The Catholic World, Vol. 03, April to September, 1866

by Various

THE PRESENT STATE OF THE PATRIARCHATE OF CONSTANTINOPLE. [Footnote 1]

[Footnote 1: "L'Eglise Orientale, par Jaques G. Pitzipios, Fondateur de la Société Chrétienne Orientale." Rome: Imprimerie de la Propagande, 1855.]

In the year 1841, the bishops of the Protestant Episcopal dioceses of Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Missouri, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, professing to speak in the name of their church in the United States, addressed the following language to the schismatical Patriarch of Constantinople, whom they style "the venerable and right reverend father in God the Patriarch of the Greek Church, resident at Constantinople:"

"The church in the United States of America, therefore, looking to the triune God for his blessings upon its efforts for unity in the body of Christ, turn with hope to the Patriarch of Constantinople, the spiritual head of the ancient and venerable Oriental Church." [Footnote 2]

[Footnote 2: Quoted in the "Memoir of Rev. F.A. Baker," p. 47.]

This is by no means the only instance of overtures of this kind, looking toward a union between Protestant Episcopalians and Eastern schismatics, with the view of concentrating the opposition to the Roman See under a rival Oriental primacy. The Non-jurors, who were ejected from their sees at the overthrow of the Stuarts, proposed to the Synod of Bethlehem to establish the primacy in the patriarchate of Jerusalem; but their proposal was met by a decidedly freezing refusal. The American bishops who signed the letter from which the foregoing extract is taken show a remarkable desire to bow down before some ecclesiastical power more ancient and venerable than themselves; and in their extreme eagerness to propitiate the Eastern prelates, they acknowledge without scruple the most arrogant titles usurped by the Patriarch of Constantinople, although from their want of familiarity with the ecclesiastical language, they do it in a very unusual and peculiar style. Whatever may be at present the particular views of those who are seeking to bring about a union between the Protestant Episcopal churches and the Easterns, in regard to the order of hierarchical organization, they are evidently disposed to pay court to the successor of Photius and Michael Cerularius, and to espouse [{2}] warmly his quarrel against Rome. His figure is the foremost one in the dispute, and there is every disposition to take advantage as far as possible of the rank which the See of Constantinople has held since the fifth century, first by usurpation and afterward by the concession of Rome, as second to the Apostolic See of St. Peter. We do not accuse all those who are concerned in the union movement of being animated by a spirit of enmity against Rome. Some of them, we believe, are seeking for the healing of the schisms of Christendom in a truly Catholic spirit, although not fully enlightened concerning the necessary means for doing so. We may cherish the same hope concerning some of the Oriental prelates and clergy also, especially those who have manifested a determination not to compromise a single point of Catholic dogma for the sake of union with Protestants. We are quite sure, however, that the loudest advocates of union in the Protestant ranks, and their most earnest and hearty sympathizers in the East, are thoroughly heretical and schismatical in their spirit and intentions, and are aiming at the overthrow of the Roman Church, and a revolution in the orthodox Eastern communion, as their dearest object. While, therefore, we disclaim any hostile attitude toward men like Dr. Pusey and other unionists of his spirit, and would never use any language toward them which is not kind and respectful, we are compelled to brand the use which other ecclesiastics in high position have sought to make of this Greek question as entirely unprincipled. Their cringing and bowing before the miserable, effete form of Christianity at Constantinople, dictated as it is chiefly by hatred against Rome, is something unworthy of honest Christians and intelligent Englishmen and Americans. Many very sincere and well-disposed persons are no doubt misled by their artful misrepresentations. On that account it is very necessary to bring out as clearly as possible the true state of the case, as regards Oriental Christendom, that it may be seen how little support Anglicanism or any kind of Protestantism can draw from that quarter; and how strongly the entire system of Catholic dogma is sustained by the history and traditions of the Eastern Church.

We may possibly hereafter discuss more at large some of these important subjects relating to the Eastern Church and the schism which has desolated its fairest portions for so many centuries. On this occasion we intend merely to throw a little light on the present actual condition of the patriarchate of Constantinople, in order to dissipate any illusion that may have been created by high-sounding words, and to show how little reason there is to "turn with hope to the spiritual head of the Oriental Church" for any enlightening or sanctifying influences upon the souls which are astray from the fold of St. Peter. We waive, for the time, all consideration of past events, anterior to the period of Turkish domination, and all discussion of the remote circumstances which have brought the See of Constantinople into its present state of degradation, and of obstinate secession from the unity of the Church.

We take it as we find it, under the Mohammedan dominion, and will endeavor to show how it stands in relation to other churches of the East, and what are its claims on the respect and honor of Western Christians.

The Patriarch of Constantinople is not the Patriarch of the "Greek Church." There is no designation of this kind known in the East. The style there used is, the "Holy Eastern Church." The Greek rite, or form of celebrating mass and administering the sacraments in the Greek language, is only one of the rites sanctioned by the Catholic Church which are in use among those Christians who are not under the Latin rite. What is usually called in the West the Greek Church has several independent organizations. [{3}] The Patriarch of Constantinople, who very early subjugated the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem to his dominion, now rules over the same patriarchates, which have dwindled to very insignificant dimensions, and over all the separated orthodox Christians of the Turkish empire. The Russian Church, which was erected into a distinct patriarchate by Ivan III., is under the supreme jurisdiction of the imperial governing synod. The Patriarch of Constantinople is treated with respect and honor, and referred to for advice and counsel, by the Russian authorities; but he has no more jurisdiction in Russia than the Archbishop of Baltimore has in the province of New York. The Church of Greece not only threw off all dependence on the See of Constantinople after the revolution, but renounced all communication with it, for reasons to be mentioned hereafter. The separated Greek Christians of the Austrian empire are governed by the Patriarch of Carlovitz, and there is at least one other separate jurisdiction in the Montenegrine provinces. The Patriarch of Constantinople possesses, therefore, an actual jurisdiction over a fraction only of the Eastern Church. Within the proper limits of his own patriarchate this jurisdiction is absolute, both in ecclesiastical and civil matters, subject only to the supreme authority of the sultan. Immediately after the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, the Sultan Mahomet II. conferred upon the Patriarch Grennadius the character of Milet-bachi, or chief of a nationality, giving him investiture by the pastoral staff and mantle with his own hands. The reason of his doing so was, that the Mohammedan law recognizes only Mohammedans as members of a Mohammedan nationality. In more recent times, the sultans, disgusted by the venal and tyrannical conduct of the patriarchs, have refused to confer this investiture in person, and it is now done by the grand vizier. Eight metropolitans, namely, those of Chalcèdon, Ephesus, Derendah, Heraclèa, Cyzicus, Nicomedia, Caesarèa, and Adrianople, form the supreme council of the patriarchate, and, with the patriarch, administer the ecclesiastical and civil government of the Christians of their communion throughout the Ottoman empire. They have the control of the common chest or treasury of the Oriental rite in Turkey, and of that of the provinces; two great funds established originally for helping poor Christians to pay the exactions levied on them by the Mussulmans, but at present diverted to quite other uses by their faithless and rapacious guardians. They are also exclusively privileged to act as ephori or financial agents and bankers for the other one hundred and thirty-four bishops of the Turkish provinces, each one of them having as many of these episcopal clients as he can get.

Possessed of such an amount of ecclesiastical and civil power as the patriarchate of Constantinople has been within the Ottoman empire for several centuries, it is plain that it might have become the centre of an incalculable influence for the spiritual, moral, and social good of its subjects. Everything would seem to have combined to throw into the hands of the patriarch and his subordinate bishops the power of being truly the protectors and fathers of their people, and to furnish them with the most powerful motives for being faithful to their trust. The oppressed, despised, and impoverished condition of their poor, miserable people, slaves of a fanatical, barbarous, anti-Christian despotism, was enough to have awakened every noble and disinterested emotion in their bosoms, had they been men; and to have aroused the most devoted, self-sacrificing charity and zeal in their hearts, had they been Christians worthy of the name or true Christian pastors. Moreover, if they had been true patriots, and really devoted to the interests of Christianity and the church, there was every inducement to avail themselves of their position [{4}] and to watch the opportunity of cultivating unity and harmony with the Catholic Church and the powerful Christian nations of the West, in order to secure their eventual deliverance from the detestable Moslem usurpation, and the restoration of religion among them to its ancient glory. All causes of misunderstanding and dissension had been done away at the Council of Florence. The perfect dogmatic agreement between the East and the West had been fully established. The Greek and other Oriental rites, and the local laws and customs, had been sanctioned. The patriarchs and hierarchy had been confirmed in their privileges. The Patriarch of Constantinople was even tacitly permitted to retain his high-sounding but unmeaning title of ecumenical patriarch without rebuke, and allowed to exercise all the jurisdiction which other patriarchs or metropolitans were willing to concede to him, subject to the universal supremacy of Rome. The remembrance of the gallant warfare of the Latin Christians against their common Moslem enemy, and especially of the heroic devotion of the cardinal legate and his three hundred followers, who had buried themselves under the walls of Constantinople at its capture, ought to have effaced the memory of former wrongs [Footnote 3] and subdued the stupid, fanatical, unchristian sentiment of national antipathy against Christians of another race. Everything concurred to invite them to play a noble and glorious part toward their own Christian countrymen and toward Christendom in general. We are compelled, however, to say, with shame and pain, that they have proved so recreant to every one of these trusts and opportunities, their career has been one of such unparalleled infamy and perfidy, as to cover the Christian name with ignominy, and to merit for themselves the character of apostates from Christianity--seducers, corruptors, oppressors, and robbers of their own people.

[Footnote 3: The Crusaders undoubtedly committed some great outrages, in revenge far the treachery of the Byzantines, and some Latin missionaries imprudently attacked the Oriental rites and customs, but these acts were always disapproved and condemned by the Popes.]

We will first give a sketch of the line of conduct they have pursued in relation to ecclesiastical matters, and afterward of their administration of their civil authority.

It is notorious that the schismatical bishops and clergy of Turkey neglect almost entirely the duty of preaching the word of God and giving good Christian instruction to their people. The sacraments are administered in the most careless and perfunctory manner, and real practical Christian piety and morality are in a very low state both among clergy and laity. The clergy themselves are grossly ignorant and unfit for the exercise of their office, taken from the lowest class of the people, without instruction or preparation for orders, and treated by their superiors as menial servants. The bishops and higher clergy do not trouble themselves to remedy this gross incapacity of their inferiors, or to supply it by their own efforts. Consequently, the common Christian people of their charge have fallen into a state of moral degradation below that of the Turks themselves, by whom they are despised as the outcasts of society. The striking contrast between the schismatical clergy, monasteries, and people, and the Catholic, is proverbial among the Turks, and an object of remark even by Protestant travellers. It is probable that there have been many exceptions to the general rule of incompetence and supine neglect; but, viewing the case as a whole, it must be said that the patriarchs of Constantinople and their subordinate prelates have completely failed to do their duty as pastors of their people and their instructors and guides in religion and virtue. Their unfortunate position furnishes no adequate excuse, as will be seen when we examine a little further into the enterprises they have actually been engaged in, and see how well [{5}] they have succeeded in accomplishing what they have really desired and undertaken, which is nothing else than their own selfish aggrandizement. Look at the contrast between their conduct and that of the Catholic hierarchies of Russia, Poland, and Ireland under similar circumstances of oppression, and every shadow of excuse will vanish. No doubt there were many causes making it difficult to elevate the character of the ordinary clergy and the people, and tending to keep them down to a low level of intelligence and knowledge. This would furnish an excuse for a great deal, if there had been an evident struggle of the hierarchy to do their best in remedying the evil. Instead of doing this, they are the principal causes of the perpetuation and aggravation of this degraded state. Since the decay of the Ottoman power commenced, the clergy have had it in their power to bid defiance in great measure to the Turkish government. They have been able to control immense sums of money and to wield a great commercial and financial influence. They might have employed the intervention of Christian powers, and especially of Russia, if they had been governed by enlightened and Christian motives, in order to gain just rights and the means of improvement for their people. The Ottoman government, itself, has come to a more just and liberal policy, in which it would have welcomed the aid of the Christian hierarchy, had there been one worthy of the name. Their complete apathy at all times to everything which concerns the spiritual and moral welfare of their subjects will warrant no other conclusion than that they have practically apostatized from the faith and church of Christ, and are mere intruders into the fold which they lay waste and ravage.

In their attitude toward the Catholic Church and the Holy See, the hierarchy of the patriaichate are ignorantly, violently, and obstinately schismatical, and even heretical. The public and official teaching of the Eastern Church is orthodox, and therefore no one is adjudged to be a heretic simply because he adheres to that communion. One who intelligently and obstinately adheres to a schism as a state of permanent separation from the See of St. Peter, is, however, at least a constructive heretic, and is very likely to be a formal heretic, on several doctrines which have been defined by the Catholic Church. The nature of the opposition of the clergy of Constantinople to the Roman Church, the grounds on which they defend their contumacious rebellion, and the dogmatic arguments which they employ in the controversy, are such as to place them in the position of the most unreasonable and contumacious schismatics, and as it appears to our judgment, in submission to that of more learned theologians, of heretics also. So far as their influence extends, and it is very great, they are chiefly accountable for the isolated condition of the entire non-united Eastern Church. As the ambition of the Patriarch of Constantinople was the original cause of the schism, so now the ignorant and violent obstinacy of the clergy of the patriarchate, and their supreme devotion to their own selfish and narrow personal and party interests, is, in connection with a similar though less odious spirit in the chief Muscovite clergy, and the worldly policy of the Russian czar, the chief cause of its perpetuation.

The clergy of Constantinople have not hesitated to resort to forgery in order to do away with the legal and binding force of the act of their own predecessors in subscribing and promulgating throughout their entire jurisdiction the act of union established at the Council of Florence. Gennadius, the first patriarch elected after the Turkish conquest, was one of the prelates who signed the decree of the Council of Florence, a learned and virtuous man, and is believed to have lived and died in the [{6}] communion of the Holy See. Actual communication between Constantinople and Rome was, however, rendered absolutely impossible by the deadly hostility of the conquerors to their principal and most dangerous foe. The slightest attempt at any intercourse with the Latin Christians would have caused the extermination of all the Christian subjects of the Ottoman empire. It is difficult to discover, therefore, when and how it was that the supremacy of the Roman Church, whose actual exercise was thus at first impeded by the necessity of the case, was again formally repudiated by the patriarchs. There is a letter extant, written in the year 1584 by the Patriarch Jeremiah to Pope Gregory XIII., in which he says that "it belonged to him, as the head of the Catholic Church, to indicate the measures to be employed against the Protestants," and requests him in virtue of this office to point out what measures can be taken to arrest the advance of Protestantism. This is the last official act of the kind of which there is any record. The patriarchs and their associates have relapsed into an attitude toward the Holy See which is equally schismatical and arrogant, though through their degraded condition far more ridiculous than that which was assumed by their predecessors before the Council of Florence. In order to nullify, as far as possible, the legal force of the act of union promulgated by that council, they have resorted to a forgery, and have published the acts of a pretended council under a patriarch who never existed and whom they call Athanasius. There is no precise date attached to these forged acts, but they are so arranged as to appear to have been promulgated soon after the return of the emperor and prelates from Italy, and before the Turkish conquest; and in them, some of the principal prelates what signed the decrees of the Council of Florence are represented as abjuring and begging pardon for what they had done. They are said to have been moved to this by the indignation of their people and a sedition in Constantinople in which the rejection of the act of union was demanded. The forgery is too transparent to be worthy of refutation, and could never have been executed and palmed off as genuine in any other place than in Constantinople. They have also put out a book called the "Pedalium," in which they revive all the frivolous pretexts on account of which the infamous Michael Cerularius and his ignorant ecclesiastical clique of the Bas Empire pretended to prove the apostacy of the Bishop of Rome and all Western Christendom from the faith and communion of the Catholic Church, and the consequent succession of the Bishop of Constantinople to the universal primacy. The clergy of the patriarchate have taken the position that the Catholic Church at present is confined to the limits of what we call the Greek Church. They claim for themselves, therefore, that place which they acknowledge formerly belonged to the See of Rome, and thus seek to justify and carry out the usurpation of supreme and universal authority indicated by the title of ecumenical patriarch. The absurdity of this is evident, from the very grounds on which the title was originally assumed, and the traditional maxims which directed the policy of the ambitions Byzantine prelates throughout the entire period of the Greek empire. The original and only claim of the bishops of Constantinople, who were merely suffragans of the Metropolitan of Heraclèa before their city was made the capital of the empire, to the patriarchal dignity, was the political importance of the city. Because Constantinople was new Rome, therefore the Bishop of Constantinople ought to be second to the Bishop of ancient Rome; and not only this, but he ought to rule over the whole East with a supremacy like that which the Bishop of Rome had always exercised over the whole [{7}] world. This false and schismatical principle is contrary to the fundamental principle of Catholic church organization, viz., that the subordination of episcopal sees springs from the divine institution of the primacy in the See of St. Peter, and is regulated by ecclesiastical canons on spiritual grounds, which are superior to all considerations of a temporal nature. The Patriarch of Constantinople has long ago lost all claim to precedence or authority based on the civil dignity of the city as the seat of an empire. According to the principles of his predecessors, the primacy ought to have been transferred to the Patriarch of Moscow, when the Russian patriarchate was established by Ivan III. Nevertheless, he still continues to style himself ecumenical patriarch, and the eight metropolitans who form his permanent synod continue to keep the precedence over all other bishops of the patriarchate, although their sees have dwindled into insignificance, and other episcopal towns far exceed them in civil importance. In point of fact, the baselessness of his claim to universal jurisdiction has been recognized by the Eastern Church. His real authority is confined to the Turkish empire, where it is sustained by the civil power. Russia has long been independent of him. The Church of Greece has completely severed her connection with him. The schismatical Greeks of the Austrian empire, and those of the neighboring provinces, are severally independent. The false principle that produced the Eastern schism in the first place thus continues to work out its legitimate effect of disintegration in the Eastern communion itself, by separating the national churches from the principal church of Constantinople, which would itself crumble to pieces if the support of the Ottoman power were removed. The privileges of the See of Constantinople have now no valid claim to respect, except that derived from ecclesiastical canons ratified by time, general consent, and the sanction of the Roman Church. The instinct of self-preservation ought to compel its rulers to fall back on Catholic principles, and submit themselves to the legitimate authority of the Roman Pontiff as the head of the Catholic Church throughout the world. They are following, however, the contrary impulse of self-destruction, to which they are abandoned by a just God as a punishment for their treason to Jesus Christ and his Vicar, and in every way seeking to strengthen and extend the barrier which separates them from the Roman Church.

This policy has led them to do all in their power to establish a dogmatic difference between the Oriental Church and the Church of Rome. Not only do they represent the difference in regard to the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, as expressed by the "Filioque" of the Creed, which was fully proved at the Council of Florence to be a mere verbal difference, as a difference in regard to an essential dogma, but they have brought in others to swell their list of Latin heresies. The principal dogmatic differences on which they insist are three: the doctrine of purgatory, the quality of the bread used in the holy eucharist, and the mode of administering baptism. Only the most deplorable ignorance and factiousness could base a pretence of dogmatic difference on such a foundation. In regard to purgatory, the Roman Church has defined or required nothing beyond that which is taught by the doctrinal standards of the Eastern Church. The difference in regard to the use of leavened or unleavened bread, and the mode of baptism, is a mere difference of rite. In regard to the last-mentioned rite, however, the clergy of Constantinople have even surpassed their usual amount of ignorance and effrontery. They pretend that no baptism except that by trine immersion is valid, and consequently that the vast majority of Western Christians are unbaptized. This position of theirs, which will no doubt be [{8}] very satisfactory to our Baptist brethren, makes sweeping work, not only with the Latin Church, but with Protestant Christendom. Where there is no baptism, there is no ordination, no sacrament whatever, no church. What will our Anglican friends say to this? The clergy of Constantinople rebaptize unconditionally every one who applies to be received into their communion, whether he be Catholic or Protestant, clergyman or layman. It would be folly to argue against this sacrilegious absurdity on Catholic grounds. It is enough to show their inconsistency with themselves, by mentioning the fact that the Russian Church allows the validity of baptism by aspersion, and that even their own book of canons permits it in case of necessity. But why look for any manifestation of the learning, wisdom, or Christian principle which ought to characterize prelates from men who have bought their places for gold, and who sell every episcopal see to the highest bidder? The simony and bribery which have been openly and unblushingly practised by the ruling clerical faction of the Turkish empire since the time when the monk Simeon bought the patriarchal dignity from the sultan, make this page of ecclesiastical history one of the blackest and most infamous in character. As we might expect under such a system, virtuous and worthy men are put aside, and the episcopate and priesthood filled up from the creatures and servile followers of the ruling clique. Such men naturally disgrace their holy character by their immoral lives, and bring opprobrium on the Christian name. The history of the patriarchate of Constantinople, therefore, since the period of Gennadius and the first few successors who followed his worthy example, has been stained with blood and crime, and darkened by scenes of tragic infamy and horror. We will relate one of the most recent of these, as a sufficient proof and illustration of the heavy indictment we have made against the patriarchal clergy.

At the time of the Greek revolution, the patriarch and principal clergy of Constantinople received orders from the sultan to use their power in suppressing all co-operation on the part of the Christians in Turkey with their brethren in Greece, and to denounce to the Ottoman government all who were suspected of conniving at the insurrection. Their political position no doubt required of them to remain passive in the matter, to refrain from positively aiding the revolutionists, and also to suppress all overt acts of the Christians under their jurisdiction against the government. Nevertheless, as a people unjustly enslaved by a barbarous, anti-Christian despotism, they owed nothing more to their masters than this exterior obedience to the letter of the law. They could not be expected to enter with a hearty and zealous sympathy into the measures of the government for suppressing the revolution; and, indeed, every genuine and noble sentiment of Christianity and patriotism forbade their doing so, and exacted of them a deep, interior sympathy with their cruelly oppressed brethren who were so nobly struggling to free their country from the hated yoke of the Moslem conqueror. The really high-minded Greeks of the empire did thus sympathize with their brethren. The ruling clergy, however, manifested a zeal for the interests of the Ottoman court so outré and so scandalous that it not only outraged the feelings of their own subjects, but, as we shall see, aroused the suspicions of the tyrants before whom they so basely cringed, and brought destruction on their own heads. They accused a great number of Christians of complicity in the insurrection, seizing the opportunity of denouncing every one who had incurred their hatred for any reason whatever, so that the prisons were soon crowded with their unfortunate victims, all of whom suffered the penalty of death. The patriarch pronounced a sentence of major excommunication against Prince Ypsilanti, and all the Greeks who [{9}] took part in the revolt. A few days afterward, on the first Sunday of Lent, during the solemnities of the pontifical mass, the patriarch, his eight chief metropolitans, and fifteen other bishops, pronounced the same sentence of excommunication, together with the sentence of deposition and degradation, against seven bishops of Greece, partisans of Prince Ypsilanti, and all their adherents, signing the decree on the altar of the cathedral church. Such a storm of indignation was raised by this nefarious act, that the prelates were obliged to pacify their people by pretending that they had acted under the compulsion of the government. A few days after, the patriarch and the majority of the bishops who had signed the decree were condemned to death and executed, on the charge of participating in the revolution. Even after the great powers of Europe had acknowledged the independence of Greece, the ruling clergy of Constantinople endeavored to curry favor at court by sending a commission, under the presidency of the metropolitan of Chalcèdon, to recommend to the Greeks a return to the Turkish dominion! It is needless to say that this invitation was declined, although we cannot but admire the self-control of the Greek princes and prelates when we are told that it was declined, and the ambassadors dismissed, in the most polite manner.

One more intrigue, the last one they have been left the opportunity of trying, closes the history of their relations with the Church of Greece. The clergy and people of the new kingdom were equally determined to throw off completely and for ever the ecclesiastical tyranny of Constantinople. At the same time they were disposed to act with diplomatic formality and ecclesiastical courtesy, as well as in conformity with the laws and principle of the orthodox church of the East. The second article of the constitutional chart of the kingdom defines in a precise and dignified manner the position of the national church. "The orthodox Church of Greece, acknowledging our Lord Jesus Christ as its head, is perpetually united in dogma with the great Church of Constantinople and every other church holding the same dogmas, preserving, as they do, immutably the holy canons of the apostles and councils, and the sacred traditions. Nevertheless, it is autocephalous, exercising independently of every other church its rights of jurisdiction, and is administered by a sacred college of bishops." This article was established in 1844. In 1850, the clergy obtained from the government the appointment of a commission, composed of one clergyman, the archimandrite Michael Apostolides, professor of theology in the University of Athens, and one layman, Peter Deligianni, chargé d'affaires at Constantinople, to establish concordats with the patriarchate and the governing synod of Russia, on the basis of the above cited article of the Greek constitution. In lieu of this proposed concordat, the Greek commissioners were duped by the patriarchal synod into signing a synodal act, in which the Patriarch of Constantinople, qualifying his see as the vine of which other churches are the branches, and styling himself and his associates

--"Watchful shepherds and scrupulous guardians of the canons of the church"--pretends by his own authority to grant independent jurisdiction to the Church of Greece as a privilege. At the same time he designates the Archbishop of Athens as the perpetual president of the synod, ordains that the holy chrism shall always be brought from Constantinople, and imposes other obligations intended to serve as signs of dependence on the Patriarchal Church. The Greek parliament, however, annulled this concordat, and the synod of Greek bishops at Athens determined that henceforth there should be no relation between the Church of Greece and that of Constantinople, subsequently even forbidding priests ordained out of [{10}] the kingdom to officiate in the priesthood. Although the Greek clergy had shown themselves so forbearing and patient, it seems that the arrogance and perfidy of the clergy of Constantinople had at last roused their just indignation. The learned archimandrite Pharmacides published a book against the synodal act and the policy of the Constantinopolitan clergy, entitled "Antitomos; or, Concerning the Truth," in which he ridicules the pompous pretensions which they make to pastoral vigilance and fidelity in these words:

"Since you obtained the sacerdotal dignity by purchase, if you had really the intention in becoming bishops to watch and to fatigue yourselves by guarding the Church, no one of you would be a bishop; for you would not have spent your money in buying vigils and labors."

Such being the nature of the solicitude of these watchful pastors and scrupulous guardians of the canons for the welfare of those over whom they claim a patriarchal authority, we need not be surprised at any amount of reckless contempt which they may show for the general interests of Christendom, and the admonitions they from time to time receive from the veritable pastor of the flock of Christ. Nevertheless, we cannot but wonder that the respectable portion of the Oriental episcopate should permit themselves to be compromised by an act which seems to cap the climax of even Byzantine stupidity and effrontery. We refer to the reply to the noble and paternal encyclical of Pius IX. to the Oriental bishops, put forth by Anthimus, the late patriarch. Anthimus himself was notorious throughout the city for his habits of drunkenness, which were so gross as to incapacitate him from all business and expose him to the most ignominious insults even from his own subordinates. The letter which he and several of his bishops subscribed and sent to the Holy Father was written by the monk Constantine OEconomus, and, in answer to the earnest and affectionate appeals of the Holy Father to return to the unity of the Catholic Church, makes the following astounding statement:

"The three other patriarchs, in difficult questions, demand the fraternal counsels of the one of Constantinople, because that city is the imperial residence, and this patriarch has the synodal primacy. If the question can be settled by his fraternal co-operation, very well. But if not, the matter is referred to the government (i.e., Ottoman), according to the established laws."

We think that the reason of the grave charge of schism, heresy, and apostacy from the fundamental, constitutive principles of the Catholic Church, which we have made against the higher clergy of Constantinople, will now be apparent to every candid reader. The history of their action in relation to the Church of Greece proves that their principles and policy tend to disintegrate within itself still more that portion of Christendom which they have alienated from the communion of Rome and the West, and thus to increase the force of the movement of decentralization, and to augment the number of separate, local, mutually independent, and hostile communions. That the natural tendency of this principle is to produce dogmatic dissensions, and to efface the idea of Catholic unity, is too evident from past history to need proof. It is only neutralized in the East by the stagnation of thought, and the consequent immobility of the Oriental mind from its old, long established traditions. The essentially schismatical virus of the principle is in the subordination of organic, hierarchical unity to the temporal power and the civil constitution of states, or the church-and-state principle in its most odious form, which was never more grossly expressed than in the letter above cited of Anthimus. This principle not only tends to increase disintegration in the church, but to bar the way to a reintegration in unity, and to destroy all desire of a return to unity, as is also amply proved by the acts of the clergy of Constantinople. A schismatical principle held [{11}] and acted on in such a way as to make schism a perpetual condition, and thus not merely to interrupt communion for a time but to destroy the idea of Catholic unity, becomes heretical. Moreover, when doctrinal forms of expressing dogmas of faith, or particular forms of administering the rites of religion, are without authority set forth as essential conditions of orthodoxy, and made the basis of a judgment of heresy against other churches, those who make this false dogmatic standard are guilty of heresy. This is the case with the clergy of Constantinople, who make the difference respecting the use of "Filioque" in the Creed the pretext for accusing the Latin Church of heresy, and who deal similarly with the doctrine of purgatory, and the questions respecting unleavened bread in the eucharist and immersion in baptism. They have constantly persisted in their effort to establish an essential dogmatic difference between the Latin and Greek Churches and to make the peculiarities of the Greek rite essential terms of Catholic communion, in order to widen and perpetuate the breach between the East and West, and to maintain their own usurped principality. They have been the authors of the schism, its obstinate promoters, the principal cause of thrusting it upon the other parts of the Eastern Church, and the chief instrument of thwarting the charitable efforts of the Holy See for the spiritual good of the Oriental Christians. They have done it in spite of the best and most ample opportunities of knowing the utter falsehood of all the grounds on which their schism is based, in the face of the example and the writings of the best and most learned of their own predecessors, and with a recklessness of consequences, and a disregard of the interests of their own people and of religion itself, which merits for them the name not only of heretics, but of apostates from all but the name and outward profession of Christianity.

This last portion of the case against them we must now prosecute a little further, by showing what has been their conduct in the exercise of their temporal power over their fellow-Christians in Turkey.

The reasons and extent of the civil authority conferred upon the Patriarch Gennadius by Mahomet II. have already been exposed. It is obvious that although this authority would have enabled the governing clergy to succor and console their unhappy people in their condition of miserable slavery, if they had been possessed of truly apostolic virtue, it opened the way to the most frightful tyranny and oppression, by presenting to the worst and most ambitious men a strong motive to aspire to the highest offices in the church. No form of government can be worse than that of privileged slaves of a despot over their fellow-slaves. Accordingly, but a short time elapsed before the unhappy Christians of Turkey began to suffer from the effects of this terrible system. Simoniacal bishops who bought their own dignity by bribing the sultans and their favorites, and sold all the inferior offices in their gift to the highest bidder; who were careless and faithless in the discharge of their spiritual duties; and who had apostatized from the communion of the Catholic Church, would, of course, exercise their civil functions in the same spirit and according to the same policy. They associated themselves intimately with the Janissaries, on whom they relied for the maintenance of their power; gave their system of policy the name of the "System of Cara-Casan," that is, "Ecclesiastical Janissary System;" enrolled themselves as members of the Ortas or Janissary companies, and bore their distinguishing marks tattooed on their arms. This redoubtable body found its most powerful ally in the clergy up to the time of its destruction by Mahmoud II. The author of the work whose title is placed at the head of this article, James G. Pitzipios, is a native Christian subject of the Sultan of Turkey, and was the secretary of an imperial commission appointed to examine into the [{12}] civil and financial administration of the Christian communities, as well as to hear their complaints against their rulers. His position and circumstances, therefore, have enabled him to investigate the matter thoroughly. His estimate of the civil administration of the clergy of the patriarchate from the time of Mahomet II. to that of Mahmoud II.-- that is, from the Turkish conquest to the projected reformation in the Ottoman government--is expressed in these words:

"We have seen why it was that the Sultan Mahomet II. delegated the entire temporal power over his Christian subjects to the Patriarch Gennadius and his successors; gave to the religious head of the Christians of his empire the title of Milet-bachi, and rendered him the absolute master of the lot of all his co-religionists, as well as responsible for their conduct and for their fulfilment of all duties and obligations toward the government. Such an arrangement was calculated to produce in its commencement some alleviations and even some advantages to these unfortunate Christians, as in point of fact it actually happened. But it was sure to degenerate sooner or later into a frightful tyranny, such as is naturally that of privileged slaves placed over those of their own race. Accordingly, as we have stated in several places already, the clergy of Constantinople made use of all the means of oppression, of vexation, and of pillage of which the cunning, the depraved conscience, and the rapacity of slaves in authority are capable. The clergy of Constantinople having become in this way the absolute arbiters of the goods, the conscience, the social rights, and indirectly even of the lives of all their Eastern co-religionists, continued to abuse this temporal power not only during the period of the old regime, but even after the destruction of the Janissaries, and, again, after the reform in Turkey, and up to the present moment" [Footnote 4] (1855).

[Footnote 4: "L'Eglise Orientale," p. iv., pp. 17, 18.]

The allusion to the reform in the lost clause of this extract requires a fuller explanation, and this explanation will furnish the most conclusive evidence of the degradation of the patriarchate, by showing that not only have its clergy submitted to be the tools of the Ottoman government when it was disposed to oppress the Christians in the worst manner, but that they have even resisted and thwarted the efforts of that government itself, when it was disposed to emancipate the Christians from a part of their bondage.

The Sultan Mahmoud I I., a man of superior genius and enlightened views, devoted all the energies of his great mind to the effort of restoring his empire, rapidly verging toward dissolution, to prosperity and splendor. He devised for this end a gigantic scheme of political reformation, one part of which was the abolition of all civil distinction between his subjects of different religions. He was unable to do more, during his lifetime, than barely to commence the execution of his grand project. His son and successor, Abdul-Medjid, continued to prosecute the same work, and, at the beginning of his reign, published a decree called the Tinzimat, enjoining certain reformations in the manner of administering law and justice in the provinces. The Christian inhabitants of Turkey were the ones who ought to have profited most by this decree. On the contrary, the very privileges which it accorded them, by withdrawing them in great measure from the authority of the local Mussulman tribunals, deprived them of their only resource against the oppressions and exactions of their own clergy, and rendered their condition worse. The bishops succeeded in getting a more exclusive control than ever over all cases of jurisdiction relating to Christians, and made use of their power to fleece their people more unmercifully than they had ever done before. Encouraged by the publication of die Tinzimat, these unhappy Christian communities ventured to send remonstrances to the Ottoman [{13}] government against their cruel and mercenary pastors. In consequence of these remonstrances, the Porte addressed the following official note, dated Feb. 4, 1850, to the Patriarch of Constantinople:

"Since, according to the Christian religion, the bishops are the pastors of the people, they ought to guide them in the right way, protect them, and console them, but never oppress them. As, however, many metropolitans and bishops commit actions in the provinces which even the most despicable of men would not dare to perpetrate, the Christian populations, crushed under this oppression, address themselves continually to the government, supplicating it to grant them its assistance and protection. Consequently, as the government cannot refuse to take into consideration these just complaints of its own subjects, it wills absolutely that these disorders cease. It invites, therefore, the patriarch to convoke an assembly of bishops and of the principal laymen of his religion, and, in concert with them, to consider fraternally of the means of doing away with these oppressions and the just complaints in regard to them, by regulating their ecclesiastical and communal administration in conformity with the precepts of their own religion and with the instructions the Tinzimat." [Footnote 5]

[Footnote 5: Ibid., p. iii., p. 144.]

A very edifying sermon this, from a Mohammedan minister of state to the "spiritual head of the ancient and venerable Oriental Church!" Like many other sermons, however, it did not produce a result corresponding to its excellence. The good advice it contained was followed up by levying a new tax. The patriarch sent immediately to all the bishops a circular in which he prescribed to them "to admonish the people, that since the government had imposed upon the church the obligation of conforming to the demands of certain dioceses, and applying everywhere the system of giving fixed salaries to the bishops, the most holy patriarch is obliged to conform himself to the orders of the government and to put them in execution as soon as possible. But since both the general commune of Constantinople and the particular ones of the several dioceses are burdened with debts which amount to about 7,000,000 of piastres, it is just that the people should previously pay off these debts; the bishops are, therefore, ordered to proceed immediately to an exact enumeration of all the Christian inhabitants of the cities, towns, and villages, without excepting either widows or unmarried persons. In this way the patriarchate, taking the census as its guide, can assign to each Christian the sum which he is bound to pay for the pre-extinction of the communal debts, and afterward apply the system of fixed episcopal revenues." [Footnote 6]

[Footnote 6: Ibid., p. 144., p. 145.]

The poor people, terrified by this enormous tax, and by the persecution which overtook the prime movers in the remonstrance, as the secretary of the commission on the Tinzimat informs us, "swallowed painfully their grievances and no longer dared to continue their just reclamations to the government." The Ottoman government, intimidated by the threats of the ecclesiastical Janissaries of the Cara-Casan, "was obliged to yield to the force of circumstances, as they were used to do in the time of their terrible confrères, and abandoned the question completely."

The Greek revolution has also in one way aggravated the lot of the Christians of Turkey, by causing the compulsory or voluntary removal from the capital of the principal merchants and other Christians of superior station and influence, who formed the greatest check upon the unworthy clerical rulers. Under the name of "primates of the nation," they had a share in the management of ecclesiastical finances and other temporal affairs, and as their compatriot, Mr. Pitzipios, affirms, "these good citizens, inspired by their charitable [{14}] sentiments, and encouraged by the influence which they had with the Ottoman government, repressed greatly the abuses of the clergy, and moderated, as far as they were able, the vexations of the people." [Footnote 7] The men of this class who remained in Constantinople were removed by the government, as foreigners, from all share in the administration of Christian' affairs, and their places filled with the creatures of the patriarchal clique, men of the lowest rank and character, who were ready tools for every nefarious work.

[Footnote 7: Ibid., p. 147.]

As a natural consequence of the faithless abuse of the sacred religious and civil trust committed to the higher clergy, they and their inferior clergy are detested and despised by their people, who are held in subjection to them only by physical coercion. Mr. Pitzipios assures us that there is among them a very strong predisposition to Protestantism. A form of deism, introduced by Theophilus Cairy, a Greek priest, who died in prison in the year 1851, made great progress before it was suppressed by the civil power, and is now secretly working with great activity in Greece and Turkey.

We cannot but think that the last and most degraded phase of the Byzantine Bas Empire, impersonated in the schismatical patriarchate of Constantinople, is destined soon to pass away. We hope and expect soon to see the end of the Ottoman power, which alone sustains this odious ecclesiastico-political tyranny. The signs of the political horizon appear to indicate that Russia is destined to gain possession of the ancient seat of the Greek empire. However this may be, if the Church of Constantinople, and the other far more ancient churches within her sphere of jurisdiction, are ever to be restored to a healthy Christian vitality, and made to reflourish as of old, it must be by a thorough ecclesiastical reformation, which shall sweep away the present dominant clique in the clergy and the whole policy which they have established.

The beginning of this reformation has already been inaugurated in the kingdom of Greece. The bishops of that kingdom, in recovering freedom from the odious yoke of Constantinople, have recovered the character of Christian prelates and pastors. The severe remarks which we have made respecting the Oriental hierarchy must be understood as applicable only to that particular clique who have heretofore made themselves dominant through intrigue and violence. There no doubt have been, and are, among the higher clergy of the Turkish empire, some exceptions to the general rule of incompetence and moral unworthiness. The Greek bishops themselves who were established in their sees under the old regime, manifested by their open or tacit concurrence in the revolution that virtue had not completely died out under the pressure of a long slavery. Since the establishment of Grecian independence, the measures they have taken, in concert with the other members of the higher secular and monastic clergy and the government, for the amelioration of religion, are such as to reflect honor on themselves, and to give great promise for the future. They live in a simple and frugal manner, and some of them, instead of leaving millions of piastres to their relatives, like their Turkish brethren, have not left behind them enough money to defray their own funeral expenses. They endeavor to select the best subjects for ordination to the priesthood and to give them a good theological and religious training. Professorships of theological science are established in the University of Athens. The catechism is carefully taught to the young people and children, and every year ten of the most competent among the clergy are sent at the public expense to preach throughout all the towns and villages of the kingdom. Such is the happy result of the successful effort of these noble Greeks, so endeared to every lover of learning, valor, and [{15}] religion for the memories of their glorious antiquity, to shake off the yoke of the sultans and the patriarchs of Constantinople. It is this miserable amalgam of Moslem despotism, and usurped or abused spiritual power in the hands of a degenerate clergy at Constantinople, which is the great obstacle in the way of the regeneration of the East. We have already seen that the ecclesiastical tyranny of the patriarchate is now confined to the one hundred and forty-two small bishoprics, and the few millions of people included in them, which are situated in Turkey. Nevertheless, the political views of the Russian emperors, and the traditional reverence of the Russian clergy, still maintain the patriarch and his synod in a modified spiritual supremacy over the Russian Church, to which two-thirds of the Oriental rite belong. If Constantinople should fall into the hands of any of the great powers of Western Christendom, of course the Cara-Casan, or system of mixed ecclesiastical and civil despotism, will be overturned, the patriarch will become a mere primate among the other metropolitans of the nation, and the patriarchate be reduced to a simply honorary dignity like that of the Western patriarchs of Venice and Lisbon. If the Czar becomes the master of European Turkey, the same result will take place, with this only exception, that the See of Constantinople will become the primatial see of the Russian empire, and the Russian hierarchy will take the place of the effete Byzantine clergy, which they are far more worthy, from their learning and strict morality, to occupy.

What is to be the political and ecclesiastical destiny of the East, and Russia, its gigantic infant, who can foretell, without prophetic gifts? If the Russian emperors prove that they are destined and are worthy to begin anew and to fulfil the grand design of Constantine, Theodosius, Justinian, Pulcheria, and Irene, by creating a thoroughly Christian empire of the East, we shall rejoice to see them enthroned in Constantinople. If they are destined to restore the cross to the dome of St. Sophia, and to renovate the ancient glory of that temple, desecrated by Christian infamy more than by the Moslem crescent, we shall exult in their achievement. If new Chrysostoms and Gregories shall rise up to efface the dishonor of their predecessors, we will forget the past, and give them the homage due to true and worthy successors of the saints. We have no desire to see the Church of Constantinople degraded, or the Eastern Church humiliated. The Oriental Church is orthodox and catholic in its faith, and its several great rites are fully sanctioned and protected by the Holy See. The heresies which are found among a portion of its clergy are personal heresies, and have never been established by any great synod, or incorporated into their received doctrinal standards. We do not condemn the great body of its people of even formal schism, but rather compassionate them as suffering from a state of schism which has been forced on them by a designing and unworthy faction, and is perpetuated in great part through misunderstanding, prejudice, and national antipathies. The causes and grounds of this unnatural state must necessarily come up among them very soon for a more thorough investigation. Study, thought, discussion, and contact with Western Catholicism, as well as Western Protestantism and rationalism, will compel them to place themselves face to face with their own hereditary and traditional dogmas; and either to be consistent with themselves, and submit to the supremacy of the Roman See, or to give up their orthodoxy and open the doors to a religious revolution. We cannot deny that the latter alternative is possible, although we are sure that Dr. Pusey, and men like-minded with him, would deplore it as a great calamity. We trust it will be otherwise. The Easter morning of resurrection, which [{16}] we are now celebrating, dawned for us in the East. It is the land, of Christ and his apostles, the birth-place of our religion. We hope the day of resurrection for its decayed and languishing churches may not be far distant.

---

From The Month.
SAINTS OF THE DESERT.
BY THE REV. J. H. NEWMAN, D.D.

1. Abbot Antony pointed out to a brother a stone, and said to him, "Revile that stone, and beat it soundly."

When he had done so, Antony said, "Did the stone say anything?" He answered, "No."

Then said Antony: "Unto this perfection shalt thou one day come."

2. When Abbot Arsenius was ill, they laid him on a mat, and put a pillow under his head, and a brother was scandalized.

Then said his attendant to the brother: "What were you before you were a monk?" He answered, "A shepherd." Then he asked again, "And do you live a harder or an easier life now than then?" He replied, "I have more comforts now." Then said the other, "Seest thou this abbot? When he was in the world he was the father of emperors. A thousand slaves with golden girdles and tippets of velvet waited on him, and rich carpets were spread under him. Thou hast gained by the change which has made thee a monk; it is thou who art now encompassed with comforts, but he is afflicted."

3. When Abbot Agatho was near his end, he remained for three days with his eyes open and steadily fixed.

His brethren shook him, sayings "Abbot, where are you?"

He replied, "I stand before the judgment seat."

They said, "What, father! do you you too fear? think of your works."

He made answer: "I have no confidence till I shall have met my God."

4. Abbot Pastor was asked, "Is it good to cloak a brother's fault?"

He answered: "As often as we hide a brother's sin, God hides one of ours, but he tells ours in that hour in which we tell our brother's."

5. The Abbot Alonius said: "Unless a man says in his heart, I and my God are the only two in the world, he will not have rest."

6. Abbot Pambo, being summoned by St. Athanasius to Alexandria, met an actress, and forthwith began to weep. "I weep," he said, "because I do not strive to please my God as she strives to please the impure."

7. An old monk fell sick and for many days could not eat, and his novice made him some pudding. There was a vessel of honey, and there was another vessel of linseed oil for the lamp, good for nothing else, for it was rancid. The novice mistook, and mixed up the oil in the pudding. The old man said not a word, but ate it.

The novice pressed him, and helped him a second time, and the old man ate again.

When he offered it the third time, the old man said, "I have had enough;" but the novice cried, "Indeed, it is very good. I will eat some with you."

When he had tasted it, he fell on his face and said: "Father, I shall be the death of you! Why didn't you speak?"

The old man answered: "Had it been God's will that I should eat honey, honey thou wouldst have given me."

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[{17}]

From The Literary Workman.
JENIFER'S PRAYER.
BY OLIVER CRANE.
IN THREE PARTS.

I.

He and she stood in a room in an inn in the town of Hull--and how she wept! Crying as a child cries, with a woman's feelings joining exquisite pain to those tears; which tears, in a way wonderful and peculiar to beautiful women, scarcely disordered her face, or gave anything worse to her countenance than an indescribably pathetic tenderness.

He was older than she was by full ten years. He only watched her. And if the most acute of my readers had watched him, they would have been no wiser for their scrutiny.

At last she left the room; he had opened the door and offered his hand to her. It was night; and she changed her chamber-candle from her right hand to her left, and gave that right hand to him. He held it, while he said: "I spoke because I dread the influence of the house we are going to, and of those whom you will meet there."

"Thank you. Good night" And so she got to a great dark bed-room, and knelt down, like a good girl as she was, and cried no more, but was in bed and asleep before he had left the place he had taken by the side of the sitting-room fire, leaning thoughtfully against the mantel-shelf, when her absence had made the room lonely.

Then he ran down stairs and rushed out into the streets of the kingly Hull--Kingston of the day of Edward I. The man we speak of was no antiquary, and he troubled himself neither with the Kingston of the royal Edward nor the Vaccaria of the abbot from whom the place was bought; he walked at a quick pace through streets dim and streets lighted, toward the ships, or among the houses; to where he could see the great headland of Holderness, or behold nothing at all but the brick wall that prevented his going further, and told him by strong facts that he had lost his way. So he wandered, walking fast often--again, walking slowly; his head bowed down, his features working, and his eyes flashing--clenched hands, or hands clasped on his breast, as if to keep down the surging waves of memory, which carried on their crests many things which now he could only gnash his teeth at in withering vexation.

He and she had come from Scotland. I have said that she was beautiful--she was English, too; but he was Scotch born and bred, and not dark and stem, or really wild or poetic, as a Scotchman in a story ought to be. He was simply a strong, well-formed man, of dark, ruddy complexion, and fine, thick, waving brown hair. He might have been a nobleman, or a royal descendant of Hull's own king. He looked it all, without being downright handsome. But he was, in fact, only one of the many men who have come into a thousand a year too soon for the preservation of prudence. Between sixteen, when he succeeded to it, and twenty-one, when he could spend it, he had committed many follies, and found friends who turned out worse than declared enemies--since twenty-one he had fallen [{18}] in love more than once. He had been praised, blamed, accused, acquitted. But whether or not this man was good or bad, no living soul could tell. He was well off, well looking, well read, and in good company. He re-entered the inn at Hull that April night, stood by the fire smoking, asked for a cup of strong coffee, went to bed.

The next morning the two met at breakfast They were going south. No matter where. Whether to the dreamy vales of Devonshire, to verdant Somersetshire, or the gardens of Hampshire--no matter. They were going to what the north Britons call the south. And it did not mean Algeria. Railways were not everywhere then as railways are now. They had to travel nearly all day, then to "coach it" to a great town, in whose history coaches have now long been of the past. Then to get on a second day by the old "fast four-horse," and to arrive about five o'clock at a little quiet country town, where a carriage would take them to the friends and the house whose influence he dreaded.

In fact, that night, in the inn sitting-room, he had offered marriage to the girl whom he had in charge for safe guardianship on so long a journey to her far-off home where he was to be a guest. She had felt that he had abused his trust and taken an unfair advantage of her; also, she was in that peculiarly feminine state of mind which is neither expressed by no nor by yes. She had upbraided him. He, pleading guilty in his soul, was in a horror at the thought of losing her; losing her in that way too, because he had done wrong. Being miserable, he had shown his misery as a strong man may. He spoke, and self-reproachfully; but, as he pleaded, he betrayed all he felt. The girl saw his clasped hands, his bent form, as he leaned down from the chair on which he sat in the straggling attitude which expressed a disordered mind. He spoke, looking at the carpet, not loud nor long, but with a terrible earnestness that frightened the girl, and then she cried all the more, and seemed to shrink away as if in alarm, and yet almost angrily. Why would he speak so fiercely--why had he taken this advantage of her?

Then he had risen up quickly, and said, "Well, you know all now. We will talk of something else." But she only shook her head and moved away, and, as we have seen, went to bed.

The next morning they met calmly enough. On his side it was done with an effort; on hers without effort, yet with a little trembling fear, which went when she saw his calm, and she poured out tea, and he drank it, and only a rather extraordinary silence told of too much having being said the night before.

Now, why was all this? Why were this man and this young English girl travelling thus to the sweet south coast, and to expecting friends?

While they are travelling on their way, we, you and I, dear reader, will not only get on before them, but also turn back the pages of life's story, and read its secrets.

They were going to a great house in a fine park, where fern waved its tall, mounted feathers of green, and hid the dappled deer from sight-- where great ancestral oaks spread protecting branches; where hawthorn trees, that it had taken three generations of men to make, stood, large, thick, knotted, twisted--strange, dark, stunted looking trees they looked, till spring came, and no green was like their green, and the glory of their flower-wreaths people made pilgrimages to see. The place was called Beremouth.

A mile and a half off was a town; one of those odd little old places which tell of days and fashions past away. A very respectable place. There had lived in Marston the dowager ladies of old country families, in houses which had no pretensions to grandeur as you passed them in the extremely quiet street, but which on the other side broke out into bay windows, garden fronts, charming conservatories, and a [{19}] good many other things which help to make life pleasant. So the inhabitants of Marston were not all mere country-town's people. They knew themselves to be somebodies and they never forgot it.

Now, in this town dwelt a certain widow lady; poor she was, but she had a pedigree and two beautiful daughters. Mary and Lucia Morier were not two commonly, or even uncommonly, pretty girls; they were wonderfully beautiful, people said, and nothing less. So lovers came a courting. One married a Scotchman, a Mr. Erskine. They liked each other quite well enough, Lucia thought, when she made her promises, and received his; and so they did. They lived happily; did good; wished for children but never had any, and so adopted Mr. Erskine's orphan nephew--namely, the very man who behaved with such strange imprudence in the inn at Hull. Mr. Erskine the uncle was twenty years older than Mrs. Erskine the aunt. Mr. Erskine the younger was but a child when they adopted him. But he was their heir, as well as the inheritor of his father's' fortune, and they loved and cared for him.

Mary Morier did differently. She married at twenty, her younger sister having married the month before at eighteen. Mary did differently, for she did imprudently. They had had a brother who was an agent for certain mines thirty miles off; and there he lived; but he came home often enough, and made the house in the old town gay. A year before the sister married, in fact while that sister was away on a visit to friends in Scotland, the brother came home ill. He was ill for six months. It is wonderful how much expense is incurred by a mother in six months for a son who is sick. It made life very difficult. The money to pay for Lucia's journey home had to be thought of. To be sure, she was not there to eat and drink, but then her extra finery had cost something. George had only earned one hundred a year. It had not been more than enough to keep him. He came home ill with ten pounds in his pocket, beside his half-year's rent, which would be due the next month--certainly money at this time was wanted, for our friends were sadly pinched. But the one most exemplary friend and servant Jenifer was paid her wages, and tea and sugar money to the day; and the doctor got so many guineas that he grew desperate and suddenly refused to come--then repented, and made a Christian-like bargain, that he would go on coming on condition that he never saw another piece of any kind of money.

Mary and her mother looked each other in the face one day, and that look told all. There was some plate, and they had watches, and a little fine old-fashioned jewelry--yes, they must go. They were reduced to poverty at last--this was more than "limited means"--hard penury had them with a desperate grasp.

Fortune comes in many shapes, and not often openly, and with a flourish of trumpets--neither did she come in that way now; but shamefacedly, sneakingly, and ringing the door-bell with a meek, not to say tremulous pull; and her shape was that of a broad-built, short, wide-jawed, lanky-haired, pig-eyed, elderly man, with a curious quantity of waistcoat showing, yet, generally, well dressed. "Your mistress at home?" "Yes, Mr. Brewer." "Mr. George better?" "No. Never will be, sir." "Bless me! I beg your pardon!" "Granted before 'tis asked, sir." "Ah! yes; I have a little business to transact with your mistress. Can I see her alone?" Mr. Brewer was shown by Jenifer into the little right-hand parlor. He gravely took out a huge pocket-book, and then a small parchment-covered account-book appeared. I believe he had persuaded himself that he was really going to transact business, and not to perform the neatest piece of deception that a [{20}] respectable gentleman ever attempted. A lady entered the room. "Madam, jour son has been my agent for mines three years--my mine and land agent since Christmas. He takes the additional work at seventy-five pounds a year extra. The half of that is now due to him. I pay that myself. I have brought it" And thirty-seven pounds ten shillings Mr. Brewer put on the table, saying, "I will take your receipt, madam. Don't trouble Georges's head about business; for when you do speak of that you will have, I am sorry to say, to inform him that in both his places I have had to put another man. I have to give George three months' payment at the rate of one hundred and seventy pounds a year, as I gave him no quarter's warning. That is business, do you understand?" asked Mr. Brewer. "It is for my son to discharge himself, sir--since he cannot"--the mother's voice faltered. "Ah--only he didn't, and I did," said Mr. Brewer. "Your receipt? When your son recovers, let him apply to me. I am sorry to end our connexion so abruptly. But it is business. Business, you know"--and there Mr. Brewer stopped, for Mary Morier was in the room, and her beauty filled it, or seemed to do so. And Mr. Brewer departed muttering, as he had muttered before often, "the most beautiful girl in the world." Still, he had an uncomfortable sensation, for he felt he was an underhand sneak, and that Mary had found him out; and so she had. She knew that her brother had been "discharged" only to afford a pretext for giving the quarter's money; and she was sure that his being land agent, at an additional seventy-five pounds a year, was a pure unadulterated fiction.

Mr. Brewer was an extraordinary man. He had a turn for the supernatural. He would have liked above all things to have worked miracles. He did do odd things, such as we have seen, which he made, by means of the poetic quality that characterized him, a purely natural act. He was praising George for a saving, prudent, industrious young man, who had never drawn the whole of his last year's salary, before an hour was over. And his story looked so like truth that he believed it himself.

Mr. Brewer was what people call "a risen man." But then his father had been rising--and, for the matter of that, his grandfather too. All their fortunes had flowed into the life of the man who has got into this story; and he, having had a tide of prosperity exceeding all others, in height, and strength, and riches, had found himself stranded on the great shore of society, at forty years of age, with more thousands a year than he liked to be generally known. Could he have transformed himself into a benignant fairy he would have been very happy, and acts of mercy would have abounded on the earth. But no--Mr. Brewer was Mr. Brewer, and anything less poetic to look at--more impossible as to wands, and wings, and good fairy appendages, it is difficult to imagine. Mr. Brewer was a middle-aged man, with hands in his pockets; plain truth is always respectable. There it is.

But there was a Mrs. Brewer. Now Mrs. Brewer was an excellent woman, but not excellent after the manner of her husband. She was three years older. They had not been in love. They had married at an epoch in Mr. Brewer's life when public affairs occupied his time so entirely as to make it desirable to have what people call a "missus;" we are afraid that Mr. Brewer himself so called the article, a "missus, at home." Mrs. Brewer had been "a widow lady--young--of a sociable and domestic disposition" who "desired to be housekeeper--to be treated confidentially, and as one of the family--to a widower--with or without children." On inquiry, it was found that young Mrs. Smith had not irrevocably determined that the owner of the house that she was to keep should have been the husband of one wife, undoubtedly [{21}] dead; the widower was an expression only, a sort of modest way of putting the plain fact of a single man, or a man capable of matrimony--the expression meant all that; and when Mrs. Smith entered on the housekeeping, she acted up to the meaning of the advertisement, and married Mr. Brewer. Neither had ever repented. Let that be understood. Only, Mr. Brewer, when he knew he could live in a great house, dine off silver, keep a four-in-hand, or a pack of hounds, or enter on any other legitimate mode of spending money, did none of them; but eased his mind and his pocket by such contrivances as we have seen resorted to in the presence of the beautiful Mary Morier. He tried curious experiments of what a man would do with ten pounds. He had dangerous notions as to people addicted to certain villanies being cured of their moral diseases by the administration of a hundred a year. In some round-about ways he had put the idea to the proof, and not always with satisfactory results. He held as an article of faith--nobody could guess where he found it--that there were people in the world who could go straighter in prosperity than in adversity. He never would believe that adversity was a thing to be suffered. He had replied to a Protestant divine on that subject, illustrated in the case of a starving family, that that might be, only it was no concern of his, and he would not act upon the theory. And the result was a thriving, thankful family in Australia, to whom Mr. Brewer was always, ever after, sending valuable commodities, and receiving flower-seeds and skins of gaudy feathered birds in return.

Mr. Brewer had a daughter, Claudia was her name. "A Bible name," said Mr. Brewer, and bowed his head, and felt he had done his duty by the girl. What more could he do? She went to school, and was at school when he was paying money in Mrs. Morier's parlor. She was then ten years old; and being a clever child, she had, in the holidays just over, chosen to talk French, and nothing else, to a friend whom she had been allowed to bring with her. A thing that had caused great perturbation in the soul of her honest father, who prayed in a wordless, but real anxiety, that the Bible name might not be thrown away on the glib-tongued little gipsy. It will be perceived that Claudia was a difficulty.

Now, when Mr. Brewer was gone out of Mrs. Morier's house, the mother took up the money, wiped her eyes, and said, "What a good boy George was." And Mary said "Yes;" and knew in her heart that if there had been any chance of George living, Mr. Brewer would never have done that.

George died. There was money, just enough for all wants. Lucia came home engaged to the married to Mr. Erskine. And when she was gone there went with her a certain seven hundred pounds, her fortune, settled--what a silly mockery Mr. Erskine thought it--on her children. The loss made the two who were left very poor. Lucia sent her mother gifts, but the regular and to be reckoned on eight-and-twenty pounds a year were gone. She who had eaten, drank, and dressed was gone too--but still it was a loss; and Mary and her mother were poor. Also, Mary had long been engaged to be married to the son of a younger branch of a great county family house, Lansdowne Lorimer by name. He was in an attorney's office in Marston. In that old-world place, the attorney, himself of a county family, was a great man. It was hard to see Lucia marry a man of money and land, young Lorimer thought, so he advised Mary to assert their independence of all earthly considerations, and marry too. And they did so.

The young man had no father or mother. He had angry uncles and insolent aunts, and family friends, all to be respected, and prophets of evil, every one of them. He had, also, a place in the office, a clear head, a determined will, a handsome [{22}] person, a good pedigree, and a beautiful wife. She, also, had her eight-and-twenty pounds a year. But they gave it back regularly to Mrs. Morier; for, you know, they, the young people, were young, and they could work. Mrs. Morier never spent this money. She and Jenifer, the prime minister of that court of loyal love, put it by, against the evil day, and they had just enough for themselves and the cat to live upon without it.

The county families asked their imprudent kinsman to visit them with his bride. How they flouted her. How they advised her. How they congratulated her that she had always been poor. How they assured her that she would be poor for ever. How, too, they feared that Lansdowne would never bear hard work, nor anxiety, nor any other of those troubles which were so very sure to happen. How surprised they were at the three pretty silk dresses, the one plain white muslin, and the smart best white net. How they scorned when they heard that she and Jenifer, and her mother, and a girl at eightpence a day, had made them all. And, then, how they sunned themselves in her wonderful beauty, and accepted the world's praises of it, and kept the triumph themselves, and handed over to her the gravest warnings of its being a dangerous gift.

Dangerous, indeed! it was the pride of Lorimer's life. And Mary was accomplished, far more really accomplished than the lazy, half-taught creatures who had never said to themselves that they might have to play and sing, and speak French and Italian, for their or their children's bread. Mary had said it to herself many a time since her heart had been given to the man who was her husband. A true, brave, loving heart it was, and that which her common sense had whispered to it that heart was strong to do, and would be found doing if the day of necessity ever came. So, at that Castle Dangerous where the bride and bridegroom were staying, Mary outshone others, and was not the better loved for that; and one old Lady Caroline crowned the triumph by ordering a piano-forte for the new home at Marston, with a savage "Keep up what you know, child; you may be glad of it one day." Old Lady Caroline was generally considered as a high-bred privileged savage. But that was the only savage thing she ever said to Mary. She told Lorimer that he was a selfish, unprincipled brute for marrying anybody so perfect and so pretty. And Lorimer bore her misrepresentations with remarkable patience, only making her a ceremonious bow, and saying in a low voice, "You know better." "I know you will starve," and she walked off without an answer.

They did not starve. In fact, they prospered, till one sad day when Lorimer caught cold--and again and again caught cold--cough, pain, symptoms of consumption--a short, sad story; and then the great end, death. Mary was a widow three years after her wedding day, with a child of two years of age at her side, and an income from a life insurance made by her husband of one hundred a year. We have seen the child--grown to a beautiful girl of seventeen--we have seen her in the room with Mr. Erskine, at the inn at Hull.

Mrs. Lorimer went back to live with her mother, Jenifer, and the great white cat.

The year after this great change, Mrs. Brewer died, and Claudia at thirteen was a greater difficulty than ever. The first holidays after the departure of the good mother, the puzzled father had written to the two Miss Gainsboroughs to bring the child to Marston and stay at his house during the holidays. He entertained them for a week, and then went off on a tour through Holland. The next holidays he proposed that they should take a house at Brighton, and that he should pay all expenses. This, too, was done, and Mr. Brewer went to a hotel and there made friends with his precocious daughter in a way that surprised and pleased [{23}] him. He visited the young lady, and she entertained him. He hired horses, and they rode together. He took boxes at the theatre, and they made parties and went together. He gave the girl jewelry and fine clothes, and they really got to know each other, and to enjoy life together as could never have been the case had they not been thus left to their own way. The child no longer felt herself of a different world from that of her parents--the father had a companion in the child who could grace his position, and keep her own. They parted with love and anxious lookings forward to the summer meeting. They were both in possession of a new happiness. When Mr. Brewer got back to Marston, he led a dull, dreamy life--a year and a half of widowhood passed--then he went to Mrs. Morier's, saw Mary, and asked her to be his wife. It is not easy to declare why Mary Lorimer said--after some weeks of wondering-mindedness--why she said "Yes." She knew all Mr. Brewer's goodness. She preferred, no doubt, not to wound a heart that had so often sympathized with the wounded. She never, in her life, could have borne to see him vexed without great vexation herself. She liked that he should be rewarded. She was interested in Claudia. She liked the thought of two hundred a year settled on her mother. She liked to feel that her own little Mary might be brought up as grandly as any of those little saucy "county family" damsels, her cousins, who already looked down on her, and scorned her pink spotted calico frock.

Mary and Mr. Brewer walked quietly to church; Mrs. Morier still in astonishment, and Jenifer "dazed;" bat all the working people loved Mr. Brewer. And they walked back, man and wife, to her mother's house, and had a quiet substantial breakfast before they started for London. And when there Mr. Brewer told her that they were not to return to the respectable stone-fronted house facing the market-place in Marston, but that he had bought Lord Byland's property--and that Beremouth was theirs. Beremouth, with its spreading park, and river, and lake, its miles of old pasture-land, its waving ferns, and dappled deer; Beremouth, with its forest and gardens, royal oaks and twisted hawthorn trees; Beremouth, the finest place in the county. And all that Mary felt was, that he who had kept this secret, had had a true hero's delicacy, and had never thought to bribe her, or to get her by purchase into his home. I think she almost loved him then.

In due time, after perhaps six months of wandering, and of preparation, Mr. and Mrs. Brewer arrived at their new home, made glorious by all that taste and art could do, with London energy working with the power of gold. With them came Claudia. The child loved her new mother with an abandonment of heart and a perfect approval. She was still too young to argue, but she was not too young to feel. The mother she had now got, though not much more than ten years older than herself, was the mother to love, admire, delight in--is the mother who could understand her.

Then Beremouth just suited this young lady's idea of what was worth having in this world; and without any evil thought of the homely mother who had gone, there was a thought that "Mother-Mary," as Mrs. Brewer was called by her step-daughter, looked right at Beremouth, and that another class of person would have looked wrong there--so wrong that her father under such circumstances would never have put himself in the position of trying the experiment.

Minnie Lorimer was very happy in her great play-ground; for all the world, and all life, was play to little Minnie. She loved her new sister; and the new sister patronized and petted her, so all seemed right. It was, indeed, a great happiness for Claudia that her father had chosen Mary Lorimer. Claudia was a vixenish, little handsome gipsy; very clever, very [{24}] high-spirited, full of life, health, and fun--a girl who could have yielded to very few, and who brought the homage of heart and mind to "Mother-Mary," and rejoiced in doing it. These two grew to be great friends, and when after three years Claudia came home and came out, all parties were happy.

In the meantime Mr. Brewer's way in the world had been straight, plain, and rapidly travelled. The county was at his feet. Mary was no longer congratulated on having been brought up to poverty. Behind her back there were plenty of people to say that Mr. Brewer was happy in having for his wife a well connected gentlewoman. Her pedigree was told, her poverty forgotten. Her singing and playing, dancing and drawing, were none the worse for unknown thousands a year. And people wondered less openly at the splendor of velvets and diamonds than they had at the new muslin gown. To Mary herself life was very different in every way. Daily, more and more, she admired her husband, and approved of him. It was the awakening into life of a new set of feelings. She knew none of the love and devotion she had felt for her first husband. Mr. Brewer never expected any of it. But he intended that she should, in some other indescribable manner, fall in love with him, and she was doing it every day--which thing her husband saw, and welcomed life with great satisfaction in consequence.

It was when Claudia came out that the man we have seen, Horace Erskine, first came to them. He was just of age. Mary did not like him. She could give no reason for it. Her sister had always praised him--but Mary could not like him. He came to them for a series of gay doings, and Mr. Brewer admired him, and Claudia--poor little Claudia! She gave him that strong heart of hers; that spirit that could break sooner than bend was quite enslaved--she loved him, and he had asked for her love, and vowed a hundred times that he could never be happy without it. He asked her of her father, and Mr. Brewer consented. It was not for Mary to say no; but her heart went cold in its fear, and she was very sorry.

The Erskines in Scotland were delighted--all deemed doing well. But when Horace Erskine talked to Mr. Brewer about money, he was told that Claudia would have on her marriage five thousand pounds; and ten thousand more if she survived him would be forthcoming on his death-- that was all. "Enough for a woman," said Mr. Brewer; and Erskine was silent. It went on for a few weeks, Horace, being flighty and odd, Claudia, for the first time in her life, humble and endearing. Then he told her that to him money was necessary; then he asked her to appeal to her father for more; then she treated the request lightly, and, at last, positively refused. If she had not enough, he could leave her. If he left her, would she take the blame on herself? It would injure him in his future hopes and prospects to have it supposed to be his doing if they parted? Yes, she said. It was the easiest thing in the world. Who cared?--not he of course--and, certainly, not Claudia Brewer. It broke her heart to find him vile. But she was too discerning not to see the truth; her great thought now was to hide it. To hide too from every one, even from "Mother-Mary," that her heart felt death-struck--that the whole place was poisoned to her--that life at Beremouth was loathsome.

She took a strange way of hiding it.

A county election was going on. The man whom Mr. Brewer hoped to see elected was a guest at Beremouth. An old, grey-haired, worldly, statesmanlike man. A man who petted Claudia, and admired her; and who suddenly woke up one day to a thought--a question--a species of amusing suggestion, which grew into a [{25}] profound wonder, and then even warmed into a hope--surely that pretty bright young heiress liked him, had a fancy to be the second Lady Greystock. It was a droll thought at first, and he played with it; a flattering fancy, and he encouraged it. He was an honest man. He knew that he was great, clever, learned. Was there anything so wonderful in a woman loving him? He settled the question by asking Claudia. And she promised to be his wife with a real and undisguised gladness. Her spirit and her determination were treading the life out of her heart. She was sincere in her gladness. She thought she could welcome any duties that took her away from life at Beremouth, and gave her place and position elsewhere.

Mary suspected much, and feared everything. But Claudia felt and knew too much to speak one word of the world of hope and joy and love that had gone away from her. She declared that she liked her old love, and gloried in his grey hairs, and in the great heart that had stooped to ask for hers.

Now what are we to say of Horace Erskine? Was he wholly bad? First, he had never loved Claudia with a real devotion. He had admired her; she had loved him. He had gambled--green turf and green cloth--gambled and recklessly indulged himself till he had got upon the way to ruin, and had begun the downward path, and was glad to be stopped in that slippery descent by a marriage with an heiress. There was a sparkle, an originality, about Claudia. It was impossible not to be taken with her. But Claudia with only that fortune was of no use to him. He knew she was brave and true-hearted; so he boldly asked her to guard his name--in fact, to give him up, and not injure his next chance with a better heiress by telling the truth. He told her the truth; that he wanted money, and money he must have. She would not tell him that the worst part of her trial was the loss of her idol. It was despising him that broke her heart. But because he had been her idol she would never injure him--never tell.

So the day came, and at Marston church she married Sir Geoffrey Greystock, "Mother-Mary" wondering; Mr. Brewer believing, in the innocence of his heart, that the fancy for Horace Erskine had been a bit of the old wilfulness. "The last bit--the last," he said, as he spoke of it to her that very day, making her chilled heart knock against her side as he spoke, and kissed her, and sent her with blessings from the Beremouth that she had married to get away from.

To get away--it had more to do with her marrying than any other thought. To get away from the house, the spreading pastures, the bright garden, and above all from the old deer pond in the park--the most beautiful of all the many lovely spots that nature and art, and time and taste, had joined to create and adorn Beremouth. The old deer pond in the park! Sheltered by ancient oak; backed by interlacing boughs of old hawthorn trees; shadowed by tall, shining, dark dense holly, that glowed through the winter with its red berries, and contrasted with the long fair wreaths of hawthorn flowers in the sweet smiling spring. There, in this now dreaded place, Horace Erskine had first spoken of love; and there how often had he promised her the happiness that had gone out of her life--for ever. In the terrible nights, when her broken-hearted pains were strongest, this deer pond in the park had been before her closed eyes like a vision. In its waters she saw in her sleep her face and his, so happy, so loving, so trusting, so true. Then the picture in that water changed, and she watched it in her feverish dreams with horror, but yet was obliged to gaze, and the truth went out of his face, and the terror came into hers. And, worse and worse, he grew threatening--he was cold--he had never loved--he was killing her; and she fell, fell from her height of happiness; no protecting [{26}] arm stayed her, and the dark waters opened, and she heard the rushing sound of their deadly waves closing over her, as she sunk--sunk--again and again, night after night Oh, to get away, to get away! And she blessed Sir Geoffrey, and when he said he was too old to wait for a wife she was glad, for she had no wish to wait. Change, absence, another home, another life, another world--these things she wanted, and they had come. Is it any wonder that she took them as the man who is dying of thirst takes the longed-for draught, and drains the cup of mercy to the dregs?

It was a happy day to marry. Mr. Brewer had not only an excuse, but a positively undeniable reason for being bountiful and kind. For once he could openly, and as a matter of duty, make the sad hearts in Marston--and elsewhere--sing for joy. His blessings flowed so liberally that he had to apologize. It was only for once--he begged everybody's pardon, but it could never happen again; he had but this one child, and she was a bride, and so if they would forgive everything this once! And many a new life of gladness was begun that day; many a burden then lost its weight; many a record went up to the Eternal memory to meet that man at the inevitable hour.

Little Mary was the loveliest bridesmaid the world ever saw; standing alone like an angel by her dark sister's side. She was the only thing that Claudia grieved to leave. She was glad to flee away from "Mother-Mary." She dreaded lest those sweet wistful eyes should read her heart one day; and she could not help rejoicing to get away from that honest, open-hearted father's sight. Her poor, wrecked, shrunken heart--her withered life, could not bear the contrast with his free, kind, bounteous spirit that gave such measure of love, pressed down and running over, to all who wanted it. Her old husband, Sir Geoffrey, resembled that great good heart in whose love she had learnt to think all men true, more than did her young lover Horace Erskine--she could be humble and thankful to Sir Geoffrey; a well-placed approval was a better thing than an ill-placed love. So with that little vision of beauty, Minnie Lorimer, by her side, Claudia became Sir Geoffrey's wife.

Four months past, the bride and bridegroom were entertaining a grand party at their fine ancestral home, and Mr. Brewer was the father of a son and heir. Horace Erskine read both announcements in the paper one morning, and ground his teeth with vexation. He went to his desk and took out three letters, a long lock of silky hair, a small miniature--these things he had begged to keep. Laughing, he had argued that he was almost a relation. His uncle had married "Mother-Mary's" sister. She had had no strength to debate with him. She had chosen to wear the mask of indifference, too, to him. He now made these things into a parcel and sent them to Sir Geoffrey Greystock without one word of explanation. When they were gone he wrote to his uncle, begged for some money, got it, and started for Vienna. The money met him in London, and he crossed to France the same day.

In the midst of great happiness the strong heart of good Sir Geoffrey stood still. His wife sought him. She found him in his chair in a fit. On a little table by his side was the parcel just received. Claudia knew all. She took the parcel into the room close by, called her dressing room, rung for help, but in an hour Sir Geoffrey was dead; and Claudia had burnt the letters and the lock of silky hair.

The business of parliament, the excitement attendant on his marriage with that beautiful girl, the entertainment of that great house full of company--these reasons the world reckoned up, and found sufficient to answer the questions and the wonderings on Sir Geoffrey's death. But when those solemn walls no longer knew their master, Claudia, into whose new life the new things held but an [{27}] unsteady place, grew ill. First of all, sleepless nights: how could she sleep with the sound of those waters by the deer pond in her ears? How could she help gazing perpetually at the picture on the pond's still surface: Horace and Sir Geoffrey, and herself not able to turn aside the death-stroke, but standing, fettered by she knew not what, in powerless misery, only obliged to see the changing face of her husband till the dead seemed to be again before her, and Horace melted out of sight, and she woke, dreading fever and praying against delirium? She was overcome at last. Terrible hours came, and "Mother-Mary's" sweet face mingling with some strong, subduing, life-endangering dream, was the first thing that seemed to bring her back to better things, and to restore her to herself.

In fact, Claudia had had brain fever, and whether or not she was ever to know real health again was a problem to be worked out by time. Would she come back to her father's house? No! The very name of Beremouth was to be avoided. Would she go abroad? Oh, no; there was a dread of separation upon her. "Somewhere where you can easily hear of me, and I of you; where you can come and see me, for I shall never see Beremouth again." It was her own thought, and so, about five miles from Beremouth, in the house of a Doctor Rankin, who took ladies out of health into his family, Claudia determined to go. It was every way the best thing that could be done, for every day showed more strongly than the last that Claudia would never be what is emphatically called "herself" again. So people said.

Dr. Rankin was kind, learned, and wise; Mrs. Rankin warm-hearted and friendly. Other patients beside Lady Greystock were there. It was not a private asylum, and Claudia was not mad; it was really what it called itself, a home which the sick might share, with medical attendance, cheerful company, and out-door recreations in a well-kept garden and extensive grounds of considerable beauty. Claudia had known Dr. and Mrs. Rankin, and had called with her father at Blagden, where they lived. And there her father and "Mother-Mary" took her three months after her husband's death, looking really aged, feeble, and strangely sad.

After a time--it was a long time--Claudia was said to be well. "Perfectly recovered," said Dr. Rankin, "and in really satisfactory health." So she was when Minnie Lorimer stood in the room at the inn in Hull, talking to that very Horace Erskine, who was bringing her home from her aunt's in Scotland to her mother at Beremouth.

"Sweet seventeen!" Very sweet and beautiful, pleasing the eye, gratifying the mind, filling the heart with hope, and setting imagination at play--Minnie Lorimer was beautiful, and with all that peculiar beauty about her that belongs to "a spoilt child" who has not been spoilt after all.

Claudia--how old she looked! Claudia, with that one only shadow on her once bright face, was still living with Dr. and Mrs. Rankin. It was Lady Greystock's pleasure to live with them. She said she had grown out of the position of a patient, and into their hearts as a friend. "Was it not so?" she asked. It was impossible to deny that which really brought happiness to everybody. "Well, then, I shall build on a few rooms to the house, and I shall call them mine, and I shall add to the coach-house, and hire a cottage for my groom and his wife--I shall live here. Why not? You will take care of me, and feed me, and scold me, and find me a good guidable creature. You know I shall be ill if you refuse."

It all happened as she chose. Hers was the prettiest carriage in the county, the best horses, the most perfectly appointed little household--for she had her own servants. Among her most devoted friends were the good doctor and his wife. Lady Greystock was as positive and as much given to [{28}] govern as the clever little Claudia in school-girl days. But the arrangement was a success, and "Mother-Mary," who saw her constantly, was very glad. Only one trouble survived; Claudia would never go and stay at Beremouth. She would drive her ponies merrily to the door, and even spend an hour or two within the house, but never would she stay there--never! She used to say to herself that she dared not trust herself with the things that had witnessed her love, her sorrow, her marriage--with the things that told her of him who had ruined everything like a murderer--as he was.

And so, to save appearances, she used to say that she never stayed away from Blagden for a single night, and she never left off black. It was not that she wore a widow's dress, or covered up the glories of her beautiful hair. She was but twenty-nine at the moment recorded in the first page of this story. She was very thin and pale, but she was a strong woman, and one who required no more care than any other person; but she had determined never again to see Horace Erskine. What he had done had become known to her, as we have seen. She only bargained with life, as it were, in this way, that that man should be out of it for ever. And for this it was that she made her resolution and kept it.

Horace Erskine had been abroad for some years; but though she had felt safe in that fact, she had looked into the future and kept her resolution. And so she lived on at Blagden, doing good, blessing the poor, comforting the afflicted, visiting the sick, and beautifying all things, and adorning all places that came within her reach. Certain things she was young enough to enjoy greatly; the chief of these was the contemplation of Frederick Brewer, her half-brother, a fine boy of nine years old, for nine years of widowhood had been passed, and through all that time this boy, her dear father's son, had been Lady Greystock's delight. She loved "Mother-Mary" all the better for having given him to her father, and she felt a strong, unutterable thanksgiving that, his birth having been expected, the test of whether or not Horace Erskine loved her for herself had been applied before she had become chained to so terrible a destiny as that of being wife to a thankless, disappointed man. Terrible as her great trial had been, she might have suffered that which, to one of her temper, would have been far worse. So Fred Brewer would ride over to see his sister. Day after day the boy's bright face would be laid beside her own, and to him, and only to him, would she talk of Sir Geoffrey. Then they would ride together down to Marston to see Mrs. Morier and Jenifer, who was a true friend, and lived on those terms with the lady who loved her well; then to the market-place where the old home stood, now turned into an almshouse of an eccentric sort, with all rules included under one head, that the dear old souls were to have just whatever they wanted. Did Martha Gannet keep three parrots, and did they eat as much as a young heifer? and scream, too? ah, that was their nature--never go against a dumb creature's nature, Mr. Brewer said there was always cruelty in that--and did they smell, and give trouble, and would they be mischievous, and tear Mrs. Betty's cap? Indeed. Mr. Brewer was delighted. An excellent excuse for giving new caps to all the inmates, and to look up all troubles, and mend everybody's griefs--such an excellent thing it was that the fact of three parrots should lead to the discovery of so many disgraceful neglects that Mr. Brewer begged leave to apologize very heartily and sincerely while he diligently repaired them. It was a very odd school to bring up young Freddy in. But we are obliged to say that he was not at all the worse for it.

And here we must say what we have not said before. Mr. Brewer was a Catholic. He and Jenifer were [{29}] Catholics; Mrs. Brewer had not been a Catholic; and Claudia had been left to her mother's teaching. When Freddy was born, Mr. Brewer considered his ways. And what he saw in his life we may see shortly. He had been born of a Catholic mother who had died, and made his Protestant father promise to send him to a Catholic school. He had stood alone in the world, he had always stood alone in the world. He seemed to see nothing else. Three miles from Marston was a little dirty sea-port, also a sort of fishing place. A place that bore a bad character in a good many ways. Some people would have finished that character by saying that there were Papists there. To that place every Sunday Mr. Brewer went to mass. Many and many a lift he had given to Jenifer on those days. How much Jenifer's talk assisted his choice of Mary for his wife, we may guess. When Freddy was born Jenifer said her first words on the subject of religion to Mr. Brewer: "You will have him properly baptized:" "Of course." "Order me the pony cart, and I'll go to Father Daniels." "I must tell Mrs. Brewer." "Leave that to me--just send for the cart." It was left to Jenifer. By night the priest had come and gone. It had not been his first visit. He had been there many times, and had known that he was welcome. The Clayton mission had felt the blessing of Mr. Brewer's gold. He had seldom been at the house in the market-place in Marston, but at Beremouth Mary had plucked her finest flowers, and sent them back in the old gentleman's gig, and he had been always made welcome in her husband's house with a pretty grace and many pleasant attentions. Now, when Freddy was baptized, Mr. Brewer went to his wife and bent over her, and said solemnly, "Mary--my dear wife; Mary--I thank thee, darling. I thank thee, my love." And the single tear that fell on her cheek she never forgot.

Then Mr. Brewer met Jenifer at his wife's door. "It's like a new life, Jenifer." And the steady-mannered woman looked in his bright eyes and saw how true his words were.

"It's a steady life of doing good to everybody that you have ever led, sir. It was a lonely life once, no doubt. I was dazed when she married you. But, eh, master; I have that to think about, and that to pray for, that a'most makes me believe in anything happening to you for good, when so much is asked for, day and night, in my own prayer."

"Put us into it; let me and mine be in Jenifer's prayer," he said, and passed on.

TO BE CONTINUED.

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From The Month.
PROPOSED SUBSTITUTES FOR THE STEAM-ENGINE.

The present year has been remarkable for the large number of machines invented for the purpose of superseding steam, in at least some of its lighter tasks. Many of these are due to French engineers; being further proofs, if any were required, of the great activity now displayed in France in all matters of mechanical invention.

Two of these new engines are especially interesting as illustrating that all-important law in modern physics, the correlation or convertibility of forces. By this is meant that the forces of inanimate nature, such as light, heat, electricity--nay, even the muscular and nerve forces of living beings--have such a mutual dependence and connection that each one is only produced or called into action by another, and only ceases to be manifest when it has given birth to a fresh force in its turn. Thus motion (in the [{30}] shape of friction) produces heat, electricity, or light; heat produces light or electricity; electricity, magnetism; and so on in an endless chain, which links together all the phenomena of this visible universe.

As a metaphysical principle, this is as old as Aristotle, and may be found dimly foreshadowed in the forcible lines of Lucretius:

"--Pereunt imbres, ubi eos pater aether
In gremium matris terrai praecipitavit;
At nitidae surgunt fruges, ramique virescunt,
Arboribus crescunt ipsae, fetuque gravautur,
Hinc alitar porro nostrum genus atque ferarum.
* * * * * *
Haud igitur penitus pereunt quaecumque videntur,
Quando aliud ex alio reflcit natura, nec ullam
Rem gigni patitur, nisi morte adjuta aliena." [Footnote 8]

[Footnote 8: Lucret. lib. i. 250-65.]

But the rediscovery of this law, as a result of experiment, is due to English physicists of our own day; and it is so invariably true, and the produced force is always so perfectly proportioned to the force producing it, that some [Footnote 9] have gone so far as to revive a very old hypothesis in philosophy, supposing that all the forces of nature are but differently expressed forms of the Divine Will.

[Footnote 9: Dr. Carpenter, Philos. Trans. 1840, vol. ii. ]

As a corollary to this law, it follows that many a force of nature, hitherto neglected because of its position or intractability, may be turned to practical account by using it to produce some new power, which may be either stored up or transmitted to a distance, and so can be employed wherever and whenever it is required. Thus, in the first machine we propose to notice, a M. Cazal has just hit upon a plan by which to use the power of falling water at a considerable distance. He employs a water-wheel to turn a magneto-electric machine (of the kind used for medical purposes, on a very large scale), and the electric force so obtained may be conveyed to any distance, and employed there as a motive power. In this way a mountain stream in the Alps or Pyrenees may turn a lathe, or set a loom in motion, in a workshop in Paris or Lyons; or even (as has been remarked), if a wire were laid across the Atlantic, the whole force of Niagara would be at our disposal.

The idea is at present quite in its infancy; but we are told that the few experiments hitherto made show that such an engine is not only very ingenious but perfectly feasible, and (most important of all) economical.

The second engine gave promise of considerable success when first brought out in Paris about eight months ago. It was invented by a M. Tellier, and proceeds on the principle of storing up force, to be used when wanted. It has long been well known to chemists that a certain number of gases (as chlorine, carbonic acid, ammonia, and sulphuretted hydrogen) can be condensed into liquids by cold or pressure, or both combined. Of all these gases, ammonia is the most easily liquefied, requiring for this purpose, at ordinary temperatures, a pressure only six and a half times greater than that of the atmosphere. A supply of liquid ammonia obtained in this manner is kept by M. Tellier in a closed vessel, and surrounded with a freezing mixture, so that it has but little tendency to return to the gaseous state. A small quantity is allowed to escape from this reservoir under the piston of the engine, and, the temperature there being higher than in the reservoir, the ammonia becomes at once converted into gas, increasing thereby to more than twelve hundred times its previous bulk, and so driving the piston with great force to the top of the cylinder. A little water is now admitted, which entirely dissolves the ammonia, a vacuum being thus created, and the piston driven down again by the pressure of the air without. M. Tellier employs three such cylinders, which work in succession; and the only apparent limit to the power to be obtained from this machine is the amount of liquid ammonia which would have to be used, about three gallons (or twenty-two pounds) being required for each horse-power per hour. There is no waste of material; for the water which has dissolved [{31}] the gas is saved, and the ammonia recovered from it by evaporation, and afterwards condensed into a liquid. M. Tellier proposed to use his engine for propelling omnibuses and other vehicles; but it would appear that it is too expensive and too cumbrous to be practically useful; there can, however, be very little doubt that the principle will be used with success in some new form. A patent has quite recently been taken out for such an engine in England. It will be perceived at once how the ammonia engine illustrates the law of storing up force. It originates no power of its own, but simply gives out by degrees the mechanical force which had been previously employed to change the ammonia from a gas to a liquid.

Lenoir's "gas-engine" has been more successful; for, although but a few months old, it has been already largely adopted in Parisian hotels, schools, and other large establishments, for raising lifts, making ices, and even--for what is not done now-a-days by machinery?--cleaning boots. In London, it was lately exhibited in Cranbourne Street, and is now used for turning lathes and for other light work.

This engine, like the ammonia-engine, is provided with an ordinary cylinder, into which coal-gas and air are admitted, under the piston, in the proportions of eleven parts of the latter to one of the former. The mixture is then exploded by the electric spark, and the remaining air, being greatly expanded, drives up the piston. When the top is reached the gas and air are again admitted, but this time above the piston, and the explosion is repeated, so that the piston is driven down again. The most ingenious part of the whole thing is the mechanism by which the electric spark is directed alternately to the upper and lower ends of the cylinder. This cannot be satisfactorily explained without a diagram, but is brought about (roughly speaking) by connecting either end of the cylinder with a semicircle of brass, which is touched by the "rotary crank" in the course of its revolution. The crank is already charged with electricity, and so communicates the electric spark to each of the semicircles in turn. The cylinder is kept plunged in water, so that there is no fear of its overheating by the constant explosions.

This engine has cheapness for its main recommendation. A half-horsepower gas-engine (the commonest power made) costs, when complete, £65, and consumes twopence worth of gas per hour; while the cost of keeping the battery active is about fourpence per week.

An engineer of Lyons, M. Millon, has since proposed to use, instead of coal-gas, the gases produced by passing steam over red-hot coke. These gases are found to explode rather more quickly than coal-gas, when mixed with common air, and fired by the electric spark. They will probably be found cheaper and more efficient when they can be obtained; but in many cases coal-gas will be the only material available.

A M. Jules Gros has recently invented an engine in which gun-cotton is exploded in a strong reservoir and air compressed in another, the compressed air being afterward employed to move the pistons of the machine. This sounds more dangerous than it perhaps really is, since gun-cotton is now known to be more tractable than gunpowder, when properly used; but we very much doubt whether the machine can be regular or economical enough to be more than a curiosity.

To close the list of French inventions of this kind, we may state that Count de Molin has lately patented an electro-magnetic machine, which, he states, will be more powerful than any previously made. It is too complicated for a mere verbal description to be of any use; but is apparently not free from the fault of all electro-magnetic engines, of costing too much to be of practical value.

[{32}]

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[ORIGINAL]

CHRISTINE.
A TROUBADOUR'S SONG,
IN FIVE CANTOS,
BY GEORGE H. MILES. [Footnote 10]

[Footnote 10: Copyright secured.]