manner of parting? God's providence may shield you from harm in this passage, and, indeed, human probability should lead us to hope for your safety if becoming precautions be observed. Then why, I say, this certain farewell?"
"Because," she answered, "whatever comes of this night's enterprise, I return not to this house."
"And wherefore not?" I cried; "this is indeed a cruel resolve, a hard misfortune."
"Heretofore," she answered, "I had noways offended against the laws of the country, except in respect [{316}] of recusancy, wherein all here are alike involved; but by mine act tonight I do expose myself to so serious a charge (conscience obliging me to prefer the law of divine charity to that of human authority), that I may at any time and without the least hope of mercy be exposed to detection and apprehension; and so am resolved not to draw down sorrow and obloquy on the gray hairs of my closest friends and on your young years such perils as I do willingly in mine own person incur, but would not have others to be involved in. Therefore I will lodge, leastwise for a time, with one who feareth not any more than I do persecution, who hath no ties and little or nothing on earth to lose, and if she had would willingly yield it a thousand times over for to save a soul for whom Christ died. Nor will I have you privy, my dear children, to the place of mine abode, that if questioned on it you may with truth aver yourselves to be ignorant thereof. And now," she said, turning to me, "is Mr. Sherwood willing for to try to escape by the same means as Mr. Watson? for methinks I have found a way to convey to him a cord, and, by means of the management he knoweth of instructions how to use it."
"Nay," I answered, "he will not himself avail himself of this means, albeit he is much rejoiced you have it in hand for Mr. Watson's deliverance from his tormentors; and he doth pray fervently for it to succeed."
"Everything promiseth well," she replied. "I dealt this day with an honest Catholic boatman, a servant of Mr. Hodgson, who is willing to assist in it. Two men are needed for to row the boat with so much speed as shall be necessary to carry it quickly beyond reach of pursuers. He knoweth none of his own craft which should be reliable or else disposed to risk the enterprise; but he says at a house of resort for Catholics which he doth frequent, he chanced to fall in with a young gentleman, lately landed from France, whom he doth make sure will lend his aid in it. As dextrous a man," he saith, "to handle an oar, and of as courageous a spirit, as can be found in England."
As soon as she had uttered these words, I thought of what Hubert had said touching a report of Basil being in London and of his rashness in plunging into dangers; a cold shiver ran through me. "Did he tell you this gentleman's name?" I asked.
"No," she answered, "he would not mention it; but only that he was one who could be trusted with the lives of ten thousand persons, and so zealous a Catholic he would any day risk his life to do some good service to a priest."
"And hath this boatman promised," I inquired, "to wait for Mr. Watson and convey him away?"
"Yea, most strictly," she answered, "at twelve o'clock of the night he and his companion shall approach a boat to the side of some scaffolding which lieth under the wall of the prison; and when the clock of the tower striketh, Mr. Watson shall open his window, the bars of which he hath found it possible to remove, and by means of the cord, which is of the length he measured should be necessary, he will let himself down on the planks, whence he can step into the boat, and be carried to a place of concealment in a close part of the city till it shall be convenient for him to cross the sea to France."
"Must you go?" I said, seeing her rise, and feeling a dull hard heaviness at my heart which did well-nigh impede my utterance. I was not willing to let her know the fear I had conceived; "of what use should it be," I inwardly argued, "to disturb her in the discharge of her perilous task by a surmise which might prove groundless; and, indeed, were it certainly true, could she, nay, would she, alter her intent, or could I so much as ask her to do it?" Whilst, with Muriel's assistance, she concluded the packing of her basket, wherein the weighty cord was concealed in an ingenious [{317}] manner, I stood by watching the doing of it, fearing to see her depart, yet unable to think of any means by which to delay that which I could not, even if I had willed it, prevent. When the last contents were placed in the basket, and Muriel was pressing down the lid, I said: "Do you, peradventure, know the name of the inn where you said that gentleman doth tarry which the boatman spake of?"
"No," she replied; "nor so much as where the good boatman himself lodgeth. I met with him at Mr. Hodgson's house, and there made this agreement."
"But if," I said, "it should happen by any reason that Mr. Watson changed his mind, how should you, then, inform him of it?"
"In that case," she answered, "he would hang a white kerchief outside his window, by which they should be advertised to withdraw themselves. And now," she added, "I have always been of the way of thinking that farewells should be brief; and 'God speed you,' and 'God bless you,' enough for those which do hope, if it shall please God, on earth, but for a surety in heaven, to meet again."
So, kissing us both somewhat hurriedly, she took up her basket on her arm, and said she should send a messenger on the morrow for her clothes; at which Muriel, for the first time, shed some tears, which was an instance of what I have often noticed, that grief, howsoever heavy, doth not always overflow in the eyes unless some familiar words or homely circumstance doth substantiate the verity of a sorrow known indeed, but not wholly apparent till its common effects be seen. Then we two sat awhile alone in that empty chamber—empty of her which for so long years had tenanted it to our no small comfort and benefit. When the light waned, Muriel lit a candle, and said she must go for to attend on her mother, for that duty did now devolve chiefly on her; and I could see in her sad but composed face the conquering peace which doth exceed all human consolation.
For mine own part, I was so unhinged by doubtful suspense that I lacked ability to employ my mind in reading or my fingers in stitch-work; and so descended for relief into the garden, where I wandered to and fro like an uneasy ghost, seeking rest but finding none. The dried shaking leaves made a light noise in falling, which caused me each time to think I heard a footstep behind me. And despite the increasing darkness, after I had paced up and down for near unto an hour, some one verily did come walking along the alley where I was, seeking to overtake me. Turning round I perceived it to be mine own dear aged friend, Mr. Roper. Oh, what great comfort I experienced in the sight of this good man! How eager was my greeting of him! How full my heart as I poured into his ear the narrative of the passages which had befallen me since we had met! Of the most weighty he knew somewhat; but nothing of the last haunting fear I had lest my dear Basil should be in London, and this very night engaged in the perilous attempt to carry off Mr. Watson. When I told him of it, he started and exclaimed:
"God defend it!" but quickly corrected himself and cried, "God's mercy, that my first feeling should have led me to think rather of Basil's safety than of the fine spirit he showed in all instances where a good action had to be done, or a service rendered to those in affliction."
"Indeed, Mr. Roper," I said, as he led me back to the house and into the solitary parlor (where my uncle now seldom came, but remained sitting alone in his library, chiefly engaged in praying and reading), "I do condemn mine own weakness in this, and pray God to give me strength for what may come upon us; but I do promise you 'tis no easy matter to carry always so high a heart that it shall not sink with human fears and griefs in such passages as these."
"My dear," the good man answered, "God knoweth 'tis no easy matter to attain to the courage you speak of. I have myself seen the sweetest, the lovingest, and the most brave creature which ever did breathe give marks of extraordinary sorrow when her father, that generous martyr of Christ, was to die."
"I pray you tell me," I answered, "what her behavior was like in that trial; for to converse on such themes doth allay somewhat the torment of suspense, and I may learn lessons from her example, who, you say, joined to natural weakness so courageous a spirit in like straits."
Upon which he, willing to divert and yet not violently change the current of my thoughts, spake as followeth:
"On the day when Sir Thomas More came from Westminster to the Tower-ward, my wife, desirous to see her father, whom she thought she should never see in this world after, and also to have his final blessing, gave attendance about the wharf where she knew he should pass before he could enter into the Tower. As soon as she saw him, after his blessing upon her knees reverently received, hastening toward him without care or consideration of herself, passing in amongst the throng and company of the guard, she ran to him and took him about the neck and kissed him; who, well liking her most natural and dear daughterly affection toward him, gave her his fatherly blessing and godly words of comfort beside; from whom, after she was departed, not satisfied with the former sight of him, and like one that had forgotten herself, being all ravished with the entire love of her father, suddenly turned back again, ran to him as before, took him about the neck, and divers times kissed him lovingly, till at last, with a full and heavy heart, she was fain to depart from him; the beholding thereof was to many that were present so lamentable, and mostly so to me, that for very sorrow we could not forbear to weep with her. The wife of John Harris, Sir Thomas's secretary, was moved to such a transport of grief, that she suddenly flew to his neck and kissed him, as he had reclined his head on his daughter's shoulder; and he who, in the midst of the greatest straits, had ever a merry manner of speaking, cried, 'This is kind, albeit rather unpolitely done.'"
"And the day he suffered," I asked, "what was this good daughter's behavior?"
"She went," quoth he, "to the different churches, and distributed abundant alms to the poor. When she had given all her money away, she withdrew to pray in a certain church, where she on a sudden did remember she had no linen in which to wrap up her father's body. She had heard that the remains of the Bishop of Rochester had been thrown into the ground, without priest, cross, lights, or shroud, for the dread of the king had prevented his relations from attempting to bury him. But Margaret resolved her father's body should not meet with such unchristian treatment. Her maid advised her to buy some linen in the next shop, albeit having given away all her money to the poor, there was no likelihood she should get credit from strangers. She ventured, howsoever, and having agreed about the price, she put her hand in her pocket, which she knew was empty, to show she forgot the money, and ask credit under that pretence. But to her surprise, she found in her purse the exact price of the linen, neither more or less; and so buried the martyr of Christ with honor, nor was there any one so inhuman found as to hinder her."
"Mr. Roper," I said, when he had ended his recital, "methinks this angelic lady's trial was most hard: but how much harder should it yet have been if you, her husband, had been in a like peril at that time as her father?"
A half kind of melancholy, half smiling look came into the good old man's face as he answered:
"Her father was Sir Thomas More, and he so worthy of a daughter's passionate love, and the affection betwixt them so entire and absolute, compounded of filial love on her part, unmitigated reverence, and unrestrained confidence, that there was left in her heart no great space for wifely doating. But to be moderately affectioned by such a woman, and to stand next in her esteem to her incomparable father, was of greater honor and worth to her unworthy husband, than should have been the undivided, yea idolatrous, love of one not so perfect as herself."
After a pause, during which his thoughts, I ween, reverted to the past, and mine investigated mine own soul, I said to Mr. Roper:
"Think you, sir, that love to be idolatrous which is indeed so absolute that it should be no difficulty to die for him who doth inspire it; which would prefer a prison in his company, howsoever dark and loathsome (yea consider it a very paradise), to the beautifullest palace in the world, which without him would seem nothing but a vile dungeon; which should with a good-will suffer all the torments in the world for to see the object of its affection enjoy good men's esteem on earth, and a noble place in heaven; but which should be, nevertheless, founded and so wholly built up on a high estimate of his virtues; on the quality he holdeth of God's servant; on the likeness of Christ stamped on his soul, and each day exemplified in his manner of living, that albeit to lose his love or his company in this world should be like the uprooting of all happiness and turning the brightness of noonday to the darkness of the night, it should a thousand times rather endure this mishap than that the least shade or approach of a stain should alter the unsullied opinion till then held of his perfections?"
Mr. Roper smiled, and said that was a too weighty question to answer at once; for he should be loth to condemn or yet altogether to absolve from some degree of overweeningness such an affection as I described, which did seem indeed to savor somewhat of excess; but yet if noble in its uses and held in subjection to the higher claims of the Creator, whose perfections the creature doth at best only imperfectly mirror, it might be commendable and a means of attaining ourselves to the like virtues we doated on in another.
As he did utter these words a servant came into the parlor, and whispered in mine ear:
"Master Basil Rookwood is outside the door, and craves—"
I suffered him not to finish his speech, but bounded into the hall, where Basil was indeed standing with a traveller's cloak on him, and a slouched hat over his face. After such a greeting as may be conceived (alas, all greetings then did seem to combine strange admixtures of joy and pain!), I led him into the parlor, where Mr. Roper in his turn received him with fatherly words of kindness mixed with amazement at his return.
"And whence," he exclaimed, "so sudden a coming, my good Basil? Verily, you do appear to have descended from the skies!"
Basil looked at me and replied: "I heard in Paris, Mr. Roper, that a gentleman in whom I do take a very lively interest, one Mr. Tunstall, was in prison at London; and I bethought me I could be of some service to him by coming over at this time."
"O Basil," I cried, "do you then know he is my father?"
"Yea," he joyfully answered, "and I am right glad you do know it also, for then there is no occasion for any feigning, which, albeit I deny it not to be sometimes useful and necessary, doth so ill agree with my bluntness, that it keepeth me in constant fear of stumbling in my speech. I was in a manner forced to come over secretly; because if Sir Henry Stafford, who willeth me to remain abroad till I have [{320}] got out of my wardship, should hear of my being in London, and gain scent of the object of my coming, he should have dealt in all sorts of ways to send me out of it. But, prithee, dearest love, is Mrs. Ward in this house?"
"Alas!" I said, "she is gone hence. Her mind is set on a very dangerous enterprise."
"I know it," he saith (at which word my heart began to sink); "but, verily, I see not much danger to be in it; and methinks if we do succeed in carrying off your good father and that other priest to-night in the ingenious manner she hath devised, it will be the best night's work done by good heads, good arms, and good oars which can be thought of."
"Oh, then," I exclaimed, "it is even as I feared, and you, Basil, have engaged in this rash enterprise. O woe the day you came to London, and met with that boatman!"
"Constance," he said reproachfully, "should it be a woful day to thee the one on which, even at some great risk, which I deny doth exist in this instance, I should aid in thy father's rescue?"
"Oh, but, my dear Basil," I cried, "he doth altogether refuse to stir in this matter. I have had speech with him to-day, and he will by no means attempt to escape again from prison. He hath done it once for the sake of a soul in jeopardy; but only to save his life, he is resolved not to involve others in peril of theirs. And oh, how confirmed he would be in his purpose if he knew who it was who doth throw himself into so great a risk! I' faith, I cannot and will not suffer it!" I exclaimed impetuously, for the sudden joy of his presence, the sight of his beloved countenance, lighted up with an inexpressible look of love and kindness, more beautiful than my poor words can describe, worked in me a rebellion against the thought of more suffering, further parting, greater fears than I had hitherto sustained.
He said, "He could wish my father had been otherwise disposed, for to have aided in his escape should have been to him the greatest joy he could think of; but that having promised likewise to assist in Mr. Watson's flight, he would never fail to do so, if he was to die for it."
"'Tis very easy," I cried, "to speak of dying, Basil, nor do I doubt that to one of your courage and faith the doing of it should have nothing very terrible in it. But I pray you remember that that life, which you make so little account of, is not now yours alone to dispose of as you list. Mine, dear Basil, is wrapped up with it; for if I lose you, I care not to live, or what becomes of me, any more."
Mr. Roper said he should think on it well before he made this venture; for, as I had truly urged, I had a right over him now, and he should not dispose of himself as one wholly free might do.
"Dear sir," quoth he in answer, "my sweet Constance and you also might perhaps have prevailed with me some hours ago to forego this intention, before I had given a promise to Mr. Hodgson's boatman, and through him to Mistress Ward and Mr. Watson; I should then have been free to refuse my assistance if I had listed; and albeit methinks in so doing I should have played a pitiful part, none could justly have condemned me. But I am assured neither her great heart nor your honorable spirit would desire me so much as to place in doubt the fulfilment of a promise wherein the safety of a man, and he one of God's priests, is concerned. I pray thee, sweetheart, say thou wouldst not have me do it."
Alas! this was the second time that day my poor heart had been called upon to raise itself higher than nature can afford to reach. But the present struggle was harder than the first. My father had long been to me as a distant angel, severed from my daily life and any future hope in this world. His was an expectant martyrdom, an exile from his true home, a daily [{321}] dying on earth, tending but to one desired end. Nature could be more easily reconciled in the one case than in the other to thoughts of parting. Basil was my all, my second self, my sole treasure,—the prop on which rested youth's hopes, earth's joys, life's sole comfort; and chance (as it seemed, and men would have called it), not a determined seeking, had thrust on him this danger, and I must needs see him plunged into it, and not so much as say a word to stay him or prevent it. . . . . I was striving to constrain my lips to utter the words my rebelling heart disavowed, and he kneeling before me, with his dear eyes fixed on mine, awaiting my consent, when a loud noise of laughter in the hall caused us both to start up, and then the door was thrown open, and Kate and Polly ran into the room so gaily attired, the one in a yellow and the other in a crimson gown bedecked with lace and jewels, that nothing finer could be seen.
"Lackaday!" Polly cried, when she perceived Basil; "who have we here? I scarce can credit mine eyes! Why, Sir Lover, methought you were in France. By what magic come you here? Mr. Roper, your humble servant. 'Tis like you did not expect so much good company to-night, Con, for you have but one poor candle or two to light up this dingy room, and I fear there will not be light enough for these gentlemen to see our fine dresses, which we do wear for the first time at Mrs. Yates's house this evening."
"I thought you were both in the country," I said, striving to disguise how much their coming did discompose me.
"Methinks," answered Polly, laughing, "your wish was father to that thought, Con, and that you desired to have the company of this fine gentleman to yourself alone, and Mr. Roper's also, and no one else for to disturb you. But, in good sooth, we were both at Mr. Benham's seat in Berkshire when we heard of this good entertainment at so great a friend's house, and so prevailed on our lords and governors for to hire a coach and bring us to London for one night. We lie at Kate's house, and she and I have supped on a cold capon and a veal pie we brought with us, and Sir Ralph and Mr. Lacy do sup at a tavern in the Strand, and shall fetch us here when it shall be convenient to them to carry us to this grand ball, which I would not have missed, no, not for all the world. So I pray you let us be merry till they do come, and pass the time pleasantly."
"Ay," said Kate, in a lamentable voice, "you would force me to dress and go abroad, when I would sooner be at home; for John's stomach is disordered, and baby doth cut her teeth, and he pulled at my ribbons and said I should not leave him; and beshrew me if I would have done so, but for your overpersuading me. But you are always so absolute! I wonder you love not more to stay at home, Polly."
Basil smiled with a better heart than I could do, and said he would promise her John should sleep never the less well for her absence, and she should find baby's tooth through on the morrow; and sitting down by her side, talked to her of her children with a kindliness which never did forsake him. Mr. Roper set himself to converse with Polly; I ween for to shield me from the torrent of her words, which, as I sat between them, seemed to buzz in mine ear without any meaning; and yet I must needs have heard them, for to this day I remember what they talked of;—that Polly said, "Have you seen the ingenious poesy which the queen's saucy godson, the merry wit Harrington, left behind her cushion on Wednesday, and now 'tis in every one's hands?"
"Not in mine," quoth Mr. Roper; "so, if your memory doth serve you, Lady Ingoldsby, will you rehearse it?" which she did as follows; and albeit I only did hear those lines [{322}] that once, they still remain in my mind:
"For ever dear, for ever dreaded prince,
You read a verse of mine a little since,
And so pronounced each word and every letter,
Your gracious reading graced my verse the better;
Sith then your highness doth by gift exceeding
Make what you read the better for your reading,
Let my poor muse your pains thus far importune,
Like as you read my verse—so read my fortune!"
"Tis an artful and witty petition," Mr. Roper observed; "but I have been told her majesty mislikes the poet's satirical writings, and chiefly the metamorphosis of Ajax."
"She signified," Polly answered, "some outward displeasure at it, but Robert Markham affirms she likes well the marrow of the book, and is minded to take the author to her favor, but sweareth she believes he will make epigrams on her and all her court. Howsoever, I do allow she conceived much disquiet on being told he had aimed a shaft at Leicester. By the way, but you, cousin Constance, should best know the truth thereon" (this she said turning to me), "'tis said that Lord Arundel is exceeding sick again, and like to die very soon. Indeed his physicians are of opinion, so report speaketh, that he will not last many days now, for as often as he hath rallied before."
"Yesterday," I said, "when I saw Lady Surrey, he was no worse than usual."
"Oh, have you heard," Polly cried, running from one theme to another, as was her wont, "that Leicester is about to marry Lettice Knollys, my Lady Essex?"
"'Tis impossible," Basil exclaimed, who was now listening to her speeches, for Kate had finished her discourse touching her Johnny's disease in his stomach. The cause thereof, she said, both herself thought, and all in Mr. Benham's house did judge to have been, the taking in the morning a confection of barley sodden with water and sugar, and made exceeding thick with bread. This breakfast lost him both his dinner and supper, and surely the better half of his sleep; but God be thanked, she hoped now the worst was past, and that the dear urchin would shortly be as merry and well-disposed as afore he left London. Basil said he hoped so too; and in a pause which ensued, he heard Polly speak of Lord Leicester's intended marriage, which seemed to move him to some sort of indignation, the cause of which I only learnt many years later; for that when Lady Douglas Howard's cause came before the Star-Chamber, in his present majesty's reign, he told me he had been privy, through information received in France, of her secret marriage with that lord.
"'Tis not impossible," Polly retorted, "by the same token that the new favorite, young Robert Devereux, maketh no concealment of it, and calleth my Lord Leicester his father elect. But I pray you, what is impossible in these days? Oh, I think they are the most whimsical, entertaining days which the world hath ever known; and the merriest, if people have a will to make them so."
"Oh, Polly," I cried, unable to restrain myself, "I pray God you may never find cause to change your mind thereon."
"Yea, amen to that prayer," quoth she; "I'll promise you, my grave little coz, that I have no mind to be sad till I grow old—and there be yet some years to come before that shall befall me. When Mistress Helen Ingoldsby shall reach to the height of my shoulder, then, methinks, I may begin to take heed unto my ways. What think you the little wench said to me yesterday? 'What times is it we do conform to, mother? dinner-times or bed-times?'" "She should have been answered, 'The devil's times,'" Basil muttered; and Kate told Polly she should be ashamed to speak in her father's house of the conformity she practised when others were suffering for their religion. [{323}] And, methought, albeit I had scarcely endured the jesting which had preceded it, I could less bear any talk of religion, least-ways of that kind, just then. But, in sooth, the constraint I suffered almost overpassed my strength. There appeared no hope of their going, and they fell into an eager discourse concerning the bear-baiting they had been to see in Berkshire, and a great sort of ban-dogs, which had been tied in an outer court, let loose on thirteen bears that were baited in the inner; and my dear Basil, who doth delight in all kinds of sports, listened eagerly to the description they gave of this diversion. Oh, how I counted the minutes! what a pressure weighted my heart! how the sound of their voices pained mine ears! how long an hour seemed! and yet too short for my desires, for I feared the time must soon come when Basil should go, and lamented that these unthinking women's tarrying should rob me of all possibility to talk with him alone. Howsoever, when Mr. Roper rose to depart, I followed him into the hall and waited near the door for Basil, who was bidding farewell to Kate and Polly. I heard him beseech them to do him so much favor as not to mention they had seen him; for that he had not informed Sir Henry Stafford of his coming over from France, which if he heard of it otherwise than from himself, it should peradventure offend him. They laughed, and promised to be as silent as graves thereon; and Polly said he had learnt French fashions she perceived, and taken lessons in wooing from mounseer; but she hoped his stealthy visit should in the end prove more conformable to his desires than mounseer's had done. At last they let him go; and Mr. Roper, who had waited for him, wrung his hand, and the manner of his doing it made my eyes overflow. I turned my face away, but Basil caught both my hands in his and said, "Be of good cheer, sweetheart. I have not words wherewith to express how much I love thee, but God knoweth it is very dearly."
"O Basil! mine own dear Basil," I murmured, laying my forehead on his coat-sleeve, and could not then utter another word. Ere I lifted it again, the hall-door opened, and who, I pray you, should I then see (with more affright, I confess, than was reasonable) but Hubert? My voice shook as he said to Basil, whose back was turned from the door, "Here is your brother."
"Ah, Hubert!" he exclaimed; "I be glad to see thee!" and held out his hand to him with a frank smile, which the other took, but in the doing of it a deadly paleness spread over his face.
"I have no leisure to tarry so much as one minute," Basil said; "but this sweet lady will tell thee what weighty reasons I have for presently remaining concealed; and so farewell, my dear love, and farewell, my good brother. Be, I pray you, my bedes-woman this night, Constance; and you too, Hubert,—if you do yet say your prayers like a good Christian, which I pray God you do,—mind you say an ave for me before you sleep."
When the door closed on him I sunk down on a chair, and hid my face with my hands.
"You have not told him anything?" Hubert whispered; and I, "God help you, Hubert! he hath come to London for this very matter, and hath already, I fear, albeit not in any way that shall advantage my father, yet in seeking to assist him, run himself into danger of death, or leastways banishment."
As I said this mine eyes raised themselves toward him; and I would they had not, for I saw in his visage an expression I have tried these many years to forget, but which sometimes even now comes back to me painfully.
"I told you so," he answered. "He hath an invariable aptness to miss his aim, and to hurt himself by the shafts he looseth. What plan hath he now formed, and what shall come of it?"
But, somewhat recovered from my surprise, I bethought myself it should not be prudent, albeit I grieved to think so, to let him know what sort of enterprise it was Basil had in hand; so I did evade his question, which indeed he did not show himself very careful to have answered. He said he was yet dealing with Sir Francis Walsingham, and had hopes of success touching my father's liberation, and so prayed me not to yield to despondency; but it would take time to bring matters to a successful issue, and patience was greatly needed, and likewise prudence toward that end. He requested me very urgently to take no other steps for the present in his behalf, which might ruin all. And above all things not to suffer Basil to come forward in it, for that he had made himself obnoxious to Sir Francis by speeches which he had used, and which some one had reported to him, touching Lady Ridley's compliance with his (Sir Francis's) request that she should have a minister in her house for to read Protestant prayers to her household, albeit herself, being bedridden, did not attend; and if he should now stir in this matter, all hope would be at an end. So he left me, and I returned to the parlor, and Kate and Polly declared my behavior to them not to be over and above civil; but they supposed when folks were in love, they had a warrant to treat their friends as they pleased. Then finding me very dull and heavy, I ween, they bethought themselves at the last of going to visit their mother in her bed, and paying their respects to their father, whom they found asleep in his chair, his prayer-book, with which he was engaged most of the day, lying open by his side. Polly kissed his forehead, and then the picture of our Blessed Lady in the first page of this much-used volume; which sudden acts of hers comforted me not a little.
Muriel came out of her mother's chamber to greet them, but would not suffer them to see her at this unexpected time, for that the least change in her customable habits disordered her; and then whispered to me that she had often asked for Mistress Ward, and complained of her absence.
At the last Sir Ralph came, but not Mr. Lacy, who he said was tired with his long ride, and had gone home to bed. Thereupon Kate began to weep; for she said she would not go without him to this fine ball, for it was an unbecoming thing for a woman to be seen abroad when her husband was at home, and a thing she had not yet done, nor did intend to do. But that it was a very hard thing she should have been at the pains to dress herself so handsomely, and not so much as one person to see her in this fine suit; and she wished she had not been so foolish as to be persuaded to it, and that Polly was very much to blame therein. At the which, "I' faith, I think so too," Polly exclaimed; "and I wish you had stayed in the country, my dear."
Kate's pitiful visage and whineful complaint moved me, in my then apprehensive humor, to an unmerry but not to be resisted fit of laughter, which she did very much resent; but I must have laughed or died, and yet it made me angry to hear her utter such lamentations who had no true cause for displeasure.
When they were gone,—she, still shedding tears, in a chair Sir Ralph sent for to convey her to Gray's Inn Lane, and he and Polly in their coach to Mrs. Yates's,—the relief I had from their absence proved so great that at first it did seem to ease my heart. I went slowly up to mine own chamber, and stood there a while at the casement looking at the quiet sky above and the unquiet city beneath it, and chiefly in the distant direction where I knew the prison to be, picturing to myself my father in his bare cell. Mistress Ward regaining her obscure lodging, Mr. Watson's dangerous descent, and mostly the boat which Basil was to row,—that boat freighted with so perilous a burthen. These scenes seemed to rise before mine eyes as I remained motionless, straining [{325}] their sight to pierce the darkness of the night and of the fog which hung over the town. When the clock struck twelve, a shiver ran through me, for I thought of the like striking at Lynn Court, and what had followed. Upon which I betook myself to my prayers, and thinking on Basil, said, "Speak for him, O Blessed Virgin Mary! Entreat for him, O ye apostles! Make intercession for him, all ye martyrs! Pray for him, all ye confessors and all ye company of heaven, that my prayers for him may take effect before our Lord Jesus Christ!" Then my head waxed heavy with sleep, and I sank on the cushion of my kneeling-stool. I wot not for how many hours I slumbered in this wise; but I know I had some terrible dreams.
When I awoke it was daylight. A load knocking at the door of the house had aroused me. Before I had well bethought me where I was, Muriel's white face appeared at my door. The pursuivants, she said, were come to seek for Mistress Ward.
[TO BE CONTINUED.] [Page 455]
From The Literary Workman.
FACTS AND FICTIONS ABOUT ROME.
BY THE VERY REV. DR. NORTHCOTE.
THE ROMAN PEOPLE.
It is a relief to turn from the dull, stupid, false witness of our own countrymen to the more lively but not less malicious falsehoods of the clever Frenchman, Monsieur About. He deserves a higher rank, too, in the scale of truthfulness as well as of talent than either Mr. Fullom or Dean Alford; but on this very account he is the more dangerous enemy. He handles his pen well, and he has the fatal gift of insinuating the poison he wishes to administer in the minutest quantities, but with consummate skill. Often it is contained in a single word or phrase, dropped apparently at random. Sometimes you can hardly point out a single statement that is really false, yet a certain tone and flavor pervades the whole which you feel to be unjust, and which is all the more injurious because of its extreme subtlety and the difficulty of providing an antidote. An air of moderation is thus imparted to his book, which, if we may judge by its rarity, it is not easy to maintain when writing upon this subject He does not paint either the Pope or his people all black, but sees much to commend both in the system and the results of the government. Indeed, some of his descriptions are, in our judgment, as just as they are graphic. Take, for example, the following description of the lower orders of the Roman people, the genuine plebs:
"The noble strangers who do Rome in their carriages are but slightly acquainted with the little world of which I am going to speak, or more probably form a very false judgment about them. They remember to have been worried to death by blustering facchini (porters) and followed by indefatigable beggars. They saw nothing but hands open to receive; they heard nothing but harsh voices screaming forth a petition for alms. Behind this curtain of mendacity are concealed nearly a hundred thousand persons who are poor without being idle, and who labor hard for a scanty supply of [{326}] daily bread. The gardeners and vine-dressers who cultivate part of the environs of Rome; workmen, artizans, servants, coachmen, studio models, peddlers, honest vagabonds who wait for their supper on some miracle of Providence or some lucky chance in the lottery, compose the majority of the population. They manage to struggle through the winter, when visitors sow manna over the land; in summer they starve. Many are too proud to ask for an alms, not one of them is rich enough to refuse it, if offered. Ignorant and curious; simple, yet subtle; sensitive to excess, yet without much dignity; extremely prudent in the main, yet capable of the most outrageous pieces of imprudence; going to extremes both in devotedness and in hate; easy to move, difficult to convince; more susceptible of feelings than of ideas; sober by habit, terrible when intoxicated; sincere in practices of devotion the moat outré, but as ready to quarrel with the saints as with men; persuaded that they have but little to hope for in this life; comforted from time to time by the prospect of a better, they live in a state of quiet, grumbling resignation under a paternal government which gives them bread when there is bread to give. The inequalities of rank, which are more conspicuous in Rome than in Paris (?), do not move them to hatred. They are satisfied with the mediocrity of their lot, and congratulate themselves that there are rich men in the world, that so the poor may have benefactors. No people are less capable of managing themselves, so that they are easily led by the first who presents himself. They have borne a part in all the Roman revolutions, and many have acquitted themselves manfully in the fight without having the least idea what it was about. They trusted so little to the republic that, in the absence of all the authorities, when the Holy Father and the Sacred College had taken refuge at Gaeta, thirty poor families quartered themselves in Cardinal Antonelli's palace, without breaking a single pane of glass. The restoration of the Pope, under the protection of a foreign army, was no matter of astonishment to them; they had expected it as a happy event which would restore public tranquillity. They live at peace with our soldiers, when the latter do nothing against the peace or honor of their households; and the occupation of their city by a foreign army does not trouble them, except when they are personally inconvenienced by it. They are not afraid to plunge a dagger into the breast of a conqueror, but I will answer for their never celebrating any Sicilian Vespers.
"They pride themselves on their descent in a direct line from the Romans of great Rome; and these harmless pretensions seem to me to have a very tolerable foundation. Like their ancestors, they eat largely of bread, and are very greedy after sights; they treat their wives simply as women, not leaving a single farthing at their disposal, but spending it all on themselves; every one of them is the client of some client of a patrician. They are well-built, strong, and able to deal such a blow as would astonish a buffalo; but there is not one of them who is not on the lookout for some means of living without work. Excellent workmen when they haven't a farthing, impossible to be got hold of as soon as they have a crown in their pockets; good, honest, kindly, and simple-hearted folks, but thoroughly convinced of their superiority to the rest of mankind. Economical to the last degree, and living on dry peas, until they can find some splendid occasion for spending all their savings in a day; they gather sous by sous, two or three pounds in the course of the year, to hire the balcony of some prince at the carnival, or to show themselves in a carriage at the feast del Divin 'Amore, It is thus the Roman populace forget both the future and the past in Saturnalia. The hereditary want of forethought which possesses [{327}] them may be explained by the irregularity of their resources, the periodical return of festas which exempt them from labor, and the impossibility of raising themselves to any higher condition, save by the intervention of a miracle. They are deficient in many virtues, and, amongst others, in refinement, which formed no part of the inheritance to which they have succeeded. That in which they certainly are not deficient is dignity and self-respect. They never demean themselves to low, coarse jokes, or vulgar debauchery. You will never see them insult a gentleman in the streets, unprovoked, or speak an offensive word to a woman. That class of degraded beings which we call the canaille is absolutely unknown here; the ignoble is not a Roman commodity."
Here is another testimony of a similar kind, from the same pen, to the character of one particular class of the Roman people, the Trastevirni, or people who dwell on the northern side of the Tiber. M. About invites his readers to accompany him to one of the osterie or public houses of the quarter where blacksmiths, and shoemakers, and weavers, and hackney-coachmen, etc, together with their wives and daughters, resort on Sunday, to enjoy a better dinner and a more generous flask of wine than they can afford themselves during the week. The entrance is not inviting, and there are not many foreigners, or English gentlemen either, who would like to venture, as a mere matter of curiosity, and without any pressing necessity, into the corresponding establishments of either France or England. M. About is well aware of this, so he encourages his readers, bidding them fear nothing; "you shall dine well," he says, "and nobody shall dine upon you."
"You shall see men here strong as bulls and quite as irascible; men who think as little of giving a blow as you or I of drinking a glass of water, and who never strike without having a knife in their hands. The police will be nowhere near to protect us; they are always out of the way. Beside, if you were to offend one of these jolly fellows, he would kill you, though you were in the very arms of the police. Nevertheless you may come and go in the midst of them, spend lots of money, pay in gold, make your purse jingle in the hearing of all, and go home after midnight through the darkest streets, without any one dreaming of making an attempt on your purse. More than this: we shall be politely received, and they will put themselves out of the way to make room for us. They will not stare at us, as though we were wild beasts; they will even obligingly gratify our curiosity, if it is not impertinent We need not fear that wine will excite them to pick a quarrel with us; but woe betide us if we have the misfortune to provoke them. They are not aggressive when they are in liquor, but they are very sensitive. They forgive no offence, even an involuntary one, if it has exposed them to the raillery of their companions. When you see a woman with her husband, or a girl with her father, put a bridle on your eyes. It is often dangerous even to cast a furtive glance on a Trasteverina; and I have known more than one instance in which the offender has paid the penalty with his life."
I dare say some of our readers are a little disappointed at the sketch of the character of the Roman people which we have given on the authority of M. About. They would rather have heard us say they were all good and pious and edifying members of society and of the Church. Indeed we have known some zealous souls who expected to find Rome a sort of monastery on a large scale, where worldly passions and mortal sins were never heard of, except among the hardened and rebellious few; and even the imperfections of ordinary mortals were rarely met with, and assumed some character of special enormity. Rome seems to have the gift which, from the Catholic point of view, [{328}] we should naturally expect it to have, viz., of stirring the affection of men's hearts in their lowest depths more powerfully than in any other place in the world. As our divine Master himself was "set for the ruin as well as for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which should be contradicted," so the capital of his Church upon earth—the seat of his vicegerent—that city where his interests take precedence of every earthly consideration, and the world is made to wait upon the Church, not the Church upon the world, inspires the strongest possible sentiment of love or of hatred into the minds of all; and where these feelings are strong, it is hard to keep the exact balance of impartial truthfulness. What we love intensely, we naturally like to picture to ourselves as faultless and perfect; and even if we cannot do this—if we are conscious of defects and faults, which cannot be denied, we still wish to conceal them as long as possible from others. What bitter hatred and prejudice can do in the way of blinding men's eyes and closing men's ears, we have already seen in the melancholy examples of Messrs. Alford and Co.; nor should we have far to seek if we desired to present our readers with specimens of exaggerated praise dictated by the partiality of affection. Most of us have probably met with generous enthusiasts, who did not hesitate to prefer Rome to England, under any conceivable aspect, secular as well as religious, and who would think it as much a point of honor to defend the character of the Roman soldiers for bravery, the Roman police for activity, the Roman scavengers for efficiency, and the Roman people for industry and honesty, as of the Roman clergy for integrity of faith and purity of morals, and the Roman government for justice tempered with clemency. Such persons are very amiable friends, but somewhat embarrassing allies; and writers, very inferior to M. About, have no difficulty in destroying their well-meant but ill-planned system of defence. M. About himself is much too wise to fall into this blunder of unmitigated extravagance, from his side of the question; and we have been glad, therefore, to avail ourselves of his clever and spirited sketches to lay before our readers what we really believe to be a very tolerable estimate of the true state of the case. It is certainly no article of the faith to believe the Romans to be impeccable, or the Roman character in itself to be the ideal of human perfection; and we hope our devotion to the Holy See will not be called in question for the avowal. We have already quoted the testimony of a Protestant traveller, who acknowledges the strongly-marked character of religion which stamps the whole city of Rome; but this, of course, is not incompatible with the existence of much that is evil, against which this religious element is always contending.
We will add yet one more passage from About, which concerns the general character of the country people, rather than of the inhabitants of the metropolis. We have spent several months, at various times, in more than one Italian village, and have been greatly edified by the simplicity and piety of the people. They were guiltless, for the most part, of any political knowledge even as to the affairs of their own country; and as to any other country beside their own, it was as far removed from their ordinary range of thoughts as Mars, Venus, and Saturn still are from the thoughts of our own peasantry. They rose early and worked hard; still, as M. About is obliged to acknowledge, one cannot say of them—"as of the Irish, for example," says M. About—"that they are miserable. They are poor, and that is all. The fact that their religion, their schooling, and their medical attendance costs them nothing, compensates to a certain degree for the heavy taxation they suffer in other ways. Their labor in the fields keeps them alive till old age. They pass their life in earning their livelihood. [{329}] The existence of this class resembles a vicious circle." No doubt it does to those whose view of things is limited to this world, and who cannot recognize any end or reward of the suffering of this life beyond it. But the Romans, as he himself acknowledges, "know how to die. This is a trait in their character which justice obliges us to recognize. They die as they eat, or drink, or sleep—quite naturally, simply, and as a matter of course. This resignation is to be explained by their hopes of a life of happiness in an ideal world hereafter, and by the continual admonitions of a religion which teaches that all men must die." In other words, the Roman peasantry believe the Gospel; and so they accept with patience the primeval burden laid upon fallen man—"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken." And for this they earn the contemptuous pity of the enlightened Frenchman. We accept his testimony, whilst we disclaim his commentary and detest his spirit. We think he speaks truly when he seizes on this characteristic of the Roman popular mind—familiarity with the idea of death. We know of no people to whom this and other truths of the faith seem to be more habitually present. It gives a color and a tone to their ordinary conversation, even where it does not bring forth fruits of sanctity. We have ourselves heard of a Roman lady reconciling herself to a marriage which was proposed to her, and which in some respects was not inviting, simply by a consideration of the piety of the intended bridegroom; but this consideration found expression in a truly Roman way, quite in keeping with what M. About has observed about them. "He is not lively, I know," said the lady, "nor handsome, nor clever, but he is pious, and will make a good end." And in a charming little book lately published ("Sanctity in Home Life") we see another Italian lady, the Countess Medolago, confiding to a friend her only idea of her future husband much in the same spirit: "All that I know is that he is pious and very fond of the Jesuits."
THE POLITICS OF THE ROMAN PEOPLE.
The facts we have adduced, the pictures we have drawn—or rather which M. About, a bitter enemy of the Papal power, has drawn—of the condition of the Roman people, ought, one would think, to have great weight with those who have any real care for the well-being of a nation. A man must be firmly wedded indeed to some political crotchet, who is ready to risk the loss of such advantages as these in exchange for the realization of his dreams. But in truth it is the hatred of Catholicism, rather than the love of any political principle, which lies at the root of most of the declamation we hear against the abuses of the Papal government. Why is it else that those gentlemen who profess so lively a concern that the political liberties of three millions of Italians should suffer some abridgment for the sake of upholding the Father of Christendom in the independent exercise of his spiritual power, are yet able to bear with the utmost equanimity the sight of real cruelty and oppression inflicted upon ten millions of Christians in European Turkey? The balance of political power among the different European governments is of more value in their eyes than the spiritual supremacy of the Pope; peace, commerce, and wealth depend on the one, only virtue and religion on the other.
But let us come now to the political question, and see how it really stands. It has been often and truly said, that the temporal sovereignty of the Pope rests on more legitimate foundations than any other European sovereignty of the day. Long possession, to be measured not by generations but by centuries; donations from other powers; the free choice of the people, all combine to impart to the chair of Peter a dignity and a solidity which does not belong to any other throne. [{330}] And if it be objected that, however this may have been in times past, yet now, at least, the consent of the people is wanting, without which the modern creed of nations will not allow any power to be secure, we must answer, what has been proved to demonstration, and what every one at all conversant with the facts of the case well knows to be true: that it is not in Rome and among Romans that plots have been hatched against the Pontifical government; a portion of the people, the discontented, of whom there must ever be some under every government, have only lent themselves to the execution of plots conceived and planned in the secret societies or clubs, or even the ministerial chambers, of Turin and Genoa. Strangers have always been at the head of every Roman revolution, adventurers who find their fortunes in troubled waters, or fanatical politicians, who cannot endure that any one should be happy, excepting according to their own receipt. So long as English politicians encourage agitation by their presence in the country and frequent communications with disaffected parties in it, or by lending their names and their houses as the medium of correspondence or of banking transactions between the conspirators, or by delivering sensational speeches in the house; so long will the Roman mind be more or less agitated; so long as Piedmont can send her emissaries into all the towns and villages, distributing money as the reward of acquiescence in her schemes, conspirators, even among the Romans themselves, will not be wanting; but if all these things could be removed, and the question were left to the settlement of the people themselves, we should have no fear of the result. Whenever the Popes have been driven out of Rome, the people have hailed their return with universal acclamations of joy, and already we are told the short experience of the blessings of Piedmontese rule which the Legations have enjoyed has sufficed to make them regret the change. The increase of taxes and the military conscription are a price higher than they are willing to pay for the name of liberty under the yoke of Victor Emmanuel. We believe that the following account of the political creed of the great majority of the Pope's subjects is as accurate as it is moderate. We are indebted for it to a French ecclesiastic, who has most gratefully followed M. About through all his misstatements, and published a complete refutation of them. He tells us that most Romans are of opinion that people may be happy or miserable under any form of government, according to the way in which it is administered; that a government of some kind there must be; or disorder would be universal; and that the Pope being at the head of the Roman government, is the cause of many advantages: it attracts princes and other wealthy foreigners to Rome; sometimes seventy, eighty, or even ninety thousand strangers at a time; it saves them from the scourge of war; the operations of commerce, if not so extensive as in some other capitals, are at least more secure and stable; there is no financial crisis or panic in the money market returning at periodical intervals, and spreading ruin and desolation through innumerable families; industry and good conduct, crowned by success in business, open the way to the possession of estates and titles; the ranks of the privileged class itself, so to call it—the clergy—are open to all comers; the great majority of lucrative offices about the court, prelacies, bishoprics, judgeships, etc., are given to members of the middle class, no less than three-fourths of the cardinals (including Cardinal Antonelli himself) having been chosen from among them; that ninety-nine out of every hundred holding office under government are laymen; that not more than 100 priests altogether are employed in the administration of secular affairs; and that among officials of the same rank, a layman always receives higher pay than an ecclesiastic; that even in [{331}] offices which, as having to deal with matters of religion, might seem fairly to belong to ecclesiastics alone, two-thirds of the posts are filled by laymen, and the salaries are divided in about the same proportion; that the Popes, haying no families of their own, are always spending their private fortunes on public works for the good of the country, or on the rebuilding and decoration of churches, to the great encouragement of the fine arts, and the support of innumerable families; or, finally, on schools and hospitals, and other works of charity. They know, too, that, thanks to this liberality, the education of their children need cost them nothing; that schools of all kinds are more numerous (in proportion to the population) in Rome than in any other European capital, and these not only schools of primary instruction for the children of the poor, containing about 17,000 scholars, of both sexes, but also for the middle and upper classes, 3,000 of whom receive here an education fitted to qualify them for any profession they may prefer, quite gratuitously.
This we believe to be a very fair account of the state of feeling on political matters among the majority of the Roman people; and if it is not satisfactory to our modern liberals, because it ignores all their bright theories and is content to forego the blessings of representative governments and triennial parliaments, we cannot help it. We think there is an intimate conviction in most Roman minds that God's honor and glory, and man's truest happiness, are more earnestly sought for and more fully attained in that city than elsewhere; and that this conviction both does, and ought to, reconcile them to any political disadvantages which such a state of things may entail, as Mons. Veuillot has well said.
Elsewhere, man is considered primarily as a power; in Rome, he is primarily a soul. At Rome, the public manners, following more nearly the august guidance of the Church, have more frequently and more closely than elsewhere approached the divine ideal of the gospel. I know what cruel ravages have been wrought by long and wicked agitations, begun and fostered from without; I know that every people has its dregs, its populace; but I know also that at Rome this very populace is not without faith, and I know, too, what solid Christian virtues adorn the true Roman hearth. Rarely or never do twenty years roll by without Rome giving to the world one of those heroes who devote themselves to the love of God and of souls with the triumphant energy of sanctity. Blest and encouraged by the Popes, these chosen ones have always left disciples to prolong, as it were, their own existence, and works which have not perished. And the enlightened Christian conscience, despising the empty boasts of ignorant pride, will always assign the first place among nations to that which best preserves the faith and produces the greatest number of saints.
We are well aware that this test of national greatness would find no favor in the ears of an English Parliament, but we are foolish enough to think that there may be truth in it for all that.
Translated from the German.
MALINES AND WÜRZBURG.
A SKETCH OF THE CATHOLIC CONGRESSES HELD AT MALINES AND WÜRZBURG.
BY ANDREW NIEDERMASSER.
CHAPTER III.
SCIENCE AND THE PRESS.
In the Belgian congress the section of science and the press does not treat of the same subjects that occupy the attention of that section in the Catholic conventions in Germany. At Malines Christian instruction and education are the principal questions debated; in Germany, on the other hand, the university question is the chief subject of discussion; at Malines it is slimly attended; at Würzburg, Frankfort, etc., on the contrary, there was a crowded attendance, and the proceedings were of the most interesting character. At Malines forty-five Catholic journalists met and passed important resolutions; at Würzburg, more than sixty representatives of German science held a separate conference and drew up an address to the Holy Father. Even the meeting of literati held at Munich may be called the offspring of the Catholic general conventions. At Munich, in 1861, Professor Michaelis proposed a scheme planned by Döllinger for a meeting of the German savans, which was rejected. Hereupon the project was somewhat changed and a separate meeting held at Munich. Its results are well known.
The principal debaters in this section of the Malines congress were the genial and venerable Count de Villeneuve, Lenormant the daring traveller, Lecheoni, Soudan, Léger, du Clisieux, Ducpetiaux, Chopinet, Soenens, Baeten, and Decoster. The presiding officer was Namèche, of Louvain, who, together with de Ram, Lanny, Delcour, Laforêt, and Perin worthily represented the university at Louvain. His neighbor was van der Haeghen, of Brussels, a writer whose name is well known, not only in Belgium but in foreign countries. Though an excellent linguist, he deems it his first duty to refute historical misstatements and to expose without mercy the errors of modern Protestant historians. As Onno Klopp unsparingly demolishes German scribblers, so van der Haeghen puts down the Belgian dabblers in history. He is intimately acquainted with German literature.
The subjects that occupied the attention of the section were popular instruction, the classics as a means of mental training, the establishment of professorships on social questions and discipline.
On popular instruction Monseigneur Dupanloup delivered a discourse, which was the event of the congress, and which has since been read by all Europe. Count Desbassayns de Richemout, of Paris, an orator favorably known in Germany as the spirited advocate of a Catholic university, spoke on the mental activity of society. In the Romanic world the name of Dupanloup acts like a charm. If a charity sermon is to be held, which is to move and electrify Paris and all France, the Bishop of Orleans is called upon. In 1862, when it became necessary to give a new impetus to the Catholic cause in the East, Dupanloup was summoned to Rome to [{333}] call the nations of the earth to a sense of their duties; thousands rushed to hear him preach at the church of St. Andrea del Galle. At Malines he met with the same success. When Dupanloup speaks every listener glows with Catholic zeal, that becomes more and more intense as he proceeds and finally bursts forth in a fiery enthusiasm, whose influence reaches far and wide. Such was the spectacle witnessed at Rome, and repeated at Paris and Malines. One of the brightest ornaments of the French hierarchy, Dupanloup on every occasion expresses the opinions of Catholic France with irresistible force. No wonder, then, that even the emperor fears the bishop's eloquence. His writings are read by all, and admired for their classic style. As an orator, he enchants the French and Belgians; on the Germans, however, he exerts a less powerful influence; they prefer Montalembert, F. Hermann, or F. Felix. His discourse at Malines was not, properly speaking, a discourse, but a familiar conversation, grand and splendid in diction, and full of brilliant turns and telling jeux de mots. The remarks made by Dupanloup on August 30, when returning thanks for his enthusiastic reception, were a masterpiece of eloquence, which will never be forgotten by those who listened to him. The Bishop of Orleans is a man of the people. "I do not know much; but what I know best and love best is the people." If Dupanloup's speech was the brightest gem of the congress in 1864, Montalembert, in his speech on "Religious Liberty," eclipsed all his competitors in 1863. Montalembert's discourse lasted five hours, two hours longer than Dupanloup's speech. Montalembert and Dupanloup are the most prominent representatives of Catholic France. Called by God to battle for his Church, both are leading millions of soldiers arrayed under the banner of Christ to victory and triumphs. Montalembert, the athlete of the tribune, hailed by Pius IX. himself as one of the bravest of the Christian host, cherishes for the Church an ardent, pure, and holy love. This love may sometimes carry him too far. At Malines, in 1863, he laid down many propositions not approved by the congress. The Cardinal of Malines, however, and the Bishop of Orleans, charitably threw a veil over every thing objectionable, thus resolving into perfect harmony everything discordant. Dupanloup evidently thought of his friend Montalembert when, in his remarks on August 30, 1864, he uttered the words: "Let us not confound opinions and principles, vital questions and domestic difficulties; among us let there be no differences, no disunion, no imprudence."
Count Richemont, of Paris, is a true nobleman in appearance and bearing; his black beard adds new beauty to his handsome face and sparkling eyes. His gestures are appropriate and graceful. He speaks very rapidly, however, swallowing many words, so that we Germans did not understand him well; in fact, we read his speech with more pleasure than we listened to it. A more favorable impression was made by Viscount Anatole Lemercier, of Paris, a man of agreeable manners, a true Parisian, full of wit and humor, a graceful speaker, who will be heard with pleasure by any assembly. But, great as are Lemercier's merits, he has a dangerous rival in Henry de Riancey, who unites in himself every quality required to become a general favorite. Among the French journalists he is one of the ablest. In his opinions he steers a middle course between the extreme views of Montalembert and Veuillot, or Barrier, Faconet and Chantrel, the oracles of the "Monde;" and "L'Union," the journal of which he is the editor, occupies an intermediate position between "Le Monde" and "Le Correspondant" But de Riancey's labors are not confined to his editorial sanctum; he cherishes holy poverty, is untiring in the practice of Christian charity, and justly deserves [{334}] the title of "Father of the Poor." These holy practices give an unction to his words, and throw a halo around his person which he does not even suspect, but which gains for him the hearts of all that see or hear of him. His speeches in the section of Christian economy excited great interest, and when speaking on matters connected with the Catholic faith he reminded us of the fathers of the Church. His discourse before the general meeting of the congress, Sept. 12, 1864, was a gem. He spoke as a soldier of Christ, as an heroic defender of the Church, showing at once that he was a veteran, who had often struggled for the triumph of principle. The future does not inspire de Riancey with anxiety or fear; he is full of hope and confidence, believing that he lives in an age destined to accomplish great things. He is not discouraged by the superior power of his opponents, for he bears in mind Christ's promise to his Church.
When speaking, a pleasant smile rests on de Riancey's lips, and his features reflect the cheerful calmness of his soul. His friendly eyes charm his listeners, who regret to see them fixed on his manuscript, for de Riancey reads his speeches. If the applause of the assembly become too long and noisy, the speaker's face beams with satisfaction, and he gracefully passes his hand through his hair. De Riancey fascinates the hearts of all his hearers.
It is hard to say which of the many eminent French orators at Malines possesses most claims to our preference. Who is the greatest orator, Count Montalembert or Bishop Dupanloup, de Riancey or Père Felix, Viscount Lemercier, Count Richemont, Viscount de Melan, Lasserée, or Lenormant? Each of them has excellences peculiar to himself that claim our admiration. In like manner, among the great Italian masters, Michael Angelo is first in grandeur of style and conception; Titian is distinguished for the grace of his figures; Correggio for their angelic purity; whilst Raphael merits the palm for fertility of invention, correctness of expression, and variety. Père Felix, we have already stated, pleased the Germans more than Bishop Dupanloup. His concluding discourse, delivered in St Rombaut's cathedral at Malines, Sept 3, 1864, was a philosophical review of ecclesiastical history; the grandeur of its conception well befitted the importance of the occasion. In appearance, F. Felix is not so majestic as F. de Ravignan, nor has he so powerful and sonorous a voice as his predecessor. His discourses betray less enthusiastic love of liberty than those of F. Lacordaire, but still he is at present the orator of the day, no less than de Ravignan and Lacordaire were some years ago. F. Lacordaire, the Dominican, addressed his words to thousands of young men, who, carried away by the political and literary revolutions of 1830, were frantic with ideas of liberty, who were attracted and tormented by the "infinite," and panting for vague, undefined ideals. This yearning Lacordaire strove to satisfy, by pointing out to them that Christ and his Church were the realization of their indefinite ideals, and by teaching them to sanctify liberty by devotion and sacrifice. The vast schemes of 1830 were not carried out, and their ideals were not realized. French society felt the vanity of its aspirations, and was seized by a deadly lethargy, a kind of despair, as if it had suffered shipwreck. Like so many flaming meteors F. de Ravignan's conferences suddenly shed a stream of light on the universal gloom. How majestic was his appearance, how sublime his language, how ardent his faith, and how holy his life! All France listened to the Jesuit, and seemed spell-bound. Irreligion was banished from thousands of hearts, and thousands returned to the practice of their religious duties and were saved. The spirit of the age took another direction; men busied themselves exclusively with their [{335}] material interests, and they thought only of money, of steam, of machinery and other branches of industry. For many years progress has been the watchword—material progress—which has brought about all these wonders of modern times, which is due to human energy alone, and which, for this very reason, deifies itself in its pride and threatens Christianity with destruction. To combat these false notions, God raised up F. Felix. He devoted his attention to the popular idol, progress, but he dealt with it in his own way. In Lent, 1856, he began, in the church of Notre Dame, in Paris, his famous conferences on "Progress by Means of Christianity." Archbishop Sibour had blessed the orator and his subject. His success was astounding, and henceforth F. Felix will hold an honorable place among French pulpit orators. F. Felix is about fifty-five years of age; he has an intelligent countenance, a noble, manly brow, betokening a deep, penetrating mind, and a firm will. Since 1856 his voice has improved, having gained both in compass and in sweetness. It is clear and piercing, completely filling the immense church of Our Lady at Paris. The two discourses delivered by F. Felix at Malines (Sept. 2 and 3, 1864) are perhaps his most finished productions. He did not call forth any momentary burst of enthusiasm, but produced a lasting impression, that will console and strengthen us in the struggle of life.
The university question, which has been so prominent in Germany, was not discussed at Malines. The Belgians have had for thirty years a Catholic university at Louvain, which they support at a great expense, and for the maintenance of which they constantly struggle. The English speak of establishing a Catholic college at Oxford. Canon Oakley, a learned English convert, is working zealously to realize the plan, and if Newman will agree to take the helm, the enterprise will prosper. We hope the project will succeed, for English Catholics will not send their sons to the Catholic university at Dublin, which does not flourish, and numbers only some two hundred students. In Holland a Catholic university is not even thought of.
The interests of the Catholic press were not neglected at Malines. Belgium has done much to raise its character, as was shown by Count de Theux. Since the congress of 1863 the Belgian journals—especially the "Journal de Bruxelles"—have steadily progressed. In Belgium, small as it is, there are fifty Catholic periodicals, some French and some Flemish. The "Journal de Bruxelles" already rivals the Paris "Monde," and both are far in advance of any German journal. At Malines the members of the press form a section of their own, in which the principal papers are represented by their directors, editors, or correspondents. The staff of the "Correspondant" was represented by Count Francis de Champagny, Viscount Anatole Lemercier, and by Francis Lenormant, the favorite of the Parisians. "Le Monde," too, had sent its delegates; prominent among these was Hermann Kuhn, the Berlin correspondent, who contributes valuable articles on Catholic Germany. He appeared for the "Mayence Journal" also. We are already acquainted with de Riancey, the editor of "L'Union." The director of "La Patrie," published in Bruges, Neut, was president of the section. Although I earnestly desired to form the personal acquaintance of M. Neut, circumstances prevented it; but he appeared to be the leading spirit of the section. Affable and obliging, lively and ardent, he is a flowing speaker, well fitted to take the lead, and a bold, uncompromising Catholic, without a trace of fogyism. To see him is to love him. He is a man of great practical ability, and writes a popular style resembling that of Ernest Zander, of Munich. Like Zander he has grown grey in journalism. The vice-presidents of the section were Count Celestinè de Martini, [{336}] director of the "Journal de Bruxelles;" Leon Lavedan, who writes for the "Gazette de France;" and Lasserre, editor of the "Contemporain," well known in Germany as a controversial writer. Lebrocquoi, editor of "La Voix du Luxembourg," acted as secretary. Digard of Paris took an active part in the discussions of the section. Spain was represented by Enrique de Villaroya and Eduardo Maria de Villarrazza; Portugal by Don Almeida. The Abbé de Chelen and F. Terwecoren also deserve mention. Verspeyen, editor of "Le Bien Public," at Ghent, is one of the youngest and most spirited journalists in Belgium. He is a good speaker, very sarcastic and impressive. On his recommendation Casoni, of Bologna, who has been shamefully persecuted by the Sardinians, received a heavy subsidy from the Malines congress. Lemmens, a very clever man, is associated with Verspeyen in the editorship of "Le Bien Public," which compares with the "Journal de Bruxelles" in the same way as "Le Monde" and the "Weekly Register" compare with "Le Correspondant" and "The Home and Foreign Review." De Haulleville, formerly editor of the "Universel," and at present connected with the "Correspondant," is one of the best Belgian writers. He is not only a journalist, but also a thorough historian, well versed in German literature. I must not forget to mention Demarteau, the editor of the "Liege Journal;" A. Coomans, an able speaker, who represented the "Antwerp Journal," and Frappier, the editor of "L'Ami de l'Ordre." Among the English journalists the most prominent were Simpson, a friend of Sir John Acton, who wrote for the "Rambler" and "Home and Foreign Review," and Wigley, editor of the "Weekly Register," who writes for the "Monde" also, a worthy rival of Coquille, Faconet, Leon Pagès, Kuhn, La Tour, d'Aignan, and H. Vrignault. Among the periodicals that had sent representatives to Malines were: "L'Ouvrier," "Le Messager de la Charité," "La Revue Chrétiénne," "Le Journal des Villes et des Campagnes," "El Diario" of Barcelona, "La Regeneracion" of Madrid, "L'Union" of Valencia, "El Register Catolico" of Barcelona, "La Belgique," "La Paix," "Les Précis Historiques," "Le Courrier de Bruxelles," "Le Moniteur de Louvain," "L'Escaut," "Le Courrier de la Sambre," "L'Union de Charleroy," "Le Nouvelliste de Verviers," "Le Journal de Hainaut," "L'Impartial de Soignies," "La Gazette de Vivelles," and several others.
The assembly consisted of forty-five journalists, and their proceedings made a favorable impression. The gentlemen of the press knew why they had met. It was resolved to hold every year a general convention of Catholic journalists and to establish at Brussels an international telegraphic bureau for Catholic journals, because most of the bureaus now existing are in the hands of Jews, who frequently forge untruthful telegrams. The meeting tended to foster mutual good feeling among the representatives of the different journals, and resolutions were passed to secure unity of action in the Catholic press.
The managers of the "Correspondant" strove to obtain the patronage of the Malines congress by distributing a list of contributors. In fact, its staff comprises some of the most able Catholic journalists, and we deem it proper to give, the names of Bishop Dupanloup, the Duke d'Ayen, the Prince de Broglie, the Count Montalembert, the Count Falloux, the Count de Carné, the Count de Champagny, Viscount Lemercier, Viscount de Melun, Vicar-General Meignan, Prof. Perreyve, F. Gratry, Villemain, de Laprade, Augustine Cochin, Foisset, Leonce de Lavergne, Wallon, N. de Pontmartin, Lenormant, de Chaillard, Amedée Achard, Marmier, and de Haulleville. No doubt it would be difficult to find a greater array of talent. The "Correspondant" appears once a month, making six large volumes per year.
I had been present at a meeting of journalists connected with the second general congress of the larger German states held at Frankfort in October, 1864. Twenty-seven representatives of the German press attended. Many resolutions were passed, but not one of them was carried out; nay, the third general congress of the larger German states never convened.
The journalists of the minor German states, also, met at Eisenach on May 22, 1864. Thirty-four members were present, and resolved to meet at stated periods in order to consult about the interests of the German press. A committee of delegates from seven journals was appointed, whose headquarters was to be at Frankfort-on-the-Main until the next general meeting in 1865. From the transaction of these assemblies, it has become evident that journalism in Germany is still in its infancy. The German journalists cannot compare with those of other countries. They form no class of their own; they lack self-respect and esprit de corps; in short, they are, without exception, in a lamentable state of dependence, for they are not wealthy nor do they receive becoming remuneration.
In Belgium the press is better organized; it is not oppressed by taxation, and this is the reason why Brussels alone can boast of sixty-seven periodicals. In Belgium 10 to 12 francs will procure a well-written daily paper, far surpassing our German journals.
The Belgian journalists whom I met at Malines despise the Catholic press in Germany. They reproach us with not doing our duty, and sneer at us for being duped by Jewish writers.
Journalism is an important profession, whose members should be conscientious and honorable men. The journalist addresses his language to an audience far more numerous than the professor's, and at present his influence is, so to say, unlimited; he reaches every part of educated society and sways public opinion. He is called to be the standard-bearer of liberty and truth. He must, therefore, implant sound principles in the popular mind, and, standing above the reach of paltry prejudice, unite in himself a high degree of intelligence and true devotion to the eternal laws of the Church. Such are the qualities which a journalist should possess. Without independence, dignity, and moral freedom he cannot do justice to the task imposed on him by God. "Impavidum ferient ruinae. "
In England, America, and Belgium, the press wields a powerful influence; it has become sovereign, and is necessary to the nation's life. Science feels that unless it is diffused it is powerless, and that the school-room is too narrow a field; hence it is that men of learning make use of the press. In Catholic Germany, on the contrary, there are still districts where the journalist is looked upon with a jealous eye, and where it is deemed preferable to read papers written by Jews and literary gipsies.
"Let the Church be free, let her unfold fully her immense power, let her extend her influence to every grade and station of society, and things will assume a more promising aspect. Let the Church be again respected, let her word be heeded in the palace no less than in the hut, let homage be paid to her in the courts of justice and in institutions of learning, at the university no less than at the village school, and a new and golden era will dawn upon us." These words, first addressed to the German nation by its bishops, have been repeated again and again by the Catholic general conventions. The Church has a right to watch over popular education and schools, but, as Moufang says, she has an equally undeniable title to direct the education of those who are destined to be the leaders of the people. The Church is the mother of universities, but, alas! most of her daughters have forsaken her. Germany possesses eighteen Protestant universities, but she cannot boast [{338}] of an equal number of Catholic institutions. The Church has been robbed of her educational establishments in the same way in which she has been deprived of her monasteries and other possessions. Of the twenty-two German universities six only are Catholic. At the mixed universities Catholics are by no means on a footing of equality with Protestants, and a professor or a fellow who is a staunch Catholic will almost certainly fall into disgrace. The Protestant professors number ten to one; a great grievance, no doubt.
Even previous to 1848, far-sighted men were penetrated with the necessity of establishing a purely Catholic university. But since the emphatic approval of the scheme by the episcopal council of Würzburg, in 1848, the Catholic conventions have displayed a lively interest in the plan and have done all in their power to further its realization. At Regensburg (1849), Mayence (1851), Münster (1852), Vienna (1853), and Linz (1856), it received the fullest consideration. The convention of Linz recommended in the warmest terms the restoration of the university of Salzburg. This recommendation was repeated by the Salzburg convention in 1857, which requested the prince-archbishop of Salzburg, Baron von Farnoczky, to undertake this affair, so important to Germany. At Salzburg the debates on this question were very stormy, because Innsbruck claimed the preference. In fact, the university of Innsbruck has been much better attended of late years.
But the most decisive steps in this regard were taken by the convention of Aix-la-Chapelle. Prof. Möller, of Louvain, delivered an eloquent discourse on the establishment of the Louvain university! In glowing words he represented to the assembly how, on the opening of the first course of lectures at Malines, in 1834, but eighty-six students followed the course, how the number of students increased in 1885 to 261 and the following year to 360, whilst at the present day the three state universities together number 800 students less than Louvain alone! He spoke of the generosity of the Belgians, of their yearly subscriptions, and of their collections, to which even the poorest contribute their mite. He reminded them that the Louvain professors are among the most distinguished for mental activity, and that they form men of principle, who honorably fulfil the designs of God upon them. "And is it impossible for the great Catholic German nation to do what four millions of Belgians have accomplished? Follow the example thus set you; German laymen, raise your voices, and shrink not before difficulties or obstacles. Impossible—the word is unworthy of Germans!" By this speech of the noble Möller the assembly was aroused, and its members were ready to undergo every sacrifice in order to realize their plans. On the following day, when the convention had met in secret session, Theising, of Warendorf, brought up the university question, and a debate followed, in which Baron von Andlaw, of Freiburg, Schulte, of Prague, Count Brandis, of Austria, Thissen, of Frankfort, Möller, of Louvain, and Heinrich, of Mayence, participated. It was at first proposed to appoint a committee, which was to exert itself energetically in favor of the project. Councillor Phillips, Baron Felix von Loe, Count Brandis, Baron Henry von Andlaw, Chevalier Joseph von Buss, and Baron Wilderich von Ketteler, were appointed members of the committee and their nomination received with applause. The motion also provided for the collection of the money necessary to establish the university. A wordy discourse followed, but no definite conclusion was arrived at, when Baron von Andlaw struck the right chord. "I will give $500 for the establishment of a Catholic university," he exclaimed. "I will give $500 more," cried Councillor Phillips of Vienna, "I subscribe $300," said [{339}] Zander, of Munich. Count Richemont, of Paris, next ascended the tribune, addressed a few enthusiastic words to the assembly, and subscribed $500. He was rapidly followed by Counts Spee, Loe, Schaasberg, Stolberg, Hoensbroich, Brandis, and many other nobles from the Rhenish provinces and Westphalia, who came forward with generous contributions. Prof. Schulte, of Prague, and Canon Moufang each subscribed a thousand florins. Dumortier, of Brussels, Prisac, of Aix-la-Chapelle, Martens, of Pelplin, Thymus, Bachem, and Pastor Becker also gave solid proofs of their interest in the enterprise. In a short time the subscriptions amounted to $7,000, and at Würzburg, in 1864, $30,000 had already been subscribed.
The scene at Aix-la-Chapelle was more imposing than any other that marked the sixteen general conventions of the Catholic societies in Germany. Joy and enthusiasm were depicted on every countenance, and hope filled every breast. The whole of Catholic Germany shared in these feelings; for there was now substantial reason for believing in the ultimate success of the university scheme. True, subscriptions did not continue to pour in so rapidly as at Aix-la-Chapelle, and the nobility of southern Germany, in particular, were very remiss in performing their duty. To collect $7,000,000 is no easy task, especially as the German clergy have been deprived of almost all their possessions, whilst the mass of the people show little zeal for the undertaking. Still the agitation of this question has been productive of great good to Catholicity in Germany, for it has inspired all of us with redoubled zeal and energy. The Catholics have begun to claim their just rights and to insist upon them till they are granted. As the Rhenish Westphalian nobility have demanded the restoration of the old Catholic university of Münster, so in Bavaria, where there is a purely Protestant university, the Catholics should urge the establishment of a Catholic one, for it is our first duty, as was remarked by Schulte at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1862, and by Moufang at Würzburg in 1864, to insist that universities which were founded by Catholics should retain their original character. In mixed universities, the Catholic professors will, henceforth, strain every nerve to secure true equality. Where this equality is trampled under foot, they will protest and demand their rights. The professors will be supported by the Catholic students, who were ably represented at Frankfort and Würzburg by Anschütz and Baron Dr. von Hertling. Do not the Catholics outnumber the Protestants in Germany? No one knew Germany and its tribes better than Frederick Böhmer, of Frankfort, and he always maintained that the Catholics can boast of as many able men as the Protestants, and that southern Germany, far from being inferior, surpasses the northern races in mental abilities. To carry out the programme laid down above will require our best energies, but we must, moreover, found a new university a purely Catholic and free institution, untrammelled by state dictation, and entirely under the direction of the Church. To do this the bishops, the nobles, and the clergy must use their best endeavors; but the professors, too, must do their share, and not look on with cold indifference, as is the case with most of them. If the state encroaches unceasingly on the rights of the Church in the realms of science, and if its tyranny persistently oppresses the most able votaries of science because they are Catholics, why should we not rely on ourselves, and seek strength in union? There is neither truce nor rest for us until we are not only equal but superior to our opponents in every branch of science.
Since its organization, two years ago, the university committee has done all in its power to promote the good cause. One of the most zealous members is the young Prince Charles, of [{340}] Löwenstein-Werthheim, who has been substituted for the deceased Count Brandis.
Canon Moufang, of Mayence, spoke on the university question at Würzburg in 1864. Of all the members of the convention he was best fitted to do justice to the subject. Since 1848 Dr. Moufang has been present at almost every one of the sixteen general conventions, and whatever good has been accomplished by them he has promoted and encouraged. Connected with most of the Catholic movements of our age, he understands the feelings of his Catholic countrymen and knows how to give forcible and opportune expression to them; at times his words are irresistible, like the mountain torrent. At Munich he delivered a discourse on the Holy Father and his difficulties; in Aix-la-Chapelle he thundered against the want of principle and of true manliness which distinguishes our times; at Frankfort he ridiculed anti-Catholic prejudices, and at Würzburg he convinced his hearers of the necessity of a Catholic university. But the school question, also, and the relations between capital and labor, he has lately treated in an admirable manner. "Il faut être de son temps," is Moufang's motto, and hence he is one of the representative men of public opinion in Catholic Germany, and when he combats the enemies of the Church the advantage is always on his side. On the nineteenth of December, 1864, Dr. Moufang celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination. Hundreds of priests from the dioceses of Mayence, Limburg, and Freiburg were present on this solemn occasion, which they will cherish for ever in their memory. Dr. Moufang's name immediately suggests that of Canon Heinrich. They are a "par nobile fratrum" in literature as well as in public life, emulating the example of Raess and Weiss and of Augustus and Peter Reichensperger. At the age of thirty, after promoting the organization of the first general convention at Mayence, Dr. Heinrich was appointed secretary of the national council held at Würzburg in 1848. Since 1848 he distinguished himself at almost all the general conventions by his activity and the zeal he displayed in furthering every Catholic enterprise. He is equally active in the committees, in the secret and in the open sessions. He is not only a favorite speaker, but also a skilful controversialist and a journalist of no mean ability. He published the best reply to Renan, and as a theologian and jurist he is able to cope with any adversary.
Prof. Haffner is the worthy colleague of Moufang and Heinrich. He cultivates the science which Aristotle and Plato pronounced the sublimest of all sciences—philosophy. But Haffner is a philosopher who is intelligible even to ordinary mortals; he makes a practical use of his knowledge, and is a favorite at the Rhenish clubs. In fact, there is no reason why he should not be so. His speeches are instructive, sublime in conception, and well written. The details are well arranged and he has due regard for literary perspective. His incomparable humor is unmixed with biting sarcasm, and his figures are exquisitely beautiful. Haffner's speeches are perfect gems. Long may you live, noble son of Suabia!
The Mayence delegates form an attractive group, and they all work right earnestly for the success of the conventions. Beside those already noticed, I shall mention Dr. Hirschel, canon of the cathedral, who presided at the first general meeting of the Christian art unions at Cologne in 1856; Monsignore Count Max von Galen, who delivered an elegant discourse on the Blessed Virgin at Aix-la-Chapelle; Professors Holzammer and Hundhausen, profound scholars; Frederic Schneidier, president of the young men's associations in the diocese of Mayence; and Falk, president of the social clubs or casinos.
Councillor Phillips, of Vienna, is generally chosen chairman of the section of science and the press. Richly does he deserve this distinction, for Phillips is an ornament to German literature, and his work on canon law is a "monumentum aere perennius" which will be numbered among the German classics. On the Catholic press, too, Phillips has conferred a great benefit, for, in conjunction with Jareke and Joseph von Görres, he founded the "Historico-Political Journal," of Munich, which he edited for a long time, assisted by Guido Görres. Being sent as a delegate to the Frankfort Parliament, Phillips was numbered among the men of "the stone house;" that is to say, he belonged to the Catholic party, and became the associate of Döllinger, Lasaulx, Sepp, Förser, Geritz, Dieringer, Von Bally, and others who took an active part in the debate on the relations between church and state. Since 1862 Phillips has been chairman of the committee on the establishment of the Catholic university. The speeches of the learned professor were remarkable for the force of their arguments and the clearness of their ideas. His committee reports are to the point, and he presides with tact and ability.
Privy Councillor Ringseis delivered telling speeches at Aix-la-Chapelle and Munich; at Frankfort and Würzburg he did not make his appearance, being already too much bowed down by age. Ringseis was born in 1785. In the literary world he occupies a prominent position; but he has always been more successful as an orator than as a writer. His appearance is inspiring, his words enthusiastic. The simplicity of his heart, his pleasing cordiality, and the unchanging freshness of his intellect, endear him to all with whom he comes in contact; yet he is one of the men who have bravely weathered all the storms of our age. He resembles an oak that proudly withstands every hurricane.
Baron von Moy was president of the Würzburg convention. From 1832 to 1837 he lectured on constitutional and international laws, and from 1837 he was for ten years professor at Munich, at a time when the fame of the Munich university attracted hundreds of young men to the Bavarian capital, when all Germany knew that there was a great Catholic university at Munich, and when, in the words of Moufang, "Görres, Ringseis, Döllinger, Möhler, Slee, Phillips, Moy, Windischmann, and their colleagues, formed the central group of Catholic Munich." Baron von Moy presided at Würzburg with much tact and success. Age has already made its inroads, but his voice is still rich and agreeable. He is untainted by the ungenial formality of our German professors. In him solid piety is coupled with affability, cordiality, and benevolence, and adorned by true Catholic cheerfulness.
The Catholic professors, on the whole, have taken little interest in these conventions, because the majority of them are unacquainted with real life. There are exceptions, however, such as those mentioned above. Schulte, of Prague, also, has displayed a laudable zeal in every convention until 1862. He favors true progress, and earnestly wishes the Catholics not only to rival but surpass the Protestants in every respect. Sometimes he is a little too exacting in his demands; his expressions are rather strong, and his strictures on abuses are not sufficiently tempered with moderation. Schulte is no visionary, for he is thoroughly acquainted with the state of the Church, but he is carried away by a burning zeal, a kind of holy anger. Hermann Müller, professor at the Würzburg university, a jurist and philologer, and formerly well known as a journalist, was the most handsome member of the Würzburg convention, and his magnificent beard attracted universal attention. The university was likewise represented by Professors Contzen and Ludwig and by Dr. Wirsing. Long continued study has left its traces on the features of Prof. Vering, of Heidelberg, but it has not [{342}] hardened his heart against the claims of the Catholic cause.
At Würzburg sixty-three professors and authors signed an address and sent it to the Holy Father. In it they declare their readiness to submit unconditionally to the decision of the Holy See regarding the meeting of the German literati. I cannot refrain from saying a few words on this meeting, especially as it may be said to have originated in the general conventions. In fact, the sensation caused by the Würzburg meeting has by no means subsided. I have lying before me Döllinger's "Discourse on the Past and Present of Catholic Theology," and criticisms on it by the Mayence "Katholik," the Paris "Monde," and the "Civiltà Cattolica;" also Prof. Hergenröther's speech at Würzburg on meetings of European scholars, the pamphlet of Prof. Michelis, of Braunsberg, and a cutting reply in the November number of "Der Katholik." To these I may add the papal brief to the Archbishop of Munich (December 21, 1863), the despatch of Cardinal Antonelli to the nuncio at Munich (July 5, 1864), and the letter of the Holy Father to Professors Hergenröther and Denzinger, dated October 20, 1864. I fear the matter will take a disagreeable turn, and that our learned professors will bring themselves into difficulty. No doubt there is much truth in Hergenröther's reflections on his colleagues: "All our learned men are not as prudent as they should be; they have not sufficient tact, and are wanting in knowledge of the actual state of things; many a professor in his sanctum acquires ideas wholly at variance with real life."
The Catholic general conventions will not alter their character in order to busy themselves with purely scientific concerns; in short, it cannot become a congress of learned men, nor a substitute for such a congress. Fully persuaded of this fact, Prof. Denzinger declared, in the most explicit terms, that the meeting of the German literati was independent of the sixteenth general convention, which was nowise responsible for its doings.
Moreover, it is a fact to be borne in mind, that the Holy See has not forbidden such meetings, that the German bishops do not wish them to be interfered with, and that no Catholic party, as Michelis says, has intrigued to prevent them.
If, in spite of all this, the matter does not prosper, the learned men alone are to blame. It seems to be extremely difficult to prevent dissensions among men who devote themselves to different branches of science, to unite in the bonds of friendship and concord the disciples of the speculative, the historical, and the practical sciences. If I belonged to the class of men of which I am speaking, I would express my opinions more fully. Why did not the illustrious theologians of Tübingen deign to come to Munich in 1863? Why is there so slim an attendance of German professors at the Catholic congresses? Why do the representatives of sciences so intimately connected remain estranged from each other? A closer union would bring about renewed activity, prejudices would be dispelled, the jealous reserve with which we now meet on every side would give way to a more healthy state of things, and youthful genius would be encouraged by the conviction that they are stayed and supported by men of experience and acknowledged merit.
Will the congress of 1863 remain a fragment, as the general meeting of the art unions in 1857? We hope not. The best rejoinder to all that has been said on such meetings would be a general European congress of all learned Catholics, at Brussels, Greneva, or Frankfort—attended by Döllinger, Phillips, and Alzog, as the representatives of Germany; by Perin, Delcour, and de Ram; by Newman, Oakley, Acton, and Robertson; by Meignan, Montalembert, and Rio, and by the Italians Nardi, Cantu, and Casoni. The union between the civilized nations of Europe is becoming [{343}] closer day by day; will our scholars alone remain stationary and isolated? If they follow this course, the day of retribution will soon arrive.
Foremost among the promoters of scientific progress, during the second half of the nineteenth century, stands a Catholic prince, King Maximilian II. of Bavaria. History tells of few princes who have so liberally patronized men of science. With royal munificence he has founded and endowed institutions of learning and fostered scientific enterprise. He will always be praised as one of the most generous patrons of German science, and in the history of literature and science will occupy an honorable position. Unfortunately, however, the ideas of the noble prince were not realized by the men he protected. He lived to be sorely disappointed, and to discover that he had bestowed his benefits on men unworthy of his confidence. Döllinger, without mentioning the king's mistakes, has done full justice to his merits. Döllinger himself holds a princely rank in the European republic of letters. With skilful hand he is rearing the immense edifice of a universal Church history. The corner-stone is already laid and the foundation completed. May God give life and vigor to the architect, that he may finish his vast undertaking. Since his famous lectures at the Odeon at Munich, delivered before a mixed audience in April, 1861, Döllinger has fixed the attention of men holding the most contrary opinions both in and out of the Church. Of late, many have been disappointed in Döllinger, though without any reason; they have given a false meaning to his words—misinterpreted his intentions. True, he speaks with a boldness to which all cannot immediately accustom themselves, for he is a thorough enemy of all mental reservation in theology. He stands on an eminence, surveying not only our own times but the whole extent of sacred and profane history, and combines a correct estimate of the necessities of the age with a fervent love of Christ and his Church.
Hergenröther, our revered professor, is in many respects the scientific complement of Döllinger. If Döllinger at times goes too far, Hergenröther knows how to explain, to correct, and to limit his expressions; this he has done several times of late. Hergenröther is a man of great learning, acquired by continued mental activity; but he is likewise well acquainted with the ideas of the present age. His speech at the Würzburg convention was a masterpiece, full of clear and well-defined ideas.
His most active colleague in the Würzburg committee was Professor Hettinger. He is perhaps the most eminent of living controversialists. He teaches apologetics, which forms the transition from philosophy to theology. Hettinger takes a large and philosophical, but at the same time truly Christian and Catholic, view of the world. Every grand and beautiful idea, both ancient and modern, he has made his own; he has analyzed every philosophical system, separating truth from falsehood, and has gathered every sound principle scattered over the wide range of philosophical literature. His controversial works deserve to be ranked among the classics of the nineteenth century. His discourses are listened to with pleasure, whether he speaks from the pulpit, the professor's desk, or the tribune. At Frankfort and Würzburg he spoke in a masterly style.
Denzinger presided at the Würzburg conference which sent an address to the Holy Father. He is a deep theologian, well versed in all philosophical systems. His mind is admirably trained, his character settled and determined, and in learning, notwithstanding the frailty of his body, he has attained an eminence to which few can aspire. Self-possessed in debate, sure and cautious in his remarks, a deep thinker, he exhorted all to forbearance, and gave universal satisfaction.
The Würzburg professors do honor to every assembly of scholars and to every Catholic convention.
Abbot Haneberg, of Munich, perhaps the most venerable of our German monks, bishop elect of Treves, a linguist who speaks fifteen languages, a first-rate teacher, who will ever be remembered by his many disciples as one of the best pulpit orators in Germany, was a zealous advocate of the Munich congress of literati. The circular was signed by Haneberg, Döllinger, and Prof. Alzog, of Freiburg. Alzog's manual of ecclesiastical history is the text-book, not only in Hildesheim and Freiburg, but in almost every seminary in Europe. The work resembles one of the beautiful mosaics so much admired in St. Peter's at Rome, and has been of great use. Alzog was present at the Frankfort conventions.
Prof. Reusch, of Bonn, is one of our best commentators. He has rendered the Catholics of Germany a great service in translating the works of the English cardinal, for Wiseman's writings are read by the whole Church. About a hundred years ago all Germany perused the productions of the English free-thinking deists, Shaftesbury, Locke, Morgan, Woolston, and Toland; at present all read the works of Wiseman, Faber, Newman, Marshall, Dalgairn, and Manning. Toward the close of the last century, Voltaire, Rousseau, d'Alembert, Diderot, and the other infamous encyclopaedists furnished the educated portion of Germany with intellectual food; now we eagerly study the writings of Dupanloup, Montalembert, L. Veuillot, Ségur, F. Gratry, and Nicolas. True, Renan too and "Le Maudit" have their admirers, but the admirable replies of Dupanloup, Felix, Freppel, Lasserre, Veuillot, Ségur, Pressensé, Parisis, Scherer, Coquerel, Lamy, and Nicolas, have likewise found an extensive circle of readers. Catholic controversy has never flourished more than at present, when hundreds of able writers plead the cause of Christ and of his vicar on earth.
Professor Vosen, of Cologne, is another eminent controversialist; he is a skilful debater, and possesses a thorough knowledge of parliamentary rules and of the social condition of Germany. His utterance is rapid, but he uses no superfluous verbiage, and every sentence is clear and well brought out.
Prof. Reinkens, of Breslau, and Floss, of Bonn, were members of the executive committee at the Munich convention of scholars. Not long ago he dedicated to us his biography of "Hilary of Poitiers," a work that may be classed with Möhler's "Athanasius."
Prof. Reischl, of Regensburg, repeatedly a member of different committees at the general conventions, and an excellent teacher, whose memory will ever be cherished by his students, is on the point of finishing, in the course of the present year, his laborious translation of the Holy Scriptures. For twelve years he has labored unceasingly, and the work is the golden fruit of his labors, and will outlive many generations. We may justly place Reischl's translation of the Bible among our Catholic classics, such as Möhler's "Symbolism," Döllinger's "Paganism and Judaism," Hefele's "History of the Councils," Phillips' "Canon Law," Hettinger's "Apologetics," Amberger's "Pastoral Theology," Dieringer's "Book of Epistles," Lasaulx's "Philosophy of the Fine Arts," Stöckl's "Philosophy of the Middle Ages," Kleutgen's "Theology of the Past," "The Legends of Alban Stolz," etc. Most of these have appeared since 1848, or rather within the last twelve years, and are the precursors of a great Catholic literary period, for which every preparation seems to be already made. That our writers are improving in beauty of style no observer can fail to notice; as a proof, I need only mention the names of Haffner, Molitor, Redwitz, and Hahn-Hahn. I cannot pass unnoticed [{345}] Stolberg's "History of the Church," Danberger's "History of the Middle Ages," Gfrörer's great work on Gregory VII. and his times, and the works of Frederick von Hurter. "Sepp's Jerusalem," also, is a work of undoubted merit. Professor Sepp delivered some brilliant speeches at the first Catholic general conventions. His last book is a telling refutation of Renan and other modern infidels who deny the divinity of Christ, and deserves to be ranked with the writings of Heinrich, Haneberg, Deutinger, S. Brunner, Wriesinger, Michelis, Daumer, and Hahn-Hahn on the same subject.
Michelis, of Braunsberg, shows some of Tertullian's violence; nay, sometimes he becomes personal in debate, owing to his passionate temper and his somewhat peevish character. These qualities are coupled with an ardent love of his religion and his country, and manly honor and straightforwardness. His speech at Frankfort, in 1862, was well-timed and called forth immense enthusiasm. Michelis bears a close resemblance to Prof. Remirding, of Fulda, who has lately acquired a great reputation as a dogmatic theologian. Remirding has for a long time been a teacher in England, and is thoroughly acquainted with English affairs. To him we may apply the adage: "Still waters run deep." He is silent, uncommunicative, and fond of thought. His bright eyes beam with intelligence, gentleness, and benevolence. Prof. Janssen held his maiden speech at the convention of Frankfort, in 1863; it was very successful. Janssen is a disciple of Böhmer, and he, as well as Ficker, of Innsbruck, and Arnold, of Marburg, is a worthy successor of that great historian. He is well fitted to write a satisfactory history of Germany, for Giesebrecht's "History of the German Emperors" fails to do justice to the Church during the middle ages. There is no longer any lack of Catholic historians in Germany, and the labors of Protestant writers have rendered the task easy for them. Among our Catholic historians I shall mention Onno Klopp, of Hanover; Hoefler, of Prague; Bader, Huber, Hergenröther, of Würzburg; Marx, of Treves; Dudik, Gindely, Kampfschulte, of Bonn; Niehus, Rump, and Hülskamp, of Münster; C. Will, of Nuremberg; Lämmer, of Breslau, who has lately been appointed professor of theology; Remkens, of Breslau; Alexander Kaufmann, of Werthheim; Cornelius, Friedrich, and Pichlcr, of Munich; Roth von Schreckenstein, Watterich, Dominicus, Ossenbeck, Ennen, Remling, Junckmann, Kiesel, Bumüller, Weiss, Kerker, and Alberdingk-Thijm.
These gentlemen should try to meet very often, for by seeing ourselves reflected in others we learn to know ourselves. Böhmer, Pertz, Chmel, and Theiner have laid the foundations of historical research; on their disciples devolves the task of continuing the building, and of completing it according to the intentions of their masters.
My subject is carrying me away, and I am passing the limits I had marked for myself. How many other names connected with the Munich reunion of scholars, or the last Catholic congress, should I notice in order to do justice to all! Professors Reithmayer, Reitter, and Stadlbauer, of Munich; Mayer, of Würzburg; the learned Benedictines, Rupert Mettermüller, of Metten, Gallus Morel, of Einsiedeln, Boniface Gams, of Munich; Professors Schegg, of Freising, Hähnlein, of Würzburg; Zobl, of Brixen, Uhrig and Schmid, of Dillingen, Engermann, of Regensburg, Scheeben, of Cologne, Oischinger and Strodl, of Munich, Hagemann, of Hildesheim, Pfahler, of Eichstadt, Kraus, of Regensburg, Brandner and Schoepf, of Salzburg, Nirschl and Greil, of Passau; among our rising scholars, Messrs. Constantine von Schaetzler, of Freiburg, Langen, of Bonn, Wongerath, Silbernagel, Friedrich, Pichler, and Wirthmüller, of Munich, Hitz, Kaiser, Kagerer, J. [{346}] M. Schneider, J. Danziger, Bach, H. Hayd, Pfeifer, Kaufmann, of Munich, and Thinnel, of Neisse; among the clergy, Dr. Westermayer, a celebrated preacher; Schmid, of Amberg, Dr. Gmelch, of Lichtenstein, Dr. Clos, of Feldaffing, Dr. Zinler, of Gablingen, Wick, of Breslau, Dr. Zailler; and finally, Canons Rampf and Herb, of Munich, W. Mayer, of Regensburg, Düx, of Würzburg, Freund, of Passau, Werner, of St. Pölten, Provost Ernst, of Eichstädt, Canon Eberhard, of Regensburg, Lierheimer, of Munich, and a host of others.
Truly Providence has blessed Germany with many great intellects, and a glorious period seems to have begun for Catholic literature. Our leading men should be animated with a fervent love of their faith, and true patriotism; thus they will be enabled to take a truly Christian view of the world.
I cannot refrain from saying a few words on the representatives of the German press.
Dr. Ernest Zander, of Munich, is the spokesman of the German journalists at the general conventions.
Zander has now been connected for twenty-seven years with the press, but he is still quite hearty and ready to do battle, and the subscribers of "Der Volksbote" read his spicy articles with undiminished pleasure.
Although a poor speaker, his appearance is always greeted with applause, and at the close of his remarks there is no end of cheering.
He calls things by their proper names, spares nobody, and has an inexhaustible fund of wit and humor.
His numerous decorations, his bushy eyebrows, his twinkling eyes, and his sarcastic smile, make his remarks doubly interesting.
On matters connected with the Catholic press, there are no authorities more reliable than Zander and Jörg, of Munich, Sausen, of Mayence, and Sebastian Brunner, of Vienna.
J. B. von Pfeilschifter, of Darmstadt, is older than the gentlemen above mentioned; in fact, he is the oldest Catholic journalist in Germany.
Pfeilschifter, says Maurice Brühl, combines varied learning and extensive reading with the experience of many years.
Since 1815 he has been actively engaged as a journalist, and for a long time he was the only champion of lawful authority and political order, and for this reason he was continually scoffed at and slandered by his revolutionary colleagues. Zander has a worthy rival in Bachem, of Cologne. Properly speaking, Bachem is a publisher, but he is likewise a very able editor. At the conventions he is the most business-like representative of the press, and seems to know more about journalism than the editors. In 1865 Bachem's paper will probably number 6,000 subscribers, which is a very respectable circulation. His journal is one of the most influential Rhenish papers, and very ably edited. If papers of equal merit were published at Mayence, Carlsruhe, Stuttgart, Augsburg, Munich, Innsbruck, Vienna, Prague, Breslau, and Münster, our political press would satisfy every reasonable demand.
Francis Hülskamp, of Münster, is one of the youngest among our German journalists, but he has outstripped many older men, for he was the first to give a decisive impetus to the Catholic press. Three years ago Hülskamp and his friend, Hermann Rump, founded the "Literary Index." Now, in December, 1864, the "Index" can boast of 6,000 subscribers and 30,000 readers. All the other German literary papers together, Protestant as well as Catholic, do not equal the "Index" in circulation. Success like this is unheard of in Germany, and proves that for the Catholics the time of inaction is past. Hülskamp is not only a critic, but also well-versed in philology, exegesis, and ecclesiastical history. In poetry, too, he has made some creditable essays, and at Frankfort, in 1863, he proved conclusively that he is a promising [{347}] speaker. Long may this energetic son of Westphalia's red soil live and flourish!
Among the most regular members of the Catholic conventions is Dr. Louis Lang, of Munich, who has distinguished himself by his ability as secretary. The Catholic press also owes him a debt of gratitude. He has greatly enlarged and improved the Munich "Sonntagsblatt" and secured for it the services of the best writers in Germany, succeeding, by these means, in making it rival the "Heimgarten" and the "Sonntagsfreude." The "Josephsblatt," a monthly published by Lang, has already a circulation of 40,000 subscribers, and bids fair to number 100,000 by the end of 1865. Our illustrated papers, too, have improved wonderfully since 1862; therefore let us not despair, but trust in God.
At our Catholic conventions there were no meetings of journalists exclusively. But there were many complaints of the inefficiency of the press, and the journalists were severely blamed. Nor is the press so numerously represented as at Malines, and the journalists present are not so independent as the members of the Belgian, English, and French press, who are fully conscious of the importance of their position.
Among the journalists whose acquaintance I formed at the Catholic conventions, the most distinguished are Dr. Max Huttler, of Augsburg, a man who has the welfare of the Catholic press deeply at heart; Hoyssack, of Vienna, Dr. Krebs, of Cologne, Dr. Stumpf, of Coblentz, Hermann Kuhn, of Berlin, Daumer, of Würzburg, Planer, of Landshut, Dr. Frankl, of Gran in Hungary, Dr. von Mayer, of Hungary, Aichinger, of Pondorf, Riedinger and Hällmayer, of Spires, Stamminger, the enterprising editor of the "Chilianeum" at Würzburg, Thüren, of Cologne, and a number of others.
It is but proper to give at least a passing notice to the latest offspring of the Catholic conventions, the "Society for the Publication of Catholic Pamphlets." It was founded at Würzburg, but the seat of the executive committee is at Frankfort. On motion of Heinrich and Thissen, of Frankfort, it was recommend by the Catholic convention at Würzburg. Previous to the Würzburg convention, Thissen had already made some attempts at Frankfort.
The scheme was well received in Germany. Already the number of subscribers amounts to 2,000 and at the end of 1865 it will probably reach 25,000. Canon Thissen has been one of the leading spirits at every convention which he attended. He has an artful way of suggesting ideas and gaining for them the favor of the assembly; to carry them out, however, he needs the help of others. A thorough master of parliamentary tactics, he is a capital manager, and in debate he may safely trust to the inspiration of the moment. His brother, A. Thissen, of Aix-la-Chapelle, is well suited to be the secretary of our conventions.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
From The Month.
FALLING STARS.
(FROM THE GERMAN.)
Oh, know'st thou what betideth
When from the heavens afar.
Like fiery arrow, glideth
An earthward-falling star?
Yon glorious myriads, streaming
Their quiet influence down,
Are little angels gleaming
Like jewels in a crown.
Untiring, never sleeping,
God's sentinels they stand;
Where sounds of joy and weeping
Rise up on every hand.
If darkling here and dreary,
One patient cheek grow pale;
If in the conflict weary
One trusting spirit fail;
If to the throne ascendeth
One supplicating cry,—
Then heavenly mercy sendeth
An angel from on high.
Soft to the chamber stealing,
It beams in radiance mild.
And rocks each troubled feeling
To slumber like a child.
This, this is what betideth
When from the heavens afar.
Like fiery arrow, glideth
An earthward-falling star.
From Once a Week.
A BUNDLE OF CHRISTMAS CAROLS.
Carols, as the name implies, are joyous songs for festive occasions, at one period accompanied with dancing. In an old vocabulary of A.D. 1440, Caral is defined as A Songe; in John Palsgrave's work of A.D. 1530, as Chanson de Noël; whilst in Anglo-Saxon times the word appears to have been rendered Kyrriole, a chanting at the Nativity. The earliest carol in English, known under that name, is the production of Dame Berners, prioress of St Alban's in the fourteenth century, entitled A Carolle of Huntynge. This is printed on the last leaf of Wynkyn de Worde's collection of Christmas carols, A.D. 1521, and the first verse modernized runs thus:
"As I came by a green forest side,
I met with a forester that bade me abide,
Whey go bet, hey go bet, hey go how.
We shall have sport and game enow."
Milton uses the word carol to express a devotional hymn:
"A quire
Of squadron'd angels hear his carol sang."
And that distinguished light of the English Church, Bishop Jeremy Taylor, speaks of the angels' song on the morning of the Nativity as the first Christmas carol: "As soon as these blessed choristers had sung their Christmas carol, and taught the Church a hymn to put into her offices for ever," etc.
According to Durandus, it was customary in early days for bishops to sing with their clergy in the episcopal houses on the feast of the Nativity. "In Natali praelati cum suis clericis ludant, vel in domibus episcopalibus." These merry ecclesiastics sung undoubtedly Christmas carols.
But carols, like everything else, must be divided into two sorts, religious and secular—the carols "in prayse of Christe" and the merry songs for the festive board or fireside. These may be broken up into further varieties, thus:
RELIGIOUS
Scriptural,
Legendary,
Lullaby.
SECULAR
Convivial or festive.
Wassail,
Boar's head,
In praise of holly and ivy.
Of the variety called Legendary, I propose now to speak. These are, as a rule, the most popular of all carols, deriving mainly, as I said before, their origin, and many of their expressions, from the ancient mysteries. In the old plays songs are frequently introduced which resemble, in a very striking manner, what are commonly called carols. The following song of the shepherds occurs in one of the Coventry pageants:
[Footnote 50: Last]
The last lines actually form the chorus of one of the carols in the fifteenth-century manuscript formerly in the possession of Mr. Wright:
"About the field they piped full right,
Even about the midst of the night;
Adown from heaven they saw come a light,
Tyrle, tyrle,
So merrily the shepherds began to blow."
Again, in Ludus Coventriae:
"Joy to God that sitteth in heaven,
And peace to man on earth ground;
A child is born beneath the levyn,
Through him many folk should be unbound."
A sixteenth-century carol commences:
"Salvation overflows the land.
Wherefore all faithful thus may sing,
Glory to God most high
And peace on the earth continually,
And onto men rejoicing."
In the Coventry Plays again we find:
"Of a maid a child should be born,
On a tree he should be torn,
Deliver folks that are forlorn."
A genuine carol of the sixteenth century supplies us with the following:
"Jesu, of a maid thou wouldst be born.
To save mankind that was forlorn,
And all for our sins."
And one of the reign of Henry VI.:
"Thy sweet Son that thou hast borne,
To save mankind that was forlorn.
His head is wreathed in a thorn.
His blissful body is all to-torn."
The "Cherry-Tree Carol," formerly a great favorite throughout England, recollections of which yet linger amongst the country-folk, is in many instances a literal copy from the Coventry Mysteries. I give the popular version of the "Cherry-Tree Carol:"
"Joseph was an old man.
And an old man was he.
When he wedded Mary
In the laud of Galilee.
"Joseph and Mary
Walked through an orchard good.
Where were cherries and berries
As red as any blood.
* * * * *
"O then bespake Mary
With words both meek and mild,
'Gather me some cherries, Joseph,
They ran so in my mind.'"
St. Joseph refuses "with words most unkind" to grant her request, apparently unaware that his spouse is about to become the mother of the Son of God. The unborn Saviour, however, directs the Blessed Virgin to
"'Go to the tree, Mary,
And it shall bow to thee,
And the highest branch of all
Shall bow down to Mary's knee.'
* * * * *
"Then bowed down the highest tree
Unto his mother's hand:
Then she cried. 'See, Joseph.
I have cherries at command.'
"O eat your cherries, Mary,
O eat your cherries now,
O eat your cherries, Mary,
That grow upon the bough.'"
Another version gives the following reply of S. Joseph:
"O then bespake Joseph.
'I have done Mary wrong.
But cheer up, my dearest.
And be not cast down.'"
I give a portion of the rest of the carol, some of the verses being remarkably touching and beautiful:
"As Joseph was a-walking,
He heard an angel sing,
'This night shall be born
Our Heavenly King.
"He neither shall be born
In honsen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of paradise.
But in an ox's stall.
"He neither shall be clothed
In purple nor in pall,
But all in fair linen
As were babies all.
"He neither shall be rocked
In silver nor in gold,
But in a wooden cradle.
That rocks on the mould.
"He neither shall be christened
In white wine nor in red.
But with the spring water
With which we were christened.'"
In the fifteenth pageant of the Coventry Mysteries the following lines occur:
"Mary, Ah, my sweet husband, would you tell to me
What tree is yon, standing on yon hill?
"Joseph, Forsooth. Mary, it is yclept a cherry tree.
In time of year you might feed you thereon your fill.
"Mar. Turn again, husband, and behold yon tree.
How that it bloometh now so sweetly.
"Jos. Come on, Mary, that we were a yon city.
Or else we may be blamed, I tell you lightly.
"Mar. Now, my spouse, I pray you to behold
How the cherries (are) grown upon yon tree;
For to have thereof right fain I would.
And it please you to labor so much for me.
"Jos. Your desire to fulfil I shall assay sekerly,
How to pluck you of these cherries, it is a work wild.
For the tree is so high, It would not be lightly (easy).
* * * * *
"Mar. Now, good Lord, I pray thee, grant me this boon,
To have of these cherries, and it be your will;
Now I thank God this tree boweiht to me down,
I may now gather enow, and eat my fill.
[{351}]
"Jos. Now I know well, I have offended my God in trinity.
Speaking to my spouse these unkind words.
For now I believe well it may none other be,
But that my spouse beareth the King's Son of Bliss."
It is interesting to note the way in which the more modern composition retains all the incidents and traditions of the mediaeval mystery. Our popular carol speaks of St. Joseph as an old man, and an old man was he, while the mystery represents him as saying (p. x.), I am an old man, and I am so aged and so old.The tree is the same, there is the same desire of the Virgin Mother to taste the fruit, the same refusal and bitter retort of her husband, the bowing-down of the tree, and the regret of St. Joseph for his unkindness. Mr. Hone was not ashamed to say of the "Cherry-Tree Carol:" "The admiration of my earliest days for some lines in it still remains, nor can I help thinking that the reader will see somewhat of cause for it."
The following example is still given on almost every broadside annually printed: it is called "The Three Ships." I ought perhaps first to state that the Three Ships are supposed to signify the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the Incarnation being, as the Speculum Vitae Christi hath it, "the high work of all the Holy Trinity, though it be that only the Person of the Son was incarnate and became man:"
"I saw three ships come sailing in,
On Christmas day, on Christmas day:
I saw three ships come sailing in
On Christmas day in the morning.
"And what was in those ships all three,
On Christmas day? etc.,
And what was in, etc.,
On Christmas day in the morning?
"Our Saviour Christ and our Lady, etc..
On Christmas day in the morning.
Pray whither sailed those ships all three? etc.,
On Christmas day in the morning.
"O, they sailed into Bethlehem, etc..
On Christmas day in the morning;
And all the bells on earth shall ring, etc.,
On Christmas day in the morning.
"And all the angels in heaven shall sing, etc,
On Christmas day In the morning.
And all the souls on earth shall sing, etc.,
On Christmas day in the morning.
"Then let us all rejoice amain, etc..
On Christmas day in the morning."
Another rude and rather amusing version is sometimes given of this carol, called "The Sunny Bank:"
"As I sat on a sunny bank,
A sunny bank, a sunny bank.
As I sat on a sunny bank,
On Christmas day in the morning,
"I spied three ships come sailing by, etc..
On Christmas day, etc.;
"And who should be with those three ships?
On Christmas day, etc.,
"But Joseph and his fair lady, etc.,
On Christmas day, etc.
"Oh, he did whistle, and she did sing,
And all the bells on earth did ring.
For joy that our Saviour they did bring
On Christmas day in the morning."
An old Dutch carol, given by Hoffman, commences:
"There comes a vessel laden.
And on its highest gunwale
Mary holds the rudder,
The angel steers it on."
And thus explains the mission of the ship:
"In one unbroken course
There comes that ship to land:
It brings to us rich gifts,
Forgiveness is sent to us."
This translation is taken from Mr. Sandys' book on "Christmas-tide." About the sixteenth century a similar carol was sung at Yule, which is given by Ritson:
"There comes a ship far sailing then,
Saint Michael was the steersman;
Saint John sat in the horn:
Our Lord harped, our Lady sang,
And all the bells of heaven they rang
On Christ's Sunday at morn."
Another specimen I take from a Birmingham collection; it is called "The Seven Virgins." This is given also by Mr. Sylvester from "the original old broadside." It is singular, however, that his old copy should include a line which he confesses to be a "modern interpolation!"
"All under the leaves, and the leaves of life,
I met with virgins seven.
And one of them was Mary mild.
Our Lord's mother in heaven.
O, what are you seeking, you seven pretty maids.
All under the leaves of life?"
[{352}] 'We're seeking for no leaves, Thomas,
But for a friend of thine.
We're seeking for sweet Jesus Christ,
To be our heavenly guide.'
'Go down, go down to yonder town,
And sit in the gallery,
And there you'll see sweet Jesus Christ
Nailed to a yew tree.'
And they went down to yonder town
As fast as foot could fall,
And many a bitter and grievous tear
From our Lady's eyes did fall.
'O, peace, mother, O, peace, mother,
Your weeping doth me grieve,
I must suffer this, he said.
For Adam and for Eve.
* * * * *
'O mother, take you John Evangelist
To be your favorite son,
And he will comfort you sometimes.
Mother, as I have done.'
* * * * *
"Then he laid his head on his right shoulder.
Seeing death it struck him nigh,
'The Holy Ghost be with your soul,
I die, mother. I die.'"
Many of my readers will recollect the famous carol of "The Seven Joys," still croaked out in the streets of London and elsewhere about Christmas time. Very similar carols to this exist of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, one of which I select from Mr. Wright's manuscript. I have, as in all other cases, modernized the orthography:
OF THE FIVE JOYS OF OUR LADY.
* * * * *
"The first Joy that came to thee
Was when the angel greeted thee.
And said, 'Mary, full of charity,
Ave, plena gratia.'
The second joy that was full good
When God's Son took flesh and blood.
Without sorrow and changing of mood,
'Enixa es puerpera.'
The third joy was full of might,
When God's Son on rood was put.
Dead and buried, and laid in sight,
'Surrexit die tertia.'
The fourth joy was on Holy Thursday,
When God to heaven took his way,
God and man withouten nay.
'Ascendit supra sidera.'
The fifth joy is for to come.
At the dreadful day of doom,
When he shall deem us all and some
'Ad coeli palatia.'"
* * * * *
The following carol for St. Stephen's day is from a manuscript of the time of King Henry VI. The reader will be amused to find the great proto-martyr here introduced as a servant of King Herod, and intrusted with the task of bringing in the boar's head, a famous dish, and "the first mess" at Christmas and other high festivals. There was evidently some honor attached to this office, for Holinshed tells us that King Henry II., in 1170, on the day of his son's coronation, served him as sewer, bringing up the boar's head, according to the manner; and in 1607, at St. John's College, Oxford, the "first mess was carried by the tallest and lustiest of all the guard."
"Saint Stephen was a clerk in King Herod's hall.
And served him of bread and doth as ever king befall.
"Stephen out of kitchen came, with boar's head in hand.
He saw a star was fair and bright, over Bethlem stand.
"He cast adown the boar's head, and went into the hall,
S. Stephen. I forsake thee, King Herod, and thy works all,
"I forsake thee, King Herod, and thy works all,
There is a child in Bethlehem born, is better than we all.
"Herod. What aileth thee, Stephen? What is thee befall?
Lacketh thee either meat or drink in King Herod's hall?
"S. Stephen. Lacketh me neither meat nor drink in King Herod's hall.
There is a child in Bethlehem born, is better than we all.
* * * * *
"Herod. That is all so sooth, Stephen, all so sooth, I wit,
As this capon crow shall lyeth here in my dish.
"That word was no soon said, that word in that hall.
The capon crew Christus natus est among the lords all."
* * * * *
This brings us to the more modern legendary carol of "The Carnal "As I passed by a river side. Herod then gives orders for the general massacre of the young children, and the Saviour, with Joseph and his mother, travel into Egypt amongst the "fierce wild beasts." The blessed Virgin being weary, "must needs sit down to rest," and her son desires her to "see how the wild beasts come and worship him:" "First came the lovely lion, The Holy Family continuing their flight, pass by a husbandman "just while his seed was sown:" "The husbandman fell on his knees, King Herod comes afterward with his train, and furiously asks of the husbandman whether our Saviour has passed by; the husbandman replies that "'Jesus passed by this way Herod, supposing that it must be "full three quarters of a year since the seed was sown," turned back, and "further he proceeded into the Holy Land." A manuscript of the fifteenth century, preserved in the British Museum, contains a representation of the flight into Egypt, in which the above legend is introduced. The city of Bethlehem stands in the background, and on the right, in the distance, a field of corn and a reaper, who is in conversation with a soldier by his side. A curious Scotch tradition states that when Herod and his soldiers made their inquiry of the husbandman, "a little black beetle lifted up his head, and exclaimed, The Son of Man passed here last night. " Black beetles are probably not more popular here than in Scotland, but Highlanders, whenever they find the dastardly insect, kill it, repeating the words, "Beetle, beetle, last night. " "The Holy Well" is a very favorite carol with the broadside printers; I have seen it side by side with a very lively "legendary" production, "Flyaway Carol:" "There good old Wesley, and a throng The Magi or three Kings of Cologne form the subject of many an old carol. The names of these "famous men" are supposed to have been, Kasper or Gaspar, King of Tarsus, young and beardless; Melchior, King of Nubia, old, with long beard and grey hair; and Balthazar, King of Saba, a negro. Their offerings were, as is well known, symbolical; to use the words of the Anglo-Saxon Hymnary, translated by the recorder of Sarum: "Incense to God, and myrrh to grace his tomb, From an old commentary on the gospel of St. Matthew, we gather some curious matter relating to the history of the Three Wise Men. A certain nation dwelling close to the ocean, in the extreme east, possessed a writing, inscribed with the name of Seth, concerning the star which was to appear: "Twelve of the more learned men of that country * * * has disposed themselves to watch for that star; and when any of them died, his son or one of his kindred * * was appointed in his place. These, therefore, year by year, after the threshing out of the corn, ascended into a certain high mountain, called Mons victorialis, having in it a certain cave in the rock, most grateful and pleasant, with fountains and choice trees, into which, ascending and bathing themselves, they prayed and praised God in silence three days. And thus they did, generation after generation, watching ever, lest peradventure that star of beatitude should arise upon themselves, until it appeared descending on the mountain, having within itself, as it were, the form of a man-child, and above it the similitude of a cross; and it spake to them, and taught them, and commanded them that they should go into Judaea. And journeying thither for the space of two years, neither food nor drink failed in their vessels." Other old accounts state that their journey occupied twelve days only: "they took neither rest nor refreshment; it seemed to them indeed as one day; the nearer they approached to Christ's dwelling, the brighter the star shone." [Footnote 51] [Footnote 51: Early Christian Legends.] Drawing described below. There appears to have been no decided opinion or tradition as to the form of the star; it is shown thus by Albert Durer, in an old book which I have by me of 1519: it is drawn with eight points, the lowest one being much longer than the others; in another book, 1596, I find it represented as a star of six points; in some old pictures it is shown as a sort of comet, and it is described to have been "as an eagle flying and beating the air with his wings," having within the form and likeness of the Holy Child. In "Dives and Pauper," printed in 1496, we gather the following account of it: "Dives. What manner of star was it then? I wish it were possible to give here a quaint illustration of the journey of the Three Wise Men, from a sheet of carols printed in 1820, which forms one of the wood-cuts procured with no little difficulty from the publisher by Mr. Hone, and is but little known. The history of the Magi is even traced further; after their return to their own country they were baptized by St. Thomas the Apostle, became missionaries with him, and were, it is said by some, martyred. Their journeyings did not, however, end with their deaths—their bodies were translated to Constantinople, thence to Milan, and afterward to Cologne, where they are still preserved in the cathedral, and their history recorded in a series of frescoes. Their shrine at Cologne was once exceedingly rich and magnificent, but during the excitement of the first French revolution many of the jewels which adorned the monument were sold and replaced by paste or glass counterfeits. The following description of their tomb I gather from Mr. Fyfe's book on "Christmas:" "The coffin is stated to have two partitions, the lower having a half, and the upper a whole, roofing. The former compartment contains the bones of the three kings, whose separate heads appear aloft through the aperture in the half-roofing; and on this roofing are inscribed the names Gaspar, Melchior, Balthazar, encrusted in rubies. [{355}] The heads are adorned with crowns weighing six pounds apiece, of gold, diamonds, and pearls. It is asserted (but doubted) that the tomb and its contents are of the value of £240,000." From the offerings of the three kings arose the practice of Christmas gifts, and the festival of the Epiphany has always been observed in remembrance of their visit to Bethlehem; it has also been the custom from earliest times for our sovereigns to offer the three mystic gifts of gold, myrrh, and incense at the altar on the day of the Epiphany, which custom is still observed at the Chapel Royal, the royal oblations being received by the dean or his deputy in a bag of crimson and gold. The Epiphany is also a "scarlet day" at the universities. After this long roundabout discourse, I am almost afraid to weary my readers with a second edition of the wanderings of the Wise Men, but I must rely upon their generous forbearance; the accompanying carol is from a manuscript of the time of King Henry VII.: "Now is Christmas i-come, I will conclude with a modern specimen of a legendary carol written by the Rev. Dr. Neale, and published in Novello's shilling collection. The story of St. Wenceslaus, the good King of Bohemia, is given by Bishop Jeremy Taylor in his "Life of Christ:" '"One winter night, going to his devotions in a remote church, barefooted in the snow, * * his servant Podavius, who waited on his master's piety, and endeavored to imitate his affections, began to faint through the violence of the snow and cold, till the king commanded him to follow him, and set his feet in the same footsteps which his feet should mark for him; the servant did so, and either fancied a cure, or found one, for he followed his prince, helped forward with shame and zeal to his imitation, and by the forming footsteps for him in the snow." "Good King Wenceslaus look'd out. The Formation of Christendom. Part First. It is somewhat paradoxical, but strictly true, to say that the greatest and most important revolution which ever took place upon earth is that to which least attention has hitherto been paid, and concerning which least is known—the substitution of "Christendom" for the heathen world. Before our own day no historian, no philosopher of modern times has felt any interest in this vast theme, and whatever information with regard to it is attainable must be sought in the fragmentary remains of ancient writers, or in works very recently published on the continent. In the volume before us Mr. Allies has taken ground not yet occupied by any English author. He has availed himself of two works—Döllinger's "Christenthum und Kirche" and Champagny's Histories—and he acknowledges in the most liberal and loyal manner his obligation to them; but, in the main, he has been left to find his way for himself, and no man could well be more highly qualified for the task, whether by the gifts of nature or by the acquirements of many years. We infer from the work itself that his attention was immediately turned to the subject by his appointment as professor of the "Philosophy of History" in the Catholic university of Dublin, under the rectorship of Dr. Newman. The duties of his post obliged him to weigh the question, "what is the philosophy of history?" and the inaugural lecture with which the volume before us commences, although it gives no formal definition of the phrase (which is to be regretted), supplies abundant considerations by the aid of which we may arrive at it. History, in its origin, was far more akin to poetry than to philosophy, and even when it passes into prose it is in the half-legendary form, which makes the narrative of Herodotus and of the annalists of the middle ages so charming to all readers. They are ballads without metre. Next came that style of which Thucydides is the model, and which Mr. Allies calls "political history." "Its limit is the nation, and it deals with all that interests the nation." "Great, indeed, is the charm where the writer can describe with the pencil of a poet and analyze with the mental grasp of a philosopher. Such is the double merit of Thucydides. And so it has happened that the deepest students of human nature have searched for two thousand years the records of a war wherein the territory of the chief belligerents was not larger than a modern English or Irish county. What should we say if a quarrel between Kent and Essex, between Cork and Kerry, had kept the world at gaze ever since? Yet Attica and Laconia were no larger." And yet it needed something more than territorial greatness in the states of which he wrote to enable even Thucydides himself to realize the idea of a philosophical history. For the five hundred years which followed the Peloponnesian war brought to maturity the greatest empire which has ever existed among men, and although, at the close of that period, one of the ablest and most thoughtful of writers devoted himself especially to its history, yet, says our author, "I do not know that in reading the pages of Polybius, of Livy, or even of Tacitus, we are conscious of a wider grasp of thought, a more enlarged experience of political interests, a higher idea of [{357}] man, and of all that concerns his personal and public life, than in those of Thucydides." Great, indeed, was the genius of those ancient historians, magnificent were the two languages which they made their instruments—languages "very different in their capacity, but both of them superior in originality, beauty, and expressiveness to any which have fallen to the lot of modern nations. It may be that the marbles of Pentelicus and Carrara insure good sculptors." "In the narrative—that is, the poetic and pictorial part of history—they have equal merit. Their history is a drama in which the actors and the events speak for themselves. What was wanting was the bearing of events on each other, the apprehension of great first principles—the generalization of facts." And this no mere lapse of time could give. It is wanting in the works of the greatest ancient masters. It is found in moderns in all other respects immeasurably their inferiors. "What, then, had happened in the interval?" Christianity had happened—Christendom had been formed. '"There was a voice in the world greater, more potent, thrilling, and universal, than the last cry of the old society, Civis sum Romanus, and this voice was Sum Christianus. From the time of the great sacrifice it was impossible to sever the history of man's temporal destiny from that of his eternal; and when the virtue of that sacrifice had thoroughly leavened the nations, history is found to assume a larger basis, to have lost its partial and national cast, to have grown with the growth of man, and to demand for its completeness a perfect alliance with philosophy." Thus, then, the "philosophy of history" is the comparison and arrangement of its great events by one whose mind is stored with the facts which it records, and who at the same time possesses the great first principles which qualify him to judge of it. We may, therefore, lay it down as an absolute rule, that without Christianity no really philosophical history could have been written. Not unnaturally, then, the first example of the philosophy of history was given by a man whose mind, if not the greatest ever informed by Christianity, was at least among a very few in the first class, was moreover so thoroughly penetrated by Christian principles, that to review the events of the world in any other aspect, or through any other medium, would have been to him as impossible as to examine in detail without the light of the sun the expanse of plains and hills, rivers and forests, which lay under him as he stood on some predominant mountain peak. God, the Almighty Creator—God incarnate, who had once lived and suffered on earth, and now reigned on high until he should put all enemies under his feet, and who was coming again to judge the world which he had redeemed—the Church founded by him to enlighten and govern all generations throughout all nations, and in which dwelt the infallible guidance of God the Holy Ghost—the evil spirits, powerless against the divine presence in the Church, but irresistible by mere human power—the saints, no longer seen by man, but whose intercession influenced and moulded all the events of his life,—all these were ever before the mind of St. Augustine, not merely as articles of faith which he confessed, but as practical realities. To trace the events of the world without continually referring to all these, would have been to him not merely irreligious, but as unreal, unmeaning, and fallacious as it would be to a natural philosopher of our own day to investigate the phenomena of the material world without taking into consideration the attraction of the earth and the resistance of the air. This should be noticed, because we have all met men who, while professing to believe most, if not all, of these things, would consider it bad taste to introduce such considerations into any practical affair. They are, in short, part of that very [{358}] remarkable phenomenon, the "Sunday religion" of a respectable English gentleman, which he holds as an inseparable part of his respectability, but which is well understood to have no bearing at all upon the business of the week. Living as St. Augustine did at the crisis at which the civilization of the ancient world was finally breaking up, his eye was cast back in review over the whole gorgeous line of ancient history, which swept by him like a Roman triumph. Egypt, Assyria, Greece, Rome, each had its day; the last and greatest of them all he saw tottering to its fall. But far more important than this comprehensive survey, which the circumstances of his times made natural to so great an intellect, was his possession of fixed and certain principles, the truth of which he knew beyond the possibility of doubt, and which were wide enough to solve every question which the history of the world brought before him. Great men there had been before him, but the deeper their thoughts, the more had they found that the world itself and their own position in it were but a hopeless enigma without an answer, a cypher without a key. A flood of light had been poured upon the piercing mental eye of St. Augustine when the waters of baptism fell from the hand of the holy Ambrose upon his outward frame. Every part of the Old Testament history glowed before him, as when from behind a cloud which covers all the earth the light of the sun falls concentrated upon some mountain-peak; and the man who reverences and ponders as divine that inspired history has learned to read the inner meaning of the whole history of the world as no one else can. In every age, no doubt, Almighty God rules and directs in justice and mercy the world which he has created; but in general he hides himself behind an impenetrable veil. "Clouds and darkness are round about him, justice and judgment the establishment of his throne." To many an ordinary spectator, the world seems only the theatre of man's labor and suffering. He passes through it as he might through one of the arsenals of ancient Greece or Rome, where indeed great works were wrought, but where the hand of the workman was always as visible as the result produced. A more thoughtful man might see proofs of some unknown power, just as in an arsenal of our day works, compared to which the fabled labors of giants and cyclops were as child's play, are hourly performed by the stroke of huge hammers welding vast masses of glowing metal, while nothing is seen to cause or explain their motion. All this is understood by one who has once been allowed to see at work the engine itself which sets all in motion. So does the Old Testament history unveil to the eye of faith the hidden causes, not only of the Jewish history, but of the great events of secular history. All that seemed before only results without cause, is seen to be fully accounted for; not that we can always understand the ends which the Almighty Worker designs to accomplish, or the means by which he is accomplishing them, but everywhere faith sees the operation of Almighty power directed by infinite wisdom and love, and, while able to understand much, it is willing to await in reverent adoration the development of that which as yet is beyond its comprehension. It sees that the history of other nations is distinguished from that of the children of Israel, not so much by the character of the events which it records (for the extraordinary manifestations of divine power were chiefly confined to a few special periods), as to the principle and spirit in which it has been written, and that secular history viewed by eyes supernaturally enlightened assumes the same appearance. In fact, it is not difficult to write a history of the reigns of David and Solomon and their successors down to the fall of the Hebrew monarchy which sounds very much like that of any other Oriental kingdom. The [{359}] thing has been done of late years, both in Germany and in England. It was by this that Dean Milman, many years ago, so greatly shocked the more religious portion of English readers. Nor were they shocked without cause; for his was a history of the Jews from which, as far as possible, Almighty God was left out, while the characteristic of the inspired narrative is, that it is a record not so much of the doings of men as of the great acts of God by man and among men. Only Dean Milman was more consistent than those who condemned him. He was right in perceiving that the greater part of the history of the Jews is not materially different from that of other nations. But he went on to infer that, therefore, we may leave God out of sight in judging of Jewish history, as we do in that of other nations, instead of learning from the example of the Jews that in every age God is as certainly working among every nation. That by which he offended religious Protestants was the application of their own ordinary principles to the one history in which they had been taught from childhood to see and acknowledge with exceptional reverence the working of Almighty God in the affairs of the world. This it is which gives its peculiar character to many of the chronicles of the middle ages. It is impossible not to feel that the writers see no broad distinction between the history of the nations and times of which they are writing and that of the ancient people of God. And hence in their annals we have far more of the philosophy of history, in the true sense of the word, than was possible to any ancient author. For with all their ignorance of physical causes, which led them into many mistakes, their main principles were both true and vitally important, and were wholly unknown to Thucydides and Tacitus. But the circumstances of their times made it impossible that they should survey the extensive range of facts which lies before a modern historian. In many instances, also, they were led by the imperfect state of physical science to attribute to a supernatural interference of God in the world things which we are now able to refer to natural causes. That God has before now interfered with the course of nature which he has established in the world, and may whenever he pleases so interfere again, these were to them first principles. And so far they reasoned truly and justly, although their imperfect acquaintance with other branches of human knowledge sometimes led them to apply amiss their true principle. Their minds were so much accustomed to dwell upon the thought of God, and upon his acts in the world, that they were always prepared to see and hear him everywhere, and in every event. When they heard of any event supposed to be supernatural, they might be awestruck and impressed, but could not be said to be surprised; and hence, no doubt, they sometimes accepted as supernatural events which, if examined by a shrewd man who starts with the first principle that nothing supernatural can really have taken place, could have been otherwise explained. Beside, their comparative unacquaintance with physical science led them into errors in accounting for and even in observing those which they themselves did not imagine to be supernatural. But their first principles were true. And the modern who assumes, whether explicitly or implicitly, that the course of the world is modified and governed only by the passions and deeds of man, is in his first principles fundamentally wrong. They fell into accidental error; he cannot be more than accidentally right. Our author says: "In the middle ages, and notably in the thirteenth century, there were minds which have left us imperishable memorials of themselves, and which would have taken the largest and most philosophical view of history had the materials existed ready to their hand. [{360}] Conceive, for instance, a history from the luminous mind of St. Thomas with the stores of modern knowledge at his command. But the invention of printing, one of the turning points of the human race, was first to take place, and then on that soil of the middle ages, so long prepared and fertilized by so patient a toil, a mighty harvest was to spring up. Among the first-fruits of labors so often depreciated by those who have profited by them, and in the land of children who despise their sires, we find the proper alliance of philosophy with history. Then at length the province of the historian is seen to consist, not merely in the just, accurate, and lively narrative of facts, but in the exhibition of cause and effect. 'What do we now expect in history?' says M. de Barante; and he replies, 'Solid instruction and complete knowledge of things; moral lessons, political counsels; comparison with the present, and the general knowledge of facts.' Even in the age of Tacitus, the most philosophic of ancient historians, no individual ability could secure all such powers" (p. 12). Thus philosophical history is one of the results of Christianity. Professor Max Müller makes a similar remark with regard to his own favorite study of ethnology. Before the day of Pentecost, he says, no man, not even the greatest minds, ever thought of tracing the genealogy of nations by their languages, because they did not know the unity of the human race. The unity of mankind is naturally connected in the order of ideas with the unity of God. Those who worshipped many gods, and believed that each race and nation had its own tutelary divinity, not unnaturally regarded each nation as a separate race. So far was this feeling carried by the most civilized races of the old world, that they thought it a profanation that the worship of the gods of one race should be offered by a priest not sprung from that race. The most moderate and popular of the Roman patricians rejected the demand of the plebs to be admitted to the highest offices of the state, not as politically dangerous, but as profane. The Roman consul, in virtue of his office, was the priest of the Capitoline Jove, to whom, on certain solemn occasions, he had to offer sacrifice. It would be a pollution that a plebeian, not sprung from any of the tribes of Romulus, should presume to offer that sacrifice. In fact, the consulship would hardly have been thrown open to the plebs until the long continued habit of intermarriage had welded the two portions of the Roman people so completely into one that the plebeian began, at last, to be regarded as of the same blood with the Furii, the Cornelii, and the Julii. The first measure by which the tribunes commenced their attack upon the exclusive privilege of the great houses was wisely chosen; it was the Canuleian law, by which marriages between the two orders were made legal and valid. Before that, patricians and plebeians were two nations living in one city, and, according to the universal opinion of the ancient world, this implied that they had different gods, different priests, a different ritual, and different temples. But the day of Pentecost blended all nations into a new unity—the unity of the body of Christ; and its first effect was, that the preachers of the new law proclaimed everywhere, that "God had made of one blood all nations of men, to dwell upon the face of the whole earth." The professor points out what curiously completes the analogy between the two cases, that while Christianity, by collecting into one church all the nations of the world, and by teaching their original unity, naturally suggested the idea that all their different languages had some common origin, any satisfactory investigation of the subject was long delayed by the unfounded notion that the Hebrew must needs be the root from which they all sprang. Thus, in both cases, the germ of studies, whose development was delayed for ages by the [{361}] imperfection of human knowledge, appears to have been contained in the revelation of the gospel of Christ. It is important to bring these considerations into prominence, because the knowledge which would never have existed without Christianity, is, in many cases, retained by men who forget or deny the faith to which they are indebted for it. Our author draws comparison between Tacitus and Gibbon (page 14): "The world of thought in which we live is, after all, formed by Christianity. Modern Europe is a relic of Christendom, the virtue of which is not gone out of it. Gregory VII. and Innocent III. have ruled over generations which have ignored them; have given breadth to minds which condemned their benefactors as guilty of narrow priestcraft, and derided the work of those benefactors as an exploded theory. Let us take an example in what is, morally, perhaps the worst and most shocking period of the last three centuries—the thirty years preceding the great French revolution. We shall see that at this time even minds which had rejected, with all the firmness of a reprobate will, the regenerating influence of Christianity, could not emancipate themselves from the virtue of the atmosphere which they had breathed. They are immeasurably greater than they would have been in pagan times, by the force of that faith which they misrepresented and repudiated. To prove the truth of my words, compare for a moment the great artist who drew Tiberius and Domitian and the Roman empire in the first century with him who wrote of its decline and fall in the second and succeeding centuries. How far wider a grasp of thought, how far more manifold an experience, combined with philosophic purposes, in Gibbon than in Tacitus. He has a standard within him by which he can measure the nations as they come in long procession before him. In that vast and wondrous drama of the Antonines and Constantine Athanasius and Leo, Justinian and Charlemagne, Mahomet, Zenghis Khan, and Timour, Jerusalem and Mecca, Rome and Constantinople, what stores of thought are laid up—what a train of philosophic induction exhibited! How much larger is this world become than that which trembled at Caesar! The very apostate profits by the light which has shone on Thabor, and the blood which has flowed on Calvary. He is a greater historian than his heathen predecessor because he lives in a society to which the God whom he has abandoned has disclosed the depth of its being, the laws of its course, the importance of its present, the price of its futurity." A very little thought will show that, constituted as man's nature is, this could not have been otherwise. Man differs from the inferior animals in that he is richly endowed with faculties which, until they have been developed by education, he can never use, and appreciates and embraces truths, when they have been set before him, which he could never have discovered unassisted. This is the most obvious distinction between reason and instinct. The caterpillar, hatched from an egg dropped by a parent whom it never saw, knows at once what food and what habits are necessary for its new life. Weeks pass away, and its first skin begins to die; but (as if it had been fully instructed in what has to be done) it draws its body out of it as from a glove, and comes forth in a new one. A few weeks later it forsakes the food which has hitherto been necessary for its life, and buries itself in the earth, which up to that very day would have been certain death. There a mysterious change passes upon it, and it lies as if dead till the time for another change approaches. It then gradually works its way to the surface, and comes out a butterfly or a moth. It is now indifferent to the plants which in its former state were necessary to its existence, but yet it chooses those plants on which to deposit its eggs. [{362}] We are so apt to delude ourselves with the notion that we understand everything to which we give a name, that ninety-nine people out of a hundred seem to think they account for this marvelous power of the inferior animals to act exactly right under circumstances so strangely changed, by calling it "instinct." But, in truth, why or how the creature does what it does, we no more know when we have called it "instinct" than we did before. All we can suppose is that as the Creator has left none of his creatures destitute of the kind and degree of knowledge necessary to enable it to discharge its appointed office in creation, the appetites and desires of the insect are modified from time to time in the different stages of its existence so that they impel it exactly to the course necessary for it to take, with much greater certainty than if it understood what the result was to be. How different is the case of man. Not only is he a free agent, and therefore to be guided by reason, not by mere propensity, but neither reason nor speech, nor indeed life itself, could be preserved or made of any use except by means of training and education received from others. A man left to shift for himself like the animal whose changes we have been tracing, would die at each state of his existence for want of some one to teach him what must be done for his preservation. This same training is equally necessary for his physical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual life. But he is so constituted that the different things needful for him to know for each of these purposes approve themselves to him as soon as they are presented to his mind from without, and the things which thus approve themselves, although he could never have discovered them, we truly call natural to man, because no external teaching would have made him capable of learning them unless the faculty had been as much a part of his original constitution as the unreasoning desires which we call instinct are part of the constitution of brutes. And therefore, when once developed by education, they remain a part of the man, even when he casts away from him those teachers by whom they were developed. Nero would never have learnt the use of speech if he had not caught it from his mother; yet when he used it to order her murder he did not lose what she had taught him, because it was a part of his nature. And so of higher powers, the result of a superior training. Principles which men would never have known without Christian training are retained when Christianity itself is rejected, because they are a part of the spiritual endowment given to man by his Creator, although without training he would never have been able to develop them. His rejection of Christianity results from an evil will. The parts of Christian teaching against which that will does not rebel he calls and believes to be the lessons of his natural reason, although the experience of the greatest and wisest heathen shows that his unassisted natural faculties never would have discovered them. Nor is this true only of individuals. Nations trained for many generations in Christian faith have before now fallen away from Christianity. But it does not seem that they are able to reduce themselves to the level of heathen nations in their moral standard, their perception and appreciation of good and evil, justice and wrong, or of the nature and destinies of the human race. In some respects they are morally much worse than heathen. But it does not appear that in these points they can sink so low, because their nature, fallen though it be, approves and accepts some of the truths taught it by Christianity. Hence, in order to judge what man can or cannot do without the revelation of God in Jesus Christ, we must examine him in nations to which the faith has never been given, rather than in those which have rejected it. Unhappily, there are at this moment parts of Europe in which the belief in the supernatural [{363}] seems wanting. An intelligent correspondent of the Times a year ago described such a state of things as existing in parts of northern Germany and Scandinavia. The population believes nothing, and practises no religion. Public worship is deserted, not because the people have devised any new heresy of their own as to the manner in which man should approach God, but because they have ceased to trouble themselves about the matter at all. Lutheranism is dead and gone; but nothing has been substituted for it. The intelligent Protestant writer was surprised to find a population thus wholly without religion orderly and well-behaved, hard-working, and by no means forgetful of social duties. The phenomenon is, no doubt, remarkable; but it is by no means without example. Many parishes (we fear considerable districts) in France are substantially in the same state. The peasantry are sober, industrious, and orderly to a degree unknown in England. They reap the temporal fruits of these good qualities in a general prosperity equally unknown here. They are saving to a degree almost incredible, so that it is a matter of ordinary experience that a peasant who began life with nothing except his bodily strength, leaves behind him several hundreds, not unfrequently some thousands, of pounds sterling. But in this same district whole villages are so absolutely without religion, that, although there is not one person for many miles who calls himself a Protestant, the churches are almost absolutely deserted, and the curés (generally good and zealous men) are reduced almost to inactivity by absolute despair. Some give themselves up to prayer, seeing nothing else that they can do; some will say that they are not wholly without encouragement, because, after fifteen or twenty years of labor, they have succeeded in bringing four or five persons to seek the benefit of the sacraments out of a population of as many hundreds, among whom when they came there was not one such person to be found. [Footnote 52] [Footnote 52: It should be observed that the morality said to exist in those parts of France which have so nearly lost the faith is not Catholic morality: in fact, the population in those districts is decreasing, and that (it is universally admitted) from immorality. It should also be remember that there is a most marked contrast between these districts and those Lutheran districts of which the Times spoke: In the latter, Lutheranism has died out of itself. In the worst districts of France, the Catholic religion has not died out, but has been displaced by a systematic infidel education inflicted on the people by a godless government. Lastly, even where things are the worst, there are a few in each generation who, in the midst of a godless population, turn out saints, really worthy of that name. It is seldom that a mission is preached in any village without some such being rescued from the corrupt mass around them. Nothing, in fact, can more strongly mark the contrast between the Catholic religion and Lutheranism. The subject is far too large to be discussed here, but we have suggested these considerations to avoid misconceptions of our meaning.] Appalling as is this state of things, the natural virtues (such as they are) of populations which have thus lost faith are themselves the remains of Christianity. History gives us no trace of any people in such a state except those who have once been Christians. For instance, in all others, however civilized, slavery has been established both by law and practice; no one of them has been without divorce; infanticide has been allowed and practised. Nowhere has the unity of man's nature been acknowledged, and, what follows from that, the duties owing to him as man, not merely as fellow countryman. And hence, nowhere has there existed what we call the law of nations, a rule which limits the conduct of men, not only toward those of other nations, but, what is much more, toward those with whom they are in a state of war, or whom they have conquered. In the most civilized times of ancient Greece and Rome no rights were recognized in such foreigners. All these things are the legitimate progeny of Christianity, and of Christianity alone, although they are now accepted as natural principles by nations by whom, but for the gospel of Christ, they would never have been heard of. We have enlarged upon this point because, not only in what he says of Gibbon, but in many parts of his subsequent chapters, Mr. Allies attributes to the influence of Christianity things which a superficial observer may attribute rather to some general progress in the world toward a higher civilization. We shall see instances of this as we proceed. We are satisfied that the objection is utterly unfounded. We see no reason to believe that without Christianity any higher or better civilization than that of Rome under Augustus and Athens under Pericles would ever have been attained. That those who lived under that state, so far from expecting any "progress," believed that the world was getting worse and worse, and that there remained no hope of improvement, nor any principles from which it could possibly arise, is most certain. Nor do we believe that those who thus judged of the natural tendency of the world were mistaken, although by a stupendous interference of the Creator with the course of nature an improvement actually took place. The philosophy of history then sifts and arranges the facts which it records, and judges of them by fixed and eternal principles of right and wrong; drawing from the past lessons of wisdom and virtue for the future. It will approach nearer and nearer to perfection as the range of facts investigated becomes wider, and as the principles by which they are judged are more absolutely true, and applied more correctly, more practically, and more universally. Hence, it would never have existed without Christianity, and although in Christian nations it is found in men partially or wholly unworthy of the Christian name, but who retain many ideas and principles derived from Christianity alone, yet even in them it is exercised imperfectly in proportion as they are less and less Christian. Mr. Allies thus compares Tacitus and St. Augustine: "The atmosphere of Tacitus and the lurid glare of his Rome compared with St. Augustine's world are like the shades in which Achilles deplored the loss of life contrasted with a landscape bathed in the morning light of a southern sun. Yet how much more of material misery was there in the time of St. Augustine than in the time of Tacitus! In spite of the excesses in which the emperors might indulge within the walls of their palace or of Rome, the fair fabric of civilization filled the whole Roman world, the great empire was in peace, and its multitude of nations were brethren. Countries which now form great kingdoms of themselves, were then tranquil members of one body politic. Men could travel the coasts of Italy, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece, round to Italy again, and find a rich smiling land covered by prosperous cities, enjoying the same laws and institutions, and possessed in peace by its children. In St. Augustine's time all had been changed; on many of these coasts a ruthless, uncivilized, unbelieving, or misbelieving enemy had descended. Through the whole empire there was a feeling of insecurity, a cry of helplessness, and a trembling at what was to come. Yet in the pages of the two writers the contrast is in the inverse ratio. In the pagan, everything seems borne on by an iron fate, which tramples upon the free will of man, and overwhelms the virtuous before the wicked. In the Christian, order shines in the midst of destruction, and mercy dispenses the severest humiliations. It was the symbol of the coming age. And so that great picture of the doctor, saint, and philosopher laid hold of the minds of men during those centuries of violence which followed, and in which peace and justice, so far from embracing each other, seemed to have deserted the earth. And in modern times a great genius has seized upon it, and developed it in the discourse on universal history. Bossuet is worthy to receive the torch from St. Augustine. Scarcely could a more majestic voice, or a more [{365}] philosophic spirit, set forth the double succession of empire and of religion, or exhibit the tissue wrought by Divine Providence, human free will, and the permitted power of evil." After this estimate of St. Augustine, he speaks of "A living author—at once statesman, orator, philosopher, and historian of the higest rank—who has given us, on a less extensive scale, a philosophy of history in its most finished and amiable form. The very attempt on the part of M. Guizot to draw out a picture of civilization during fourteen hundred years, and to depict, amongst that immense and ever-changing period, the course of society in so many countries, indicates no ordinary power; and the partial fulfilment of the design may be said to have elevated the philosophy of history into a science. In this work may be found the moat important rules of the science accurately stated; but the work itself is the best example of philosophic method and artistic execution, united to illustrate a complex subject. A careful study of original authorities, a patient induction of facts, a cautious generalization, the philosophic eye to detect analogies, the painter's power to group results, and, above all, a unity of conception which no multiplicity of details can embarrass; these are some of the main qualifications for a philosophy of history which I should deduce from these works. Yet, while the action of Providence and that of human free will are carefully and beautifully brought out, while both may be said to be points of predilection with the author, he has not alluded, so far as I am aware, to the great evil spirit and his personal operation. Strong as he is, he has been apparently too weak to bear the scoff of modern infidelity—"he believes in the devil"—unless, indeed, the cause of this lies deeper, and belongs to his philosophy; for if there be one subject out of which eclecticism can pick nothing to its taste, it would be the permitted operation of the great fallen spirit. Nor will the warmest admiration of his genius be mistaken for a concurrence in all his judgments. I presume not to say how far such an author is sometimes, in spite of himself, unjust, from the point of view at which he draws his picture. Whether, and how far, he be an eclectic philosopher, let others decide. It would be grievous to feel it true of such a mind; for it is the original sin of that philosophy to make the universe rotate round itself. Great is its complacency in its own conclusions, but there runs through them one mistake—to fancy itself in the place of God" (p. 31). Those who have ever made the attempt to analyze in a few lines the genius of a great writer will best be able to estimate the combination of keen intellect, patient thought, and scrupulous candor in this criticism. We must not deny ourselves one more quotation: "St. Augustine, Bossuet, Guizot, Balmez, Schlegel: I have taken these names not to exhaust but to illustrate the subject. Here we have the ancient and the modern society, Africa and France, Spain and Germany, and the Christian mind in each, thrown upon the facts of history. They point out, I think, sufficiently a common result. But amid the founders of a new science, who shall represent our own country? Can I hesitate, or can I venture, in this place and company [i.e., before the Catholic University of Dublin, in the chair of which this lecture was delivered], to mention the hand which has directed the scattered rays of light from so many sources on the wild children of Central Asia, and produced the Turk before us in his untameable ferocity—the outcast of the human race, before whom earth herself ceases to be a mother—by whom man's blood has ever been shed like water, woman's honor counted as the vilest of things, nature's most sacred laws publicly and avowedly outraged,—has produced him before us for the abhorrence of mankind, the infamy of nations? To sketch the intrinsic [{366}] character of barbarism and civilization, and out of common historical details, travel, and observation to show the ineffaceable stamp of race and tribe, reproducing itself through the long series of ages, surely expresses the idea which we mean by the philosophy of history" (p. 38). We have given a disproportionate space to this inaugural lecture, both for its intrinsic importance and because it gives a shadow of the whole plan of Mr. Allies's work, both that part which lies before us and that which remains to be published; for the volume before us is "only a portion, perhaps about a fourth, of the author's design." In the six lectures which it contains, he gives us an estimate, first, of the physical and political condition of the Roman empire in its palmy days; then, of the force by which it pleased God to constitute the new creation in the midst of it. In the last four lectures he compares the vital principles of these two vast social organizations—the heathen and the Christian—first in a representative man of each class, then in the effects produced upon society at large by the influence of each; then in the primary relation of man to woman in marriage; and, lastly, in the virginal state; although under this last head there can hardly be said to be a comparison, as heathen society has simply nothing to set against that wonderful creation of Christianity—holy virginity. We know not where we have met any painting of the Roman empire so striking as that contained in the first lecture. Of the multitude of Englishmen who read more or less of the classical Latin authors, a very small proportion have ever paid any attention to the Roman empire, as it is displayed by Tacitus and Juvenal. This is the natural result of the grace and eloquence of Livy and Cicero, much rather than of any strong preference for republican institutions. Indeed it is impossible not to be struck with the vast influence which Roman republicanism exercises in France compared with England. Nor is it difficult to account for this. France, except to a limited degree under the monarchy of July, has never enjoyed constitutional liberty. The Frenchman, therefore, who dreams of liberty at all, places his dreamland in a Roman republic. Boys who in England would rant about John Hampden are found in France ranting about Junius Brutus. For what the Englishman means when he talks about liberty is "English liberty;" the Frenchman means the Roman republic. So much has this been the case, that even in America the war of independence began, not in any aspiration after a republic, but for the rights of English subjects. The sword had been drawn for a year before the colonies claimed independence, and very shortly before Washington had declared that "there was no thought of separation, only of English liberty." What proves that these were not mere words was, that even after independence had been achieved, the leaders, who met in congress, agreed almost to a man in expressing their preference for "an English constitution," if circumstances had placed it within their reach. All the world knows that France became a republic chiefly because Rome in her palmy days had been so called; nay, to this hour all the terms adopted by the revolutionary party have been borrowed from classical times. Such was the term "citizen," so appropriate to a people whose boast was that they were free of a city which had conquered the world, so absurd as denoting the members of a great nation in which not even centuries of extreme centralization have prevented political rights from being exercised by each man in his own province. Such, again, was that inundation of pagan names which the revolutionary times substituted for those of the saints, and which are still characteristic of France—Camille, Emile, Antonine, and even Brute and Timoleon. This we take to be one great reason why many sensible [{367}] persons in France are so greatly afraid of classical studies in schools and colleges. They say that they turn the heads of boys, especially French boys. It is highly characteristic of the man, that the officers of the House of Commons, who made forcible entry into the house of Sir Francis Burdett when he was committed by order of the House, found him reading with his little son, not Plutarch's life of Brutus or Cato, as would assuredly have been the case with a Frenchman, but "Magna Charta." He was not less theatrical, but he was a thoroughly English actor. And yet we strongly suspect that out of a hundred boys who leave a classical school more than ninety believe that Roman history ends with Augustus. The university no doubt, gives a somewhat more extended view. But even there Tacitus is usually about the limit. We wonder how far this feeling was carried before Gibbon published the "Decline and Fall." Hence we especially value the wonderful picture of the empire painted by our author. It was in fact a federation of civilized states under an absolute monarch; the municipal liberties were left so entire that Niebuhr mentions Italian cities, in the immediate neighborhood of Rome itself, which retained all through the times of the empire and the middle ages, down to the wars of the French revolution, the same municipal institutions under which Rome had found them. They were swept away by that faithful lover of despotism, Napoleon I., to make way for the uniform system of a préfet and souspréfet in each district. It is more important to bear this in mind because, as the revolutionists aped the manners and names of the Roman republic without understanding them, the imperialists of France are apt to assume that they faithfully represent the Roman empire. Now the one striking characteristic of the French empire is that it raises yearly 100,000 military conscripts, beside the naval conscription, the police, and the very firemen, all of whom are carefully drilled as soldiers. How was it under Augustus? "It is hard to conceive adequately what a spectator called 'the immense majesty of the Roman peace' (Pliny, 'Nat. Hist,' xxvii. 1). Where now in Europe, impatient and uneasy, a group of half-friendly nations jealously watches each other's progress and power, and the acquisition of a province threatens a general war, Rome maintained, from generation to generation, in tranquil sway, an empire of which Gaul, Spain, Britain, and North Africa, Switzerland, and the greater part of Austria, Turkey in Europe, Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt formed but single limbs, members of her mighty body. Her roads, which spread like a network over this immense territory, from their common centre, the golden milestone of the Forum, under the palace of her emperors, did but express the unity of that spirit with which she ruled the earth her subject, levelling the mountains and filling up the valleys for the march of her armies, the caravans of her merchandise, and the even sweep of her legislation. A moderate fleet of 6,000 sailors at Misenum, and another at Ravenna, a flotilla at Forum Julii, and another in the Black sea, of half that force, preserved the whole Mediterranean from piracy; and every nation bordering on its shores could freely interchange the productions of their industry. Two smaller armaments of twenty-four vessels each on the Rhine and the Danube secured the empire from northern incursion. In the time of Tiberius a force of twenty-five legions and fourteen cohorts, making 171,500 men, with about an equal number of auxiliary troops, that is, in all, an army of 340,000, sufficed, not so much to preserve internal order, which rested upon other and surer ground, but to guard the frontiers of a vast population, amounting, as is calculated, [{368}] to 120,000,000, and inhabiting the very fairest regions of the earth, of which the great Mediterranean sea was a sort of central and domestic lake. But this army itself, thus moderate in number, was not, as a rule, stationed in cities, but in fixed quarters on the frontiers, as a guard against external foes. Thus, for instance, the whole interior of Gaul possessed a garrison of but 1,200 men—that Gaul which, in the year 1860, in a time of peace, thought necessary for internal tranquillity and external rank and security to have 626,000 men in arms. [Footnote 53] Again, Asia Minor had no military force; that most beautiful region of the earth teemed with princely cities, enjoying the civilization of a thousand years, and all the treasures of art and industry, in undisturbed repose. And within its unquestioned boundaries, the spirit, moreover, of Roman rule was far other than that of a military despotism, or of a bureaucracy and a police pressing with ever watchful suspicion on every spring of civil life. The principle of its government was not that no population could be faithful which was not kept in leading-strings, but rather to leave cities and corporations to manage their own affairs themselves. Thus its march was firm and strong, but for this very reason devoid alike of fickleness and haste." [Footnote 53: Surely the author should have added the Belgian army (fixed by the laws of 1853 at 100,000), and that part of the Prussian, etc., which is raised west of the Rhine, in comparing the military force of ancient Gaul with that of the same district in our day.] It might have been added, that, as a general rule, the army which guarded each portion was composed of the natives of the country in which they were stationed. Roman citizens they were, no doubt, but citizens of provincial extraction, and posted to guard on behalf of Rome the very country which their fathers, sometimes but a very few generations back, had defended against her. [Footnote 54] This is a policy the generosity of which France dares not at this day imitate, even in her oldest provinces. To say nothing of the British army in Ireland, the Breton conscripts are still sent to serve at Lyons and Paris. [Footnote 54: Champagny, Rome, and Judea.] The extracts we have given will doubtless lead every reader to study for himself Mr. Allies's descriptions of Rome, and the life of the Thermae, and of the colonies, everywhere reproducing the life of Rome. Every page breathes with the matured thought of a mind of remarkable natural acuteness, and stored with refined scholarship. There is nothing of beauty or majesty in that magnificent old world which he does not seem to have witnessed and mused over. It is hardly possible to realize all this greatness without being tempted to repine in the remembrance whither it was all hastening—that the peace of the Roman world was but "the torrent's smoothness ere it dash below;" its magnificence only the feast of Baltassar in that last night of the splendor of Babylon, when the Medes and Persians were already under her walls, and the river had been turned away from its course through her quays, and a way left open for the rush of the destroyer into her streets and palaces. Already the mysterious impulse had been given which, during so many centuries, drove down horde after horde of barbarians from the wild north-east, to overflow the favored lands that surrounded the Mediterranean. In the early days of Roman history the Gauls had rushed on, sweeping away those earlier races whose remains we are now exploring in the shallows of the Swiss lakes, and whose descendants are probably to be found in the Basques, and in some of those degraded castes which, in spite of the welding power of the Church, left proscribed remnants in France and elsewhere until the great revolution. That mighty wave burst upon the rock of the Capitol, threatened for a moment utterly to overwhelmed it, and then fell broken at its feet. But it is not by repelling one wave, however formidable, that a rising tide is turned back. In the day of Rome's [{369}] utmost power her very foundations were shaken by the torrent of the Cimbri and Teutones. They, too, were broken against the steel-clad legions of Marius, and fell off like spray on the earth. But the tide was still advancing. What need to trace its successive inroads? Every reader of Gibbon remembers how the time came at last when the very site where Rome had stood had been so often swept by it, that of all its greatness there remained nothing more than the sea leaves of some castle of shingles and sand, after a few waves have passed over it. "Quench'd is the golden statue's ray; There even came a time when for many weeks the very ruins of ancient Rome were absolutely deserted, and trodden neither by man nor beast. No wonder that the world stood by afar off weeping and mourning over the utter destruction of all that the earth had ever known of greatness and glory. So the sentence had been passed, in the day of her greatest glory, by the prophetic voice of the angel, who cried with a strong voice: "Fallen—fallen, is Babylon the great, and is become the habitation of devils and the hold of every unclean spirit, and of every unclean and hateful bird. And the kings of the earth shall weep and bewail themselves over her, when they shall see the smoke of the burning; standing afar off for fear of her torments, saying, Alas! alas! that great city Babylon, that mighty city; for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her, and shall stand afar off from her for fear of her torments, weeping and mourning, and saying, Alas! alas! that great city which was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and was gilt with gold and precious stones and pearls. For in one hour are so great riches come to nought." (Apocalypse, chap, xviii.) It was not the ruin of one city, however glorious, but the sweeping away of all the accumulated glories of the civilization of the whole civilized world, during more than a thousand years. All had been embodied in imperial Rome. In the words of our author— "The empire of Augustus inherited the whole civilization of the ancient world. Whatever political or social knowledge, whatever moral or intellectual truth, whatever useful or elegant arts, 'the enterprising race of Japhet' had acquired, preserved, and accumulated in the long course of centuries since the beginning of history had descended without a break to Rome, with the dominion of all the countries washed by the Mediterranean. For her the wisdom of Egypt and of all the East had been stored up. For her Pythagoras and Thales, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and all the schools beside of Grecian philosophy suggested by these names, had thought. For her Zoreaster, as well as Solon and Lycurgus, legislated. For her Alexander conquered, the races which he subdued forming but a portion of her empire. Every city, in the ears of whose youth the poems of Homer were familiar as household words, owned her sway. The magistrates, from the Northern sea to the confines of Arabia, issued their decrees in the language of empire—the Latin tongue; while, as men of letters, they spoke and wrote in Greek. For her Carthage had risen, founded colonies, discovered distant coasts, set up a world-wide trade, and then fallen, leaving her the empire of Africa and the west, with the lessons of a long experience. Not only so, but likewise Spain, Gaul, and all the frontier provinces, from the Alps to the mouth of the Danube, spent in her service their strength and skill; supplied her armies with their bravest youths; gave to her senate and her knights their choicest minds. The vigor of [{370}] new and the culture of long-polished races were alike employed in the vast fabric of her power. Every science and art, all human experience and discovery, had poured their treasure in one stream into the bosom of that society, which, after forty-four years of undisputed rule, Augustus had consolidated into a new system of government, and bequeathed to the charge of Tiberius" (p. 41). No wonder the ancient world had assured itself that, as nothing greater, nothing wiser, nothing more glorious than Rome could ever arise upon earth, so its greatness, wisdom, and glory could never be superseded. It was "the eternal city." It was "for ever to give laws to the world." The contemporary poets could imagine no stronger expression of an eternity, than that of a duration while Rome itself should last. Yet was it at that very time that the eyes of a fisherman of the lake of Tiberias were opened to see the angel "coming down from heaven with power and great glory," from whose mighty cry over the fall of Babylon we have already quoted some words. No wonder when the time came that his prophecy was fulfilled, the world stood by weeping and mourning, not over the fall of a single city (such as Scipio Africanus had forecast as he watched the smoke of old Carthage rising up to heaven), but over the ruin of the civilization of the whole world. No wonder that, even in our own age, those whose hearts have so far sunk back to the level of heathenism as to value only material prosperity and worldly greatness, still re-echo the cry— "Alas! the eternal city, and alas! But the voice of divine wisdom was far different: "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and prophets, for God hath judged your judgment upon her. And a mighty angel took up a stone, as it were a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, 'With such violence as this shall Babylon, that great city, be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all; and the voice of harpers, and of musicians, and of them that play on the pipe and on the trumpet, shall no more be heard at all in thee; and no craftsman, of any art whatsoever, shall be found any more at all in thee; and the sound of the mill shall be heard no more at all in thee; and the light of the lamp shall shine no more in thee; and the voice of the bridegroom and the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee; for thy merchants were the great men of the earth, for all nations have been deceived by thine enchantments.' And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth." Thus total, according to the prophecy, was to be the destruction of the wealth, civilization, greatness, and glory of the ancient heathen world, gathered together in Rome, that in the utter sweeping away of that one city all might perish together. How fully the words were accomplished we know by the lamentation of the whole world over Babylon, the echoes of which still ring in our ears. But to us Christians it rather belongs to weigh the words which follow without any break in the sacred text (although the division of the chapters leads many readers to overlook the close connection). "After these things I heard, as it were, the voice of much people in heaven, saying, 'Alleluia. Salvation, and glory, and power is to our God. For just and true are his judgments, who hath judged the great harlot which corrupted the earth with her fornications, and he hath avenged the blood of his servants at her hands.' And again they said, 'Alleluia. And her smoke ascendeth for ever and ever.'" Here is the answer to that cry of the angel, "Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye apostles and prophets." Were any comment needed upon such prophecies—any explanation of the sentence passed upon a civilization so great, so ancient, so widely extended, and so refined—anything to reconcile us to the utter destruction of so much that was fair and mighty, we may find it in the latter half of the lecture before us. Not that our author is insensible to the marvellous beauty of that glow with which classical literature causes the figures of those days to shine before us. That would be impossible for a man of his studies. He says: "Is not the very language of Cicero and Virgil an expression of this lordly, yet peaceful rule; this even, undisturbed majesty, which holds the world together like the regularity of the seasons, like the alternations of light and darkness, like the all-pervading warmth of the sun? If every language reflects the character of the race which speaks it, surely we discern in the very strain of Virgil the closing of the gates of war, the settling of the nations down to the arts of peace, the reign of law and order, the amity and concord of races, the weak protected, the strong ruled: in a word, 'Romanos rerum dominos, Neither, need it hardly be said, has he set the hideous pollutions of that civilization fully before us: that is rendered impossible by its very hideousness. Let those who recoil from the horrors of what he has said—but a faint outline of the miserable truth, though traced with singular artistic form and beauty—bear in mind the while the words of the inspired prophecy, "All nations have drunk of the wine of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her"—"Her sins have reached unto heaven, and the Lord shall reward her iniquities"—"In her was found the blood of prophets, and saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth." The crimes, as well as the civilization of a thousand years, were accumulated at Rome, and both were swept away together by that overwhelming flood of fierce barbarians. Little were it worthy of Christians to mourn over a civilization into whose very heart-strings such unutterable pollution was intertwined; especially as it was removed, not like Babylon of old, to leave behind it nothing but desolation, but to make room for that kingdom of God which was to be enthroned upon its ruins; for such was the purpose of God, that the very centre of Christendom, the very seat of the throne of Christ upon earth, on which he would visibly sit in the person of his Vicar, was there to be established, whence the throne of the Caesars and the golden house of Nero had been swept away in headlong ruin. "I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth was gone. And I heard a great voice from the throne saying, 'Behold the tabernacle of God with men, and he will dwell with them. And they shall be his people, and God himself shall be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.'" "And he that sat on the throne said, 'Behold, I make all things new.'" The full accomplishment of these words we expect, in faith and hope, when "death shall be no more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow shall be any more; for the former things are passed away;" yet, surely, whatever more glorious accomplishment is yet to come, it were blindness not to see how far they are already fulfilled in the substitution of Christendom for the civilized pagan world, the setting up the throne of the Vicar of Christ upon the ruins of the palace of the Caesars. First among the causes of that hideous accumulated mixture of blood and filth in which heathen civilization was drowned, Mr. Allies most justly places the institution of slavery as it was at Rome, because by this the springs of human life were tainted. It is certain that during all the long years of the duration of the Roman [{372}] empire, there was among its heathen population no one human being, who lived beyond the earliest childhood, who was not polluted, and whose very soul was not scarred and branded, by the marks of that hideous moral pestilence. We say "its heathen population," because great as must have been the evil it wrought upon ordinary Christians, we doubt not that there were those who gathered honey out of corruption, and whose justice, charity, and purity came out from that furnace of temptation with a brightness which nothing but the most fiery trial could have given to them. From slavery the whole of Roman society received its form. Our author most truly says, "The spirit of slavery is never limited to the slave; it saturates the atmosphere which the freeman breathes together with the slave; passes into his nature, and corrupts it." This miserable truth can never be too often impressed upon men, because, unhappily, there are still advocates of slavery who think that they apologize for it if they can prove, as they think, that the slave is happy. As well might they argue that the introduction of the plague into London would be no calamity, if the man who brought it in upon him entered the city dancing and shouting. In ancient Italy slaves replaced the hardy rustics, that "prisca gens mortalium" who, though doubtless far less virtuous than they appeared in the fevered dreams of men sick of the vices of Rome in the last days of the republic, were still among the best specimens of heathen life. Wherever slavery extends, labor becomes dishonorable as the badge of servitude, a few masters languish in bloated luxury, but the nation itself grows constantly poorer, as an ever-increasing proportion of its population has to be maintained in indolence. At Rome slaves were the only domestic servants, and after a time the only manufacturers. And yet even this is nothing compared to the evils of a state of society in which the great majority of women as well as of men are the absolute property of their masters. Horrible as was this state of things, it offered so many gratifications to the corrupt natures of those whose hands held the power of the world, and without whose consent it could not be abolished, that it would have seemed to any one who had ever witnessed the life of a wealthy Roman noble no less than madness to imagine that any man would ever willingly surrender them. As a matter of fact, so far was this state of society from holding out any hope of its own amendment, whether sudden or gradual, that, as our author remarks— "Of all the minds which have left a record of themselves, from Cicero to Tacitus, there is not one who does not look upon the world's course as a rapid descent. They feel an immense moral corruption breaking in on all sides, which wealth, convenience of life, and prosperity only enhance. They have no hope for humanity, for they have no faith in it, nor in any power encompassing and directing it." Faithless and hopeless they were; but whatever this world could give they had in abundance: "In the time of heathenism the world of sense which surrounded man flattered and caressed all his natural powers, and solicited an answer from them; and in return he flung himself greedily upon that world, and tried to exhaust its treasures. Glory, wealth, and pleasure intoxicated his heart with their dreams; he crowned himself with the earth's flowers, and drank in the air's perfume; and in one object or another, in one after another, he sought enjoyment and satisfaction. The world had nothing more to give him; nor will the latest growth of civilization surpass the profusion with which the earth poured forth its gifts to those who consented to seek on the earth alone their home and their reward; though, indeed, they were the few, to whom the many were sacrificed. The Roman noble, with the pleasures of a vanquished world at his feet, [{373}] with men and women from the fairest climes of the earth to do his bidding—men who, though slaves, had learnt all the arts and letters of Greece, and were ready to use them for the benefit of their lords; and women, the most beautiful and accomplished of their sex, who were yet the property of these same lords—the Roman noble, as to material and even intellectual enjoyment, stood on a vantage-ground which never again man can hope to occupy, however— 'Through the ages an increasing purpose runs, "Caesar and Pompey, Lucullus and Hortensius, and the fellows of their order, were orators, statesmen, jurists, and legislators, generals, men of literature, and luxurious nobles at the same time; and they were this because they could use the minds as well as the bodies of others at their pleasure. Not in this direction was an advance possible" (p. 159). Our author draws with great skill and vigor a picture of the moral society of the heathen world, and of the beliefs upon which the practice of the heathen rested. Into these we have no room to follow him. At the end of this lecture he shows what sights they were which met the eyes of a stranger coming from the east in the days of Nero—an execution in which four hundred men, women, and children were marched through the streets of Rome to the cross, because their master had been killed by one of his slaves. In all such cases the Roman law required that every slave in the house, however innocent, however young or however old—man, woman, or child—should be put to death. Thence the stranger passed to a scene of debauchery such as the world has never imagined, in the gardens close to the Pantheon. This stranger— "Why has he come to Rome, and what is he doing there? Poor, unknown, a foreigner in dress, language, and demeanor, he is come from a distant province, small in extent, but the most despised and the most disliked of Rome's hundred provinces, to found in Rome itself a society, and one, too, far more extensive than this great Roman empire, since it is to embrace all nations; far more lasting, since it is to endure for ever. He is come to found a society, by means of which all that he sees around him, from the emperor to the slave, shall be changed" (p. 101). What madness can have inspired such a hope, or what miracle, real or simulated, could fulfil it? And that, not in the golden age of pastoral simplicity, in which men looked for wonders with an uncritical eye, but "amid the dregs of Romulus," when all the world seemed to have fallen together into the "sere and yellow leaf." "He has two things within him, for want of which society was perishing and man unhappy: a certain knowledge of God as the Creator, Ruler, Judge, and Rewarder of men; and of man's soul made after the image and likeness of this God. This God he has seen, touched, and handled upon earth; has been an eye-witness of his majesty, has received his message, and bears his commission. But whence had this despised foreigner received the double knowledge of God and of the soul, so miserably lost (as we have seen) to this brilliant Roman civilization? "In the latter years of Augustus, when the foundations of the imperial rule had been laid, and the structure mainly raised by his practical wisdom, there had dwelt a poor family in a small town of evil repute, not far from the lake of the remote province where this fisherman plied his trade. It consisted of an elderly man, a youthful wife, and one young child. The man gained his livelihood as a carpenter, and the child worked with him. Complete obscurity rested upon this household till the child grew to the age of thirty years" (p. 104). Then follows in few words the history of his life, death, and resurrection. These things the fisherman had [{374}] seen, and in this was the power which was to substitute a new life for the corrupt civilization of a world. The details of the comparison which follows we may leave to be considered when the work is continued. They are drawn out with great spirit, thoughtfulness, and artistic beauty. For the comparison of the two systems in an individual, Mr. Allies selects on the one side Cicero, on the other St. Augustine. An able reviewer has maintained that "Marcus Aurelius was the person to compare with St Augustine." Mr. Allies has given his reasons for not selecting either Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus in the defective religious system of both. There were, however, other grounds which seem to us even stronger. To test what heathenism can do, it was necessary that the example selected should, as a chemist would say, present not "a trace" of any other influence. Now this was impossible in the days of Epictetus or Aurelius. Christianity had then been taught and professed publicly and without restraint for many years, with only occasional bursts of persecution since Nero first declared war upon it. Its theology, indeed, was fully known only to the faithful, but its moral code was publicly professed. The Christian teachers came before the people as philosophers. It is absolutely certain that all the great Stoics, and especially the emperor, must often and often have heard of the great moral and religious principles laid down by the Christian teachers, however imperfect was his knowledge of their religious practices. But we have already had occasion to remark that men are driven, whether they will or no, to approve and admit these great principles when they are only publicly stated and maintained, although certain not to have discovered them by their unassisted reason. We cannot, therefore, but regard the religious and moral maxims of the later Stoics as an imperfect reflection of the full light of Christianity, like the moonlight illuminating without warming, but still taking such hold of the minds which have once embraced them, that they could never be forgotten. The life and practice of the imperial philosopher, we have every reason to believe, was, for a man without the faith and the sacraments, wonderfully high. Far be it from us to depreciate it, for whatever there was in it that was really good we know resulted from that grace which is given even beyond the bounds of the Church. But our knowledge of details is most meagre, while Cicero we know probably more familiarly than any great man in whose intimacy we hare not lived. The thoughts and speculations which approved themselves to the deliberate judgment of Marcus Aurelius, these we know, and in many respects they are wonderful. Of his life we know little more than he chose publicly to exhibit to his subjects. The failings of Cicero were petty and degrading; but if he had been firmly seated on the throne of the Caesars, and if we had possessed no more exact details of his life than we do of the life of Marcus Aurelius, we much doubt whether we should have been aware of them. Merivale says: "The high standard by which we claim to judge him is in itself the fullest acknowledgment of his transcendent merits; for, undoubtedly, had he not placed himself on a higher level than the statesmen and sages of his day, we should pass over many of his weaknesses in silence, and allow his pretensions to our regard to pass almost unchallenged. But we demand a nearer approach to the perfection of human wisdom and virtue in one who sought to approve himself as the greatest of their teachers." He was condemned indeed by his heathen countrymen, but their censure was rather of his greatness than his goodness, and they would probably have been even more severe had he attained what he did not even aim at —Christian humility. Considering these things, and especially that Cicero belonged almost to [{375}] the last generation, which was wholly uninfluenced by the reflected light of Christianity and in which, therefore, we can to a considerable degree measure the real effects of heathen philosophy, we venture to think that Mr. Allies has judged well in comparing him as the model heathen with St. Augustine as the model Christian. The comparison is drawn with a masterly hand. On the whole, however, we incline to think that the two last lectures are of the greatest practical value, especially at the present crisis. The salt by which Christianity acts upon the world seems to be martyrdom and holy virginity. Both of them have been always in operation since the days of John the Baptist. But there are periods of comparative stillness in which martyrdom is hardly seen, or at least only at the outposts of the Christian host. At such times, it is by holy virginity that the Church acts most directly and most powerfully upon the world. This was the case in the Roman empire as soon as persecution relaxed. Our author says: "A great Christian writer [St. Chrysostom], who stood between the old pagan world and the new society which was taking its place, and who was equally familiar with both, made, near the end of the fourth century, the following observation: 'The Greeks had some few men, though it was but few, among them, who, by the force of philosophy, came to despise riches; and some, too, who could control the irascible part of man; but the flower of virginity was nowhere to be found among them. Here they always gave precedence to us, confessing that to succeed in such a thing was to be superior to nature and more than man. Hence their profound admiration for the whole Christian people. The Christian host derived its chief lustre from this portion of its ranks.' And, again, he notes the existence, in his time, of three different sentiments respecting this institution. 'The Jews,' he says, 'turn with abhorrence from the beauty of virginity; which indeed is no wonder, since they treated with dishonor the very Son of the Virgin himself. The Greeks, however, admire it, and look up to it with astonishment, but the Church of God alone cultivates it.' After fifteen hundred years we find the said sentiments in three great classes of the world. The pagan nations, among whom Catholic missionaries go forth, reproduce the admiration of Greek and Latin pagans; they reverence that which they have not strength to follow, and are often drawn by its exhibition into the fold. But there are nations who likewise reproduce the Jewish abhorrence of the virginal life. And as the Jews worshipped the unity of the Godhead, like the Christians, and so seemed to be far nearer to them than pagan idolaters, and yet turned with loathing from this product of Christian life, so those nations might seem, from the large portions of Christian doctrine which they still hold, to be nearer to Christianity than the Hindoo and the Chinese; and yet their contempt and dislike for the virginal life and its wonderful institutions seems to tell another tale. But now, as fifteen hundred years ago, whether those outside admire or abhor, the Church alone cultivates the virginal life. Now, as then, it is her glory and her strength, the mark of her Lord, and the standard of his power, the most special sign of his presence and operation. 'If,' says the same writer, 'you take away its seemliness and its continuity of devotion, you cut the very sinews of the virginal estate; so when it is possessed together with the best conduct of life, you have in it the root and support of all good things: just as a most fruitful soil nurtures a root, so a good conduct bears the fruits of virginity. Or, to speak with greater truth, the crucified life is at once both its root and its fruit'" (p. 382). We must conclude by expressing our deliberate conviction that no study [{376}] can be more important at the present day than that of the change from heathen civilization to Christendom, the means by which it was brought about, and the effects which it produced. For in our day, most eminently, the Protestant falling away is producing its fruits in restoring throughout all Europe more and more of the special characteristics of heathen society. We have not room at present to offer any proofs of this, but we would beg every reader to observe for himself, and we are confident that his experience will confirm what we say. Nor is it only Catholics that are aware of this tendency. A thoughtful writer in the Saturday Review, six months back, devoted a whole article to trace the points of resemblance between an educated English Protestant of our day and a heathen of cultivated mind. Those who feel disposed at once to regard the idea as an insult are probably judging of heathen civilization by Nero and Domitian. Mr. Allies's book will at least dispel this delusion. In fact, it is only too obvious that there is, even in our own day, no want of plausibility in what is at the bottom only revived heathenism; and in consequence of this remarkable resemblance, nothing could be more strictly practical at the present moment than any studies which show us the old heathen civilization as it really was, in its attractive as well as its repulsive qualities. 1. Abbot Antony said: Without temptation there is no entrance possible into the kingdom. Take away temptations, and no one is in the saving way. 2. Some one asked blessed Arsenius, "How is it that we, with all our education and accomplishments, are so empty, and these Egyptian peasants are so full?" He made answer: We have the world's outward training, from which nothing is learned; but theirs is a personal travail, and virtue is its fruit. 3. It was heard by some that Abbot Agatho possessed the gift of discrimination. Therefore, to make trial of his temper, they said to him, "We are told that you are sensual and haughty." He answered: That is just it. They said again, "Are you not that Agatho who has such a foul tongue?" He answered: I am he. Then they said, "Are you not Agatho the heretic?" He made answer: No. Then they asked him why he had been patient of so much, yet would not put up with this last. He answered: By those I was but casting on me evil; but by this I should be severing me from God. 4. Holy Epiphanius was asked why the commandments are ten, and the beatitudes nine. He answered: The commandments are as many as the plagues of Egypt; but the beatitudes are a triple image of the Holy Trinity. 5. It was told to Abbot Theodore, that a certain brother had returned to the world. He answered: Marvel not at this, but marvel rather that any one comes out of it. 6. The Abbot Sisoi said: Seek God, and not his dwelling-place. 7. It is told of a certain senior, that he wished to have a cucumber. When he had got it, he hung it up in his sight, and would not touch it, lest appetite should have the mastery of him. Thus he did penance for his wish. New Year's Day is always a holiday. And well it is for the girls and boys of a parish, of a district, of a county, ay, of all Ireland, if it should rise upon them in the glowing beauty of a cloudless sun. Then, indeed, the girls "are drest in all their best." Many a new bright ribbon has been purchased on the previous market-day, and many a twist and turn the congregation side of their bonnets has had. A bow of new ribbon, blue or red, according to their complexion—for these country girls are no more fools in such a matter than their betters—has been held first to this side of their bonnet, then to that; then the long ends have been brought across the top this way, then that way, temporarily fastened with pins in the first instance, until it is held at arm's-length, with the head a little to one side, to test the final position. Their petticoats have been swelled out by numbers, not by crinoline, which as yet was unknown, even to the higher orders. But "be this as it may," the girls of the townlands of Rathcash, Rathcashmore, and Shanvilla made no contemptible turn-out upon the New Year's day after Tom Murdock had returned from Armagh. The boys, too, were equally grand, according to their style of dress. Some lanky, thin-shanked fellows in loose trousers and high-low boots; while the well-formed fellows, with plump calves and fine ankles, turned out in their new corderoy breeches, woolen stockings, and pumps. I have confined myself to their lower proportions, as in most cases the coats and rests were much of the same make, though perhaps different in color and material, while the well-brushed "Caroline" hat was common to all. Conspicuous amongst the girls in the district in which our story sojourns, were, as a matter of course, Winny Cavana and Kate Mulvey, with some others of their neighbors who have not been mentioned, and who need not be. Winny, since the little episode respecting her refusal of Tom Murdock, and his subsequent departure, had led a very quiet, meditative life. She could not help remarking to herself, however, that she had somehow or other become still more intimate with Kate Mulvey than she had used to be; but for this she could not account—though, perhaps, the reader can. She had always been upon terms of intimacy with Kate; had frequently called there, when time would permit, and sat for half an hour, or sometimes an hour, chatting, which was always reciprocated by Kate, whose time was more on her own hands. In what then consisted the increase of intimacy can hardly be said. Perhaps it merely existed in Winny's own wish that it should be so, and the fact that one and the other, on such occasions, now always threw a cloak round her shoulders and accompanied her friend a piece of the way home. Sometimes, when the day was tempting, a decided walk would be proposed, and then the bonnet was added to the cloak. What formed the burden of their conversation in these chats, which to a close observer might be said latterly to have assumed a confidential appearance, must be so evident to the reader's capacity, that no mystery need be observed on the subject. To say the [{378}] least, Emon-a-knock came in for a share of it, and, as a matter of almost necessity, Tom Murdock was not altogether left out. Kate Mulvey, after the éclaircissement with Winny, believed she could do her friend some good without doing herself any harm, a principle on which alone most people will act. With this view she took an early opportunity to hint something to Emon of the result of the interview between herself and Winny, and although she did it in a very casual, and at the same time a clever, manner, she began to fear that so far as her friend's case was concerned, she had done more harm than good. The fact of Tom Murdock's proposal and rejection subsequent to the interview adverted to, had not become public amongst the neighbors; and before Winny had an opportunity of telling it to Kate, Emon had left his father's house, to seek employment in the north. It is not unlikely that he was tempted to this step by something which had fallen from Kate Mulvey respecting Winny and Tom Murdock, although the whole cat had not yet got out of the bag. Hitherto poor Emon's heart had been kept pretty whole, through what he considered a well-founded belief that Winny Cavana, almost as a matter of course, must prefer her handsome, rich neighbor to a struggling laboring man like him. Tom, he knew, she saw almost every day, while at best she only saw him for a few minutes on Sundays after chapel. Emon knew the meaning of the word propinquity very well, and he knew as well the danger of it. He knew, too, that if there were no such odds against him, he could scarcely dare aspire to the hand of the rich heiress of Rathcash. He knew the disposition of old Ned Cavana too well to believe that he would ever consent to a "poor devil" like him "coming to coort his daughter." He believed so thoroughly that all these things were against him, that he had hitherto successfully crushed every rising hope within his breast. He had schooled himself to look upon a match between Tom Murdock and Winny Cavana as a matter so natural, that it would be nothing less than an act of madness to endeavor to counteract it. What Kate Mulvey, however, had "let slip" had aroused a slumbering angel in his soul. He was not wrong, then, after all, in a secret belief that this girl did not like Tom Murdock over-much. Upon what he had founded that belief he could no more have explained—even to himself—than he could have dragged the moon down from heaven; but he did believe it; he even combatted it as a fatal delusion, and yet it was true. But how did this mend the matter as regarded himself? Not in the slightest degree, except so far as that the man he most dreaded, and had most reason to dread, was no longer an acknowledged rival to his heart. Hopes he still had none. But Emon-a-knock was now in commotion. The angel was awake, and his heart trembled at a possibility which despair had hitherto hidden from his thoughts. For some time past he had not only not avoided a casual meeting with Winny, but delighted in them with a safe, if not altogether a happy, indifference. He looked upon her as almost betrothed to Tom Murdock; circumstances and reports were so dovetailed into one another, and so like the truth. Although there was really no difference in rank between him and Winny, except what her father's well-earned wealth justified the assumption of, his position as a daily laborer kept him aloof from an intimacy of which those in circumstances more like her own could boast; and poor Emon felt that it was a matter for boast. Thus had he hitherto refrained from attempting to "woo that bright particular star," and his heart was comparatively safe. But now—ay, now—what was he to do? "Fly, Fly" said he; "I'll go seek for employment in the north. [{379}] To America, India, Australia—anywhere! Kate Mulvey may have meant it as kindness; but it would have been more kind to have let me alone. This horrible knowledge of that one fact will break my heart." And Emon-a-knock did fly. But it was no use. There were many reasons quite unconnected with Winny Cavana which rendered a more speedy return than he had intended unavoidable. A stranger beyond the precincts of his own pariah, he found it impossible to procure permanent employment amongst those who were better known, and who "belonged to the place"—a great consideration in the minds of the Irish, high and low. The bare necessaries of life, too, were more expensive in the north than about his own home; and for the few days' employment which he got, he could scarcely support himself, while his father and family would feel the loss of his share of the earnings at home. No; these two separate establishments would never do. He could gain nothing by it but the gnawing certainty of never seeing, even at a distance, her in whom he now began to feel that his heart delighted. Besides, he could manage to avoid her altogether by going to his own chapel; yes, he felt it a duty he owed to his father not to let him fight life's battle alone, and—he returned. We question whether this duty to his father was his sole motive; and we shall see whether he did not subsequently consider it a duty to prefer the good preaching of Father Roche, of Rathcash, to the somewhat indifferent discourses of good Father Farrell in his own chapel. Emon had not been more than ten days or a fortnight away, and he was now following the usual routine, of a day idle and a day working, which had marked his life before he went. But we were talking of a New Year's day, and it will be far spent if we do not return to it at once, and so we shall lose the thread of our story. The day, as we had wished a few pages back, had risen in all the beauty of a cloudless sun. There had been a slight frost the night before, but as these slight frosts seldom bring rain until the third morning, the country people were quite satisfied that the promise of a fine day on this occasion would not be broken. The chapel-bells of Rathcash and Shanvilla might be heard sounding their dear and cheerful call to their respective parishioners that the hour of worship had drawn near, and the well-dressed, happy congregation might be seen in strings along the road and across the pathways through the fields, in their gayest costume, laughing and chatting with an unbounded confidence in the faithfulness of the sky. Tom Murdock, the reader knows, had returned, but he had not as yet seen Winny Cavana. One Sunday had intervened; but upon his father's advice he had refrained from going "for that wan Sunda' to chapel." Neither, on the same advice, had he gone near old Ned's house. The old man—that is, old Murdock—had endeavored to spread a report that his son Tom was engaged to be married to a very rich girl in Armagh. He took his own views of all matters, whether critical or simple, and had his own way of what he called managing them. He was not very wrong in some of his ideas, but he sometimes endeavored to carry them out too persistently, after anybody else would have seen their inutility. On this New Year's day, too, he had hinted something about his son's not going to mass, but Tom would not be controlled, and quickly "shut up'" that is the fashionable phrase now-a-days—the old man upon the subject. His opinion, and he did not care to hide it, was, "that he did not see why he should be made a mope of by Winny Cavana, or any other conceited piece of goods like her." His father's pride came to his aid in this instance, and he gave way. Rathcash chapel was a crowded place of worship that day. Amongst [{380}] the congregation, as a matter of coarse, were Winny Cavana and Kate Mulvey, both conspicuous by their beauty and solemnity. Tom Murdock, too, was there; doubtless he was handsome, and he was solemn also, but his solemnity was of a different description. It was that generated by disappointment, with a dream of villany in perspective. Tom was not a coward, even under the nervous influence of rejected love. Physically, he was not one in the matters of everyday life; and morally, he wanted rectitude to be one when he ought. He therefore resolved to meet Winny Cavana, as she came out of chapel, as much as possible as if nothing had happened, and to endeavor to improve the acquaintance as opportunity might permit. He purposed to himself to walk home with her, and determined, if possible, that at least a friendly intercourse should not be interrupted between them. Emon-a-knock had steadily kept his resolution, notwithstanding our doubts, and had not gone to Rathcash chapel for the last four or five Sundays; he was even beginning to think that Father Farrell, after all, was not quite so much below Father Roche as a preacher. At length there was a rustling of dresses and a shuffling of feet upon the floor, which proclaimed that divine worship had ended; and the congregation began to pour out of Rathcash chapel—men in their dark coats and Caroline hats, and women in their best bonnets and cloaks. Tom Murdock was out almost one of the first, and sauntered about, greeting some of the more distant neighbors whom he had not seen since his return. At length Winny and Kate made their appearance. Winny would have hurried on, but Kate "stepped short," until Tom had time to observe their approach. He came forward with more cowardice in his heart than he had ever felt before, and Winny's reception of him was not calculated to reassure him. Kate was next him, and held out her hand promptly and warmly. Winny could scarcely refuse to hold out hers; but there was neither promptness nor warmth in her manner. An awkward silence ensued on both sides, until Kate, with more anxiety on her own behalf than tact or consideration on her friend's, broke in with half a score of inquiries, very kindly put, as to his health—the very long time he was away—how the neighbors all missed him so much—what he had been doing—how he left his aunt—how he liked Armagh, etc, ending with a hope that he had come home to remain. Winny was glad she had so good a spokeswoman with her, and did not offer a single observation in her aid. To say the truth, there was neither need nor opportunity; for Kate seemed perfectly able, and not unwilling, to monopolize the conversation. Tom endeavored to be sprightly and at his ease, but made some observations far from applicable to the subjects upon which his loquacious companion had addressed him. He had hoped that when they came to the end of the lane turning up to their houses, that Kate Mulvey would have gone toward her own home, and that he must then have had a word with Winny alone; but the manner in which she hastened her step past the turn, saying, "Kate; you know we are engaged to have a walk 'our lone' today," showed him that no amelioration of her feelings had taken place toward him; and without saying more than "Well, this is my way," he turned and left them. Bully-dhu was standing near the end of Winny's house, looking from him; and as he recognized his mistress on the road, commenced to wag his huge tail, as if asking permission to accompany them. "Call him, Winny," said Kate; "he may be of use to us; and, at all events, he will be company," and she laid a strong emphasis upon the last word. Winny complied, and called the dog as loud [{381}] as she could. Poor Bully wanted but the wind of the word, and tore down the lane with his mouth wide open, and his tail describing large circles in the air. He had well-nigh knocked down Tom Murdock as he passed, but he did not mind that; and bounding out upon the road, cut such capers round Winny as were seldom seen, keeping up at the same time a sort of growling bark, until the enthusiasm of his joy at the permission had subsided. CHAPTER XIX. Winny and Kate had agreed to take a long walk after mass on the day in question. This was not a mere trick of Winny's to get rid of Tom Murdock. Certainly they had not agreed that it should be "their lone;" this was as chance might have it; and it was a gratuitous addition of Winny's, as calculated to attain her object; and we have seen how promptly she succeeded. The day was fine, and they now wandered along the road, so engaged in chat that they scarcely knew how far they were from home. They had turned down a cross-road before they came to Shanvilla, the little village where Emon-a-knock lived. Kate would have gone on straight, but Winny could not be induced to do so. Kate had her own reasons for wishing to go on, while Winny had hers for being determined not; so they turned down the road to their left, intending, as they had Bully-dhu with them, to come home through the mountain-pass by Boher-na-milthiogue. They had chat enough for the whole road. Prayers had been over early, although it was second mass; and the country people generally dine later on a holiday than usual. It gives the boys and girls more time to meet and chat and part, and in some instances to make new acquaintances. But whether it had been agreed upon or not, Winny and Kate appeared likely to have their walk alone upon this occasion; and as neither of them could choose their company, they were not sorry to find the road they had chosen less frequented than the one they had left. Bully-dhu scampered through the fields at each side of them, and sometimes on a long distance in front, occasionally running back to a turn to see if they were coming. They were now beyond two miles from home, and two-and-a-half more would have completed the circle they had intended to take; but they were destined to return by the same way they came, and in no comfortable or happy plight. They were descending a gentle hill when, at some distance below them, they perceived a number of young men engaged playing at what they call "long bullets." They would instinctively have turned back, not wishing, unattended as they were except by Bully-dhu, to run the gauntlet of so many young men upon the roadside, most of whom must be strangers; but the said Bully-dhu had been enjoying himself considerably in advance, and they called and called to no purpose. They could not whistle; and if Bully heard them call, he did not heed them. He had seen a large brindled mastiff coming toward him from the crowd with his back up, and a growl of defiance which he could not mistake. Bully was no coward at any time; but on this occasion his courage was more than manifest, being, as he considered, in sole charge of his mistress and her friend. He was not certain but his antagonist's attack might be directed as much against them as against himself; and he stood upon the defensive, with his back up also, the hairs of which, from behind his ears to the butt of his tail, bristled "like quills upon the fretful porcupine." An encounter was now inevitable. The mastiff had shown a determination that nothing but a death-struggle should be the result, and rushed with open mouth and a roar of confident superiority upon his [{382}] weaker rival. It was no even match; nothing but poor Bully-dhu's indomitable courage and activity could enable him to stand a single combat with his antagonist for five minutes. The first snarling and growling on both sides had now subsided, and they were "locked in each other's arms" in a silent rolling struggle for life or death. A dog-fight of even the most minor description has charms for a crowd of youngsters; and of course the "long bullets" were left to take care of themselves, and all the players, as well as the spectators, now ran up the road to witness this contest, which was, indeed, far from a minor concern. Poor Winny had screamed when she saw her dog first rolled by so furious and, as she saw at once, so superior a foe. She would have rushed forward but that Kate restrained her, as both dangerous and useless. She therefore threw herself against the bank of the ditch by the roadside, continuing to call out "for God's sake for somebody to save her poor dog. Was there no person there who knew her, and would save him?" The crowd had by this time formed a ring round the infuriated animals. Some there were who would have been obedient to Winny's call for help; but the case at present admitted of no relief. Notwithstanding poor Bully-dhu's pluck and courage, he had still the worst of it; in fact, his was altogether a battle of defence, while that of the mastiff was one of ferocious attack. He had seized Bully in the first instance at an advantage by the side of the neck under the ear, meeting his teeth through the skin, while the blood flowed freely from the wound, coloring the mud of the road a dark crimson round where they fought, and nearly choking the mastiff himself, as he was occasionally rolled under in the strife. Now they were upon their hind-legs again, wrestling like two stout boys for a fall; now Bully was down, and the mastiff rolled his head from side to side, tightening his grip, while the bloody froth besmeared himself and his victim, as he might now almost be called. Some men at this point, more humane than the rest, took hold of the mastiff by the tail, while others struck him on the nose with a stick. They might as well have struck the rocks love Slieve-dhu or Slieve-bawn. The mastiff was determined upon death, and death he seemed likely to have. His master was there, and seemed anxious to separate them. He even permitted him to be struck on the nose, claiming the privilege only of choosing the thickness of the stick. "He's loosening, boys!" said one fellow; "he's tired of that hoult, an' can do no more with it; stan' back, boys, an' give the black dog fair play, he's not bet yet; he never got a grip iv th' other dog yet; give him fair play, boys, an' he'll do good business yet. There! Tiger's out iv him now, and the black dog has him; be gorra, he's a game dog any way, boys! I dunna who owns him." This man seemed to be an "expert" in dog-fighting. Tiger had got tired of the hold he had had, and, considering a fresh grip would be better, not by any means influenced by the blows he had received on the nose, had given way; believing, I do suppose, that he had already so mastered his antagonist, that he could seize him again at pleasure. But he had reckoned without his host. Bully-dhu took advantage of the relief to turn on him, and seized him pretty much in the same way he had been seized himself, and with quite as much ferocity and determination. Hie fight did not now seem so unequal; they had grip for grip, and there was a general cry amongst the crowd to let them see it out. Indeed, there appeared to be no alternative, for they had both resisted every exertion to separate them. "It's no use, boys," said the expert; "you might cut them in pieces, an' they wouldn't quit, except to get a better hoult; if you want to part them, hold them by the tails, an' watch for [{383}] the loosening of wan or th' other, an' then drag them away." "Stan' back, boys," said another. "The black dog's not bet yet; stan' back, I say!" Bully-dhu had made a great rally of it. It was now evident that he would have made a much better fight from the first, if he had not been seized at an advantage which prevented him from turning his head to seize his foe in return. They had been by this time nearly twenty minutes in deadly conflict; and the mastiff's superior strength and size began now to tell fearfully against poor Bully-dhu. He had shaken himself completely out of Bully, and made a fresh grip, not far from the first, but still nearer the throat. The matter seemed now coming to a close, and the result no longer doubtful. Every one saw that if something could not be done to disengage Tiger from that last grip, the black dog must speedily be killed. Here Winny, who heard the verdict from the crowd, could be restrained no longer, and rushed forward praying for some one, for them all, to try and save her dog. They all declared it was a pity; that he was a grand dog, but no match for the mastiff. Some recommended one thing, some another. Tiger was squeezed, and struck on the nose; a stick was forced into his mouth, with a hope of opening his teeth and loosening his hold; but it was all useless, and poor Winny gave up all for lost, in a fit of sobbing and despair. Here a man, who had not originally been of the party, was seen running at full speed down the hill. It was Emon-a-knock, who at this juncture had come accidentally upon the top of the hill immediately above them, and at once recognizing some of the party on the road, rushed forward to the rescue. He cast but a glance at the dogs. He knew them both, and how utterly hopeless a contest it must be for Bully-dhu. Like an arrow from a bow, he flew to a cabin hard by, and seizing a half-lighted sod of turf from the fire, he returned to the scene. "Now, boys," he cried, "hold them fast by the tails and hind-legs, and I'll soon separate them." Two men seized them—Tiger's own master was one. Although there were many young men there who would have looked on with savage pleasure at an even fight between two well-matched dogs, even to the death, there was not one who could wish to stand by and see a noble dog killed without a chance by a superior foe, and they all hailed Emon-a-knock, from his confident and decisive manner, as a timely deliverer. The dogs having been drawn by two strong men to their full length, but still fastened by the deadly grip of the mastiff on Bully-dhu's throat, Emon blew the coal, and applied it to Tiger's jaw. This was too much for him. He could understand squeezes, and even blows on the nose and head, or perhaps in the excitement he never felt them; but the lighted coal he could not stand, and yielding at once to the pain, he let go his hold. The dogs were then dragged away to a distance; Emon-a-knock carrying poor Bully-dhu in his arms, more dead than alive, to where Winny sat distracted on the roadside. "O Emon! he's dead or dying!' she cried, as the exhausted animal lay gasping by her side. "He's neither!" almost roared Emon; "have you a fippenny-bit, Winny, or Kate? if I had one myself, I wouldn't ask you." "Yes, yes," exclaimed Winny, taking an old bead-purse from her pocket, and giving him one. She knew not what it was for, but her confidence in Emon's judgment was unbounded, and her heart felt some relief when it was not a needle and thread he asked for. "Here," said Emon to a gossoon, who stood looking at the dog, "be off like a hare to Biddy Muldoon's for a naggin of whiskey, and you may have the change for yourself, if you're back in less than no time; make her put it in a bottle, not a cup, that you may [{384}] run the whole way without spilling it." The boy started off, not very unlike—either in pace or appearance—to the animal he was desired to resemble, for he had a cap made of one of their skins. Emon-a-knock, although a very steady, temperate young man, was not altogether so much above his compeers in the district as not to know "where a dhrop was kept," which, to the uninitiated (English, of course), means a sheebeen house. Perhaps, to them, I am only explaining one thing by another which equally requires explanation. During the interval of the boy's absence, Emon-a-knock was examining the wounds in poor Bully-dhu's neck and throat. The dog still lay gasping, and occasionally scrubbling with his fore-legs, and kicking with his hind, while Winny reiterated her belief that he was dying. Emon now contradicted her rather flatly. He knew she would excuse the rudeness from the hope which it held forth. "There will be nothing on him to signify indeed, Winny, after a little," he said kindly, feeling that he had been harsh but a moment before; "see, he is not even torn; only cut in four places." "In four places! O Emon, in four?" "Yes; but they are only where the other dog's teeth entered, and came through; see, they are only holes; the dog is quite exhausted, but will soon come round. Come here, Winny, and feel him yourself." Winny stretched over, and Emon took her hand to guide it to the spots where her poor dog had been wounded. Poor Bully looked up at her, and feebly endeavored to wag his tail, and Winny smiled and wept together. Emon was a very long time explaining to her precisely where the wounds were, and how they must have been inflicted; and he found it necessary to hold her hand the whole time. Whether Winny, in the confusion of her grief, knew that he did so, nobody but herself can tell. Three or four persons who knew Winny had kindly come up to see how the dog was, and the expert amongst them, with so much confidence that he was going to set him on his legs at once. But Emon had taken special charge of him, and would not suffer so premature an experiment, nor the interference of any other doctor. But here comes the gossoon with the whiskey, like a hare indeed, across the fields, and his middle finger stuck in the neck of the bottle by way of a cork. Emon took it from him, and claiming the assistance of the expert, whom he had just now repudiated, for a few moments to hold his head, he placed the neck of the bottle in Bully-dhu's mouth. He poured "the least taste in life" down his throat, and with his hand washed his jaws and tongue copiously with the spirits. With a sort of yelp poor Bully made a struggle and a plunge, and rose to his feet. Winny held out her hand to him, and he staggered over toward her, looking up in her face, and wagging his tail. "I told you so," said Emon; "get me a handful of salt." The same cabin which had supplied the "live coal" was applied to by the gossoon (who kept the change), and it was quickly brought. Emon then rubbed some into the wounds, in spite of Winny's remonstrances as to the pain, and the dog's own unequivocal objections to the process. Matters were now really on the mend. Bully-dhu shook himself, looking after the crowd with a growl; and even Winny had no doubt that Emon's prescriptions had been necessary and successful. "The sooner you get home now with him, Winny, the better," said Emon. "You are not going to leave us, Emon?" said Winny, doubtingly. "Certainly not," he replied; "the poor dog is still very weak, and may require rest, if not help, by the way." He then took a red cotton handkerchief from his pocket, and tying it loosely round the dog's neck, he held the other end of it in his hand, and they all set out together for Rathcash. The handkerchief, Emon said, would both keep the air from the wounds, and help to sustain the dog on his legs. But he may have had some idea in his mind that it would also serve as an excuse for his accompanying them to the very furthest point possible on their road home. TO BE CONTINUED. [Page 507] Tender and true. You ask me for a little information concerning this country and our ordinary life in this climate. I am entirely at your disposal for this whole afternoon, if you will come and join me at the college of St. Francis Xavier, No. 10 Park street, Calcutta. It is warm there. The thermometer I have just consulted stands 37° centigrades in the shade. Look where you may from my windows, you see nothing but white houses which, turned toward the four winds of heaven, have no other shade but that of their cornice; and a little further on, in an old cemetery, some fifty obelisks lit up on their four faces, so vertical is our sun! Hence, though lightly clad—a white calico soutane, without buttons, a white girdle, white pantaloons, and white shoe—we still feel enough of the tropical heat of the dog-star. Happily, we have the breeze, which, although it does not lower the thermometer any, refreshes us considerably. But it does not always blow; and when it stops, the floor is watered with drops of perspiration as big as two-franc pieces. Those who would then make up for the breeze have themselves ponka-ed. Ponka-ed? what is that? To understand it, you will enter Father Stochman's abode. He is seated all in white, at his desk, in the middle of a large room; over his bald head, at a little less than a metre, is hung a large white triangle, three metres long horizontally, and one metre in height; a cord is fastened to it there, passes into the hollow of a pulley fixed to the wall, and terminates at a crouching Indian, clad in his dusky skin and a strip of stuff around his loins. This human machine has no other occupation than to pull the cord which balances continually over Father Stochman's head the other rectangular machine that I have described to you, which is called a ponka. Now, do not suppose that Father Stochman is a Sybarite. There are ponkas here everywhere: in the parlor, in the refectory, and many persons have themselves ponkaed in their bed the whole night long. These instruments are not in use in Catholic churches, but every parishioner, male and female, continually uses the fan, which by extension is likewise called a ponka. Other countries, other customs; a ponka is here more necessary than a coat; whereas, on the other hand, there is not a single chimney in the whole house. No chimney, you will say; do you, then, eat your rice quite raw? To that question I have two answers; first, the kitchen, with us as with our neighbors, is not in the house, but in the compound—that is to say, in the vast inclosure that surrounds the dwelling. Then I will furthermore observe, that even in the kitchen there is no chimney. These black Indians, who are our cooks, are accustomed to make fire without troubling themselves about the smoke, which escapes wherever it can, through the windows, through the crevices, anywhere and everywhere. If you were, like me, philosopher enough to eat whatever comes before you, I would introduce you into that kitchen; but I think you would not care to enter that dingy [{387}] hole, lest you should for ever lose your appetite. Let us leave the Indians in their den, and go sit down under the ponka in the refectory. To-day they will serve us with mutton and fowl; to-morrow with fowl and mutton; now and then with fowl only. As regards vegetables, yon shall see them successively of all kinds; but, if you take my advice, you will not touch them; they have no other taste than that of stagnant water. Beside the morning repast and the dinner, which is at half-past three o'clock, we have two other meals a day. One at noon, under the name of tiffin, is composed, in the maximum, of a glass of beer, a crust of bread, and some fruit; for some amongst us, it is reduced to but one of those three things; for many others, and myself in particular, to nothing at all. The other repast, at eight in the evening, consists of a cup of coffee, with or without bread. And now let us quit this abode of misery, no more to return. Come and see my chamber. It has no ponka, but four windows, open day and night; two to the south, where the sun does not enter, and two to the east, where the Persians forbid him access in the morning. My bed is a species of large sofa, upon which there is a nondescript article, that is neither a pattiass nor a mattrass. It is a flat sack, eight or nine inches thick, and stuffed with hair; over it two linen sheets (a luxury here, where most people use but one) and a pillow as hard as the mattrass. But best of all are the four posts supporting a horizontal rectangle from which is hung the mosquito net. The mosquito net is used here all the year round. It is a piece of net fastened below the mattrass. Behind, that frail rampart, if happily there be no rent in it anywhere, you enjoy the pleasure of hearing the mosquitoes buzzing about powerless and exasperated. In December and January, there are clouds of them; but, hearing them, you appreciate that verse of Tibullus: Quam juvat immites ventos audire cubantem! What is a mosquito? It is the cousin-german of your gnats in Europe, generally a little smaller, but quite the same in form; it sings and stings like them; only its sting is a little more painful, and is followed by a larger and more lasting tumor. Nothing can secure you against its attacks; it can dart its sting even through a double covering of linen. These insects are not my only room-mates. There are now, in addition thereto, some millions of red and black ants, hundreds of which I every day crush, but all in vain; there are lizards, which are not dumb as in Europe, but give utterance, now and then, to a short song. These lizards apply themselves to hunt the insects, so that I am very careful not to hunt themselves. In my chamber, moreover, there are horrible beetles—large insects of a dark brown color, four or five inches long, which have the privilege of inspiring universal disgust. To love them, one should be as poetical as M. Victor Hugo, who had an affection for "the toad, poor meek-eyed monger." There are little white fishes, insects that do not live in water, but are particularly abundant during rainy weather. These fishes, little as they are, contrive to make large holes in cloth and in stuffs. During the night I sometimes hear rats and mice prowling around; the mosquito net protects me from their assaults. As for bats, owls, and other such nocturnal visitors, I do not think they ever come in through our open windows. Birds of prey are very numerous here, and wherever I am in my chamber, I know not how many are watching me from the top of the adjacent buildings. Crows are another species of bird as interesting as they are dreary. They inhabit the riversides where the Indians throw their dead; two, three, or more of them are often seen in the water, looking as though they were sailing on some invisible bark; that bark is a dead body, which they slice amongst them as they [{388}] go. Sometimes the jackals, along the river, dispute this horrible prey with them, and you might see these animals, at some distance from the city, trotting along with human limbs across their mouth. In the city, the crows live on offal of all kinds; they are often found assembled round kitchen doors; during our meals there are always twenty or thirty of them before our refectory. There they seem to beg for crusts of bread, bones, etc, and willingly receive whatever is thrown to them. The kites, less numerous and less bold, but much more voracious, mount guard with them, and often fly away with what the poor crows had picked up from the ground. In revenge, it is really a pleasure to see a kite gnaw a bone which he has thus purloined. If he does not take care to perform that operation high up in the air, he is invariably flanked by two crows, one of which keeps constantly pulling him behind to make him angry, whilst the other avails himself of this artifice to peck at the bone in the very claws of the kite. After a while, the crows change parts, and each in his turn becomes the assailant. I perceive at this moment in our court another bird, less common than the two preceding species, but still not at all rare. The name it usually bears here is that of adjutant; in other places the much more picturesque name of philosopher is given to it. In order to form an idea of it, give an ordinary heron the size of a small ostrich; the bill is ten inches wide and from fifty to sixty long; the claws and the legs, white and thin, are more than three feet high; the neck almost always bent, and forming a crop, has a development of from sixty to seventy inches. Between these two extremities place a big white body with large wings of a dark-gray color, and you shall have pretty nearly the adjutant or philosopher. Apropos to the description of my domicile, I have been led to give you a course of natural history; let us go on to something else. There is no other curiosity in my chamber, if it be not the two partitions which, with the walls of the house, form the inclosure. These partitions are but two yards in height, whilst the ceiling is more than five; they are generally arranged in this way, so as to give a free passage to the breeze. In descending, let us take a look at the bathing rooms, about a dozen in number, in which there is not a single bath, but large vases of baked clay, always full of water, and small copper vases, that contain about a quart. You stand on the pavement, and, dipping the small vase into the larger one, pour the contents of it fifty times or so on your head. This is called taking a bath. It is said to be very wholesome; every one in this country takes their daily bath—except me, who have no time; so every one has been more or less sick, except me, for the same reason. Before going out, a word on the pupils of our college. They are two hundred and twenty, the great majority of whom are Catholics. Most of the names have an English aspect; but you will also hear Portuguese, French, and Armenian names, borne respectively by white, black, bronze, and brown skins. English is the common language; the French pupils themselves speak it more fluently than their mother tongue, and most of them know only as much of Bengalese and Hindostanese as is necessary to make themselves understood by their Indian domestics. The costumes are varied enough; but as for the Indians, one may say that white, and especially white calico, constitutes their wardrobe, notwithstanding that some dark or pale colors are seen here and there. Let us set out. Here are our young people coming in for recreation, and I would spare your ears one of my daily torments. It were impossible to find on the European continent people more destitute of all musical judgment than our pupils. It is not taste they want, but good taste. Several of them have an instrument like the [{389}] accordeon which is called the concertina. They have the courage to spend all their recreations, for three months and more, playing always the same air. I have thus heard "God save the Queen" thousands of times. Once would have sufficed to disgust you with it for ever; you may just imagine what liking I have for it. But it is time to go for our walk. The English took a very simple way of making Calcutta. They marked out a broad circular road, to fix its boundary. Three Hindoo villages, Fort William, and some European factories, were inclosed within it; time has done the rest. Within the inclosure, the construction of the houses is subject to police regulations; straw roofs are prohibited, tiles required, etc; all that annoys the Hindoo, who likes better to take up his quarters on the other side of the circular road; and in this way the suburbs are formed. The European city, on its side, has grown larger every day. Five years ago, our college was at the very extremity of the city; now, it is nearly in the centre; the new houses have occupied all the free space, and, in some places even go beyond the circular road. A year and a half since, a group of Hindoo huts, situate about one hundred paces from the college, disappeared to make place for a public tank, which furnishes us with water. The transformation is slow, but sure. So much for English tact; they have made Calcutta a palatial city, and such its name implies—the city of palaces. It is, moreover, an immense city; the streets are of fabulous length, thanks to the mode of construction employed here. I believe, indeed, that if Paris were built on the same system, it would extend itself as far as the natural frontiers. In those long streets circulates a numerous and very mixed population, as in all great maritime places. If you please, we will busy ourselves to-day with the Indians only. We distinguish them here into two great classes; the Mohammedans and the Hindoos. They are easily recognized in the streets. The Mohammedans wear a beard; they have usually on their head a cap a little larger than that of the priests in Belgium, but which, having only one seam forming an edge, is a little less spherical. The rich have caps embroidered with gold and silver, often very costly; the poor make theirs of two pieces of grayish-white calico. As for the women, I know not by what sign to recognize them, unless, perhaps, by the seams of a portion of their garments. For the rest, no Indian woman, poor or rich, appears in the streets. The Hindoos, all idolaters, wear no beard on their chin, but only moustaches and sometimes whiskers. In case of mourning for the death of a parent, they shave all, and even the hair from the fore part of the skull. The rest of the hair is generally drawn back and gathered in a knot. The men go almost always bareheaded; sometimes they make themselves a turban of a large piece of calico gracefully enough wound around. The rich dress in muslin; unbelievers wear leather shoes, [Footnote 55] the others wooden sandals. The poor have a cord around their loins, which the rich replace by a silver chain, that they never leave off. One or more keys are usually attached to it. Between this cord and the skin they thrust the edge of a piece of calico as long and as wide as a bed-sheet, and which goes first round and half round the legs; the men pass between their legs what remains of the sheet and fasten the end of it to the cord or to the silver chain; the women throw this same remainder of the stuff over one shoulder and the head, so as to cover the chest. All go barefoot; many men have necklaces, the women wear on their ankles two large rings of copper or silver; they have, beside, a profusion of necklaces, bracelets, rings in the ears and even in the [{390}] nostrils. This costume forms their essential and ordinary apparel. [Footnote 55: Leather is an abomination to a devout Hindoo.] From the month of November till the month of March, the Indians have a season which they call winter. At 20° they are cold, at 15° they shiver, at 12° or 13° they are frozen. You should see, in the morning, the masons, carpenters, and other workmen, residing usually in the country, coming into town all muffled up in one or two extra bed-sheets, their mouth and nose completely hidden, and looking so much like being cold, that after some years the Europeans themselves (sad effect of bad example!) end by persuading themselves that it is cold here in winter, and even catch a little cold here and there. The domestics also try then to obtain some cast-off garments, in which they wrap themselves up without any regard for aesthetics. The porter of the college, who may be recognized by his red skull-cap and small white band worn as a shoulder-belt, characteristic of the caste of Brahmins, asked Father Stochman last year for one of his old soutanes. A little bera (servant) strutted about the other day in his master's old paletot. The master is thirty-five, the bera seven. The meteurs (room sweepers, etc) cover themselves with everything: packing-linen, palliasses, etc., etc. The bossartchi (cooks) are the best off in winter; they keep themselves warm with their masters' wood. Now that you have my Indians more or less dressed, let us see how they act. The best way to do that will be to go in a palanquin from our college to the railroad station. If we arrive in time for the train, we shall make a little excursion as far as Serampore or even to Chandernagor. Here is the palanquin that is waiting for us at the door: it is a wooden box, about four feet long; two poles a little bent, and fastened one before, the other behind, seem to be the continuation of the axle of the parallelepiped (excuse the word: I teach geometry). Two individuals, clothed just so far as it is absolutely necessary, place themselves under the front pole, so as to lay it one over his right shoulder, the other over his left shoulder; they press one against the other, because union makes strength. Two other Indians similar to these do as much for the back pole; the palanquin is raised. I slide the doors sideways, seat myself on the edge, and with all the elegance given by gymnastic habit I dart in backwards. The bottom is a sort of mattrass, on which one lies down at full length: the shoulders are then supported by a back-cushion, the feet are in front; you cry Djas! and the four palki-bera start off. Usually, to mark the way, the most intelligent of the bearers throws out phrases of four or six syllables, in a very monotonous tone quite unknown in Europe; the other answers, repeating the phrase in the same tone. In town, they go at the rate of at least six miles an hour; in longer journeys they go more slowly. I have already made a journey of five leagues twice in this kind of box. The first was poetical enough. It was more than fifty leagues from Calcutta. We were three Europeans; a very light Frenchman (not in body, but in mind), an Irishman, and myself. The Frenchman had a considerable sum about him, and the country being in his opinion somewhat dangerous, he had brought to the starting station arms of every kind. I had with me in my palanquin a double-barrelled carabine, a case of ammunition, and a large hunting-knife. To prevent any one from robbing me of all this, I partly lay down on the carabine, made a pillow of the case, and slept with the sheath of my knife in one hand and the handle in the other. The Irishman, travelling on horseback, with pistols, served us as a scout; but his pistols did not prevent him from being struck on the face and arms by the greatest brigand in India: I mean the sun. He had his skin red for several days. For us, who were shaded in our palanquins, we had, of [{391}] course, no adventure; were it not that I dreamed sometimes of brigands and the Black Forest, crossing a vast desert plain, all white with light. So, when we came back the same way a fortnight after, we took with us no other fire-arms than a box of matches and cigars. But this is a digression; let us continue our journey. Daina péro! (turn to the right). It is not the ordinary way; but instead of passing by the broad European thoroughfare, Park street, we shall turn aside into the dark and winding passages of an Indian bazaar. A bazaar is a multitude of lanes, exclusively composed of miserable huts, and blocked up with all sorts of merchandise. You rarely meet any one there but men; the shop-girl and the "young lady" of the store are equally unknown here; but in it is found every form of misery. See there below that beggar of eighteen or twenty years, scarce half covered, and without even a rudiment, a shadow, of an arm. He is long and thin, but appears to be in good health. A French physician told me that, very probably, his parents cut off his arms when he was a child to secure him a livelihood. Whilst we are looking at him, a gigantic hand is thrust trough the opposite door of the palanquin. The fingers are as big as the arms of a two-year old child; they are long in proportion. That hand is soliciting alms. We raise ourselves up a little to see this needy giant, and our eyes fall on a wretched, emaciated Indian; the rest of his body can weigh but little more than his two hands, for the left is like unto the right. This case of hypertrophy is, I think, isolated here; but another very common one, which is met in every street, is Elephantiasis, hypertrophy of the legs. The unhappy creatures attacked by this malady have, from the knee to the end of the foot, one, or sometimes two, elephant's legs, cylindrical, enormous, and seeming to draw to them the nourishment of all the rest of the body. But here we are at the Meïdan, This is the name given to that immense esplanade on which stands Fort William, and which bounds the governor's palace, the city hall, the Protestant cathedral, the prison, the lunatic asylum, etc. Let us cross it in our palanquin, coasting along the river, and we shall soon reach the vicinity of the station. There we find ourselves besieged by the couli (a sort of porter) of every age. They claim the honor of carrying our travelling-bag fifty paces for a pais—about four centimes. Since we are there, before going any further, let us say a word of the couli. Some are in the service of the rich and of Europeans, others are for hire in the streets. The first are always men; amongst the second, there are many children: there are few of them very strong. Indeed, as a general rule, one European has the strength of several Bengalese. Both carry everything on their head, in a great hemispherical basket; there it is that they place the traveller's luggage or the provisions bought in the bazaar. A couli brought me one day two little birds which an Irishman had shot for me, and sent them to me from his residence, three leagues from Calcutta. The birds were in the large basket. On receiving them I wrote a few lines of thanks; the couli put the note in his basket. Here is another anecdote, for the truth of which I can certify. M. Moyne, a Frenchman settled in Chandernagor, had ordered his couli to convey some very heavy materials, of I know not what kind. He saw the poor devil bent under the burden, and as the journey was to be of several days' duration, he went to his carpenter and had him construct a wheelbarrow. That done, he comes back quite pleased with his good work, and, wheeling the barrow himself to the couli, gives it to him, shows him how to use it, and goes his ways satisfied that he has caused that man to make one step toward civilization. The pleasure he experiences at this [{392}] reflection induces him to turn round to enjoy his work. He turns, therefore, and sees the couli walking along, the barrow and the burden all on his head! We have met by the way a great number of Mohammedans, carrying on their back an enormous leather flask, and dripping wet. These are the bisthi, water-carriers. Every house has its own; for people here waste a great deal of water, and there are neither wells nor cisterns. The bisthi go and fill their leather flasks at the river or at the public reservoirs, which are to be found in almost all the large streets, and come and empty it into pitchers of the dimensions of a hogshead. It is filtered for drinking; for other uses it is merely left to settle. Those other individuals, a little cleaner, who carry on their head large bundles of linen, are dôbi, or washers. They wash the linen by soaking it in water, and then striking it with their whole strength against a plank or a stone. Happily, notwithstanding the American war, calico is not very dear here. You understand that in such a mode of washing it is roughly handled, and wears out before it is old. But why not teach the dôbi to wash in another way? Remember M. Moyne's wheelbarrow, when you ask that question! Mercy on us! whilst we are chatting so about the couli, the bisthi, and the dôbi, we are missing the train. Since it is gone, we shall do as others do who are left behind: we shall take a Hinghi, an Indian bark, long, curved, and without a keel. We shall find four or five Mohammedan mendjié (boatmen), one of whom steers with a long oar; the others row with bamboos as thick as one's arm, and terminated by small flat boards. Just as we enter, the crew are finishing their common prayer, in which, with many protestations and gesticulations, they thank God and the Prophet for having helped them to speed well heretofore, and asking them to help them the same for the future. Allah! Allah! mendjié row strong; if we arrive in time, you shall have two annas (30 centimes). What is this floating three paces from here? The body of a man lying on his back. And yonder? A woman's corpse. And further off? The carcass of a horse. The crows, the kites, the vultures, are much interested in it. But we are landing. The passengers on board the steamboat are not all landed yet. You see there perhaps forty, fifty European dresses, and hundreds of Indian. In the second-class car, which we enter, we shall see Indians in muslin, who are named babou (or townspeople) through politeness. They are clerks in the Calcutta offices; they reside several leagues from here, come every day to town, and return home by the railroad. The compact mass of the poor are penned up in wretched third-class cars. The bell rings, the whistle blows, we are off. Thirteen miles north of Calcutta in the third station, the first important one; we stop two minutes. Let us go down; we are at Serampore, an old Danish colony sold to England. We shall content ourselves there with a visit to the Hindoo gods, and we shall have enough to do if we see them all. There are, I think, more than fifty temples. Here is one that is no larger than one of the little wayside chapels we often see at home. At the further end, on a scaffold, is a god quite black, almost of human form, holding his two hands as though he were playing the flute. No flute is there, however. The god has the cut of a French conscript; at his feet there is a little woman a foot high, and a little god half a foot, an exact copy of the large one. The priest has observed us, and here he comes to speak to us. He is clad like the poorest of the Hindoos. What is your god's name? Answer unintelligible. Who are those two little personages? His wife and son. What does that god do? He eats. Indeed? Oh yes, sahib, he eats much. If you will give him some rice or flour he will be very thankful [{393}] to you, and it will be of great spiritual advantage to you. Oh! oh! but if we give him rice, will he eat it before us? Oh! of course not. He does not eat in company. I place the rice before him; I close the door carefully, and go away; when I come back some time after to open the door, he has it all eaten up. Thereupon we begin to laugh; the priest smiles, too, and we move away. You meet under almost every large tree four or five of these gods, or even a greater number. Over them the Indians hang cocoa-nuts, full of a water which escapes drop by drop, from a little hole bored in the bottom. It is thus that they keep their gods cool. You often see a regular series of little temples, built one after the other, on the same base. Usually, there are six on one side, six on the other. In the centre of each of them there is a black stone, fairly representing an anvil covered with a hat. That stone is a god. A great number of them are sold in Calcutta at from ten to twelve rupees a piece (twenty-five or thirty francs). But here is a temple of Kali, the terrible goddess of destruction, in honor of whom the sect of Togs has devoted itself to murder for ages long. They say there are still Togs who kill for killing's sake, especially in Bengal. The goddess is standing; she is almost black; has four arms armed with daggers and death's-heads; around her neck is a double necklace, which hangs to the ground, composed of hundreds of little figures also representing death's-heads. The best of it is that her tongue hangs down midway on her chest. To pull the tongue is a sign of astonishment in Bengal. Now Kali, returning one day from the war, with her chaplet of skulls round her neck, met a man, whom she naturally killed first and foremost. That is the dead body that lies under her feet. She asked the name of the individual, and was much surprised to find that she had killed her husband. Then she pulled her tongue, the best thing she could do. Having no other husband to kill, and even deprived recently of human sacrifices by the English government. Kali has enormous quantities of black kids sacrificed to her. I often see flocks of several hundreds of them coming into town; the votaries of Kali have their heads cut off at a celebrated temple we have here in Calcutta. For you must know, Calcutta signifies temple of Kali! I went one day to see these sacrifices. The temple is a small affair; but all around a great number of other gods, attracted, doubtless, by the scent of blood, come to establish their dwelling. Let us go on. That great straw shed which you see yonder covers an enormous car, having a great number of very heavy wheels. Many a man those wheels have crushed. It is the car of Juggernaut, that devil to whose festivals the English government sent European soldiers only a few years since; not to maintain order, but to take part in the procession. Djaghernatt (the Indian name of this idol) remains with Bolaraham and Soubâdhra, his brother and sister, in a temple opposite the straw shed. A great number of the Indian gods have a taste for moving about; hence those kiosks that you see everywhere, and which serve them as resting-places. The prettiest is the shade of a banyan-tree, with about a hundred stems, a whole wood in itself. But we must leave the Hindoo gods; we have barely time to pay a short visit to Chandernagor. Let us take the railroad again, and go on some minutes' ride further. Another time we shall, if you choose, come by water, ascending the Hoogly to twenty-one miles north of Calcutta. There, on the right bank of the broad river, is a strip of land two miles in length by one in breadth, where some sixty persons live in European style, with some thousands of Bengalese, who live in Indian fashion; it is the French colony. The Indian employés cry with all [{394}] their might "Chan'nagore! Chan'nagore!" Let us get down, and out of the terminus, and when we have crossed that ditch, ten paces before us, we shall be in France. As the centre of the European habitations is a quarter of an hour's walk from this point, we throw ourselves here into a four-seated carriage, and thread our way through roads wretchedly out of repair, at the risk of upsetting an hundred times, or of getting sea-sick by the way. I have often passed that place in company with Frenchmen; we endeavored to feel an impression, by humming "Vera les rives de France," etc. [Footnote 56] [Footnote 56: "Toward the shores of France," etc.] One day when I was making ready to brave those perilous roads in company with two Irishmen, there came into our carriage a large gentleman, whose weight would have been formidable to us, had I not managed to balance his pounds by my kilogrammes. [Footnote 57] By his appearance I took him for a Briton, and, therefore, took no pains to enter into conversation. But after a little, one of my Irishmen, annoyed by the jolting of the carriage, said to me in English: "Faith! these Frenchmen needn't boast of the way they keep these roads of theirs." At this remark, you should have seen my stout gentleman leap, and with a menacing air reply to my interlocutor: "I warn you to say nothing here against the French. I am a Frenchman." [Footnote 57: A kilogramme is equal to 2 lb. 3 oz. and 4 drms.] This was said in English. I had not yet opened my mouth. I thought I would appease my irascible fat man by speaking to him in his own tongue. "Come, come," said I, "no one here has any intention of laughing at the French." My man instantly drew in his horns, stammering three or four syllables which I could not understand. "Magical effect of the mother tongue!" thought I; and ten yards further on, in order to perfect a good understanding between us, I began again to address him in French on any subject that presented itself. He looked at me with mouth and eyes open. Supposing that he had not heard what I said, I repeated it. He was then forced to confess that he did not know a word of French; that he was an Irishman, an old soldier. In short, he was an original, well known in the country by his eccentricity, and styling himself the hero of 132 fights. Now retired from the service, he is writing his exploits in a little diary full of fun and humor. He detests England, loves France in general, and attacks all Frenchmen in particular. Once at his ease, after his candid confession, he took to chatting, and talked so much and so well that we forgot the jolting of the carriage, and even the lofty and magnificent trees that, fringe the road. After some winding about, and after passing a great number of Indian huts, and meeting hundreds of Hindoos loaded each with a great pitcher of water, here we are at last in a street. Rue de Paris, if you please: long and dirty, and ill aired; nothing remarkable; let us pass on. Rue Neuve, in ruins. Rue des Grands Escaliers, so narrow that the slightest staircase before a door would block it up completely. Let us go on, turn to the left, and here we are at the river side. Here all is large and wide—quay, river, houses, gardens. Without stopping now, let us go on immediately to the end of the quay, where we shall rest and refresh ourselves in a friendly house. It deserves that name in three ways, for, 1st, it was formerly the house of God, an ancient chapel of the Franciscans. An old plank yet to be seen there still bears the following inscription in French, nowise remarkable for good orthography: "This church is dedicated to St. Francis of Assissium." 2nd, It belongs to the venerable pastor, Father Chéroutre, who is now our neighbor at Bailloul. And, 3rd, It is occupied by M. Moyne of Lyons, one [{395}] of our old pupils, of whom I have already spoken to you. He stands on the threshold, and receives us with open arms. The Franciscans were formerly pastors at Chandernagor; this chapel served as parish church; their convent is now converted into a hotel. From one of its windows there is a magnificent and extensive view, thanks to the river and the level character of the ground. That square tower to the left is the guard-house; for there is here a French army, composed of thirty Indians, commanded by a European lieutenant. They pretend, but erroneously, that these thirty soldiers have but twenty uniforms amongst them, and that often, when the guard is relieved, the new comers enter, not only into the functions, but also into the clothes, of their comrades. It is a calumny of "perfidious Albion;" my information is certain. I have it from the general-in-chief. Close by is the police station. With their white tunics, their red pantaloons, these Indian policemen have very much the look of altar-boys. This fine house to the left is the house of the administrator, or, as he is styled by courtesy, the governor. Let us go in. We shall see this governor, a fat little man, born in the colonies. He will speak a little on everything, but especially on honor and the happiness, to him so rare, of receiving a visit from a man of learning. It is very unlucky that his lady has the influenza at this moment; for she is an astronomer, and had ever so many questions to ask me whatever day I should have accepted their invitation. Another time will do as well. The governor himself is a horticulturist; he has his garden kept in perfect order by Indian convicts, who drag the cannon ball along his walks. [Footnote 58] [Footnote 58: A military punishment.—TRANS. ] The sun is setting; let us go home. We shall see in the streets of Calcutta what is seen there every evening; dogs, fireworks, and marriages. The Bengal dog is a wretched and cowardly animal, long muzzled, red-haired; he barks little, but howls incessantly. Be very sure that he will assail us persistently in the lanes, as we pass now in the evening, distance being our only security against him. There are also in the country, and even in the city, a great number of paria dogs, that prowl around, especially by night; a species of wild beasts; not very dangerous, however, because of their cowardice. It is said that dogs of European race gradually degenerate here. Those rockets that you see going up from all points of the horizon are a daily amusement in which the Bengalese take much delight. There is scarcely ever a fire-work worth seeing; but there is fire, smoke, and crackers, and that suffices. Sometimes they send up little paper balloons, with a ball of lighted camphor, which burns a good quarter of an hour. But look yonder: is not that a fire? A bright light flashes on the tree-tops and on the European houses. No, it is not a fire; it is a marriage. The procession is turning the comer of the street; a score of Indians carry each on his head a plank, on which some fifty candles are burning; others carry resinous wood burning on the top of a long pole; in the centre of the procession trumpets, drums, large and small, pots and saucepans, produce a frightful din, each musician having no other rule than that of making the greatest possible noise. Behind the orchestra come one or two open palanquins containing the brides, around whom "blue lights" are lit from time to time. I defy you to form any correct idea of this cortège, and especially of the music. They go about thus from street to street for several hours; then they will eat rice to satiety, gorge themselves with Indian pastry, and to-morrow will not have a single sou. We see that from our terrace several times in the week, and, at certain seasons, every day. If I am not mistaken, I have said nothing yet of the character of these poor Indians. In this respect some reserve is necessary. I hear it said that there is very little resemblance between Bengal, Maduras, the Bombay territory, the Punjaub, etc. As for the Bengalese, all agree in regarding them as the most degraded; they are effeminate, idle, and cowardly by temperament; liars and thieves by education. They often dispute amongst themselves, but never fight. That cowardice encourages many Englishmen, who beat them at random when they have nothing else to do. My idea is that, unless miracles of grace be wrought for them, it is scarcely possible to make true Christians of these poor people. The only means of establishing Christianity amongst the race would be to buy their children, and bring them up, away from all contact with the others. There are Christians amongst them, who are oftenest found as cooks or kansama amongst the Europeans; but they know not the first rudiments of their religion, go to church only on Good Friday and All Souls' Day, and are generally admitted to be worse than the pagan servants. Our day is now ended. If you are fatigued, come and rest yourself on the college roof, constructed as a platform, like those of all the other houses in the country. There, evening and morning, but only then, the heat is bearable. I sometimes go and sit there to think of my friends. I look back into the past, forget the present, and, as I do everywhere else, laugh at what worldlings call the future. The future is heaven. It seems to me that I am nearer to it here than in Europe. May God grant us grace to gain it one day or another! T. CARBONNNELLE. "All thy works praise thee, O Lord." Christmas Eve had come. The bells of the high towers in majestic and solemn tones were reminding the faithful that the advent of the Lord was near. Here and there through the gathering darkness already glimmered a solitary taper, casting a feeble light upon the streets, where a throng of people, large and small, young and old, were moving to and fro with joyful activity, impatiently awaiting the hour when the treasures and splendor of the Christmas market should be opened to them. Good mothers were engaged in quietly and secretly baking the cakes and adorning the Christmas-tree for the children, and shared beforehand in the delights and surprises of the little ones, while others, who had perhaps chosen the best part, were preparing themselves in still devotion and pious meditation for the great festival. The young student of theology, Ernest Kuhn, was sitting in his little upper chamber, watching, with eyes full of deep affection and sympathy, his dear mother, who, after a confinement to her bed of several weeks, had been refreshed for the first time by a peaceful sleep. His countenance was lighted up with an expression of great interior joy, for on this day the physician had announced to him that his mother had safely passed through a perilous crisis, and that, with care, a speedy recovery might be expected. But he turned his eyes from his dear mother and looked upon the bare walls, which gave a speaking proof of the poverty of the inmates, then a cloud of sadness passed over his countenance, his young breast heaved heavily, as if oppressed by a weight of sorrow. The house-rent was due, the fire-wood was reduced to a few sticks, hardly enough to last two days, his little sister needed a new dress, his mother good strengthening nourishment, the apothecary's bill was to be paid, and where were the means to be found? Heavily and slowly he rose from his seat, as if standing would lighten his burdens, and cast his eyes thoughtfully around the apartment. "The tables and chairs," he said to himself in an under-tone, "are gone not to come back, the pictures too are sold, and the clock also; and now it is your turn, O my books! It cannot be helped; I have spared you for a long, long time." At these words he stood before the book-case and gazed on the few but good books by which he had so often been instructed and counselled, and which had remained with him in joy and in sorrow. Each of them was dear to him, associated with some dear remembrance either of joy or sorrow. Sad and wavering, he looked at them again and again, as if he could never part from them. At last, after long hesitation, he took down from the shelf a large bound volume; it was a Bible adorned with beautiful copper-plate engravings. "I can best spare you," he said sadly, "for I have two more in Greek and in Latin; I shall meet with the most ready sale and get the most money for you. My grandfather who is in heaven will forgive me this; I have other remembrances of him; Agnes will grieve and weep greatly for the beautiful Bible, but I think I can easily quiet her, and I can also give my mother a satisfactory explanation." He cast a sorrowful glance at the beautiful book which had afforded him so much enjoyment in his boyhood, and which was so much dearer to him as a memorial of his pious grandfather, long since dead, whom he held in great veneration. Then he thought of earlier and better times, of the present, so full of trouble, and of the blessed future, and his heart was heavy and his youthful breast heaved painfully. Then his eye fell as if by chance upon the open Bible, and he read: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." And he humbly kissed the consoling words, and a tear of sorrow but also of the firmest trust flowed down his cheek, and he turned his true and weeping eyes to heaven as if he would ask pardon of his Father for his faint-heartedness. He remembered how God had heard his earnest prayer, and restored his dear mother, how often he had helped him, and his heart became lighter, and hope once more began to dawn upon him. II. Suddenly the door opened, and his little sister Agnes, a child seven years old, ran in, joyfully holding up her little writing-book. "Look here, dear Ernest," she eagerly exclaimed, "only see how beautifully I have written to-day! That great A is very nice." "Softly, softly, you noisy little girl," said her brother, putting his hand over her mouth; "you will wake up mother!" Agnes hastened on tip-toe to her mother's bedside, softly kissed her white hand, and said beseechingly, as she watched her slumber, "Do not scold, dear brother, mother is sleeping so good!" Ernest smiled and told her that while he attended to some necessary business she must stay with their mother, and be very quiet and silent that she might not wake her; but that if she did awake she was to give her the warm broth upon the stove, and that the bread and butter for herself was on the window ledge. "Now be very quiet," he added, "for you know what the doctor said." The little girl assured him that he might trust her, but, added she, coaxingly, "When you come back, may I not go with dame Margaret to the Christmas market?" "That you shall," promised her brother. But Agnes clung to him, and full of pious simplicity, whispered in his ear: "If you meet the Christ-child in the street, tell him he must not forget me, but must look in here." The brother embraced the little girl with a sad smile, and casting an affectionate glance upon his mother, left the room. III. Ernest had only to turn the corner of the little street to find the shop of Höss, the antiquary, who had before bought many a book of him, and to whom he intended to offer the Bible. With a beating heart (for Höss was a rough, purse-proud man) Ernest entered the shop, which was crowded with books, maps, and pictures. He greeted the antiquary, who was busy writing, in a friendly manner, but there was a pretty long pause before he took any notice of him. "Ah! it is you, Master Studious," he exclaimed, raising his cap in a stately manner, "what good thing brings you to me?" "Something beautiful and good indeed," replied Ernest "See here, you must buy this of me." "Always buying," said the antiquary; "when will you begin to buy of me? I don't like to deal with you. Look at your pictures, that I bought of you three weeks ago, and for which I paid more than they were worth on account of your destitute condition; no one will buy them of me; my good nature played me a trick that time. It shall not happen again, Master Studious." "How can you say this, Mr. Höss?" [{399}] replied Ernest, greatly disgusted; "did you not have them for a trifle, and was not I present eight days since when you refused double of what you gave for them, when it was offered you?" "You heard wrong," replied the antiquary, displeased and ashamed, "let me see your articles." With evident pleasure he turned over the leaves of the book, and looked at the beautiful and delicately executed engravings. "Not so bad," thought he. "It is a pity that I have already more than enough of such trash, as you can see for yourself if you will look at those shelves. I will take it, however, on account of my regard for you and your mother, if you don't set your mark too high." "Only give me," begged Ernest, "the fourth part of what it first cost." "And what was that?" "Six florins, Mr. Hoss." "You are sharp indeed, young master! Six florins in these hard times! Such are our young people now-a-days," grumbled the old man. "Only look at the beautiful pictures, so skilfully and clearly engraved; I am sure it would bring you double and treble the price you give for it." "What do you know of all this, Master Studious? I will give you three florins and not a penny more, and this only out of pure kindness." "If you have that, give me more," earnestly pleaded the young man; "think of my mother's sickness and our poverty." "Is it my fault that your mother is poor and sick?" sneered the miser; "why have you not made yourself rich if poverty is so disagreeable to you? Take your book, or the three florins, whichever you please. Master Studious; only be quick, for I have something else to do beside listening to your whining." It was as if a two-edged sword had pierced the heart of the deeply distressed young man. He suddenly seized the book; then he thought of his sick mother, and their extreme need at home, and he strongly checked the rising words of his just anger. "Take the book, then," he said, with a look and tone in which the indignation of his deeply wounded spirit spoke forth—"take it, but you have not dealt with me as a Christian should deal with a Christian; may God be more merciful to you in your dying hour than you are now to me." And with these words he hastened from the shop, and he heard a scornful laugh behind him. IV. He went forth into the street with burning sorrow rankling in his wounded breast. The December air blew sharp and cold over his glowing cheeks—he felt it not. People were talking loud and merrily as they moved up and down the lighted streets, but he heard them not. Sunk in despondency, he stood motionless in the night air, leaning against the corner of a house. Never before had he been so wretched. His spirit was stirred by an indescribable feeling of bitterness, which threatened to destroy the happiness of his life. In mild solemn tones the bells sounded anew, and awakened in his soul the remembrance of him who brought, and is ever bringing to us all, redemption, help, and consolation; he called to mind the words of Christ which he a short time before had read, and which had so wonderfully cheered him; he thought of the resolution he had this day formed, of his dear mother, of whose entire recovery he had now so lively a hope. Then he took courage, walked down the street, and went to the shop of the apothecary Kremer. V. The apothecary, a kind, cordial-hearted man, greeted Ernest in a friendly way as he entered with a "God be with you. Master Theologus. You want the medicine for your [{400}] mother? Here it is; and how is the good woman?" "Thanks be to God," replied Ernest joyfully, "she is out of danger; but dear Herr Kremer," added he in an under-tone, '"I cannot pay you this time; oh! be so good as to bear with me a little longer." "Have I ever asked anything of you?" said the apothecary; "do not trouble yourself. I am right glad that your mother is better; I knew she would recover. But you yourself look so pale and weak! what has happened to you?" Then Ernest, encouraged by the kindness of the cordial-hearted man, related to him how scornfully and hardly the antiquary had dealt with him. "Yes, yes," said the apothecary angrily, "that is the way with this covetous man; I have known him from his youth; it was his pleasure as a schoolboy to torment us, and, whenever he could, to cheat us. But do not let this disturb you; sit down at the table out yonder near the stove," he continued kindly; "after this vexation a drop of wine will not harm you." Saying this he opened a cupboard, took down a bottle of wine and a tart, and with good-natured haste filled the glass. Ernest hardly knew what all this meant. "Oh, sir," he exclaimed, greatly surprised, "how have I merited such great kindness?" "You are a brave son, and have acted honorably toward your mother, and for that I esteem you highly; so drink, drink!" insisted the kind old man. "I wish my mother was here in my place," said the good son; "the wine would do her good." "Do not let that trouble you," answered the apothecary, deeply moved; "your mother shall not be forgotten, and your little sister shall not go without her share; and now eat and drink to your heart's desire." The kindness of the cordial-hearted old man made Ernest's meal a happy one; new life flamed through his veins with the wine, his cares began to lessen, and he felt himself wonderfully refreshed. For a long time he had not been so light-hearted. Meanwhile the old man, whose joy was heartfelt at seeing how much the young student relished his little repast, had taken down a second bottle of wine from the cupboard, and had made up a parcel of bonbons and candy for his little sister. "The wine," said he to Ernest, "is for your mother, and this parcel for your little sister." "How can I repay you for all your kindness to us?" asked Ernest, overpowered with joy and gratitude. "Oh! that is of no importance," answered the apothecary laughing; "it is Christmas eve, when the Lord visits all his children, and you have been a very good child." "May God reward you for the love you have shown us," said Ernest with emotion; "my mother and I have nothing but thanks and prayers to return you." "Give me the last, dear young man," answered the apothecary, "and invite me to your first. Remember me to your mother, and freely ask me for whatever you need. Farewell." With a heart full of gratitude Ernest pressed die offered hand of the old man to his heart, took the presents and hastened home. VI. Cheered and warmed, refreshed in body and spirit, he entirely forgot the hard-hearted antiquary. He entertained himself as he went along with the pleasing surprise he should give his mother and sister, when they saw the good things he brought them, and raising his eyes to heaven in gratitude he exclaimed, "Father, there are some good men still!" When he reached home he found his mother still asleep, his little sister trying to darn his old socks, but, as yet wholly unpractised in the art of patching, she [{401}] more than once pricked her little fingers till they bled. "Is it you, dear brother?" she asked affectionately. "Mother has not waked yet; I have been very good and still." "For this the little Christ-child has given me something for you," said her brother, as he came toward her smiling; "he sends you his kind greeting, and tells you to study well, never forget to pray, and love him always!" Agnes quickly opened the parcel, and, surprised and delighted, beheld the bonbons, the sugared almonds, and the gingerbread. A flush of joy lighted up her pretty features, and for some time she could not find words to speak. "Oh, brother, only see how good the Christ-child is! Yes, yes, I will indeed love him, and study and pray hard, that our Heavenly Father and the good infant Jesus may be pleased with me." Her brother smiled, moved by her pious joy, but just at this moment dame Margaret, their good old neighbor, came in, who had shown every kindness and attention to Ernest's mother during her illness. With joy he told her the happy news of her recovery; the delighted little Agnes spread out her sugar-plums and gingerbread, and cordially invited her to take some. But Margaret thought her teeth were not good enough. "But come," said she, "when you are ready we will go to the Christmas market." "May I go, brother?" asked Agnes. "Yes, indeed you may, only come home in time," said he; '"and be so good, dame Margaret, as to keep watch upon the little girl." "Have no fear, Master Ernest," she replied, "for you know I love her as if she were my own child." VII. Dame Margaret took her way along the street leading to the Christmas market—holding the Agnes by hand, who every now and then urged her to make greater haste. From the deep blue sky the stars poured down their pale silver light upon the dazzling fresh-fallen snow. Crowds of people were hurrying up and down, talking merrily, or, divided into groups, stood gazing eagerly and curiously upon the bright display of the fair. Bright lights were burning in the stands and shops of the tradesmen, displaying all their treasures to the astonished eye. Here peeped out the pleasant, friendly faces of dolls with waxen heads, dressed after the newest fashion in little hoods or Florence hats, while others stood more retired, like ladies and gentlemen, splendidly wrapped in cloaks and furs, as if they feared the cold. A varied medley of hussars in rich embroidered uniform hung there; huntsmen with, rifle and pouch, chimney-sweeps and Tyrolese, hermits and friars, Greeks near their mortal enemies the Turks, and Moors, standing peacefully side by side. The plashing fish swam round in a glass panel, whilst close by stood a dark oak-wood case, in which leaden bears and stags were seized by hounds and hunters of the same metal. Elsewhere was a whole regiment of bearded grenadiers, arranged in stiff array, with Turkish music. A frightful fortress, with paper walls and wooden cannon, frowned next a kitchen where was to be seen the pretty sight of cook, hearth, pans, spits, plates, etc. Here sweetmeats, choice pastry, tarts, chocolate, almonds, gingerbread, etc., excited in many a dainty palate long desire and hard temptation. Golden apples gleamed forth from dark leaves, nuts rattled in silver bowls, while in another place low cribs, with water, mountain, and valley, herds and herdsmen, with angels in the air and on the earth, sweetly represented the new-born child lying in the cradle, carefully watched by Mary and Joseph. Little Agnes gazed with delighted eyes upon all this splendor, and often laid her tender hand upon her youthful breast, as if to repress its longings [{402}] and sounds escaped her lips which only too plainly expressed the joy of her heart. But at length dame Margaret thought it was time to go home. "Do let us first go to find Herr Höss," begged Agnes, "his crib is always the prettiest," and laughing good-naturedly she drew the obliging Margaret along with her to the antiquary. They found him occupied in attending upon an elderly lady. Did Agnes see aright? Did her eyes deceive her? "Yes, yes," she suddenly exclaimed in great distress, "it is my Bible, my dear picture-book!" and in a moment she released herself from Margaret and ran up to the lady. "Oh, dear lady," cried she, eagerly, "do not buy it; you cannot, you must not buy it; that book belongs to me!" The lady looked at the little girl in great astonishment. "What are you dreaming of, you silly little thing?" grumbled the antiquary, vexed at the unwelcome interruption. "It is mine; I bought it, and at a high price." "That cannot be, dear sir," earnestly protested the little girl. "I beg you give me back my picture-book; I will give you all the money I have," and saying this she drew out her little purse, which contained, alas! only four pennies, her little savings. "Take it," said she, "only give me my picture-book." "Oh! you little sharper," said the antiquary jeeringly, "that would be a great profit; I have paid more florins for it than you have pennies." "I beg you, for heaven's sake," sobbed Agnes, with folded hands and tears streaming from her blue eyes. "I tell you, upon my honor, it belongs to me; only see, there is my name on the title-page, which my brother wrote there in Latin letters." The lady turned the leaf over and read aloud, "Frederic Schein!" "Frederic Schein?" exclaimed suddenly a loud voice, with evident emotion, and a slender, manly figure wrapped in a cloak, from beneath which glistened a richly embroidered huntsman's uniform, pressed through the circle which curiosity had formed around Agnes and the antiquary. "Frederic Schein?" again he exclaimed, and looked greatly agitated upon the book. "Permit me, noble lady?" he asked, and hastily seized the offered Bible. "Good heavens! my suspicions were right, it is my father's Bible!" and suddenly turning to the little girl: "What is thy family and baptismal name?" "Agnes Kuhn," answered Agnes, greatly terrified. "Is your mother's name Sophia?" he asked urgently and eagerly. "Yes," answered the child, "my mother's name is Sophia, and my brother's Ernest." "Thanks be to God, a thousand thanks!" fervently exclaimed the tall man, with deep emotion, and ardently pressed Agnes to his heart. "Agnes," he cried, "I am your uncle; your mother is my sister. Oh! take me to her." Agnes, looking at him with astonishment, asked: "Are you my uncle Frank, of whom my mother has so often told me? Oh! if you are my uncle Frank," said she coaxingly, "do buy the Bible for me! and then I will take you to my mother." Her uncle kissed the little girl, and gave her the book. "I will take the book, sir," said he, "at any price;" and the antiquary made him a very low bow. When the bargain was concluded, the tall huntsman moved quickly through the circle of astonished spectators, leading the little Agnes, who joyfully pressed the precious picture-book to her heart. Margaret followed, lost in astonishment. VIII. While these things were taking place at the fair, and Agnes unexpectedly had found the Bible and her uncle, Ernest sat by the bedside of his mother, enjoying her slumber, which was to him the sweet pledge of [{403}] her recovery. Before him lay open the histories of Holy Writ, and with deep emotion he was reading what the Lord in his infinite love and mercy had done for sinful men, and how he had sent them his only begotten Son to redeem and console them, whose birth-day was now to be joyfully celebrated throughout Christendom. He had just looked at the fire in the stove, and poured fresh oil into the expiring lamp, when his mother awoke, and cast a kind, affectionate glance upon her good son. "Oh, mother," cried he joyfully, "what a good sleep you have had; you have been asleep seven whole hours!" "Yes, I have slept soundly," answered she, "and find myself greatly strengthened. But what has become of Agnes?" "I let her go with dame Margaret to the Christmas fair; it is almost time for her to come back." "Ah! it grieves me to the heart," sighed his mother, "that I cannot give you both a little Christmas gift, as I used to do." "Don't be distressed on that account, dear mother," said Ernest, soothingly; "you are out of danger, and that is the most beautiful and best Christmas gift that could be bestowed on us. But the Christ-child has not forgotten us," and he handed his mother the bottle of wine and the biscuit. "Where in all the world did this come from?" asked his astonished mother. Ernest now related how he had sold the Bible to the antiquary (whose unkind treatment he concealed from his mother lest it should disturb her) for three florins, and how he had called on the apothecary, who had so hospitably received him, so kindly remembered his mother and little sister, and had promised not only a larger credit, but every kind of aid. His mother could not find words to praise and thank their benefactor. When Ernest wrapped up the biscuit again as his mother directed, he remarked upon the cover the hand-writing and name of the apothecary, and had the curiosity to open the whole paper. Who can describe his surprise and emotion when he found the wrapper was a receipt in full, signed by the apothecary, for the eight florins and thirty pence due to him for medicines delivered. "God bless our noble benefactor!" prayed his mother with folded hands. But Ernest shouted, "Mother, we are now relieved of a great care!" IX. Dame Margaret just then entered with an unusually quick step, and with a countenance evidently announcing good tidings, but without little Agnes. "Where have you left my Agnes?" inquired the mother anxiously. "Do not trouble yourself about her; she will soon come, and not alone either. She is bringing an old acquaintance of yours with her!" "An old, dear acquaintance?" "Yes, and from your native place, too." "From my native place?" asked the mother eagerly. "He declares that he is very nearly related to you; and he does look very much like you." "How does he look?" asked the mother urgently. "He is tall and slender, with black eyes and black hair, and a scar over his brow; he looks to me like a huntsman." "Great God! is it possible? can it be my brother?" "Yes, it is he," cried the huntsman, as he entered and offered his hand to his astonished sister. From the arms of his sister he hastened to embrace his manly nephew, while the joyful Agnes, with the Bible in her arms, now ran up to her mother, now [{404}] to her uncle, and then to her brother, who beheld the book with astonishment, and began faintly to suspect what happened. When the first tempest of delight had subsided, and given place to a more quiet though not less deep joy, question crowded upon question, and answer upon answer. The uncle first related how after the marriage of his sister he had entered into the service of the Count of Maxenstein as upper game-keeper; how he had often tried to obtain intelligence of his dear sister; twice had taken a journey himself to their native place, and could learn nothing of her; how he had searched all the newspapers; and at length, when all means and efforts had failed, how be sorrowfully gave up the hope of ever seeing her again. Then he told her how he had come to this place on business for the count, his master; had visited the Christmas fair and the stall of the antiquary, and had there unexpectedly found his father's Bible and Agnes, and through them his sister and nephew. Then affectionately clasping Ernest by the hand he begged his sister to relate her history. "My history," she replied, "is short, and yet varied with many sorrows that the Lord has laid upon me. You knew that my husband left his native place to seek a better living in Eichstadt. But in this he was deceived. Then, in spite of my entreaties, he entered the French service as surgeon, and came to Saarlouis, where his regiment lay in garrison. Soon after his arrival a malignant fever broke out among the soldiers, which carried away great numbers, and among them my husband. God give him his kingdom," said she drying her tears. "His death was the more dreadful for me, because I was alone in a foreign land without friends or help, and had but just risen from my bed after the birth of Agnes. In my need I wrote several letters to you and to our relatives at Settenberg, but received no answer. At first I thought this was caused by irregularities of the post-route, which was everywhere embarrassed by the disturbances of the war; but I soon learned, to my great sorrow, that our Settenberg had been sacked and burned by the French. Imagine, my dear brother, my condition! What a happiness for me that, some months after the death of my husband, an old aunt of his made me the offer to go to her, and she would support me as well as she was able. I was not terrified by the length of the way, and received from her a cordial welcome. But, alas! this happiness was not long to last. My good aunt died, leaving me her heir, but she had other relations who disputed the will, and, after a law-suit of three years' continuance, an agreement was made by which most of the property fell into the hands of the judges and lawyers. Hardly a fourth part of it remained after the costs were paid. I had nothing now but care and trouble; but I ever found a firm support in my dear Ernest. May God reward him! But now, dear brother, now, if I only have you, again all care will be over." And the good woman, deeply affected, pressed his hand. "Oh, my dear ones!" cried he, after listening to his sister's narrative with lively sympathy, "let us all thank our Heavenly Father that he has to-day brought us all together again, in so wonderful a manner, by means of this book; for I had already determined to leave this place in the morning." Ernest related how hard it had been for him to part with the precious book, how he had been encouraged by the passage in Matthew, what mean treatment he had met with from the antiquary, and how he had almost made up his mind to take back the book with him. Little Agnes, on her side, thought it had been no very easy matter to bring dame Margaret to the antiquary, and she had gone through trouble and [{405}] terror enough "until the Christ-child sent my uncle." He pressed the little one to his heart, but she seized him fast by the hand, and coaxingly begging him, said: "Now uncle, you never will go away; you will stay with us?" "How could I leave you so soon, my dear ones, just as I have found you again? No, no, we will never separate; we will always remain together," cried the uncle. "You must go with me to Peinegg, sister, where I am head-forester; it is a beautiful and splendid place there, and I have everything in abundance." "With you and my children I would go to the ends of the earth," said she cheerfully. Then Ernest, upon a hint from his mother, brought out the bottle of wine and the biscuit, and offered them to his uncle. A slight meal, prepared in haste by dame Margaret, seasoned with cheerful conversation, enlivened the evening, to which Ernest and his mother had looked forward only a few hours before with such pain and anxiety. Joy and deep satisfaction lighted every countenance, but the mother said with deep feeling: "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." "Amen," responded the uncle, devoutly raising his eyes to heaven. Ernest and Agnes wept tears of joy and gratitude. X. It was not long before their mother was entirely recovered and accompanied her beloved brother to Peinegg, where he arranged everything in a manner to make her life agreeable. It may easily be imagined that the Bible was not forgotten. Every Christmas evening was passed with far more festivity and joy than the evening which united again the long separated. At the end of two years Ernest celebrated his first mass at Peinegg. The good apothecary was invited to be present, and esteemed this day as the happiest of his life. Sixteen years after, Ernest was established as parish priest at Peinegg, where he still exercises his holy office with extraordinary zeal. When a voice from the thirteenth century comes to us amid the din of the nineteenth, it is difficult for those interested in the cause of human progress not to feel their attention strongly challenged. Such a voice appeals to us in a work which has now first appeared in an English version. [Footnote 59] [Footnote 59: "The Life and Revelations of St. Gertrude, Virgin and Abbess." By a Religious of the Order of Poor Clares.] We owe it to a religious of the order of Poor Clares; a daughter of St. Francis thus paying to St. Benedict a portion of that debt which all the religious orders of the West owe to their great patriarch. The book possesses a profound interest, and that of a character wholly apart from polemics. The thirteenth century, the noblest of those included in the "ages of faith," was a troubled time; but high as the contentions of rival princes and feudal chiefs swelled, we have here a proof that "Birds of calm sat brooding on the charmèd wave." Not less quieting is the influence of [{406}] such records in our own time. They make their way—music being more penetrating than mere sound—amid the storm of industrialism and its million wheels. Controversialists may here forget their strifes, and listen to the annals of that interior and spiritual life which is built up in peace and without the sound of the builder's hammer, much less of sword or axe. There is here no necessary or direct contest between rival forms of belief. Monasteries have been pulled down and sold in Catholic as well as in Protestant countries; and in the latter also are to be found men whose highest aspiration is to rebuild them, and restore the calm strength and sacred labors which they once protected. Such books are not so much a protest against any age as the assertion of those great and universal principles of truth and peace which can alone enable each successive age to correct its errors, supply its defects, and turn its special opportunities to account. It is not in a literary point of view that they interest us chiefly, although they include not a little which reminds us of Dante, and reveal to us one of the chief sources from which the great Christian poet drew his inspiration. Their interest is mainly human. They show us what the human being can reach, and by what personal influences, never more potent than when their touch is softest, society, in its rougher no less than in its milder periods, is capable of being moulded. The "Revelations of St. Gertrude" were first translated into Latin, as is affirmed, by Lamberto Luscorino in 1390. This work was, however, apparently never published; and the first Latin version by which they became generally known was that put forth under the name of "Insinuationes Divinae Pietatis," by Lanspergius, who wrote at the close of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century. The work has appeared in several of the modern languages; but the French translation, by which it has hitherto been chiefly known among us, has many inaccuracies. The present English translation has been carefully made from the Latin of Lanspergius and the original is frequently quoted in the foot-notes. The "Insinuationes" consist of five books. Of these the second only came from the hand of the saint, the rest being compiled by a religious of her monastery, partly from personal knowledge and partly from the papers of St. Gertrude. Two works by the saint, her "Prayers" and her "Exercises," have lately appeared in an English version. St. Gertrude was born at Eisleben, in the county of Mansfield, on the 6th of January, 1263, just sixty-nine years after the birth of St. Clare, the great Italian saint from whose convent at Assisi so many others had already sprung in all parts of Europe, and whose name had already become a living power in Germany and Poland, as well as in the sunny south. [Footnote 60] St. Gertrude was descended from an illustrious house, that of the Counts of Lackenborn. When but five years old she exchanged her paternal home for the Benedictine Abbey of Rodersdorf, where she was soon after joined by her sister, afterward the far-famed St. Mechtilde. When about twenty-six she first began to be visited by those visions which never afterward ceased for any considerable time. At thirty she was chosen abbess; and for forty years she ruled a sisterhood whom she loved as her children. The year after she became abbess she removed with her charge to another but neighboring convent, that of Heldelfs. No other change took place in her outward lot. Her life lay within. As her present biographer remarks, "she lived at home with her Spouse." [Footnote 60: An interesting life of this saint and of her earlier companions has lately been published in English: "St. Clare, St. Colette, and the Poor Clares: by a Religions of the Order of Poor Clares." J. F. Fowler, Dublin.] The visions of St. Gertrude are an endless parable of spiritual truths, as well as a record of wonderful graces. From the days when our divine Lord himself taught from the hillside and [{407}] the anchored ship, it has been largely through parables that divine lore has been communicated to man. Religious and symbolic art is a parable of truths that can only be expressed in types. The legends through which the earlier ages continue to swell the feebler veins of later times with the pure freshness of the Church's youth are for the most part facts which buried themselves deep in human sympathies and recollections, because in them the particular shadowed forth the universal. It is the same thing in philosophy itself; and that Philosophia Prima which, as Bacon tells us, discerns a common law in things as remote as sounds are from colors, and thus traces the "same footsteps of nature" in the most widely separated regions of her domain, finds constantly in the visible and familiar a parable of the invisible and unknown. The very essence of poetry also consists in this, that not only in its metaphors and figures, but in its whole spirit, it is a parable, imparting to material objects at once their most beautiful expression and that one which reveals their spiritual meaning. So long as the imagination is a part of human intellect, it must have a place in all that interprets between the natural and the spiritual worlds. The following characteristic passage, while it shows that St. Gertrude made no confusion between allegory and vision, yet suggests to us that so poetical a mind might, under peculiar circumstances, be more easily favored with visions than another: "Whilst thou didst act so lovingly toward me, and didst not cease to draw my soul from vanity to thyself, it happened on a certain day, between the festival of the resurrection and the ascension, that I went into court before prime, and seated myself near the fountain; and I began to consider the beauty of the place, which charmed me on account of the clear and flowing stream, the verdure of the trees which surrounded it, and the flights of the birds, and particularly of the doves—above all, the sweet calm—apart from all, considering within myself what would make this place most useful to me, I thought it would be the friendship of a wise and intimate companion, who would sweeten my solitude or render it useful to others; when thou, my Lord and my God, who art a torrent of inestimable pleasures, after having inspired me with the first impulse of this desire, thou didst will also to be the end of it; inspiring me with the thought that if by my continual gratitude I return thy graces to thee, as a stream returns to its source; if, increasing in the love of virtue, I put forth, like the trees, the flowers of good works; furthermore, if, despising the things of earth, I fly upward, freely, like the birds, and thus free my senses from the distraction of exterior things, my soul would then be empty, and my heart would be an agreeable abode for thee" (p. 76). If in this passage we see how the natural yearning for sympathy and companionship may rise into the heavenly aspirations from which mere nature would divert the heart, we find in the following one a type of that compensation which is made to unreserved loyalty. The religion of the incarnation gives back, in a human as well as a divine form, all that human instincts had renounced. "It was on that most sacred night in which the sweet dew of divine grace fell on all the world, and the heavens dropped sweetness, that my soul, exposed like a mystic fleece in the court of the sanctuary, having received in meditation this celestial rain, was prepared to assist at this divine birth, in which a Virgin brought forth a Son, true God and man, even as a star produces its ray. In this night, I say, my soul beheld before it suddenly a delicate child, but just born, in whom were concealed the greatest gifts of perfection. I imagined that I received this precious deposit in my bosom" (p. 85). One of the chief tests as to the divine origin of visions consists in their tending toward humility; for those [{408}] which come from a human or worse than human source tend to pride. The humility of St. Gertrude was profound as the purity of which humility is the guardian was spotless. "One day, after I had washed my hands, and was standing at the table with the community, perplexed in mind, considering the brightness of the sun, which was in its full strength, I said within myself, 'If the Lord who has created the sun, and whose beauty is said to be the admiration of the sun and moon; if he who is a consuming fire is as truly in me as he shows himself frequently before me, how is it possible that my heart continues like ice, and that I lead so evil a life?'" (p. 106). There can be no stronger argument in favor of the supernatural origin of St. Gertrude's visions than their subjects. The highest of her flights, far from carrying her beyond the limits of sound belief, or substituting the fanciful for the fruitful, but bears her deeper into the heart of the great Christian verities. She soars to heaven to find there, in a resplendent form, the simplest of those truths which are our food upon earth. As the glorified bodies of the blessed will be the same bodies which they wore during their earthly pilgrimage, so the doctrines, "sun-clad," in her "Revelations" are still but the primary articles of the Creed. Her special gift was that of realization: what others admitted, she believed; what others believed, she saw. It was thus that she felt the co-presence of the supernatural with the natural, the kingdom of spirit not to her being a future world, but a wider circle clasping a smaller one. From this feeling followed her intense appreciation of the fact that all earthly things have immediate effect on high. If a prayer is said on earth, she sees the scepter in the hand of the heavenly King blossom with another flower; if a sacrament is worthily received, the glory on his face flashes lightning round all the armies of the blessed. That such things should be seen by us may well seem wonderful; that they should exist can appear strange to no one who realizes the statement, that when a sinner repents there is joy among the angels in heaven. A vision, from which we learn the belief of one of God's humblest creatures that something was lost to his honor by her compulsory absence from choir, but that he was more than compensated for the loss by the holy patience with which she submitted to illness (p. 180), is not more wonderful than the fact that God's glory should be our constant aim, or that God should have joy in those that love him. The marvel is, that the saint was always believing what we profess to believe. She lived in an everlasting jubilee of divine and human love: it was always to her what a beaming firmament might be to one who for the first time had walked up out of a cave. She was ever seeing in visible types the tokens of a transcendent union between God and man —a deification, so to speak, of man in heaven. Is this more wonderful than the words that bow the foreheads and bend the knees of the faithful, "He was made man?" If such things be true, the wonder is, not that a few saints realize them, living accordingly in contemplation and in acts of love, but that a whole world should stand upon such truths as its sole ground of hope, and yet practically ignore them. Neither in ordinary Christian literature nor in the ordinary Christian life do we find what might have been anticipated eighteen centuries ago by those who then first received the doctrines of the incarnation and the communion of saints. How many have written as if Christianity were merely a regulative principle, introduced to correct the aberrations of natural instincts! Yet even under the old dispensation the sacred thirst of the creature for the Creator was confessed: "As longeth the hart for the water-springs, so longeth my soul after thee, O Lord." The royal son of the [{409}] great Psalmist had sang in the Book of Canticles the love of the Creator for the creature. What might not have been expected from Christian times! How much is not actually found in all those Christian writings the inspiration of which, in the highest sense of the word, is de fide! How supernatural at once and familiar is that divine and human relationship set forth by our Lord in his parables! What closeness of union! what omnipotence of prayer! Some perhaps might say, "If our Lord were visibly on earth as he was during the thirty-three years, then indeed the closeness of intercourse between him and his own would be transcendent." But the exact contrary is the fact. The closest intercourse is in the spirit, and apart from all that is sensual; the sense is a hindrance to it. So long as he was visibly with them, the affection of the apostles themselves for their Lord was too material to be capable of its utmost closeness. Even earthly affections are perfected by absence, and crowned by death. Till they are purified by the immortalizing fire of suffering, sense clings to the best of them more than we know; not by necessity corrupting them, but limiting, dulling, depressing, and depriving them of penetration and buoyancy. While he was with them, the apostles sometimes could not understand their Master's teaching—where to the Christian now it seems plain—and replied to it by the words, "Be it far from thee!" When the feast of Pentecost was come, they loved him so that they did not fear to die for him; but they no longer so loved him as to see in him but the restorer of a visible Israel, and to lament his death. But this Pentecost has continued ever since in the Christian Church! What, then, was to be expected except a fulfilment of the earlier promises: "I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh;" and as a natural consequence of perfected love, the development of the spiritual sight: "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy; your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions" (Joel ii. 28)? Such was the condition of that renewed world for which the apostles wrote, and to which they promised the spiritual gift and the hidden life. More plainly than the Jewish king they proclaimed that the union between the Creator and the creature was no dream, but that the servants of sense and pride were dreamers; and, in words like a musical echo from the canticle of Canticles, they affirmed that between Christ and his Church there exists a union, the nearest type of which is to be found in the bridal bond. This was the doctrine that made the world in which St. Gertrude lived. The clear-sighted will see that the charges brought against her and her Church are charges brought against the Bible no less. But all is not said when it is affirmed that the ascetics, like the apostles, enjoyed a closer union with their Lord in his spirit because he had withdrawn his visible presence from the earth. Sense may separate those whom it seems to unite; but there is a nearness notwithstanding, which has no such paradoxical effect. No one can even approach the subject of the visions of the saints unless he duly appreciates the real presence, not only as a doctrine, but in its practical effects. The saints had a closeness to their Lord denied to the Jewish prophets. He was absent as regards visibility; but he was present in the blessed eucharist. If the absence made the love more reverential, the presence made it more vivid. A large proportion of the visions of the saints were connected with the blessed sacrament. In it the veil was not lifted; but the veiled nearness quickened that love which perfects faith. To sense all remained dark; but the spirit was no longer enthralled by sense, and it conversed with its deliverer. There are those who could not be happy if they did not believe that the [{410}] world abounds in persona nobler than themselves. There are others who are affluent but in cavils. The visions of saints must, according to them, be illusory, because they are not demonstrably divine! But are the ordinary graces of Christians distinguished from illusions by demonstration? Is penitence, or humility, or simplicity demonstrable? Do we believe that nothing is an object of prayer, or an occasion for thanksgiving, till it is proved to be such? Those who know that religion has its vast theological region of certainty know also that there exists an outward region in which, though credulity is an evil, yet needless contentiousness is the note of a petty mind. Or the visions must be fabulous, because the caviller does not understand the mode of spiritual operation to which they are referable! But how much do we know as to the separate or joint action of our bodily, intellectual, and moral powers? We believe in results; but we understand little of processes. The only visions received as de fide are those recorded in the Holy Scriptures. Do we know by what process even these came to exist? Were they external manifestations, such as, if shown to two persons, must have worn for both the same semblance; or may they have had an existence only within the mind of the seer? Is not the real question this—whether or not they had a divine origin; not whether he who sent them worked on the mind from without, or stimulated its action from within? In this case the visions of some event—such as the crucifixion—possessed by two different saints, might not have been the less authentic although different from each other in some particulars. Who can say to what extent habitual grace may not determine the action of the imaginative faculty, as of other faculties, so as to produce vision in one man while it produces prudence or wisdom in another? That grace acts on the mind as well as on the heart no one will deny, since some of the gifts of the Holy Ghost are of an intellectual order, and it is through spiritual discernment that we understand religious truth. It seems, indeed, but natural to suppose that grace should operate on the imagination, and thus counterwork the seductions by which an evil power assails that faculty—a form of temptation often, but not consistently, insisted on by those who scoff at visions. If this be granted, then, as we can neither measure the different degrees in which grace is granted, and increased by co-operation, nor ascertain the intellectual shape and proportions of those to whom it is accorded, who can affect to determine to what extent that grace may not suffice, in some cases, to produce vision, even when accorded mainly for other purposes? But this is not all. The imagination does not act by itself; the other faculties work along with it; by them also the vision is shaped in part; and as they are developed, directed, and harmonized in a large measure by grace, in the same degree the vision must, even when not miraculous, be affected by a supernatural influence. Once more: God works upon us through his providence as well as through his grace; and the color of our thoughts is constantly the result of some external trifle, apparently accidental. A dream is modified by a momentary sound; and a conclusion may be shaped not without aid from a flying gleam or the shadow of a cloud. Our thoughts are "fearfully and wonderfully made," partly for us and partly by us, and through influences internal and external, which we trace but in part. We can draw a line between the visions which command our acceptance and those which only invite it; but in dealing with the latter class, it seems impossible to determine à priori how far they may or may not be accounted supernatural. It will depend upon their evidence, their consequences, their character, and the character of those to whom they belonged. "But," the caviller will object, "unassisted genius has visions of its own." What then? Does that circumstance discredit all visions that claim to be supernatural? Far from it; the visions of genius are elevated by virtue. They are not only purified thus, but edged with insight and enriched with wisdom. Has virtue, then, nothing of the supernatural? or would Dante have "seen" as much if, instead of following her voice, he had followed that of the siren? Again, simplicity of character, and what Holy Scripture calls "the single eye," have a close affinity with genius; for which reason the poor possess many characteristics of it denied to the rich—its honest apprehension of great ideas, for instance, and the inspiration of good sense; its power of realizing the essential and of ignoring the accidental; its freshness in impressions and loyalty in sentiment. But simplicity is a divine gift. Above all, faith communicates often what resembles genius to persons who would otherwise, perhaps, have narrow minds and wavering hearts. It appears, then, that the whole of our moral and spiritual being—which is of course under supernatural influence—admits of such a development as is favorable to genius, and may eminently promote that natural "vision" which belongs to it. Education and life may do the same. What disperses the faculties over a vast field of heterogeneous knowledge saps genius; what gives unity to the being strengthens it. It evaporates in vanity; it is deepened by humility. Society dissipates its energies and chills them; solitude concentrates and heats them. Indulgence relaxes it; severity invigorates it. It is dazzled by the importunate sunshine of the present; its eyes grow wider in the twilight of the past and the future. All the circumstances, exterior and interior, that favor genius are thus indirectly connected with grace or with providence. What, then, is not to be thought in a case like that of St. Gertrude, in which we find, not genius trained on toward sanctity, but sanctity enriched with genius? It is, however, to be remembered that we in no degree disparage the claim to a divine character possessed by St. Gertrude's visions in admitting that some of them may not claim that character. In one favored with such high gifts, it is not unphilosophical to suppose that the natural qualities, as well as supernatural graces, which lend themselves to visions would probably exist in a marked decree. We have no reason, indeed, to conclude that the Hebrew prophets, to whom visions were sent by God, never possessed, when not thus honored, anything that resembled them—anything beyond what belongs to ordinary men. They, too, may have had unrecorded visions of a lower type, in which the loftiest of their thoughts and deepest of their experiences became visible to them; and if so, they had probably something ancillary to vision in their natural faculties and habits, independently of their supernatural gifts. Among the peculiar natural characteristics of St. Gertrude may be reckoned an extraordinary literalness of mind, strangely ignited with a generalizing power. She had a value for everything as it was, as well as for the idea it included. There was a minuteness as well as a largeness about her. These qualities probably belonged to that pellucid simplicity which kept her all her life like a child. This childlike instinct would of itself have constantly stimulated her colloquies with him who was the end of all her thoughts. In the spiritual as in the intellectual life, the powers seem augmented through this dramatic process, as though fecundated from sources not their own. The thoughts thus originated seem to come half from the mind with which the colloquy is held, and half from native resources. Let us now pass to another cavil. Devotions such as those of St. Gertrude have sometimes been censured because they are full of love. There [{412}] is here a strange confusion. Most justly might dislike be felt for devotions in which love is not supplemented by a proportionate veneration. Among the dissenting bodies devotions of this sort are to be found, though we should be sorry rudely to criticise what implies religious affection, and is a recoil from coldness. The fault is not wholly theirs. An age may be so characterized that it cannot be fervent, even in its prayers, without being earthly; but such an age is not religious, and may not judge those that were. In them reverence and love are inseparable. God reigns in man's heart through love and fear. True devotion must, therefore, have at once its fervid affection and its holy awe. Thus much will be conceded. It does not require much penetration to perceive also that the more it habitually possesses of awe, the more it admits of love. If the expression of divine resembles that of human affection, this results by necessity from the poverty of language. Those who object to the use of the word "worship" in connection with God's saints as well as with God (though of course used in a different sense) see nothing to surprise them in the circumstance that the terms "love" and "honor" possess equally this double application. Yet when expressions of real and zealous love are addressed to Almighty God, they are sometimes no less scandalized than when worship (that is, honor and veneration) is addressed in a subordinate sense to the saints! In both cases alike they labor under misconceptions which may easily be removed. To abolish the resemblance between the expression of divine and human affections, it would be necessary to break down the whole of that glorious constitution of life by which human ties, far from being either arbitrary things or but animal relations improved upon, are types of divine ties. The fatherhood in heaven is admitted to be the antetype of human parentage; and the adoptive brotherhood with Christ, the second Adam, to be the antetype of the natural brotherhood. Can any other principle prevail in the case of that tie which is the fountain whence the other domestic charities flow? Not in the judgment of those who believe, with St. Paul, that marriage is a type of that union which subsists between him and his Church. If there be an analogy between divine and human ties, so there must be between the love that goes along with them and the blessedness that is inseparable from love. In such cavils as we have referred to there is a latent error that belonged to the earliest times. The caviller assumes that an element of corruption must needs exist in religious affections which betray any analogy to human affections, whereas it is but a Manichean philosophy which affirms the necessary existence of corruption in the human relations themselves. Human relations are not corrupt in themselves either before or since the fall; but human beings are corrupt and weak, and do but little justice to those relations. Praise, both in heaven and on earth, is held out to us in Holy Scripture as one of the rewards of virtue. It may not be the less true, on that account, that few orators have listened to the acclamations that follow a successful speech without some alloy of self-love. Possessions are allowable; it may be, notwithstanding, that few have had "all things" as though they "had nothing." It is not in the human relations that the evil exists (for they retain the brightness left on them by the hand that created them), but in those who abuse them by excessive dependence on them, or by disproportion. It is mainly a question of due subordination. Where the higher part of our being is ruled by the lower, or where the lower works apart from and in contempt of the higher, there evil exists. Where the opposite takes place—where a flame enkindled in heaven feeds first upon the spiritual heights of our being and descends by due degrees through the [{413}] imagination and the affections—there the whole of our being works in a restored unity, and there proportionately the senses are glorified by the soul. This has ever been the teaching of that Church which encircles the whole of human life with its girdle of sacraments. It has naturally come to be forgotten in those communities which admit the legal substitution of divorce, and polygamy for the sanctity and inviolability of Christian marriage. That those who do not understand the relation of human to divine ties should not understand the devotions of saints is far from strange. The expressions of the saints are bold because they are innocent. They have no part in that association of ideas which takes refuge in prudery. The language of St. Gertrude is that of one on whose brow the fillet had dropped when she was a child, and who had neither had any experience of earthly love nor wished for any. It is indeed the excellence of the domestic ties that they are indirect channels of communication with heaven. But in her case the communication was direct and immediate—a clear flame rising straight from the altar of perpetual sacrifice. The beautiful ascent of affections from grade to grade along the scale of life had in her been superseded by a yet diviner self-devotion. She had not built upon the things that are lawful within due measure, but upon those counsels the rewards of which are immeasurable. She had reaped immortal love in the fields of mortification. She had begun where others end. She had found the union of peace with joy. Had there been added to this whatever is best in the domestic ties, it could to her have been but a rehearsal, in a lower though blameless form, of affections which she had already known in that highest form in which alone they are capable of being realized in heaven. Expressions associated with human affections are to be found in St. Gertrude's devotions, because she had human affections. In the monastic renunciation the inmost essence of them is retained; for that essence, apart from its outward accidents, is spiritual. What is the meaning of the incarnation, if God is not to be loved as man? To what purpose, without this, the helpless childhood, the fields through which he moved, the parables so homely, the miracles of healing, the access given to sinners, the tears by the grave of him whom he was about to restore to life, the hunger and the weariness, the reproach for sympathy withheld? These domestic memories of the Church are intended to give the higher direction to human affections before they have strayed into the lower, in order that the lower may receive their interpretation from the higher. Nothing is more wonderful than to see the natural passing into the supernatural in actual life; nothing more instructive than to see this in devotions. It is not the presence of a human element in them, but the absence of a divine element, that should be deplored. The natural may be shunned where the supernatural is not realized. It can only be realized through love; and love is perfected through self-sacrifice, the strength and science of the saints. It is easy to distinguish between devotions that are really too familiar and those of the saints. The latter, as has been remarked, are as full of awe as of love. Their familiarity implies the absence of a servile fear; but everywhere that filial fear, the seat of which is in the conscience, reveals itself. Again, if they regard our Lord in his character of lover of souls, they regard him proportionately in his other characters, as brother and as friend, as master and as Lord, as creator and as judge. The manhood in Christ is ever leading the heart on to his divinity; and the incarnation, as a picture of the divine character, is the strongest preacher of Theism. Again, the love that reveals itself in them has no pettiness, no narrowness; it exults in the thought of that great army of the elect, each member of [{414}] which is equally the object of the divine love, as a single drop reflects the firmament no less than the ocean of which it is a part. Once more: in such devotions the thirst after the divine purity is as strongly marked as that for the divine tenderness; and death is ever welcome, that God may be seen in the spirit. "But in these devotions," it is said, "we trace the yearnings of a woman's heart." And why not? With what else is woman to love God? May not the devotion of a child be childlike, and of a man be manly? Why are female affections alone to strain themselves into the unnatural, instead of advancing to the supernatural? In such sneers there is as little philosophy as charity. The whole structure of our being—together not only with all its experiences, but with all its capacities—is that which, yielding to divine grace, constitutes the mould in which our devotion is cast. It is not religion alone, but everything—art, science, whatever we take in—that is colored by whatever is special to the faculties or the dispositions of the recipient. Religion is the only thing that holds its own in spite of such modification. It does so on account of its absolute simpleness. But it does much more than hold its own. It is enriched. Religion is as manifold as it is simple. The faculties and instincts of the mere isolated individual are too narrow to allow of his fully accepting the gifts which it extends to us. But fortunately our incapacities balance each other; the characteristics of religion least appreciated by one being often those which will most come home to another. Not only individuals but nations and ages, both by what they have in common and by what they have of unlike, unconsciously help to make up the general store. Christianity has become in one sense to each of us what it was to an à Kempis as well as what it was to an Aquinas; and why not also to what it was to a Gertrude or a Theresa? All things subserve this vast scheme. How much we are enriched by those different aspects of religion presented to us by the chief authentic architectures! In the Gothic, which is mystic, suggestive, infinite, it is chiefly the spirituality of religion that is affirmed. In the Roman basilica, orderly and massive, it is the "law" that is insisted on. In the Byzantine style, precious marble and beaming gold, and every device of rich color and fair form, preach the inexhaustibility of Christian charity and the beauty of the Eden it restores. These aspects of religion are all in harmony with each other. The mind that embraces them is not endeavoring to blend contradictions into a common confusion, but to reunite great ideas in the unity from which they started. Still more is the manifold vastness of religion illustrated by those diversities of the religious sentiment which result from diversities in the human character. All modern civilization rests on reverence for woman, both in her virginal and maternal character; the Mother of God, from whom that reverence sprang, being in both these relations alike its great type. In the restored, as in the first humanity, there is an Eve as well as an Adam; and it has been well remarked, that among the indirect benefits derived from this provision is the circumstance that there thus exists a double cord, by which the two great divisions of the human family are drawn to the contemplation of that true humanity. From the beginning woman found herself at home in Christianity; it was to her a native country, in which she fulfilled her happiest destinies, as paganism had been a foreign land, where she lived in bondage and degradation. In the days of martyrdom the virgins took their place beside the youths amid the wild beasts at the Coliseum. In the days of contemplative monasticism the convents of the nuns, no less than those of the monks, lifted their snowy standards on high, and, by the image of purity which they had there exalted, rendered intelligible the [{415}] Christian idea of marriage—thus refreshing with ethereal breath those charities of hut and hearth which flourished in the valleys far down. In those convents, too, the scholastic volume, and the psalm sustained by day and night, proved that the serious belonged to woman as well as the soft and bright. Since the devastations of later times womanhood has won a yet more conspicuous crown. Through the active orders religion has measured her strength with a world which boasts that at last it is alive and stirring. By nuns the sick have been nursed, the aged tended, the orphan reared, the rude instructed, the savage reclaimed, the revolutionary leader withstood, the revolutionary mob reduced to a sane mind. There are no better priests than those of France; yet they tell us that it has been in no small part through the Sisters of Charity that religion has been restored in their land. In how many an English alley is not the convent the last hope of purity and faith? On how many an Irish waste does not the last crust come from it? The part of woman in Christianity might have been anticipated. For it she is strengthened even by all that makes her weak elsewhere. In the Christian scheme the law of strength is found in the words, "When I am weak, then I am strong." It is a creaturely, not self-asserting strength; it is not godlike, but consists in dependence on God. In proportion as self is obliterated, a Divine Presence takes its place, which could otherwise no more inhabit there than the music which belongs to the hollow shell could proceed from the solid rock. To woman, who in all the conditions of life occupies the place of the secondary or satellite, the attainment of this selflessness is perhaps more easy than to man. Obedience is the natural precursor of faith; and to those whose hands are clean the clearer vision is granted. Moreover, religion is mainly of the heart; and in woman the heart occupies a larger relative place than in man. Paganism, with the instinct of a clown, addressed but what was superficial in womanhood, and elicited but what was alluring and ignoble. Christianity addressed it at its depths, and elicited the true, the tender, and the spiritual. The one flattered, but with a coarse caress; the other controlled, but with a touch of air-like softness. In pagan times woman was a chaplet of faded flowers on a festive board; in Christian, it became a "sealed fountain," by which every flower, from the violet to the amaranth, might grow. Even the chosen people had forgotten her claims;—but "from the beginning it was not so." Christianity reaffirmed them; it could do no less. It addresses distinctively what is feminine in man, as well as what is manly. It challenges, at its first entrance, the passive, the susceptive, the recipient in our nature; and it ignores, as it is ignored by, the self-asserting and the self-included. That which Christianity claims for woman is but the readjustment of a balance which, when all merit was measured by the test of bodily or intellectual strength, had no longer preserved its impartiality. Milton's line, "He for God only: she for God in him," is more in harmony with the Mohammedan, or at least the Oriental, than with the Christian scheme of thought. It is as represented both by its stronger and its gentler half, that man's race pays its true tribute to the great Creator. The modern poet gives us his ideal of man in the form of a prophecy: "Yet in the long years liker must they grow: [Footnote 61: Tennyson's "Princess.">[ Singularly enough, this ideal of humanity was fulfilled long since in the conventual life. The true nun has left behind the weakness of her [{416}] sex. The acceptance of her vocation, implying the renunciation of the tried for the untried, the seen for the unseen, is the highest known form of courage— "A soft and tender heroine [Footnote 62: Wordsworth's "Ode to Enterprise," ] Her vow is irrevocable; and thus free-will, the infinite in our nature, stands finally pledged to the "better part." In her life of mortification, and her indifference to worldly opinion, she reaches the utmost to which fortitude may aspire; yet she perfects in herself also the characteristic virtues of woman—love, humility, obedience. The true monk also, while more of a man than other men, includes more of the virtues that belong least often to man. It is pre-eminently the soul within him that has received its utmost development, and become the expression of his being. The highest ideal of the antique world, mens sana in corpore sano, implied, not the subordination of the body to the mind, and of both to the soul, but the equal development of the former two, the soul being left wholly out of account. Such a formula, it is true, rises above that of the mere Epicurean, who subordinates the mind to the body, and makes pleasure the chief good. It leaves, however, no place for the spiritual. By the change which Christianity introduced, virtues which paganism overlooked or despised became the predominant elements in man's being. Purity, patience, and humility bear to Christian morals a relation analogous to that which faith, hope, and charity bear to theology. The former, like the latter, triad of virtues will ever present to the rationalist the character of mysticism, because they rest upon mysteries—that is, upon realities out of our sight, and hidden in the divine character. The earthly basis upon which they are sometimes placed by defenders that belong to the utilitarian school is as incapable of supporting them as the film of ice that covers a lake would be of supporting the mountains close by. These are Christian virtues exclusively, and it was to perfect them that the convents which nurtured saints were called into existence. We know the hideous picture of monastic life with which a morbid imagination sometimes amuses or frightens itself. Let us frankly contrast with it the true ideal of a monastic saint. No ideal, of course, is fully realized; but still it is only when the ideal is understood that the actual character is appreciated. The monastic life is founded on the evangelical counsels, the portion of practical Christianity most plainly peculiar to the Christian system. It is obedience, but the obedience of love. It is fear, but the fear of offending, far more than the fear of the penalty. It is dependence glorified. It is based on what is feminine as well as on what is masculine in our nature; on a being which has become recipient in a sacred passiveness. It lives by faith, which "comes by hearing;" and its attitude of mind is like that indicated by the sweet and serious, but submitted, face of one who listens to far-off music or a whisper close by. In the stillness of devout contemplation the soul, unhardened and unwrinkled, spreads itself forth like a vine-leaf to the beam of truth and the dews of grace. In this perfected Christian character we find, together with the strength of the stem, the flexibility of the tendril and the freshness of the shoot. For the same reason we find the consummate flower of sanctity—a Bernard or a Francis—and with the flower the fruit, and the seed which has sown Christianity in all lands; for monks have ever been the great missionaries. The soul of the monk who has done most for man has thus most included the womanly as well as the manly type of excellence. It has unity and devotedness. It has that purity which is not only [{417}] consistent with fervor, but in part proceeds from it. It shrinks not only from the forbidden, but from the disproportionate, the startling, and the abrupt. It is humble, and does not stray as far as its limit. It regards sin, not as a wild beast chained, but as a plague, and thinks that it cannot escape too far beyond the infection. It has a modesty which modulates every movement of the being. It has spontaneity, and finds itself at home among little things. It is cheerful and genial, with a momentary birth of good thoughts, wishes, and deeds, that ascend like angels to God, and are only visible to angels. Nor is this all. It is in the conventual life that the third type of human character—that of the child—is found in conjunction with the other two. In the world even the partial preservation of the child in the man is one of the rare marks of genius. In the cloister the union is common. Where the character is thus integrated by harmoniously blending the three human types—viz., man, woman, and child—then man has reached his best, and done most to reverse the fall. It is among those who have most bravely taken the second Adam for their example that this primal image is most nearly restored. We see it in such books as the "Imitation," and the "Confessions" of St. Augustine. We see it in the old pictures of the saints, where the venerable and the strong, the gracious and the lovely, the meek and the winning, are so subtly blended by the pencil of an Angelico or a Perugino. We see it within many a modern cloister. It has its place, to the discerning eye, among the evidences of religion. In the north the world now finds it more difficult than in the south to appreciate such a character as St. Gertrude. If it is sceptical as to visions and raptures, still more is it scandalized by austerities and mortification. The temperament of the south tends too generally to pleasure; but the great natures of the south, perhaps for that reason, renounce the senses with a loftier strength. They throw themselves frankly on asceticism, leaving beneath them all that is soft, like the Italian mountains which frown from their marble ridges over the valleys of oranges and lemons. The same ardor which so often leads astray, ministers, when it chooses the soul for its residence, to great deeds, as fire does to the labors of material science. In the north, including the land of St. Gertrude, many of the virtues are themselves out of sympathy with the highest virtue. Men can there admire strength and industry; but they too often believe in no strength that is not visible, no industry that is not material. Mortification is to them unintelligible. Action they can admire; in suffering they see but a sad necessity, like the old Greeks, to whom all pain was an intrusion and a scandal. Christianity first revealed the might of endurance. It was not the triumph over Satan at the temptation that restored man's race; though Milton, not without a deep, unintended significance, selected that victory as the subject of his "Paradise Regained." It was not preaching, nor miracle, but Calvary. Externally, endurance is passive; internally, it is the highest form of action—the action in which there is no self-will, the energy that is one with humility. The moment the Church began to live she began to endure. The apostles became ascetics, "keeping the body under," and proclaiming that between spirit and flesh, between watching and sloth, between fast and feast, there was not peace but war. While the fiery penance of persecution lasted, it was easy to "have all things as though one had nothing." There then was always a barrier against which virtue might push in its ceaseless desire to advance, and to discipline her strength by trial. When the three centuries of trial were over, monasticism rose. In it again was found a place for mortification— for that detachment which is [{418}] attachment to God, and that exercise which makes Christians athletes. There silence matured divine love, and stillness generated strength. There was found the might of a spiritual motive; and a fulcrum was thus supplied like that by which Archimedes boasted that his lever could move the world. It is difficult to contemplate such a character as that of St. Gertrude without straying from her to a kindred subject—that wonderful monastic life, with its rapturous visions and its as constant mortifications, to which we owe such characters. Without the cloister we should have had no Gertrudes; and without the mortification of the cloister the ceaseless chant and the incense would have degenerated into spiritual luxuries. It is time for us to return, and ask a practical question: What was this St. Gertrude, who found so fair a place among the wonders of the thirteenth century, and whom in the nineteenth so few hear of or understand? What was she even at the lowest, and such as the uninitiated might recognize? She was a being for whom nature had done all nature could do. She was a noble-minded woman, pure at once and passionate, more queenly and more truly at home in the poverty of her convent than she could have been in her father's palace. Secondly, she was a woman of extraordinary genius and force of character. Thirdly, she was one who, the child of an age when the dialectics of old Greece were laid on the altar of revealed truth, dwelt habitually in that region of thought which, in the days of antiquity, was inhabited by none, and occasionally approached but by the most aspiring votaries of the Platonic philosophy. This was the human instrumentality which sovereign grace took to itself, as the musician selects some fair-grained tree out of which to shape his lyre. There was in her no contradictory past to retrieve. Without a jar, and almost without consciousness, she passed with a movement of swanlike softness out of innocence into holiness. Some have fought their way to goodness, as others have to earthly greatness, and won the crown, though not without many a scar. But she was "born in the purple," and all her thoughts and feelings had ever walked with princely dignity and vestal grace, as in the court of the great King. Her path was arduous; but it stretched from good to better, not from bad to good. She did not graduate in the garden of Epicurus, nor amid the groves of Academus, nor amid the revel of that Greek society in which the glitter of the highest intelligence played above the rottenness of the most corrupt life. She had always lived by faith. The spiritual world had been hers before the natural one, and had interpreted it. Man's supernatural end had ever for her presented the clue to his destinies, and revealed the meaning of his earthly affections. Among these last she had made no sojourn. She had prolonged not the time, but done on earth what all aspire to do in heaven: she had risen above human ties, in order to possess them in their largest manifestations. The faith affirmed that we are to have all things in God, and in God she resolved to have them. Her heart rose as by a heavenward gravitation to the centre of all love. A creature, and knowing herself to be no more, her aspiration was to belong wholly to her Creator. To her the incarnation meant the union of the human race, and of the human soul, with God. Her devotions are the endless love-songs of this high bridal. They passed from her heart spontaneously, like the song of the bird; and they remain for ever the triumphant hymeneal chant of a clear, loving, intelligential spirit, which had renounced all things for him, and had found all things in him for whom all spirits are made. Christmas comes, Christmas comes. Epidemics, derived from the two Greek words , among, and , people are those diseases which for a time prevail widely among the people of any country or locality, and then, for a longer or shorter period, either entirely, or for the most part, disappear. There are few diseases to which the human race is liable that may not, under favorable circumstances, take on the epidemic form. For example, diseases of the organs of respiration are very apt to become epidemic in seasons characterized by extreme coldness or dampness of the atmosphere, or by great and sudden alternations of temperature. In a strict sense, however, the term [{421}] epidemics is not usually employed in reference to the diseases of individual organs of the body, but is restricted to those derangements of the entire system depending upon the absorption of some poison, or the action of some "influence," from without. In the latter class of maladies the individual organs may become diseased, and the derangement of their functions may modify the symptoms resulting from the primary poison or "influence;" but then the local diseases are the secondary result of the general disorder of the constitution, and not the source and origin of all the mischief. Some epidemic diseases possess the power of self-propagation; that is to say, the poison or influence may be communicated by infected persons to persons in health, and the disease is then said to be contagious, [Footnote 63] while others are entirely destitute of any such property. Scarlet-fever and small-pox are familiar examples of the former class; ague and influenza of the latter. [Footnote 63: The terms "contagion" and "contagious" are here used in their widest signification, and are applied in this essay to all diseases capable of propagation by infected individuals to persons in health.] It is still a vexed question whether a disease that is capable of self-propagation can ever be generated de novo. It is maintained, on the one hand, that such an occurrence is as impossible as the spontaneous generation of plants or animals; while, on the other hand, it is argued that the poison of certain diseases capable of self-propagation may, under certain favorable conditions, be produced independently of any pre-existing cases of the disease. The comparison of a fever-poison with a spore or ovum is an ingenious, but a most delusive, argument. An epidemic disease springing up in a locality where it was before unknown, and where it is impossible to trace its introduction from without, is said to be not more extraordinary than the development of fungi in a putrid fluid. The argument, however, is founded on a pure assumption, for there is not a tittle of evidence to show that a fever-poison is of the nature of a spore or ovum. Air saturated with the poisons of various contagious diseases has been condensed and submitted to the highest powers of the microscope, but nothing approaching to a small-pox spore, or a typhus ovum, has yet been discovered. It is true that certain contagious diseases, such as scarlet-fever and smallpox, can in most instances be traced to contagion; but, with regard to others, such as typhoid or enteric fever, it is in most instances utterly impossible to account for the first cases in any outbreak on the theory of contagion, while, at the same time, there is direct evidence that the contagious power of the disease is extremely. The question is no doubt beset with many difficulties, and constitutes one of the most intricate problems in medical science. It is one, however, which can never be solved by entering on the discussion with a preconceived theory as to the close analogy, if not identity, of a fever-poison with an animal or vegetable ovum, nor by assuming that the laws which regulate the propagation of one contagious disease are equally applicable to all. Nature's facts are too often interpreted by human laws, rather than by the laws of nature. In the case before us, the natural history of each disease must be studied independently, and our ideas as to its origin and mode of propagation must be founded on the evidence furnished by that study alone, and irrespective of the laws which seem to regulate the origin and propagation of other diseases with which it has no connection whatever, except in the human mind. At the present moment, when the subject of epidemics is attracting so much attention, it may be interesting to call attention to the more important diseases comprised under that head, and to point out some of the main facts connected with their origin and distribution. [{422}] The principal epidemic diseases, then, are: small-pox, scarlet-fever, measles, typhus, relapsing fever, Oriental plague, yellow fever, diarrhoea, typhoid or enteric fever, cholera, dysentery, ague and remittent fevers, influenza, the sweating sickness, and the dancing mania. 1. Small-pox the most loathsome of all diseases, is believed to have prevailed in India and China from time immemorial. About the middle of the sixth century it is supposed to have been conveyed by trading vessels from India to Arabia, and the Arabian army at the siege of Mecca, in the year 569, was the first victim of its fury. From Arabia it was imported into Europe by the Saracens, and there is evidence of its existence in Britain before the ninth century. Before the introduction of vaccination, small-pox was one of the chief causes of mortality in all the countries where it prevailed, and even now it occupies a prominent place in our mortuary returns. During the twenty-four years 1838-61, 125,352 of the population of England and Wales, and 21,369 of the population of London, died of small-pox; or, in other words, one in seventy-five of the total deaths in England and Wales, and one in sixty-three of the total deaths in London, were due to this disease. Small-pox is not confined to any race or quarter of the globe. At the present day its appearance can, in the great majority of instances, be traced to contagion. It is evident, however, that it must at one time have had an origin, and it is reasonable to infer that what happened once may happen again. Small-pox is known to attack many of the lower animals as well as man, and there are grounds for believing that it originated among the former, and by them was communicated to the human species. A careful study of epizootics—our ignorance of which has been disclosed by the present cattle plague —may ultimately reveal the mode of origin of the poison of small-pox. The disease varies greatly in its prevalence at different times. In other words, it is sometimes epidemic, at others not. Some of these epidemics are local; others are widely extended. All exhibit a gradual rise, culmination, and decline, the decline being always less rapid than the advance. It is difficult to account for the occurrence of these epidemics. They are independent of hygienic defects, season, temperature, or any meteorological conditions of which we are cognizant. They are probably due to causes tending to depress the general health of the population, and so to predispose it to the action of the poison. For nearly two centuries it has been a common observation that epidemics of small-pox have co-existed with epidemics of other contagious diseases. The gradual accumulation also in a district of unprotected persons, owing to the neglect of vaccination, will also predispose to the occurrence of an epidemic, after the introduction of the poison. In fact, to the neglect, or careless performance, of vaccination, is entirely due the occurrence of epidemics of small-pox at the present day. 2. Scarlet Fever. —The early history of scarlet fever is obscure, for the disease was long confounded with measles and small-pox, but it is generally supposed that, like small-pox, it came originally from Africa, and was imported into Europe by the Saracens. It has been known to prevail in Britain for the last two centuries; but although it is only of late years, from the reports of the Registrar-General, that we have been able to form an accurate idea of the extent of its prevalence, there can be no doubt that it has increased greatly during the present century, and that it now occupies that pre-eminence among the causes of mortality in childhood which was formerly held by small-pox. During twenty-four years (1838 to 1861 inclusive) 375,009 of the population of England and Wales, and 58,663 of the inhabitants of London, died of scarlet fever, or about one in every twenty-four deaths that occurred in England during the period in question [{423}] was due to this disease. The mortality from scarlet fever, in fact, exceeds the mortality from small-pox and measles taken together. Scarlet fever is known to prevail over the whole of the continents of Europe and America, but it is nowhere so common as in Britain. In France it is a rarer disease than either measles or small-pox. In India it is said never to occur. In most instances it is not difficult to trace the occurrence of scarlet fever to contagion; and from the remarkable indestructibility of the poison and its tendency to adhere to clothes, furniture, and even to the walls of houses, there can be little doubt that the disease has a similar origin in many instances, where the mode of transmission of the poison cannot be traced. How the poison first originated is yet a mystery; but there is some probability in the view, which has many able advocates, that it originated in horses or cattle, and by them was communicated to man. If this be so, it is reasonable to hope that investigations as to the occurrence of the disease in the lower animals may lead to a discovery productive of as great benefits to the human race as vaccination. At intervals of a few years scarlet fever spreads as an epidemic: but its ordinary prevalence, in this country is greater than is generally imagined. The causes of these epidemic outbursts are unknown. Many circumscribed outbreaks can no doubt be traced to the importation of the poison into a population of persons unprotected by a previous attack; but why the poison should be introduced into numerous localities at one time, and not at others, is difficult to determine. It is tolerably certain, however, that at all times the prevalence of the disease is independent of overcrowding, bad drainage, or of any appreciable hygienic or meteorological conditions. 3. Measles was long confounded with scarlet fever, and, like it, is supposed to have been originally imported from the East. During twenty-four years (1838-1861) this disease destroyed 31,595 of the population of London, and 181,868 persons in England and Wales. It is known to occur in all parts of the world, and is highly contagious. There is no evidence that any hygienic defects or meteorological conditions can generate the poison of measles. Hildenbrand, a great authority, thought it might arise where numbers of men and cattle were confined together in close, unventilated buildings; and in later times American and Irish physicians have described a disease corresponding in every respect with the measles, which appeared to arise from sleeping on old musty straw, or from the inoculation of the fungi of wheat straw. Measles in England is much less of an epidemic disease than either small-pox or scarlet fever. The number of deaths which it causes in years when it is most prevalent, is rarely much more than double what it causes in years when it is at least prevalent. Although often most fatal in winter, there is no proof that its prevalence is influenced by season. 4. Typhus Fever has been well known for upward of three centuries, and there are grounds for believing that from remote ages it has prevailed in most parts of the world under favorable conditions. It is impossible to estimate the precise extent of its prevalence, inasmuch as many other diseases are included under the designation "typhus," in the reports of the Registrar-General; but it is the acknowledged scourge of the poor inhabitants of our large towns. There is no evidence that typhus, such as we see it in this country, has as yet been observed in Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Africa, or the tropical parts of America. Even in Britain it is confined, for the most part, to the large towns, and to the poorest and most densely crowded parts of them. It is a disease almost unknown among the better classes, except in the case of clergymen and doctors who visit the infected poor. [{424}] It is undoubtedly contagious; but in a spacious dwelling with a free ventilation, it almost ceases to be so. There is also ample evidence that the poison may be generated de novo; and the circumstances under which this occurs are overcrowding, with defective ventilation and destitution. Hence it is that the disease was formerly so apt to show itself in prisons and ships, and that, even at the present day, it is so common an attendant on warfare and so prevalent in the wretched hovels of the poor. This was the disease that before the days of Howard was never absent from our prisons and hospitals, and that decimated the armies of the first Napoleon and of the allies in the Crimea. "If," says an able writer on fever in the last century, "any person will take the trouble to stand in the sun, and look at his own shadow on a white plastered wall, he will easily perceive that his whole body is a smoking dunghill, with a vapor exhaling from every part of it. This vapor is subtle, acrid, and offensive to the smell; if retained in the body, it becomes morbid; but if re-absorbed, highly deleterious. If a number of persons, therefore, are long confined in any close place not properly ventilated, so as to inspire and swallow with their spittle the vapors of each other, they must soon feel its bad effects. Bad provisions and gloomy thoughts will add to their misery, and soon breed the seminium of a pestilential fever, dangerous not only to themselves, but also to every person who visits them or even communicates with them at second-hand. Hence it is so frequently bred in gaols, hospitals, ships, camps, and besieged towns. A seminium once produced is easily spread by contagion." But if overcrowding produces typhus, why is it that the disease prevails in the epidemic form, and then in a great measure disappears? The explanation is in this way. All the great epidemics of typhus have occurred during seasons of famine or of unusual destitution. One of the most common consequences of general destitution is the congregation of several families in one house, in consequence of their inability to pay their rents, and of the concentration in the large towns of many of the inhabitants of country districts. Famine pre-disposes to typhus by weakening the constitution; and it also tends to produce it, in so far as it causes an unusual degree of overcrowding. It has been the custom with many writers to refer epidemics of typhus to some subtle "epidemic influence;" and thus, where a failure of the crops has been followed by typhus, both of these disasters have been ascribed to a common atmospheric cause. But of such atmospheric influences, capable of producing typhus, we know nothing; their very existence is doubtful, and the employment of the term has too often had the effect of cloaking human ignorance, or of stifling the search after truth. If typhus be due to any "epidemic influence," why does this influence select large towns and spare the country districts? why does it fall upon large towns in exact proportion to the degree of privation and overcrowding among the poor? in large towns, why does it indict the crowded dwellings of the poor and spare the habitations of the rich? and why did the varying prevalence of typhus among the French and English troops in the Crimea correspond, exactly to the varying degree of overcrowding in either army? Moreover, famine artificially induced by warfare, by commercial failures, by strikes, or by any cause that throws large bodies of men out of employment, is equally efficacious in originating epidemics of typhus, as famine from failure of the crops. 5. Relapsing Fever is so called from the fact that after a week's illness there is an interval of good health for a week, followed by a second attack. It is contagious, and is epidemic in a stricter sense than even typhus. Although sometimes more prevalent in this country than any other fever, it may disappear for so many years that [{425}] on its return it has more than once been thought to be a new malady. For upwards of ten years not a case of it has been observed in Britain, but it has constitute the chief component of many of the greatest epidemics of fever which has devastated this country and Ireland, and it was one of the diseases composing the "Russian Plague," which in the spring of the present year caused such unnecessary alarm in this country. It usually prevails in the epidemic form in conjunction with typhus, and it is connected in its origin more directly with protracted starvation and the use of unwholesome food than even the latter disease. Hence, in this country, it is familiarly known as "Famine Fever," and in Germany as "Hungerpest. " 6. Oriental Plague is still met with in Egypt and in other eastern countries; but in the middle ages it frequently overran the whole of Europe and invaded England, and, from the extent of its ravages, it was known as the "Black Death," and the "Great Mortality. " The Great Plague of London, of 1665, is a familiar fact in history. Since then the disease has not been met with in this country. But British typhus is merely a modified form of Oriental plague, or, in other words, plague is merely typhus complicated with numerous abscesses beneath the skin. Cases of typhus are occasionally met with in this country, corresponding in every respect with true plague. Both diseases appear under similar circumstances, but those which generate plague are of a more aggravated character than those which suffice to produce typhus. The disappearance of plague from London, notwithstanding our vastly increased communications with Egypt, has been chiefly due to the better construction of our dwellings since the "Great Fire" of 1666. "It is probable," says an able writer on the plague, "that if this country has been so long forsaken by the plague as almost to have forgotten, or at least to be unwilling to own, its natural offspring, it has been because the parent has been disgusted with the circumstances under which that hateful birth was brought to light, has removed the filth from her doors in which it was matured, and has adopted a system of cleanliness fatal to its nourishment at home. But if ever this favored country, now grown wise by experience, should relapse into former errors, and recur to her odious habits, as in past ages, it is not to be doubted that a mutual recognition will take place, and she will again be visited by her abandoned child, who has been wandering a fugitive among kindred associates, sometimes in the mud cots of Egypt, sometimes in the crowded tents of Barbary, and sometimes in the filthy kaisarias of Aleppo." 7. Yellow Fever is a contagious fever with a limited geographical range. Its geographical limits, as regards the new world, are from about 43° N. lat. to 35° S. lat; and in the old world from 44° N. to 8° or 9° S. lat. It is a common disease on board our ships stationed in the West Indies and off the west coast of Africa. As in the case of typhus, overcrowded and defective ventilation are the main causes which favor its origin and propagation, and, indeed, it is still a subject for investigation whether yellow fever may not be typhus modified by climate and other circumstances. One of the most recent and best authorities [Footnote 64] on the disease thus writes: "Overcrowding in the between-decks of steamships seems to be the principal cause of the extreme fatality of the disease in the navy. What in this respect is true of typhus may with equal force be said of yellow fever. There is no such powerful adjuvant to the virulence of the poison, and to its power of propagation, as an unrenewed atmosphere, loaded with human exhalations." [Footnote 64: Dr. Gavin Milroy, President of the Epidemiological Society.] 8. Diarrhoea is always more or less prevalent in this country during the summer and autumn. There is no [{426}] reason to believe that epidemic diarrhoea is contagious, but there is a direct ratio between its prevalence and the temperature of the atmosphere and the absence of ozone. As the temperature rises the cases increase in number, and as it falls they diminish, and the disease is always most prevalent in very hot seasons. Diarrhoea may be due to many different causes, but its epidemic prevalence in autumn is chiefly accounted for by the absorption into the system of the products of putrefaction of organic matter, either in the form of gaseous effluvia or through the vehicle of drinking-water. 9. Typhoid or Enteric Fever is very commonly confounded with typhus, with which, however, so far as its origin is concerned, it has nothing in common. It is not, like typhus, confined to the poor, but it prevails among rich and poor alike; and, indeed, there are some reasons for believing that the rich and well-fed are more prone to be attacked by it than the destitute. It is the fever by which Count Cavonr, several members of the royal family of Portugal, and our own Prince Consort, came to their untimely end. It differs also from typhus in the circumstances that its origin and propagation are quite independent of overcrowding with defective ventilation, and are so intimately connected with bad drainage that by some physicians the fever is now designated pythogenic, or fever born of putridity. It is asserted by some writers that the poison of enteric fever is never generated in obstructed drains, but that the drains are merely the vehicle of transmission of the poison from an infected person. But if this were so, enteric fever must needs be a most contagious disease, whereas all experience goes to show that it rarely spreads, even under the most favorable circumstances. The disease, in fact, is so slightly contagious that many excellent observers have doubted if it be so at all. It is probable that certain meteorological conditions, such as a high temperature, a defective supply of ozone, or a peculiar electrical state, may be necessary for the production of the poison of enteric fever; and thus, nuisances which are offensive to the senses may exist for a long time without producing the disease. The necessity of a high temperature is undoubted, and is itself a strong alignment against the view which makes drains merely the vehicle of transmission of the poison. It is well known that enteric fever, like ordinary diarrhoea, becomes epidemic in this country every autumn, and almost disappears in spring, while the autumnal epidemics are always greatest in seasons remarkable for their high temperature. Enteric fever is much later in commencing and in attaining the acme of its autumnal prevalence than diarrhoea, showing that a longer duration of hot weather is necessary for its production; but, when once produced, a more protracted duration of cold weather seems necessary for its destruction. 10. Cholera. —Epidemic cholera is generally described as having originated at Jessore, in the delta of the Ganges, in the year 1817, and as having spread thence over Hindostan, and ultimately to Europe. Since 1817 Europe has been visited by three great epidemics of cholera, viz.: in 1832, in 1848-9, and in 1854; and at the present moment it is threatened with a fourth. During the past autumn the disease has appeared at Ancona and Marseilles, and at many other places in the basin of the Mediterranean. In England and Wales cholera destroyed 53,273 lives in 1849, and 20,097 in 1854. Although the great epidemics of cholera have appeared to take their origin in India, and gradually to have spread to Europe, following often the lines of human intercourse, the evidence in favor of its being a very contagious malady is small. The attendants on the sick are rarely attacked; and, on the other hand, the disease has often appeared in isolated localities, where it was impossible to believe that it was imported. It is a remarkable [{427}] circumstance, also, that some of the greatest epidemics which have occurred in India, as that of 1861, have shown no tendency to travel to Europe, notwithstanding the constant communication that exists. Even on the supposition, then, that cholera is of necessity imported from India, there must be something as yet unknown to us that favors its transmission at one time and not at another. But it is very doubtful if the disease is imported in the manner generally believed. Unequivocal cases of "Asiatic cholera" have been met with almost every year in the intervals of the great epidemics; and, as Dr. Farr has observed, it is highly probable that true cholera has always existed in England. The researches of the late Dr. Snow render it highly probable that the disease often arises from drinking water impregnated with the fermenting excreta of persons suffering from the disease; and if this be so, from what we know of other diseases, it is not unreasonable to infer that, in certain conditions of the atmosphere, the poison of cholera may be generated during the fermentation of the excreta of healthy persons. It can readily be conceived how the necessary meteorological conditions might originate in the East and gradually extend to this country, and thus lead to the supposition that the disease has been propagated by a specific poison. 11. Dysentery. —Epidemics of dysentery are confined to tropical countries, and need not occupy much attention at present. Atmospheric states which unduly or suddenly depress the temperature of the surface of the body are the most common exciting causes. They are most apt to take effect in the case of persons whose constitutions have been weakened by long exposure to extreme heat, to malaria, or to other debilitating causes. There is no positive evidence that dysentery is contagious. 12. Agues and Remittent Fevers are now but little known, and scarcely ever fatal, in this country. Many years ago, however, they were among the most common and the most fatal diseases of Britain. James I. and Oliver Cromwell both died of ague in London. The disappearance of ague has been in direct relation to the drainage and cultivation of the soil, and this remark applies not only to England, but to all parts of the globe. The fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridge are almost the only parts of England where agues arc now known; but in many countries, and particularly in the tropics, where the vegetation is very rank, they are still the most common of all diseases. Agues are not contagious, but result from the malaria given off during the evaporation from marshy uncultivated land. These malaria may be wafted to a considerable distance by the wind. A high temperature and rank vegetation seem to favor their production and to increase their virulence. 13. Influenza. —Severe and widespread epidemics of influenza have been observed in various parts of the world, from time immemorial. In the present century the disease has been epidemic in this country in 1803, 1831, 1833, 1837, and 1847. On each occasion it has been particularly fatal in aged and debilitated persons, and it has often been followed by an increased prevalence of other epidemic diseases. Influenza is not contagious, but depends on some unknown condition of the atmosphere. Sudden alternations of temperature have been thought to favor its origin. 14. The Sweating Sickness. —This remarkable and very fatal disease is happily now unknown in this country; but in the middle ages many great epidemics of it were observed, and nowhere were they more common than in England. Many of the epidemics were in fact confined to England. There are records of five distinct visitations of the disease during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, viz., in 1485, 1506, 1517, 1529, and 1551. The disease attacked all classes alike, and [{428}] was often fatal within a few hours. From the accounts handed down to us it is impossible to form any accurate idea as to the causes of its origin and extension; but the prevalent opinion at the time seems to have been that it was due in the first instance to atmospheric influences. 15. The Dancing Mania. —The present brief summary of the principal epidemic diseases would not be complete without alluding to the dancing mania of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The effects of the Black Death of the fourteenth century had not yet subsided, and the graves of millions of its victims were scarcely closed, when we are told by Hecker a strange delusion arose in Germany, which took possession of the minds of men, and, in spite of the divinity of our nature, hurried away body and soul into the magic circle of the wildest superstition. It was a convulsion which in the most extraordinary manner infuriated the human frame, and excited the astonishment of contemporaries for more than two centuries, since which time it has never reappeared. It was called the dance of St. John or of St. Vitus, on account of the Bacchantic leaps by which it was characterized, and which gave to those affected, whist performing their wild dance, and screaming and foaming with fury, all the appearance of persons possessed. It was propagated by the sight of the sufferers, like a demoniacal epidemic, over the whole of Germany and the neighboring countries. While dancing, the infected persons were insensible to external impressions, but were haunted by visions, their fancies conjuring up spirits whose names they shrieked out. Some asserted that they felt as if immersed in a stream of blood, which obliged them to leap so high; while others saw the heavens open, and the Saviour enthroned with the Virgin Mary. The accounts of the dancing mania collected by Hecker at first sight seem almost fabulous, but cease to be so when we recollect the practices of certain modern religious sects and the accounts of the so-called "revivals" in the middle of the nineteenth century. From the preceding summary, it is obvious that epidemic diseases vary greatly in their nature. 1. First we have diseases, such as small-pox, scarlet fever, and measles, which at the present day can only be traced to contagion, and some of which probably took their origin in the lower animals. 2. There are diseases, such as typhus, relapsing fever, enteric fever, and probably also plague, yellow fever, and cholera, which are capable of propagation by contagion in varying degrees, but which may also originate from the neglect of sanitary laws, aided by certain meteorological conditions. 3. A third class, including agues, remittent fevers, and diarrhoea are not at all contagious, but arise from malarious exhalations. 4. A fourth class, including influenza, dysentery, and, perhaps, the sweating sickness, are also not contagious, and, arise from certain atmospheric conditions. 5. The dancing mania differed from all other epidemic diseases in being purely mental, and in depending on the mere sight of a disagreeable nervous malady. In a previous number we made our readers acquainted with a certain project of union between the Anglican and the Russo-Greek Churches. [Footnote 65] The Russian as well as the English journals have since spoken much of this project, and seemed to think that it was on the eve of ending. There is one difference, however, to be observed in the language held by the organs of the two countries. The Russian journals gave us to understand that the Anglicans would renounce the Protestant doctrines which form a prominent portion of their belief, to adopt purely and simply the orthodox faith such as it is expressed in the symbolical books of the Eastern Church. The Anglicans did not place themselves in the same point of view. They would not change belief; they admitted that both sides should remain as they now are, but that there would be intercommunion between the two Churches; that is to say, that the Anglicans should be allowed to participate in the sacraments of the Greek Church, and reciprocally. [Footnote 65: "Etudes" May, 1865. Vide "CATHOLIC WORLD," Vol. I., No. 7, October, 1865. ] A certain Mr. Denton, rector of one of the largest Anglican parishes in London, was especially animated by these thoughts. He went to Servia and asked Mgr. Michael, metropolitan of Belgrave, to admit him to communion in his quality of priest of the Church of England. Mgr. Michael refused; but Mr. Denton, nowise discouraged, betook himself to travelling all over Servia, and at last found an archimandrite who appeared to be more accommodating than the metropolitan. After having communicated in this way in the Servian Church, the Rev. Mr. Denton returns to England triumphantly announcing that the intercommunion was an accomplished fact. Great rejoicings there were, to be sure, in the little coterie. There could be no doubt, whatever, that all was happily arranged. But behold, Mgr. Michael, informed of what had taken place, removed the archimandrite and struck him with ecclesiastical censures. The joy that had prevailed in Mr. Denton's camp was changed to mourning. On the other hand, the Anglicans who form no part of the coterie, enjoy exceedingly the reverend gentleman's discomfiture. As for us, we are well pleased to see that Mgr. Michael does not seem disposed to follow the footsteps of Cyril Lucar. But another check was reserved for the famous project. The archpriest Joseph Wassilief, chaplain to the Russian embassy in Paris, after having shown himself rather favorable to the contemplated union, has just laid down, with as much wisdom as firmness, the conditions of the proposed treaty. "However much explanations may be avoided, they will forcibly recur, sooner or later," he justly observes in the Christian Union, 24th September, 1865. And, resting on this principle, he passes in review the three questions of the procession of the Holy Ghost, the invocation of saints, and prayer for the dead; he then shows that it is not possible to establish intercommunion between the two Churches until they have come to an agreement on all these points; Among other things, he shows that the Church has always, been careful [{430}] to preserve the entire deposit of doctrine, and that she has not permitted herself to establish a difference between what is fundamental and what is secondary. He concludes with these wise words: "Charitable in our explanations, we are bound to be very candid one with the other. If rigorous discussions on all points of divergence appear to retard the final agreement, they secure its solidity and duration; whilst reservations, though accelerating the agreement, would leave therein a germ of weakness and instability." We attach the more importance to this declaration because the authority of the archpriest Joseph Wassilief is enhanced by the consideration shown him by the synod. Latterly there was a vacancy in the ranks of that assembly, which forms the supreme council of the Russian Church. There was question of replacing the chaplain-general of the armies by land and sea. Three names were proposed to the sovereign's choice: that of M. Wassilief was one of the three. He has not been appointed; but, in proposing him, the synod sufficiently testified that it would have wished to see him seated in its midst, raised to the highest dignity to which, in Russia, a member of the secular clergy can pretend. After the energetic act of the metropolitan of Belgrade and the words of the archpriest Wassilief, it remains for us to quote the Levant Herald an English and Protestant journal published at Constantinople. In its number of the 20th September, 1865, that paper endeavors to make the Anglican clergy understand that they flatter themselves with a delusive hope if they believe in the possibility of a union, or even of an alliance, between the two communions. It results from all we have just said that if the Anglo-Americans have entertained the project of Protestantizing the Greek Church, they must perceive that the enterprise is more arduous than they had supposed. The Russians, on their side, must see that it is not so easy to make the Anglican Church enter into the bosom of theirs. As to establishing the intercommunion between the two churches without having come to an agreement on questions of faith, it is a dream which the archpriest Wassilief must have dispelled once and for ever.
And there as I did rein [run],
In argument I chanced to near
A carnal and a crane.
"The carnal said unto the crane,
'If all the world should turn,
Before we had the Father,
But now we have the Son.'
"'From whence does the Son come?
From where and from what place?
He said, 'In a manger,
Between an ox and ass.'
* * * * *
"'Where is the golden cradle
That Christ was rocked in?
Where are the silken sheets
That Jesus was wrapt in?'
"'A manger was the cradle
That Christ was rocked in;
The provender the asses left
So sweetly he slept on.'
[{353}] "There was a star in the west land,
SO bright it did appear
Into King Herod's chamber.
And where King Herod were.
"The wise men soon espied it,
And told the king on high,
'A princely babe was born that night,
No king could e'er destroy.'
"'If this be true,' King Herod said,
'As thou tellest unto me.
This roasted cock that lies in the dish,
Shall crow full fences three.'
"The cock soon freshly feathered was,
By the work of God's own hand,
And then three fences crowed he
In the dish where he did stand."
Which Jesu's grace did spring.
And of the wild beasts in the field
The lion shall be the king."
Even before his face;
'Long time thou hast been look'd for,
But now thou'rt come at last.'
* * * * *
"'The truth, man, thou hast spoken,
Of it thou mayst be sure.
For I most lose my precious blood
For thee and thousands more.
"'If any one should come this way,
And inquire for me alone.
Tell them that Jesus passed by,
As thou thy seed did sow.'"
When my seed was sown.
"But now I have it reapen,
And some laid on my wain.
Ready to fetch and carry
Into my barn again.'"
Of saints and martyrs too,
Unite and praise their Saviour's name.
And there I long to goo.
Fly away! Fly away!
While yet it's called to-day!"
For tribute to their King, a golden store;
One they revere, three with three offerings come,
And three adore."
"Pauper. Some clerks tell that it was an angel in the likeness of a star, for the kings had no knowledge of angels, but took all heed to the star. Some say that it was the same child that lay in the ox-stall which appeared to the kings in the likeness of a star, and so drew them and led them to himself in Bethlehem."
Father and Son together in One,
Holy Ghost, as Ye be One,
In fere-a:
God send us all a good new year-a.
"There came iij kings from Galilee
Into Bethlehem that fair city
To seek him that ever should be,
By right-a,
Lord, and King, and Knight-a.
"At they came forth with their offering,
They met with Herod that moody king,
This tide-a,
And this to them he said-a.
"Her. Of whence be ye, you kings iij?
"Mag. Of the East, as ye may see,
To seek him that ever should be,
By right-a.
Lord, and King, and Knight-a.
"Her. When you at this child have been,
Come home again by me,
Tell me the sights that you have seen,
I pray you,
Go no other way-a.
* * * *
"The Father of heaven an angel down sent,
To these iij kings that made present
This tide-a.
And this to them he said-a,
My Lord hath warned you every one
By Herod King you go not home
For an you do, he will you slay,
And strew-a,
And hurt you wonderly-a.
"Forth then went these kings iij
Till they came home to their countree.
Glad and blithe they were all iij,
Of the sights that they had seen.
By dene-a.
The company was clean-a."
* * * *
On the Feast of Stephen;
When the snow lay round about.
Deep and crisp and even:
Brightly shone the moon that night,
Though the frost was cruel,
When a poor man came in sight,
Gath'ring winter fuel.
"'Hither, page, and stand by me.
While thou know'st it telling,
Yonder peasant who is he?
Where and what his dwelling?
"'Sire, he lives a good league hence
Underneath the mountain;
Right against the forest fence,
By Saint Agnes' fountain.'
"'Bring me flesh and bring me wine.
Bring me pine logs hither;
Thou and I will see him dine,
When we bear them thither.'
Page and monarch forth they went.
Forth they went together:
Through the rude wind's wild lament,
And the bitter weather.
"'Sire, the night is darker now.
And the wind blows stronger.
Fails my heart, I know not how,
I can go no longer.'
"'Mark my footsteps, good my page;
Tread thou in them boldly;
Thou shalt find the winter's rage
Freeze thy blood less coldly.'
"In his master's steps he trod.
Where the snow lay dinted;
Heat was in the very sod
Which the saint had printed.
Therefore, Christian men—be sure—
Wealth or rank possessing,
Ye who now will bless the poor,
Shall yourselves find blessing."From The Dublin Review.
THE FORMATION OF CHRISTENDOM.
By T. W. ALLIES. London: Longmans.
The breath of heaven hath swept away
What toiling earth hath piled;
Scattering wise heart and crafty hand,
As breezes strew on ocean's strand
The fabrics of a child!"
The trebly hundred triumphs, and the day
When Brutus made the dagger's edge surpass
The conqueror's sword in bearing fame away.
Alas! for earth, for never shall we see
That brightness in her eye she wore when
Rome was free."
gentemque togatam.'"
And the thoughts of men are widen'd with the process of the suns.'From The Month.
SAINTS OP THE DESERT.
BY THE REV. J. H. NEWMAN, D.D.From The Lamp.
ALL-HALLOW EVE; OR, THE TEST OF FUTURITY.
BY ROBERT CURTIS.
CHAPTER XVIII.From London Society.
TENDER AND TRUE AND TRIED.
You kept faith with me,
As I kept faith with you;—
Though over us both
Since we plighted troth
Long years have rolled:—
But our love could hold
Through troubles and trials manifold,
My darling tender and true!
Tender and true,
In your eyes I gazed,
And my heart was safe, I knew!
Your trusting smile
Was pure of guile,
And I read in sooth
On your brow's fair youth
The earnest of loyal trust and truth,
My darling tender and true!
Tender and true.
All my own at last!
My blessing for all life through—
In death as life
My one loved wife—
Mine—mine at last,
All troubles past—
And the future all happiness, deep and vast.
My darling tender and true!Translated from Etudes Religieuses, Historiques, et Littéraires, par des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus.
A RIDE THROUGH CALCUTTA AND ITS VICINITY.
LETTER FROM A FATHER OF THE PROVINCE OF BELGIUM,
MISSIONARY AT CALCUTTA.THE ROUND OF THE WATERS.
BY ROBT. W. WEIR
Up, up on the mountains, high up near the sky.
Where the earth gathers moisture from clouds passing by;
Where the first drops of rain patter down full of glee,
As they join hand in hand on their way to the sea;
There the rills, like young children, go prattling along.
Full of life, full of joy, full of motion and song;
And, swelling the brooks, with glad voices they raise,
To him who made all things, their tribute of praise.
Then, as they dance onward, half hidden in spray,
Like bands of young nymphs dress'd in bridal array,
With shouts of wild laughter they leap the deep linn.
Where the broad flowing river at once takes them in.
Now calm their rude mirth as they matronly glide,
Bearing onward rich freight to the blue briny tide.
Where the mist of the mountains once more joins the sea
With its incense, O Lord, ever heaving to thee.Translated from the German
THE BIBLE; OR, CHRISTMAS EVE,From The Month.
THOUGHTS ON ST. GERTRUDE.
BY AUBREY DE VERE.
The man he more of woman—she of man."
[Footnote 61]
Vowed to severer discipline."
[Footnote 62]From The Lamp.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL.
BY BESSIE RAYNER PARKES.
Blessing wheresoe'er he roams;
And he calls the little children
Cluster'd in a thousand homes.
"Stand you still, my little children,
For a moment while I sing,
Wreath'd together in a ring,
With your tiny hands embracing
In a snowy interlacing.
And your rich curls dropping down—
Golden, black, and auburn-brown—
Over bluest little eyes;
Toss them back in sweet surprise
While my pretty song I sing.
I have apples, I have cakes,
Icicles, and snowy flakes.
Hanging on each naked bough;
Sugar strawberries and cherries,
Mistletoe and holly-berries,
Nail'd above the glorious show.
I have presents rich and rare.
Beauties which I do not spare,
For my little children dear;
At my steps the casements lighten,
Sourest human faces brighten.
And the carols—music strange—
Float in their melodious change
On the night-wind cold and drear.
Listen now, my little children:
All these things I give to you,
And you love me, dearly love me
(Witness'd in your welcome true).
Why do I thus yearly scatter.
With retreating of the sun.
Sweetmeats, holiday, and fun?
There must be something much the matter
Where my wine-streams do not run.
Once I was no more than might be
Any season of the year;
No kind tapers shone to light me
On my way advancing here;
No small children rush'd to meet me,
Happy human smiles to greet me.
True, it was a while ago;
But I mind me it was so,
Then believe me, children dear.
Till one foggy cold December,
Eighteen hoary centuries past
(Thereabouts as I remember),
Came a voice upon the blast.
And a strange star in the heaven;
One said that unto us was given
A Saviour and a Brother kind;
The star upon my head shed down
Of golden beams this living crown.
The birthday gift of Jesus Christ,
Whereby my glory might be known.
You all keep your little birthdays;
Keep likewise your fathers', mothers',
Little sisters', little brothers';
To commemorate this birth,
Sings aloud the exulting earth!
Every age and all professions,
In all distance—parted nations,
Meet together at this time
In spirit, while the church-bells chime.
Little children, dance and play,—
We will join,—but likewise pray
At morning, thinking of the day
I have told you I remember
In a bleak and cold December,
Long ago and far away."From The Popular Science Review.
EPIDEMICS, PAST AND PRESENT—
THEIR ORIGIN AND DISTRIBUTION.
Translated from Etudes Religieuses, Historiques, et Littéraires, par des Pères de la Compagnie de Jésus.
ANGLICANISM AND THE GREEK SCHISM.