Vol. V., No. 28 July, 1867.
Original.
Catholic Congresses.
We do not hesitate to say that but few Catholics in this country are aware of one of the most important events in the modern history of the church in Europe, the meeting of the Catholic congresses.
Inaugurated by a council of twenty-six bishops at Würzburg, and a general convention of the clergy and laity at Mayence in 1848, the Catholic congresses became an accomplished fact, and since that time each succeeding year has recorded the meeting of one or more of these assemblies held in different cities of Belgium and Germany.
The renewal of Catholic life, the strengthening of Catholic principles, and the steady and sure return of the people of those countries to the faith, is, in a great measure, due to the influence which these reunions have exerted on the public mind. In the beginning they appear to have received their impetus chiefly from a desire to place the church, so long enslaved in Germany beneath the tyranny of Protestantism, trammelled by state interference, and so desperately attacked by the wide-spread infidelity of the day, upon a free and independent footing.
Feeling themselves strong enough to speak, they spoke and demanded the freedom of the church. An universal response was thus elicited, not only from the clergy, who are the ordinary mouth-pieces in matters of the welfare of the church, but there started up at once zealous and devoted laymen, who were competent to take part in the discussion of questions of interest to Catholic society. Expression stimulated thought, and the influence of these conventions soon permeated every class of society, awakening in all minds a desire to contribute something to the general stock of information and experience which these assemblies began to gather in, like so much latent force, wherewith to repel the attack of adversaries, and to advance the cause of truth and pure morality.
It was truly a Catholic project, and which none but Catholics could attempt without weakening the cause they would undertake by a certain manifestation of discordant and irreconcilable principles and the consequent loss of power. But Catholics may unite for mutual edification and enlightenment, joined as they are as brethren in a common faith, whose principles and aims are alike in every country and with all people, and be sure of reaping thereby solid fruits, and of adding new triumphs for religion.
These general conventions in Germany culminated finally in the great Catholic congresses of Malines and Würzburg, the first of which opened at the former city in 1863. "This congress," says a writer, "exerted a magic influence; the drowsy were aroused from their lethargy, and the faint-hearted were inspired with confidence: they saw their strength and felt it. In that congress we see the beginning of a new epoch in the religious history of Belgium."
The great benefits arising from this movement were recognized and encouraged from the start by the Holy Father, in honor of whose approval the different associations took the name of "Piusvereine," a name still retained by those held in Switzerland. The first great congress of Malines was opened under the auspices of his eminence, Cardinal Sterckz, archbishop of that city, to which the Pope also sent an autograph letter containing his august sanction and words of benediction.
Everywhere and by all classes the most lively interest was shown in the work, and men of merit flocked to take part in the deliberations, members of the clergy, secular and regular, the nobility, statesmen, philosophers, editors, professors in every department of science, painters, sculptors, musicians, architects, builders, heads of pious and charitable societies; each and all vying with one another in bringing in the fruits of their learning and experience, that their brethren in the faith might be benefited by them, and the Catholic cause be strengthened and advanced by the results of their united efforts. The sentiments with which they were inspired may be gathered from the following extract of the reply sent by the congress of Malines to the Holy Father:
"It is true the trials of our times are great and grievous, and if they be, they at least should make us Catholics understand the necessity of organizing with more union and with greater energy than ever, to assure the liberty of the church and of all the works which she inspires. If associations are formed from one end of the world to the other for all the interests of life, and too often for the propagation of evil, we Catholics have the right, and are in duty bound, to associate ourselves together for the interests of the good and the true. This sacred right we intend to exercise with that perseverance and self denial which become the disciples of Christ.
"On every hand the enemies of our faith league together to shake the foundations of the church of God. We, devoted children of that church, will put together all our forces to defend it. We wish to strengthen the bonds of charity between us, fortify ourselves against the seductions of the age, enlighten and encourage one another—to seek, in fine, the means of comforting and consoling the little ones and the poor, whom our Lord Jesus Christ loved with such a tender love."
The report of the assembly records that the reading of this was received with unanimous and prolonged acclamations.
That the members of these congresses meant work in coming together is evident from the report of their proceedings. We have before us two large octavo volumes of 400 pages each, closely printed, which contain the accounts of only the congress of Malines, held in 1863. It gives the speeches, discussions, reports of committees, etc., at length, and is a record of immense and patient labor, of deep scientific research, and of earnest and devoted effort. Another volume of equal size is the published report of the department of religious music alone. In this as well as in other branches of art and science prizes have been offered of a notable value for original productions. We observe in a late report of the congress of Malines of 1866, that the prize offered for a mass, composed according to the rules adopted by a former congress, brought in seventy-six original compositions, of which the musical critics (of whose severity there can be little doubt) reported twenty-one as of first class, and twenty-six of medium merit. The programme of the next congress in the same city, to be opened next September, offers among others a prize of 1000 francs for the design of a church. We hope that, among the many of our bishops and distinguished laymen who will visit Europe this summer, some will be able to find the time to be present at this great Catholic assembly, and examine its projects and working.
The clergy have from the start seconded these congresses with all their influence, and a very large number of them are regular and active members. Discourses were pronounced before them by several distinguished prelates, among whom we remark the names of Cardinal Wiseman and Bishop Dupanloup. Yet all the members meet upon a perfect equality. The title to membership is that of merit alone, and the guarantee that one has something positive to offer for the furtherance of the objects for which the congress is convened. No one appears as a general delegate of veto, or as a committee of one on objections; but each one comes well posted up in the department in which he is interested, well prepared with his documents, notes of experience, authorities, etc., and hence their deliberations are based upon solid matter and not upon visionary ideas or imaginary schemes. It is easy to see how these congresses have produced such practical results as the advanced state of Catholicity has shown in the last few years throughout Germany and Belgium. Art in its relations to religion and the church has been so well encouraged that the congress of 1864 saw over one hundred artists and archaeologists assembled in council. All that contributes to the propriety and majesty of the divine service in church decoration and furniture received special attention, and numerous works have been published in consequence.
Catholic journalism received such an impetus that Belgium, small as it is, now boasts of fifty Catholic periodicals. In Europe they understand the importance of fostering and purifying this department of public instruction. A late German writer says: "Journalism is an important profession, whose members should be conscientious and honorable men. The journalist addresses his language to an audience far more numerous than the professors, and at present his influence is, so to say, unlimited; he reaches every part of educated society, and sways public opinion. He is called to be the standard-bearer of liberty and truth. He must, therefore, implant sound principles in the popular mind, and, standing above the reach of paltry prejudice, unite in himself a high degree of intelligence and true devotion to the eternal laws of the church. Without independence, dignity, and moral freedom he cannot do justice to the task imposed on him by God. 'Impavidum ferient ruinae.' In England, America, and Belgium, the press wields a powerful influence; it has become sovereign, and is necessary to the nation's life. Science feels that, unless it is diffused, it is powerless, and that the school-room is too narrow a field." The foundation of a great Catholic university for Germany is now under consideration, and a large sum is already subscribed toward it. In this respect Belgium is far in advance of its more populous and powerful neighbor. By persistent and united effort the university of Louvain was established, and it now numbers 800 more students than those of the three state universities put together. We cannot refrain from transcribing the following earnest words of the writer already quoted. Speaking of Germany, he says:
"We must found a new university, a purely Catholic and free institution, untrammelled by state dictation, and entirely under the direction of the church. To do this, the bishops, the nobles, and the clergy must use their best endeavors; but the professors, too, must do their share, and not look on with cool indifference, as is the case with most of them. ... There is neither truce nor rest for us until we are not only equal, but superior to our opponents in every branch of science."
The congress of Würzburg founded a "Society for the Publication of Catholic Pamphlets," and it was so well received that in two years' time the number of its subscribers amounted to 25,000. Few of its many projects proposed and discussed appear to have met with such an enthusiastic reception and inspired such lively interest as this. In passing, let us be permitted to hope that a similar society lately founded in the United States may meet with a like encouragement, and that our people will appreciate the necessity of supporting with all their energies this truly apostolic work.
It is not surprising that the attention of these congresses was turned in an especial manner to the subject of charity, both corporal and spiritual. It is the spirit of Catholic charity that prompted these reunions and gave to them both their life and fruit. Says the writer above quoted, on this subject:
"Charity is the culminating point of all activity, for what is religion but practical love of God and of our neighbor? Truth must not only be proved, but felt; science and art are the necessary fruits of true religion; science is not the light, but is to give testimony of the light. The object of art is the beautiful; of science, the true; and of charity, the good; but the beautiful, the true, and the good are the three highest categories—the indispensable conditions of intellectual activity—the connecting links between the intellect and God, who is the fountain head and prototype of all being, as well as the last end of human investigations and aspirations."
The deliberations of these congresses, therefore, embraced every form of charity, while they confined themselves to such branches of art and science as have more or less direct relation to religion. The report of the congress of Malines before us refers to discussions, resolutions, etc., upon a vast number of charitable projects, the titles of some of which we are tempted to lay before our readers, that they have some adequate idea of the herculean labors of these zealous assemblies.
Catholic Society for the Burial of the Poor;
Society for the Propagation of the Faith;
Establishment at London of a Seminary for Missions among the Heathen;
Missions of Herzégovines in Turkey;
Erection of a Catholic Church and Schools in St. Petersburg;
Foundation of a Belgian Mission in China;
Pilgrimages to Rome;
Means of consolidating and developing Catholic Charitable Institutions;
Extension of the Society of St. Vincent of Paul;
Societies of St. Francis Xavier and St. John the Baptist for workmen;
OEuvre of the Ladies of Mercy;
OEuvre of Mothers of Families;
Means of extending and propagating Instruction in Free Schools;
Diffusion of Good Books;
Foundation of Public Libraries;
Schools for Deaf-Mutes;
Foundation of a Chair, in the University of Louvain, of Industry and Mining;
The Subject of the Marriage of Soldiers;
Protectorates of Children;
Protectorates of Students;
do. of Apprentices;
do. of Young Journeymen;
Young Men's Societies in Ireland and elsewhere;
Orphanages;
Hospitals, etc., etc.
If so much in the matter of charity alone forms the subject of consideration at one of these congresses, our readers will naturally be led to suppose that a large number of persons must be brought together on these occasions. In this they are not mistaken, for at the congress at Würzburg, in 1864 the number of delegates amounted 7000. What a truly magnificent and inspiring spectacle must have been presented at the opening of this assembly, when those seven thousand Catholic men, one in faith, and united in charity, full of zeal and whole souled devotion to the holy church, assisted in a body at the grand solemn mass of the Holy Ghost, and implored on bended knees the benediction of God upon their future labors!
With this scene before our eyes, are not we Catholics of America tempted to envy them with a holy envy the glorious work in which they are engaged, and to wish that it was in our own land and for the good of our own people that all this was done? Is there one who glances at the titles we have given above of some of their labors, who does not see that we too need, even more than our brethren in Europe, to have all these subjects relating to the advancement of religion, the instruction of the people, and the comfort of the poor brought under consideration, the best means of their accomplishment discussed, the knowledge and experience of our best Catholic men, both clergy and laity, brought under contribution, unity and organization furthered, and, by combining our forces, strike a good blow for the glory of God and the good of our fellow-men? The laity think of nothing but of contributing their money when called upon to aid some good work, and our over-tasked clergy are left to devise, plan, superintend, and carry out every religious project under heaven.
Now, it cannot be denied that there are thousands of our laymen fully competent to co-operate with the clergy in every branch of religious science, art, and charity. If they would add their minds to their money, and put their own individual energies to the wheel, a power would at once be created in the church of the United States irresistible to its enemies, and a certain guarantee of the glory and triumph of our holy faith.
The want of such a congress has already been the subject of much serious reflection with many persons, whose position and duties oblige them to recognize the necessity of union and cooperation in carrying out the various good works in which they are engaged. If we are truly imbued with the spirit of our holy religion, we should not only be far from grudging the communication of our knowledge and experience to our brethren, but should rather burn to impart it, to make it profitable to the church at large; and we are convinced that in no other way could this be so effectually done as in a congress modelled upon those of Belgium and Germany.
The form of their congress is precisely that to which we are well accustomed here in organized assemblies. All projects are first referred to particular committees and put in proper shape to be presented before the whole congress, where they are quickly disposed of according to their merits. The statutes or rules under which they meet are of such a character as to produce perfect harmony in their discussions, and the subjects which are admitted as proper for deliberation and deserving of encouragement are just such as the good of religion demands attention to and united action upon at our hands.
Not a few of the first scientific men in the United States are Catholics. True science must necessarily be in harmony with the true religion. It has been the fashion of late to consider that they are in no way related to or dependent one upon the other.
The doctrine of Luther, that reason must be left out of account in religion, and that its judgments are not to be sought for nor relied upon in matters of faith, has resulted in turning scientific men out of the church.
Men will reason, will claim and use their reason as they should, by divine right; and if you divorce reason from religion, what wonder that they will accept the decision and look upon science as a department of human knowledge and belief over which religion has no control? The Catholic Church has never professed this degrading doctrine; on the contrary, she has stoutly condemned all propositions implying it in any sense; but still, Catholic men of science must associate with scientific infidels as scientific men; they must correspond, deliberate, examine, and discuss questions of vital importance with them, who make no hesitation in assuming premises and forming theories the conclusions of which are contradictory to faith. We are not here accusing our brethren, or casting suspicion upon their orthodoxy. What we intend to imply is simply this, that for want of fraternal co-operation and mutual recognition and encouragement the false principle we have alluded to above is gradually gaining ascendency in the popular as well as in the scientific mind. Had we a "Catholic Academy" composed of the men who stand high in intellectual culture and scientific research, such an "academy" as the European congresses are now striving to found, we should be able to present a bold front in the arena of science, and compel attention to its true principles and to the fact of their consonance with the teachings of faith. Thus a right arm of power would be given to the church from a source which now practically ignores it. It has been our pleasure to meet in different cities of the Union with many men, devout Catholics, whose names would grace an academic roll of first class merit. Indeed, and we say it knowingly, in every profession—in philosophy, medicine, law, geology, as well as in the army and navy, Catholics rank with the foremost. What they need, and what the church needs on their account, we say again, is union, opportunity, and mutual acquaintance and support. It is impossible to estimate what influence a body of such men would exert, or with what respect for our holy religion they would inspire the American public.
Neither must it be forgotten that the church alone possesses an universal and complete system of Christian philosophy. For the want of this, Protestantism has in the main abandoned all attempts to reconcile the deductions of reason with the dogmas of revelation. Hence, its systems of dogmatic theology are extremely jejune and discordant. Let us bring this fact before the minds of the intellectual men of our age and country, and at once Protestantism as a reasonable system of religion must fall below their contempt.
But the institution of a Catholic academy must be consequent upon the foundation of a Catholic university. We have some good schools, where a more scholarly knowledge of the classics can be acquired than in professedly Protestant colleges, but they surpass us in all other branches of science and intellectual culture. And the reason is plain. Their professorial chairs are filled by men of superior attainments, whose services are secured by good salaries.
Their standard for graduation is, however, extremely low compared to that required by the European colleges and universities. Indeed, most of our Protestant and Catholic colleges, too, accord the diploma to all their students, irrespective of their merits. We ourselves have been called upon, by a graduate of one of the oldest and most respectable Protestant colleges in the country, to translate his diploma into English, that the old folks at home might know what it meant. We need to raise our own colleges to a higher standard than they now possess, and to offer to our men of talent the means of completing the imperfect education of an ordinary college course. To do this we must have an university whose requirements for matriculation shall demand a rigid examination, in which the candidate must come off thoroughly successful; whose chairs shall be filled with first-class professors, and which shall possess an ample endowment for its purposes.
This great work, which is the hope of all the scholars in the country, can only be carried out by united effort on the part of the episcopate and the wealthy laity, and a congress would be a most fitting opportunity for bringing the matter to a definitive and practical conclusion. Great men in council will do great things, and generous souls will be stimulated to emulate examples of heroic sacrifice. It is a word to the wise.
Of all the departments of public instruction, the press needs amongst us the improvement, encouragement, and sanction which a congress is calculated to give. Think of Belgium, with only 5,000,000 inhabitants, supporting over fifty Catholic periodicals, and possessing numerous societies for the publication of cheap religious books and pamphlets! Our Catholic population of the United States is at least equal in number to that of the whole of Belgium. Yet with all our numbers and means we have not one daily paper under Catholic supervision, a most important work, to the establishment of which one of the first efforts of a Catholic congress with us should be directed. Those who complain of our Catholic press, and make invidious comparisons between the literary merit of our periodicals and our neighbors', should remember that editors are professional men, and not to be obtained for the wages of a day laborer; and that a first-class periodical must have a first-class circulation. A congress of editors would tend to elevate the tone of the Catholic press, and its voice would stimulate all classes to greater effort in promoting a more generous diffusion of this kind of literature. An increased circulation would enable the conductors of our journals to pay for original contributions, and engage the services of first-class writers; an outlay which very few of them have now the means of making.
That the Catholic Publication Society, now successfully founded, needs the influence of a congress to extend its operations to the different cities and towns of the Union, is plain to be seen. There are hundreds of zealous persons of every condition of life who are waiting to be told what to do to advance its interests, who want to see some system of local organization proposed and sanctioned by some proper authority. Its friends wish to meet together, to know each other, and after due deliberation to frame fitting resolutions for action, which upon their return to their respective homes they may carry into effect.
This important project cannot be fully realized, and be fruitful, under God, in instructing and edifying thousands of souls unto salvation, unless a public and general interest be excited in its success, and with the active co-operation of the great charitable associations and pious confraternities now established amongst us.
There is also a pressing necessity for us to obtain fuller information, and come to a decision about the subject of church architecture, and all that relates to the exterior of divine worship. We are building cathedrals and churches in every style, and on principles which are as various as there are fancies and theories in the brains of architects. Immense sums of money are needed and collected for this purpose, and it is of the greatest moment that they be wisely expended.
The time has come when every church we erect should be an honor to us for its architectural beauty, its substantial character, and adaptability to our needs, and when the generous alms of the faithful should no longer be thrown away upon unsightly, badly planned, and worse built edifices, of which so many exist in our country, to the great discomfort of both priest and people, and monuments (happily not lasting ones) of the want of knowledge and experience of those who constructed them.
It becomes us, therefore, to encourage our Catholic architects who understand the meaning and use of a church. We cannot look for Protestants to care much for the requirements of the ritual in their designs, or to appreciate the necessity of insisting upon what the church insists. Their chief aim is to please their patrons, and carry out whatever is proposed to them. Few of our Protestant architects know any more about the proper interior disposition of a Catholic church than they do of a Moslem mosque.
See, again, how much we suffer from the wretched altar furniture and sacerdotal vestments imported for our use, and which our clergy are obliged to take and make a display in their sanctuaries of things belonging in style to every age of the church. How often have we not seen a priest clothed in Roman vestments celebrating mass at a Gothic altar furnished with Byzantine crucifix and candlesticks, and a miscellaneous job lot of tawdry French artificial flowers, while the sacred precinct of the sanctuary would be furnished with carpet and chairs that smack of the drawing-room or the kitchen?
These evils existed and do exist in other countries besides our own, and we see that the congresses of Belgium have done a great deal to correct them by calling Catholic architects together in council, and offering prizes for designs of perfect churches built and furnished according to the Ritual, the Ceremoniale Episcoporum, the Missal, and the decrees of the Congregation of Rites.
The music of our churches, what shall we say of it? Are our city churches to be turned into fashionable concert-rooms where hired Protestant, Jewish, and infidel artists are to sing their morceaux de l'opera for our edification? Are our country churches never to witness a high mass celebrated in them, and the people in those localities never to be convened for the Vesper service or comforted with the Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament because there is no one to teach the children at least to sing a Tantum Ergo? Are our organists always to be irresponsible musicians, guided by no rubrics, ignorant of fast days and festivals, outraging every sense of propriety, and banishing all sentiment of piety and devotion by their ad libitum roulades and fantasias of the most degraded taste? If we must pay others to sing the praises of God for us, why not also engage others to do our praying likewise? Cannot we have, as other countries have, voluntary choirs? Why cannot all the people sing at proper times and seasons, and join in that part of worship which from its very nature is the best calculated to awaken the deepest emotions of the soul!
The question of the feasibility of voluntary choirs or of congregational singing is no longer wholly a doubtful one. We know of several churches in the country that have always had voluntary choirs, and we were present during the past Lent at the services of one of our city churches where the whole congregation joined with full voices in a popular Lenten service, and in the solemn recitation of the Way of the Cross, for which they were prepared at a single public rehearsal in the church.
The subject of church music, as we have already said, was one to which the Belgium congresses paid a great deal of attention. The March number of the Revue Generale of Brussels gives a most interesting report, by Canon Devroye, of the proceedings of the jury to whom were referred the adjudication of the prizes offered for an original popular mass, composed, as says the worthy canon, "according to the rules laid down by the church, and enforced by our general assembly;" and he observes in another place that they must "redouble their efforts to procure universal observation of the rules adopted by the congress, and which are also the rules of the church and of common sense." Let us hasten to imitate this example of zeal for the glory of God's house and for the decency and dignity of divine worship. If we have not many original composers, we have, at any rate, several good judges among our organists and directors of choirs. Their united opinion would have a powerful influence in bringing about, what we do not fear to say is greatly needed, a thorough reformation in our church music.
In works of charity we have done a great deal already—enough, it may be, to hide a multitude of sins; but charity is never content with what it has done, nor will the objects of its care ever be wanting. "The poor ye have always with you," said our Lord. They take his place in our midst, and by their helplessness and suffering soften our selfish hearts, and win from us those things in the inordinate love of which we are too apt to forget our true destiny. Men may give themselves up with too great ardor to the pursuit of science and devotion to art, but charity has no dangerous limits which we may not overpass. What we do for the poor we do for God, and no one can do too much for him. Yet charity needs wisdom, demands thought, and profits by good counsel. So that we see men instinctively band themselves together in associations, that the ignorant, the suffering, the tempted, and the sinful may be more wisely aided, and more speedily comforted. The religious orders of charity have their own special rules and organization, and know how to do their work well. But there are many forms of suffering and of corporal and spiritual destitution which they cannot reach, or which their rule of life prevents them from attending to. Enterprises that can embrace these needy cases for charity in their scope must, therefore, be conducted more or less entirely by the laity. To be truly effective, these enterprises need rules and organization, as much as an order of Sisters of Charity or of Mercy; and organization demands cooperation, deliberation, and union. The glorious society of St. Vincent de Paul is one of these, and its works are manifest. Millions of God's beloved poor will rise up at the last day to praise these devoted children of the church and call them blessed. But they cannot do all that is to be done. There is great need, especially in our larger cities and towns, of patronages, protectorates, associations of young apprentices and workmen, and what are called in Europe "Catholic Circles," and with us "Young Men's Institutes," which enable our Catholic youth particularly to enjoy honest recreation and amusement in honest society, and at the same time improve their minds and refine their manners. Such institutes have been already founded among us by several zealous pastors with the most signal success. Our Sunday-schools also have been of late much improved by the establishment of Sunday-School Unions, which might be extended to every diocese in the country. To give a proper impetus to all these works of charity, to make their character and working known, and encourage their establishment throughout the country, would be one of the principal subjects to come up for consideration before a congress.
We have shown enough reasons, we think, why such an assembly should be convened. Many persons have the matter at heart; and we have perused with great pleasure some communications on the subject which show a thoughtful appreciation of its great importance. We trust that what we have written may help to encourage them and others to give expression to their sentiments, and thus prepare the public mind, so that the whole body of our clergy and intelligent laity may be ready to take an active part in it as soon as the proper authorities shall summon them to meet. A good proposal has been made, which merits consideration: that the meeting of a congress be made coincident with the assembling of the General Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, which now does so much of the work of a congress in the matter of charity, and which brings together so many men of the right stamp from all portions of our vast country. This would enable the congress to profit by the fruits of their experience and influence in a department where none are more competent than they to give advice and aid.
Our holy religion is making such rapid advances that there is an urgent call upon every Catholic to bestir himself, and do all that lies in his power to aid and support the clergy in their herculean efforts to feed and comfort the flock of Christ. Converts are pouring in from all quarters, out of all classes of society. Many of them have been earnest laborers in their way in the cause of religion and of charity. Let them not find us idle, neither must we allow them to be idle. Their influence with their Protestant brethren is great, and we should give them the means of using it and bringing it to good account.
The charitable power in the church, and the devotion of the clergy to the spiritual good of the people, has in an especial manner been brought before the minds of the American public by the events of the late war. Prejudice is dying out on all sides, and we begin to find it easier to obtain a hearing from those who have hitherto considered it a duty to turn a deaf ear to our words of truth. Our hands are full of work, and if we are alive to our opportunity, we shall accomplish glorious things for God, and not fail of placing our divine faith, always so fruitful in good works, first in rank and the highest in esteem before all those fragmentary, defective, and inefficient forms of Christianity that have up to the present held sway over the minds and hearts of so large a portion of the American people, and kept them from the knowledge of that church which, as the church of God, is Catholic, perfect, and, therefore, alone able to do the work which humanity claims at the hands of religion.
Original.
Regret.
They say she says, "I have no heart."
Could she have seen my tears,
She'd know I keenly felt the smart
That broke the loving tie of years.
They say she says, "I have no heart."
'Twere cruel thus to say,
When I, to act the firmer part,
Keep from her sight away.
They say she says, "I have no heart,"
When sight, with tears grows dim;
To think that pride should keep apart
Such friends as we have been.
They say she says, "I have no heart,"
For her, to whom my soul had grown
So closely—that, even when apart,
I felt no joy—because alone.
Again she says, "I have no heart,"
When oft she staid the swelling tear;
As those who loved I saw depart,
I felt they left a sister here.
How can she say, "I have no heart,"
When night and morn I ask in prayer
That we may not be called apart,
Till both breathe forth forgiveness here?
Impressions Of Spain.
By Lady Herbert.
Gibraltar And Cadiz.
The journey from Granada was, if possible, more wearying than before, for the constant heavy rains had reduced the roads to a perfect Slough of Despond, in which the wretched mules perpetually sank and fell, and were flogged up again in a way which, to a nature fond of animals, is the most insupportable of physical miseries. Is there a greater suffering than that of witnessing cruelty and wrong which you are powerless to redress? It was not till nearly eleven o'clock the following day that our travellers found themselves once more in their old quarters on the Alameda of Malaga. By the kindness of the superior of the hospital, the usual nine o'clock mass had been postponed till the arrival of the diligence: and very joyfully did one of the party afterwards take her old place at the refectory of the community, whose loving welcome made her forget that she was still in a strange land. The following three or four days were spent almost entirely in making preparations for their journey to Gibraltar, via Ronda, that eagle's nest, perched on two separate rocks, divided by a rapid torrent, but united by a picturesque bridge, which crowns the range of mountains forming the limits of the kingdom of Granada. The accounts of the mountain-path were not encouraging; but to those who had ridden for four months through the Holy Land, no track, however rugged and precipitous, offered any terrors. But when the time came, to their intense disappointment, the road was found to be impassable on the Gibraltar side, owing to the tremendous torrents, which the heavy rains had swollen to a most unusual extent. Two officers had attempted to swim their horses over, but in so doing one of them was drowned; so that there seemed no alternative but to give up their pleasant riding expedition, and, with it, the sight of that gem of the whole country which had been one of their main objects in returning to Malaga. Comforting themselves, however, by the hope of going there later from Seville, our travellers took berths in the steamer Cadiz, bound for Gibraltar; and after a beautiful parting benediction at the little convent of the Nuns of the Assumption, they took leave of their many kind friends, and, at six o'clock, (accompanied by Madame de Q—— and her brother to the water's edge,) stepped on board the boat which was to convey them to their steamer. Their captain, however, proved faithless as to time; and it was not till morning that the cargo was all on board and the vessel under weigh for their destination. After a tedious and rough passage of nineteen hours, they rounded at last the Europa Point, and found themselves a few minutes later landing on the Water Port quay of the famous rock. Of all places in Spain, Gibraltar is the least interesting, except from the British and national point of view. Its houses, its people, its streets, its language, all are of a detestably mongrel character.
The weather, too, during our travellers' stay, was essentially British, incessant pouring rain and fog alternating with gales so tremendous that twenty vessels went ashore in one day. Nothing was to be seen from the windows of the Club-House Hotel but mist and spray, or heard but the boom of the distress gun from the wrecking ships, answered by the more cheering cannon of the port. But there is a bright side to every picture: and one of the bright sides of Gibraltar is to be found in its kind and hospitable governor and his wife, who, nobly laying aside all indulgence in the life-long sorrow which family events have caused, devote themselves morning, noon, and night to the welfare and enjoyment of every one around them. Their hospitality is natural to their duties and position; but the kind consideration which ever anticipates the wishes of their guests, whether residents or, as our travellers were, birds of passage, here to-day and gone to-morrow, springs from a rarer and a purer source.
Another object of interest to some of our party was the charitable institutions of the place. The white "cornettes" of the Sisters of Charity are not seen as yet; but the sisters of the "Bon Secours" have supplied their place in nursing the sick and tending all the serious cases of every class in the garrison. Their value only became fully known at the late fearful outbreak of cholera, to which two of them fell victims: but they seemed rather encouraged than deterred by this fact. They live in a house half-way up the hill on the way to Europa Point, which contains a certain number of old and incurable people and a few orphan children. They visit also the sick poor in their homes, and in the Civil Hospital, which is divided, drolly enough, not into surgical and medical wards, but according to the religion of the patients! one half being Catholic, the other Protestant, and small wards being reserved likewise for Jews and Moors. It is admirably managed, the patients are supplied with every necessary and well cared for by the kind-hearted superintendent, Dr. G——. The "Dames de Lorette" have a convent towards the Europa Point, where they board and educate between twenty and thirty young ladies. They have also a large day-school in the town for both rich and poor, the latter being below and the former above. The children seem well taught, and the poorer ones were remarkable for great neatness and cleanliness. The excellent and charming Catholic bishop, Dr. Scandella, vicar apostolic of Gibraltar, has built a college for boys on the ground adjoining his palace, above the convent, from whence the view is glorious; the gardens are very extensive. This college, which was immensely needed in Gibraltar, is rapidly filling with students, and is about to be affiliated to the London University. In the garden above, a chapel is being built to receive the Virgin of "Europa," whose image, broken and despoiled by the English in 1704, was carried over to Algeciras, and there concealed in the hermitage; but has now been given back by Don Eugenio Romero to the bishop, to be placed in this new and beautiful little sanctuary overlooking the Straits, where it will soon be once more exposed to the veneration of the faithful. The bishop has lately built another little church below the convent, dedicated to St. Joseph, but which, from some defect in the materials, has been a very expensive undertaking.
It was very pleasant to see the simple, hearty, manly devotion of the large body of Catholic soldiers in the garrison, among whom his influence has had the happiest effect in checking every kind of dissatisfaction and drunkenness. His personal influence has doubtless been greatly enhanced by his conduct during the cholera, when he devoted himself, with his clergy, to the sick and dying, taking regular turns with them in the administration of the Last Sacraments, and only claiming as his privilege that of being the one always called up in the night, so that the others might get some rest. He has two little rooms adjoining the church, where he remains during the day, and receives any one who needs his fatherly care.
The Protestant bishop of Gibraltar, a very kind and benevolent man, resides at Malta, and has a cathedral near the governor's house, lately beautified by convict labor, and said to be well attended. It is the only Protestant church in Spain.
Of the sights of Gibraltar it is needless to speak. Our travellers, in spite of the weather, which rarely condescended to smile upon them, visited almost everything: the North Fort, Spanish Lines, and Catalan Bay, one day; Europa Point, with the cool summer residence of the governor, (sadly in need of government repair,) and St. Michael's Cave, on the next; and last, not least, the galleries and heights. From the signal tower the view is unrivalled; and the aloes, prickly pear, and geranium, springing out of every cleft in the rock, up which the road is beautifully and skilfully engineered, add to the enjoyment of the ride. The gentlemen of the party hunted in the cork woods when the weather would allow of it; and the only "lion" unseen by them were the monkeys, who resolutely kept in their caves or on the African side of the water during their stay at Gibraltar. The garden of the governor's palace is very enjoyable, and contains one of those wonderful dragon-trees of which the bark is said to bleed when an incision is made. The white arums grow like a weed in this country, and form most beautiful bouquets when mixed with scarlet geranium and edged by their large, bright, shining green leaves.
The time of our travellers was, however, limited, especially as they wished to spend the Holy Week in Seville. So, after a ten days' stay, reluctantly giving up the kind offer of the port admiral to take them across to Africa, and contenting themselves with buying a few Tetuan pots from the Moors at Gibraltar, they took their passages on board the "London" steamer for Cadiz.
By permission of the governor, they were allowed to pass through the gates after gun-fire, and got to the mole; but there, from some mistake, no boat could be found to take them off to their vessel, and they had the pleasure of seeing it steam away out of the harbor without them, although their passages had been paid for, and, as they thought, secured. In despair, shut out of the town, where a state of siege, for fear of a surprise, is always rigorously maintained by the English garrison, they at last bribed a little boat to take them to a Spanish vessel, the "Allegri," likewise bound for Cadiz, and which was advertised to start an hour later. In getting on board of her, however, they found she was a wretched tub, heavily laden with paraffine, among other combustibles, and with no accommodation whatever for passengers. There was, however, no alternative but going in her or remaining all night tossing about the harbor in their cockle-shell of a boat; so they made up their minds to the least of the two evils, and a few minutes later saw them steaming rapidly out of the harbor toward Cadiz. The younger portion of the party found a cabin in which they could lie down: the elder lay on the cordage of the deck, and prayed for a cessation of the recent fearful storms, the captain having quietly informed them that in the event of its coming on to blow again he must throw all their luggage overboard as well as a good deal of his cargo, as he was already too heavily laden to be safe. However, the night was calm, though very cold, and the following morning saw them safely rounding the forts of Cadiz, and staring at its long, low shores. But then a new alarm seized them. The quarantine officers came on board with a horrible yellow flag, and talked big about the cholera having reappeared at Alexandria, and the consequent impossibility of their being able to produce a clean bill of health. The prospect of spending a week in that miserable vessel, or in the still more dismal lazaretto on the shore, was anything but agreeable to our travellers. However, on the assurance of the captain that the only vessel arrived from Egypt before they left Gibraltar had been instantly put into quarantine by the governor, they were at last allowed to land in peace, and found very comfortable rooms at Blanco's hotel, on the promenade, their windows and balconies looking on the sea. In the absence of the bishop, who was gone to Tetuan, Canon L—— kindly offered his services to show them the curiosities of the town, and took them first to the Capuchin convent, now converted into a madhouse, in the church adjoining which are two very fine Murillos: one, "St. Francis receiving the Stigmata," which, for spirituality of expression, is really unrivalled; the other, "The Marriage of St. Catherine," which was his last work, and is unfinished. The great painter fell from the scaffolding in 1682, and died very soon after, at Seville, in consequence of the internal injuries he had received. From this convent they proceeded to the cathedral, which is ugly enough, but where the organ and singing were admirable. The stalls in the choir, which are beautifully carved, were stolen from the Cartucha at Seville. There is a spacious crypt under the high altar, with a curious flat roof, unsupported by any arches or columns, but at present it is bare and empty. Their guide then took them to see the workhouse, or "Albergo dei Poveri," an enormous building, which is even more admirably managed than the one at Madrid. It contains upwards of a thousand inmates. The boys are all taught different trades, and the girls every kind of industrial and needle work. The dormitories and washing arrangements are excellent; and all the walls being lined, up to a certain height, with the invariable blue and white "azulejos," or glazed tiles, gives a clean, bright appearance to the whole. The dress of the children was also striking to English eyes, accustomed to the hideous workhouse livery at home. On Sundays they have a pretty and varied costume for both boys and girls, and their little tastes are considered in every way. They have a large and handsome church, and also a chapel for the children's daily prayers, which they themselves keep nice and pretty, and ornament with flowers from their gardens. The whole thing is like a "home" for these poor little orphans, and in painful contrast to the views which Protestant England takes of charity in her workhouses, where poverty seems invariably treated as a crime. The children are in a separate wing of the building—the girls above, the boys below. On the other side are the sick wards, and those for the old and incurable, where the same minute care for their comfort and pleasure is observed in every arrangement. Nor is there that horrible prison atmosphere, and that locking of doors as one passes through each ward, which jars so painfully on one's heart in going through an English workhouse. There are very few able bodied paupers; and those are employed in the work of the house and garden. There is a spacious "patio," or court, with an open colonnade of marble columns, running round the quadrangle, the centre of which is filled with orange-trees and flowers. This beautiful palace was founded and endowed by the private benevolence of one man, who dedicated it to St. Helena, in memory of his mother, and placed in it the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, who have the entire care of the whole establishment. There are fifteen sisters, all Spaniards, but affiliated to the French ones, and with the portrait of N. T. H. Père Etienne in the place of honor in their "parloir" and refectory. The superior is a most remarkable woman, little and "contrefaite," but with a soul in her eyes which it is impossible to forget. The institution is now in the hands of the government, who have wisely not attempted to make any alterations in the administration. There are upward of fifty of these Sisters of Charity in Cadiz, they having the sole charge of the hospitals, schools, workhouses, etc.; and the admirable cleanliness, order, and comfort in each which is the result, must commend them to the intelligent approval of every visitor, even should he be unmoved by the evidence of that unpaid charity which, with its soft finger-touch, stamps all their works with the very essence of divine love.
The next day being Palm Sunday, our travellers went to service in the cathedral. It was very fine, but extremely fatiguing. There are no chairs or seats in Spanish churches. Every one kneels on the floor the whole time, not even rising for the Gospel or Creed. On one of the party attempting to stand up at the long Gospel of the Passion, she was somewhat indignantly pulled down again by her neighbors. During the sermon, the Spanish women have a peculiar way of sitting on their heels—a process which they learn from childhood, but which to strangers is an almost intolerable penance. Here, as everywhere in Spain, the hideous fashion of bonnets or hats was unknown, and the universal black mantilla, with its graceful folds and modest covering of the face, and the absence of all colors to distract attention in the house of God, made our English ladies sigh more eagerly than ever for a similar reverent and decent fashion to be adopted at home. On returning for the vesper service in the afternoon, a beautiful, and, to them, novel, custom was observed. At the singing of the "Vexilla Regis," the canons, in long black robes, knelt prostrate in a semicircle before the high altar, and were covered by a black flag with a red cross. This they saw repeated daily during the Passion Week services at Seville. In the evening there was a magnificent benediction and processional service round the cloisters of the church called "Delle Scalze." It was impossible to imagine anything more picturesque than the multitude kneeling in the open "patio," or court, shaded by orange-trees, and full of beautiful flowers, while round the arches swept the gorgeous procession carrying the Host, the choir and people singing alternate verses of the "Lauda Sion," the curling smoke of the incense reflecting prismatic colors in the bright sunshine, and the whole procession finally disappearing in the sombre, dark old church, of which the centre doors had been thrown wide open to receive it. One longed only for Roberts's paint-brush to depict the scene. Returning to their hotel, our party found the Alameda gay with holiday folk, and full of the ladies whose beauty and charm have been the pride of Cadiz for so many generations. Do not let our readers think it invidious if we venture on the opinion that their beautiful and becoming dress has a great deal to do with this, just as, in the East, every turbaned Turk or burnoused Arab would make a perfect picture. Dress your Oriental in one of Poole's best-fitting coats and trousers, and give him a chimney-pot hat, and where would be his beauty? In the same way, if—which good taste forefend—the Spanish ladies come to imagine that a bonnet stuck on the back of the head, and every color in the rainbow, is prettier than the flowing black robe and softly folded lace mantilla, shading modestly their bright dark eyes and hair, they will find, to their cost, that their charm has vanished for ever.
Nothing more remained to be seen or done in Cadiz but to purchase some of the beautiful mats which are its great industry, and which are made of a flat reed or "junco," growing in the neighborhood; and these the kind and, good-natured English consul undertook to forward to them, when ready, to England.
Seville.
Armed with sundry letters of introduction sent them from Madrid, our travellers started by early train for Seville, the amiable Canon L—— having given them a five o'clock mass before starting, in his interesting old circular church dedicated to S. Filippo Neri, he being one of the Oratorians. They passed by Xeres, famous for its sherry cellars, called "bodegas," supplying more wine to England than to all the rest of the world put together, and for its Carthusian convent, once remarkable for its Zurbaran pictures, the greater portion of which have now followed the sherry to the British Isles; then by Alcalà, noted for its delicious bread, with which it supplies the whole of Seville; for its Moorish castle and beautiful river Aira, the waters of which, after flowing round the walls of the little town, are carried by an aqueduct to Seville; and so on and on, through orange and olive groves, and wheat plains, and vineyards, till the train brought them by mid-day to the wonderful and beautiful city which had been the main object of their Spanish tour.
The saying is strictly true:
Quien no ha visto Sevilla,
No ha visto maravilla.
Scarcely had they set foot in their comfortable hotel, the "Fonda de Londres," when an obliging aide-de-camp of the Spanish general came to tell them that, if they wanted to see the Alcazar, they must go with him at once, as the infanta, who had married the sister of the king's consort, was expected with his wife to occupy the palace that evening, when it would naturally be closed to visitors. Dusty, dirty, and hot as they were, therefore, they at once sallied forth with their kind cicerone and the English consul for this fairy palace of the Moors. Entering by the Plaza del Triunfo, under an arched gateway, where hangs, day and night, a lamp throwing its soft light on the beautiful little picture of the Virgin and Child, they came into a long court, in the midst of which are orange-trees and fountains, and this again led them by a side door into the inner court or "patio" of the palace.
Like the Alhambra, it is an exquisite succession of delicate columns, with beautifully carved capitals, walls, and balconies, which look as if worked in Mechlin lace; charmingly cool "patios," with marble floors and fountains; doors whose geometrical patterns defy the patience of the painter; horse-shoe arches, with edges fringed like guipure; fretted ceilings, the arabesques of which are painted in the most harmonious colors, and tipped with gold; lattices every one of which seems to tell of a romance of beauty and of love: such are these moresque creations, unrivalled in modern art, and before which our most beautiful nineteenth century palaces sink into coarse and commonplace buildings. They are the realization of the descriptions in the "Arabian Nights," and the exquisite delicacy of the work is not its sole charm. The proportions of every room, of every staircase, of every door and window, are perfect: nothing offends the eye by being too short or too wide. In point of sound, also, they, as well as the Romans, knew the secret which our modern builders have lost; and in harmony of color, no "azulejos" of the present day can approach the beauty and brilliancy of the Moorish tints. Nor are historical romances wanting to enhance the interest of this wonderful place. In the bed-chamber of the king, Pedro the Cruel, are painted three dead heads, and thereon hangs a tale of savage justice. The king overheard three of his judges combining to give a false judgment in a certain case about which they had been bribed, and then quarrel about their respective shares of their ill gotten spoils. He suddenly appeared before them, and causing them to be instantly beheaded, placed their heads in the niches where now the paintings perpetuate the remembrance of the punishment. Less excusable was another tragedy enacted within these walls, in the assassination of the brother of king, who had been invited as a guest and came unsuspicious of treachery. A deep red stain of blood in the marble floor still marks the spot of the murder. Well may Spain's most popular modern poet, the Duque de Rivas, in his beautiful poem, exclaim:
"Ann en las losas se mira
Una tenaz mancha oscura; ...
Ni las edades la limpian! ...
Sangre! sangre! Oh cielos! cuantos,
Sin saber que lo es, la pisan!" [Footnote 141]
[Footnote 141:
"One still sees on the pavement a dark
spot—the lapse of ages has not effaced it!
Blood! blood! O Heaven! how many tread
it under foot without knowing it!">[
The gardens adjoining the palace are quaintly beautiful, the borders edged with myrtle and box, cut low and thick, with terraces and fountains, and kiosks, and, "surprises" of "jets d'eau," and arched walls festooned with beautiful hanging creepers, and a "luxe" of oriental vegetation. On one side are the white marble baths, cool and sombre, where the beautiful Maria de Padilla forgot the heat and glare of the Seville sun. It was the custom of the courtiers in her day to drink the water in which the ladies had bathed. Pedro the Cruel reproached one of his knights for not complying with this custom. "Sire," he replied, "I should fear lest, having tasted the sauce, I should covet the bird!"
The Alcazar formerly extended far beyond its present limits; but the ruined towers by the water-side are all that now remain to mark the course of the old walls.
Our travellers could not resist one walk through the matchless cathedral on their way home; but reserved their real visit to that and to the Giralda till the following day. The kind Regente de la Audiencia and his wife, to whom they had brought letters of introduction, came to them in the evening, and arranged various expeditions for the ensuing week.
Early the next morning the Countess L—— de R—— came to fetch one of the party to the church of S. Felipe Neri, which, like all the churches of the Oratorians, is beautifully decorated, and most devout and reverent in its services. It is no easy matter to go on wheels in the streets of Seville. There are but two or three streets in which a carriage can go at all, or attempt to turn; and so to arrive at any given place, it is generally necessary to make the circuit of half the town. In addition to this, the so-called pavement, angular, pointed, and broken, shakes every bone in one's body. To reach their destination on this particular morning, our friends had to traverse the market place, and make an immense détour through various squares, passing meanwhile by several very interesting churches; but it was all so much gain to the stranger.
After mass, one of the fathers, who spoke English, kindly showed them the treasures of his church, and amongst other things a beautiful silver-chased chapel behind the high altar, containing some exquisite bénitières, crucifixes, and relics. The wooden crucifixes of Spain, mostly carved by great men, such as Alonso Caño or Montanés, are quite wonderful in beauty and force of expression; but they are very difficult to obtain. They have a pretty custom in this church of offering two turtle doves in a pure white basket when a child is devoted to the Blessed Virgin, which are left on the altar, as in the old days of the Purification, and the white basket is afterward laid up in the chapel. After breakfast the whole party arrived at the cathedral. How describe this wonderful building! To say it is such and such a height, and such and such a width, that it has so many columns, and so many chapels, and so many doors, and so many windows. ... Why, Murray has done that far better than any one else! But to understand the cathedral at Seville, you must know it; you must feel it; you must live in it; you must see it at the moment of the setting sun, when the light streams in golden showers through those wonderful painted glass windows, (those chefs d'oeuvre of Arnold of Flanders,) jewelling the curling smoke of the incense still hanging round the choir; or else go there in the dim twilight, when the aisles seem to lengthen out into infinite space, and the only bright spot is from the ever-burning silver lamps which hang before the tabernacle.
One of the party, certainly not given to admiration of either churches or Catholicity, exclaimed on leaving it: "It is a place where I could not help saying my prayers!" The good-natured Canon P—— showed them all the treasures and pictures. They are too numerous to describe in detail; but some leave an indelible impression. Among these is Murillo's wonderful St. Antony, in the baptistery; Alonso Caño's delicious little Virgin and Child, (called Nuestra Señora de Belem;) Morales's Dead Christ; a very curious old Byzantine picture of the Virgin; and in the sacristy, the exquisite portraits by Murillo of St. Leander, archbishop of Seville, the great reformer of the Spanish liturgy, whose bones rest in a silver coffin in the Capilla Real, and of St. Isadore, his brother, who succeeded him in the see, called the "Excellent Doctor," and whose body rests at Leon. Here also is a wonderful "Descent from the Cross," by Campana, before which Murillo used to sit, and say "he waited till he was taken down;" and here, by his own particular wish, the great painter is buried. There is, besides, a fine portrait of St. Teresa; and round the handsome chapter-room are a whole series of beautiful oval portraits by Murillo, and also one of his best "Conceptions." Among the treasures is the cross made from the gold which Christopher Columbus brought home from America, and presented to the king; the keys of the town given up to Ferdinand by the Moorish king at the conquest of Seville; two beautiful ostensorios of the fifteenth century, covered with precious stones and magnificent pearls; beautiful Cinquecento reliquaries presented by different popes; finely illuminated missals in admirable preservation; an exquisitely carved ivory crucifix; wonderful vestments, heavy with embroidery and seed-pearls; the crown of King Ferdinand; and last, not least, a magnificent tabernacle altar-front, angels and candle-sticks, all in solid silver, beautiful in workmanship and design, used for Corpus Christi, and other solemn feasts of the Blessed Sacrament. One asks one's self very often: "How came all these treasures to escape the rapacity of the French spoilers?"
The Royal Chapel contains the body of St. Ferdinand, the pious conqueror of Seville, which town, as well as Cordova, he rescued from the hands of the Moors, after it had been in their possession five hundred and twenty-four years. This pious king, son to Alphonse, king of Leon, bore witness by his conduct to the truth of his words on going into battle: "Thou, O Lord! who searchest the hearts of men, knowest that I desire but thy glory, and not mine." To his saint-like mother, Berangera, he owed all the good and holy impressions of his life. He helped to build the cathedral of Toledo, of which he laid the first stone, and, in the midst of the splendors of the court, led a most ascetic and penitential life. Seville surrendered to him in 1249, after a siege of sixteen months, on which occasion the Moorish general exclaimed that "only a saint who, by his justice and piety, had won heaven over to his interest, could have taken so strong a city with so small an army." By the archbishop's permission, the body of the saint was exposed for our travellers. It is in a magnificent silver shrine; and the features still retain a remarkable resemblance to his portraits. His banner, crown, and sword were likewise shown to them, and the little ivory Virgin which he always fastened to the front of his saddle when going to battle. The cedar coffin still remains in which his body rested previous to its removal to this more gorgeous shrine. On the three days in the year when his body is exposed, the troops all attend the mass, and lower their arms and colors to the great Christian conqueror. A little staircase at the back of the tomb brings you down into a tiny crypt, where, arranged on shelves, are the coffins of the beautiful Maria Padilla, of Pedro the Cruel, and of their two sons: latterly, those of the children of the Duc and Duchesse de Montpensier have been added. Over the altar of the chapel above hangs a very curious wooden statue of the Virgin, given to St. Ferdinand by the good king Louis of France. King Ferdinand adorned her with a crown of emeralds and a stomacher of diamonds, belonging to his mother, on condition that they should never be removed from the image.
The organs are among the wonders of this cathedral, with their thousands of pipes, placed horizontally, in a fan-like shape. The "retablo" at the back of the high altar is a marvel of wood-carving; and the hundreds of lamps which burn before the different shrines are all of pure and massive silver. One is tempted to ask: "Was it by men and women like ourselves that cathedrals such as this were planned and built and furnished?" The chapter who undertook it are said to have deprived themselves even of the necessaries of life to erect a basilica worthy of the name; and in this spirit of voluntary poverty and self-abnegation was it begun and completed. Never was there a moment when money was so plentiful in England as now, yet where will a cathedral be found built since the fifteenth century?
At the west end lies Fernando, son of the great Christopher Columbus, who himself died at Valladolid, and is said to rest in the Havana. The motto on the tomb is simple but touching:
A Castilla y á Leon,
mundo nuevo dió Colon.
Over this stone, during holy week, is placed the "monumento," an enormous tabernacle, more than 100 feet high, which is erected to contain the sacred host on Holy Thursday: when lighted up, with the magnificent silver custodia, massive silver candlesticks, and a profusion of flowers and candles, it forms a "sepulchre" unequalled in the world for beauty and splendor.
Passing at last under the Moorish arch toward the north-east end of the cathedral, our travellers found themselves in a beautiful cloistered "patio," full of orange-trees in full blossom, with a magnificent fountain in the centre. In one corner is the old stone pulpit from which St. Vincent Ferrer, St. John of Avila, and other saints preached to the people: an inscription records the fact. Over the beautiful door which leads into the cathedral hang various curious emblems: a horn, a crocodile, a rod, and a bit, said to represent plenty, prudence, justice, and temperance. To the left is the staircase leading to the Columbine library, given by Fernando, and containing some very interesting MSS. of Christopher Columbus. One book is full of quotations, in his own handwriting, from the Psalms and the Prophets, proving the existence of the New World; another is a plan of the globe and of the zodiac drawn out by him. There is also a universal history, with copious notes, in the same bold, clear, fine handwriting; and a series of his letters to the king, written in Latin. Above the bookshelves are a succession of curious portraits, including those of Christopher Columbus and his son Fernando, which were given by Louis Philippe to the library; of Velasquez; of Cardinal Mendoza; of S. Fernando, by Murillo; and of our own Cardinal Wiseman, who, a native of Seville, is held in the greatest love and veneration here. A touching little account of his life and death has lately been published in Seville by the talented Spanish author, Don Leon Carbonero y Sol, with the appropriate heading, "Sicut vita finis ita." Our party were also shown the sword of Fernand Gonsalves, a fine two-edged blade, which did good service in rescuing Seville from the Moors.
Redescending the stairs, our travellers mounted the beautiful Moorish tower of the Giralda, built in the twelfth century by Abu Yusuf Yacub, who was also the constructor of the bridge of boats across the Guadalquiver. This tower forms the great feature in every view of Seville, and is matchless both from its rich yellow and red-brown color, its sunken Moorish decorations, and the extreme beauty of its proportions. It was originally 250 feet high, and built as a minaret, from whence the muezzin summoned the faithful to prayers in the mosque hard by; but Ferdinand Riaz added another 100 feet, and, fortunately, in perfect harmony with the original design. He girdled it with a motto from Proverbs xviii.: "Nomen Domini fortissima turris."
The ascent is very easy, being by ramps sloping gently upward. The Giralda is under the special patronage of SS. Justina and Rufina, daughters of a potter in the town, who suffered martyrdom in 304 for refusing to sell their vessels for the use of the heathen sacrifices. Sta. Justina expired on the rack, while Sta. Rufina was strangled. The figure which crowns the tower is that of Faith, and is in bronze, and beautifully carved.
The bells are very fine in tone; but what repays one for the ascent is the view, not only over the whole town and neighborhood, but over the whole body of the huge cathedral, with its forest of pinnacles and its wonderfully constructed roof, which looks massive enough to outlast the world. The delicate Gothic balustrades are the home of a multitude of hawks, (the Falco tinunculoides,) who career round and round the beautiful tower, and are looked upon almost as sacred birds.
The thing which strikes one most in the look of the town from hence is the absence of streets. From their excessive narrowness, they are invisible at this great height, and the houses seem all massed together, without any means of egress or ingress. The view of the setting sun from this tower is a thing never to be forgotten; nor the effect of it lit up at night, when it seems to hang like a brilliant chandelier from the dark blue vault above.
Tired as our travellers were, they could not resist one short visit that afternoon to the Museum, and to that wonderful little room below, which contains a few pictures only, but those few unrivalled in the world.
Here, indeed, one sees what Murillo could do. The "St. Thomas of Villanueva," giving alms to the beggar, (called by the painter himself his own picture;) the "St. Francis" embracing the crucified Saviour; the "St. Antony," with a lily in adoration before the infant Jesus; the "Nativity;" the "San Felix de Cantalicia," holding the infant Saviour in his arms, which the blessed Virgin is coming down to receive; the "SS. Rufina and Justina;" and last, not least, the Virgin, which earned him the title of "El Pintor de las Concepciones." Each and all are matchless in taste, in expression, in feeling; above all, in devotion. It is impossible to meditate on any one of these mysteries in our blessed Lord's life without the recollection of one of these pictures rising up instantly in one's mind, as the purest embodiment of the love, or the adoration, or the compunction, which such meditations are meant to call forth; they are in themselves a prayer.
In the evening one of the party went with the regent to call on the venerable cardinal archbishop, whose fine palace is exactly opposite the east front of the cathedral. It was very sad to wind up that fine staircase, and see him in that noble room, groping his way, holding on by the wall, for he is quite blind. It is hoped, however, that an operation for cataract, which is contemplated, may be successful. He was most kind, and gave the English stranger a place in the choir of the cathedral for the processional services of the holy week and Easter—a great favor, generally only accorded to royalty, and of which the lady did not fail to take advantage. M. Leon Carbonero y Sol, the author and clever editor of the "Crux," paid them a visit that evening. By his energy and perseverance this monthly periodical has been started at Seville, which is an event in this non-literary country; and he has written several works, both biographical and devotional, which deserve a wider reputation than they have yet obtained.
The following, day, being Wednesday in holy week, the whole party returned to the cathedral, to see the impressive and beautiful ceremony of the Rending of the White Veil, and the "Rocks being rent," at the moment when that passage is chanted in the Gospel of the Passion. The effect was very fine; and all the more from the sombre light of the cathedral, every window in which was shaded by black curtains, and every picture and image shrouded in black. [Footnote 142]
[Footnote 142: Faber says very beautifully: "Passion-tide veils the face of the crucifix, only that it may be more vivid in our hearts.">[
At vespers, the canons, as at Cadiz, knelt prostrate before the altar, and were covered with a black red-cross flag. At four o'clock our travellers went to the Audiencia, where the regent and his kind wife had given them all seats to see the processions. How are these to be described? They are certainly appreciated by the people themselves; but they are not suited to English taste, especially in the glare of a Seville sun: and unless representations of the terrible and awful events connected with our Lord's passion be depicted with the skill of a great artist, they become simply intensely painful. The thing which was touching and beautiful was the orderly arrangement of the processions themselves, and the way in which men of the highest rank, of royal blood, and of the noblest orders, did not hesitate to walk for hours through the dusty, crowded, burning streets for three successive days, with the sole motive of doing honor to their Lord, whose badge they wore.
The processions invariably ended by passing through the cathedral and stopping for some minutes in the open space between the high altar and the choir. The effect of the brilliant mass of light thrown by thousands of wax tapers, as the great unwieldy catafalque was borne through the profound darkness of the long aisles, was beautiful in the extreme; and representations which looked gaudy in the sunshine were mellowed and softened by the contrast with the night. The best were "The Sacred Infancy," the "Bearing of the Cross," and the "Descent from the Cross." In all, the figures were the size of life, and these three were beautifully and naturally designed. Less pleasing to English eyes, in spite of their wonderful splendor, were those of the blessed Virgin, decked out in gorgeous velvet robes, embroidered in gold, and covered with jewels, with lace pocket-handkerchiefs in the hand, and all the paraphernalia of a fine lady of the nineteenth century! It is contrary to our purer taste, which thinks of her as represented in one of Raphael's chaste and modest pictures, with the simple robe and headdress of her land and people; or else in the glistening white marble, chosen by our late beloved cardinal as the fittest material for a representation of her in his "Ex Voto," and which speaks of the spotless purity of her holy life. Leaving the house of the regent, the party made their way with difficulty through the dense crowd to the cathedral, where the Tenebrae began, followed by the Miserere, beautifully and touchingly sung, without any organ accompaniments, at the high altar. It was as if the priests were pleading for their people's sins before the throne of God. The next day was spent altogether in these solemn holy Thursday services. After early communion at the fine church of S. Maria Magdalena, thronged, like all the rest, with devout worshippers, our party went to high mass at the cathedral, after which the blessed sacrament, according to custom, was carried to the gigantic "monumento." or sepulchre, before mentioned, erected at the west door of the cathedral, and dazzling with light. Then came the "Cena" in the archbishop's palace, at which his blindness prevented his officiating; and then our travellers went round the town to visit the "sepulchres" in the different churches, one more beautiful than the other, and thronged with such kneeling crowds that going from one to the other was a matter of no small difficulty. The heat also increased the fatigue; and here, as at Palermo, no carriages are allowed from holy Thursday till Easter day: every one must perform these pious pilgrimages on foot. At half past two, they went back to the cathedral for the washing of the feet. An eloquent sermon followed, and then began the Tenebrae and the Miserere as before, with the entry of the processions between: the whole lasted till half-past eleven at night.
Good Friday was as solemn as the same day is at Rome or at Jerusalem. The adoration of the cross in the cathedral was very fine: but women were not allowed to kiss it as in the Holy City. After that was over, some of the party, by the kind invitation of the Duc and Duchesse de Montpensier, went to their private chapel, at St. Elmo, for the "Tre Ore d'Agonic," being from twelve to three o'clock, or the hours when our Saviour hung upon the cross. It was a most striking and impressive service. The beautiful chapel was entirely hung with black, and pitch dark. On entering, it was impossible to see one's way among the kneeling figures on the floor, all, of course, in deep mourning. The sole light was very powerfully thrown on a most beautiful picture of the crucifixion, in which the figures were the size of life. The sermon, or rather meditation on the seven words of our Lord on the cross, was preached by the superior of the oratory of S. Felippo Neri, a man of great eloquence and personal holiness. It would be impossible to exaggerate the beauty and pathos of two of these meditations; the one on the charity of our blessed Lord, the other on his desolation. A long low sob burst from the hearts of his hearers at the conclusion of the latter. The wailing minor music between was equally beautiful and appropriate; it was as the lament of the angels over the lost, in spite of the tremendous sacrifice! At half-past three, the party returned to the cathedral, where the services lasted till nine in the evening, and then came home in the state of mind and feeling so wonderfully represented by De la Roche, in the last portion of his "Good Friday" picture. Beautifully does Faber exclaim: "The hearts of the saints, like sea-shells, murmur of the passion evermore."
The holy Saturday functions began soon after five the next morning, and were as admirably conducted as all the rest. Immense praise was due to the "maestro de ceremonias," who had arranged services so varied and so complicated with such perfect order and precision: and the conduct of the black-veiled kneeling multitude throughout was equally admirable; one and all seemed absorbed by the devotions of the time and season.
That evening, the Vigil of Easter was spent in the cathedral by some of our party in much the same manner as they had done on a preceding one in the Holy City two years before. The night was lovely. The moon was streaming through the cloisters on the orange-trees of the beautiful "patio," across which the Giralda threw a deep sharp shadow, the silver light catching the tips of the arches, and shining with almost startling brightness on the "Pietà" in the little wayside chapel at the south entrance of the court. All spoke of beauty, and of peace, and of rest, and of stillness, and of the majesty of God. Inside the church were groups of black or veiled figures, mostly women, (were not women the first at the sepulchre?) kneeling before the tabernacle, or by the little lamps burning here and there in the side chapels. Each heart was pouring forth its secret burden of sorrow or of sin into the sacred heart which had been so lately pierced to receive it. At two in the morning matins began, "Haec dies quam fecit Dominus;" and after matins a magnificent Te Deum, pealed forth by those gigantic organs, and sung by the whole strength of the choir and by the whole body of voices of the crowd, which by that time had filled every available kneeling space in the vast cathedral. Then came a procession; all the choristers in red cassocks, with white cottas and little gold diadems. High mass followed, and then low masses at all the side altars, with hundreds of communicants, and the Russian salutation of "Christ is risen!" on every tongue. It was "a night to be remembered," as indeed was all this holy week: and now people seemed too happy to speak; joy says short words and few ones. Many have asked: "Is it equal to Jerusalem or Rome?" In point of services, "Yes;" in point of interest, "No;" for the presence of the Holy Father in the one place, and the vividness of recollection which the actual scenes of our blessed Lord's passion inspires in the other, must ever make the holy and eternal cities things apart and sacred from all besides. But nowhere else can "fonctions" be seen in such perfection or with such solemnity as at Seville. Everything is reverently and well done, and nothing has changed in the ceremonial for the last three hundred years.
A domestic sorrow had closed the palace of the Duc and Duchesse de Montpensier as far as their receptions were concerned; but they kindly gave our party permission to see both house and gardens, which well deserve a visit. The palace itself reminded them a little of the Duc d'Aumale's at Twickenham: not in point of architecture, but in its beautiful and interesting contents; in its choice collections of pictures, and books, and works of art, and in the general tone which pervaded the whole. There are two exquisite Murillos; a "St. Joseph" and a "Holy Family;" a "Divino Morales;" a "Pieta;" some beautiful "Zurbarans;" and some very clever and characteristic sketches by Goya. They have some curious historical portraits also, and some very pretty modern pictures. The rooms and passages abound in beautiful cabinets, rare china, sets of armor, African trappings, and oriental costumes. In the snug low rooms looking on the garden, and reminding one of Sion or of Chiswick, there are little fountains in the centre of each, combining oriental luxury and freshness with European comfort. The gardens are delicious. They contain a magnificent specimen of the "palma regis," and quantities of rare and beautiful shrubs; also an aviary of curious and scarce birds. You wander for ever through groves of orange, and palms, and aloes, and under trellises covered with luxuriant creepers and clustering roses, with a feeling of something like envy at the climate, which seems to produce everything with comparatively little trouble or culture. To be sure there is "le revers de la médaille," when the scorching July sun has burnt up all this lovely vegetation. But the spring in the garden of St. Elmo is a thing to dream about.
From this enjoyable palace our party went on to visit "Pilate's House," so called because built by Don Enrique de Ribera, of the exact proportions of the original, in commemoration of his pilgrimage to Jerusalem in 1519. It is now the property of the Duque de Medina Sidonia. Passing into a cool "patio," you see a black cross, marking the first of the stations of a very famous Via Crucis, which begins here and ends at the Cruz del Campo outside the town. There is a pretty little chapel opening out of the "patio," ornamented with Alhambra work, as is all the rest of this lovely little moresque palace. It is a thorough bit of Damascus, with its wonderful arabesqued ceilings, and lace-like carvings on the walls and staircases, and cloistered "patios," and marble floors and fountains. Behind is a little garden full of palms, orange-trees, and roses in full flower, and, at the time our travellers saw it, carpeted with Neapolitan violets; quaint low hedges, as in the Alcazar gardens, divided the beds, and broken sculpture lay here and there.
One of the great treasures of Seville had yet been unvisited by our party, and that was the Lonja, formerly the Exchange, a noble work of Herrera's. It stands between the cathedral and the Alcazar, and is built in the shape of a great quadrangle, each side being about two hundred feet wide. Ascending the fine marble staircase, they came to the long "sala" containing the famous "Indian Archives," that is, all the letters and papers concerning the discovery of South America. There are thousands of MS. letters, beautifully arranged and docketed; and among them the autographs of Fernando Cortes, Pizarro, Magellan, Americo Vespuzio, (who could not write his own name, and signed with a mark,) Fra Bartolomeo de las Cazas, and many others. There is also the original bull of the pope, granting the new South American discoveries to the Spaniards; and another, defining the rights between the Spaniards and the Portuguese in the matter of the conquered lands. The librarian, a very intelligent and good-natured personage, also showed them a curious list, sent home and signed by Fernando Cortes, of the silks, painted calabashes, feathers, and costumes presented by him to the king; and a quantity of autograph letters of Charles V., Ferdinand and Isabella, and of Philip IV. Fernando Cortes died at Castilleja, on December 3, 1547, and the following day his body was transported to the family vault of the Duque de Medina Sidonia, in the monastery of San Isidoro del Campo. The Duc de Montpensier has purchased the house, and made a collection of everything belonging to the great discoverer, including his books, his letters, various objects of natural history, and some very curious portraits, not only of Cortes himself, but of Christopher Columbus, Pizarro, Magellan, the Marques del Valle, (of the Sicilian family of Monteleone,) Bernal Diaz, Velasquez, of the historian of the conquest of Mexico, Don Antonio Solis, and many others.
In the afternoon, the Marques de P—— called for our travellers to take them to the university, and to introduce them to the rector and to the librarian, whose name was the well-deserved one of Don José Bueno, a most clever and agreeable man, whose pure Castilian accent made his Spanish perfectly intelligible to his English visitors. He very good-naturedly undertook to show them all the most interesting MSS. himself, together with some beautiful missals, rare first editions of various classical works, and some very clever etchings of Goya's of bull-fights and ladies—the latter of doubtful propriety. In the church belonging to the university are some fine pictures by Roelas and Alonso Cafio, some beautiful carvings by Montanés, and several very fine monuments. In the rector's own room is a magnificent "St. Jerome," by Lucas Kranach, the finest work of that artist that exists. There are 1,200 students in this university, which rivals that of Salamanca in importance.
Taking leave of the kind librarian, the Marques de P—— went on to show them a private collection of pictures belonging to the Marques Cessera. Amidst a quantity of rubbish were a magnificent "Crucifixion," by Alonso Caño; a Crucifix, painted on wood, by Murillo, for an infirmary, and concealed by a Franciscan during the French occupation in 1812; a Zurbaran, with his own signature in the corner; and, above all, a "Christ bound with the Crown of Thorns," by Murillo, which is the gem of the whole collection, and perfectly beautiful both in coloring and expression.
Coming home, they went to see the house to which Murillo was taken after his accident at Cadiz, and where he finally died; also the site of his original burial, before his body was removed to the cathedral where it now rests.
But one of the principal charms of our travellers' residence in Seville has not yet been mentioned; and that was their acquaintance, through the kind Bishop of Antinoe, with Fernan Caballero. She may be called the Lady Georgiana Fullerton of Spain, in the sense of refinement of taste and catholicity of feeling. But her works are less what are commonly called novels than pictures of home life in Spain, like Hans Andersen's "Improvisatore," or Tourgeneff's "Scènes de la Vie en Russie."
This charming lady, by birth a German on the father's side, and by marriage connected with all the "bluest blood" in Spain, lives in apartments given her by the queen in the palace of the Alcazar. Great trials and sorrows have not dimmed the fire of her genius or extinguished one spark of the loving charity which extends itself to all that suffer. Her tenderness toward animals, unfortunately a rare virtue in Spain, is one of her marked characteristics. She has lately been striving to establish a society in Seville for the prevention of cruelty to animals, after the model of the London one, and often told one of our party that she never left her home without praying that she might not see or hear any ill-usage to God's creatures. She is no longer young, but still preserves traces of a beauty which in former years made her the admiration of the court. Her playfulness and wit, always tempered by a kind thoughtfulness for the feelings of others, and her agreeableness in conversation, seem only to have increased with lengthened experience of people and things. Nothing was pleasanter than to sit in the corner of her little drawing-room, or, still better, in her tiny study, and hear her pour out anecdote after anecdote of Spanish life and Spanish peculiarities, especially among the poor. But if one wished to excite her, one had but to touch on questions regarding her faith and the so-called "progress" of her country. Then all her Andalusian blood would be roused, and she would declaim for hours in no measured terms against the spoliation of the monasteries, those centres of education and civilization in the villages and outlying districts; against the introduction of schools without religion, and colleges without faith; and the propagation of infidel opinions through the current literature of the day.
Previous acquaintance with the people had already made some of our travellers aware of the justice of many of her remarks. Catholicism in Spain is not merely the religion of the people; it is their life. It is so mixed up with their common expressions and daily habits, that, at first, there seems to a stranger almost an irreverence in their ways. It is not till you get thoroughly at home, both with them and their language, that you begin to perceive that holy familiarity, if one may so speak, with our divine Lord and his Mother which impregnates their lives and colors all their actions. Theirs is a world of traditions, which familiarity from the cradle have turned into faith, and for that faith they are ready to die. Ask a Spanish peasant why she plants rosemary in her garden. She will directly tell you that it was on a rosemary-bush that the blessed Virgin hung our Saviour's clothes out to dry as a baby. Why will a Spaniard never shoot a swallow? Because it was a swallow that tried to pluck the thorns out of the crown of Christ as he hung on the cross. Why does the owl no longer sing? Because he was by when our Saviour expired, and since then his only cry is "Crux! crux!" Why are dogs so often called Melampo in Spain? Because it was the name of the dog of the shepherds who worshipped at the manger at Bethlehem. What is the origin of the red rose? A drop of the Saviour's blood fell on the white roses growing at the foot of the cross and so on, for ever! Call it folly, superstition—what you will. You will never eradicate it from the heart of the people, for it is as their flesh and blood, and their whole habits of thought, manners, and customs run in the same groove. They have, like the Italians, a wonderful talent for "improvising" both stories and songs; but the same beautiful thread of tender piety runs through the whole.
One day, Fernan Caballero told them, an old beggar was sitting on the steps of the Alcazar: two or three children, tired of play, came and sat by him, and asked him, child-like, for "a story." He answered as follows: "There was once a hermit, who lived in a cave near the sea. He was a very good and charitable man, and he heard that in a village on the mountain above there was a very bad fever, and that no one would go and nurse the people for fear of infection. So up he toiled, day after day, to tend the sick, and look after their wants. At last he began to get tired, and to think it would be far better if he were to move his hermitage up the hill, and save himself the daily toil. As he walked up one day, turning this idea over in his mind, he heard some one behind him saying: 'One, two, three.' He looked round, and saw no one. He walked on, and again heard: 'Four, five, six, seven.' Turning short round this time, he beheld one in white and glistening raiment, who gently spoke as follows: 'I am your guardian angel, and am counting the steps which you take for Christ's poor.'"
The children understood the drift of it as well as you or I, reader! and this is a sample of their daily talk. Their reverence for age is also a striking and touching characteristic. The poorest beggar is addressed by them as "tio" or "tia," answering to our "daddy" or "granny;" and should one pass their cottage as they are sitting down to their daily meal, they always rise and offer him a place, and ask him to say grace for them, "echar la benedicion." They are, indeed, a most lovable race, and their very pride increases one's respect for them. Often in their travels did one of the party lose her way, either in going to some distant church in the early morning, or in visiting the sick; and often was she obliged to have recourse to her bad Spanish to be put in the right road. An invariable courtesy, and generally an insistence on accompanying her home, was the result. But if any money or fee were offered for the service, the indignant refusal, or, still worse, the hurt look which the veriest child would put on at what it considered the height of insult and unkindness, very soon cured her of renewing the attempt.
Another touching trait in their character is their intense reverence for the blessed sacrament. In the great ceremonies of the church, or when it is passing down the street to a sick person, the same veneration is shown. One day, one of the English ladies was buying some photographs in a shop, and the tradesman was explaining to her the different prices and sizes of each, when, all of a sudden, he stopped short, exclaiming: "Sua Maestà viene!" and leaving the astonished lady at the counter, rushed out of his shop-door. She, thinking it was the royalties, who were then at the Alcazar, went out too to look, when, to her pleasure and surprise, she saw the shopman and all the rest of the world, gentle and simple, kneeling reverently in the mud before the messenger of the Great King, who was bearing the host to a dying man. On the day when it is carried processionally to the hospitals, (one of which is the first Sunday after Easter,) every window and balcony is "parata," or hung with red, as in Italy at the passage of the Holy Father; every one throws flowers and bouquets on the baldachino, and that to such an extent that the choir-boys are forced to carry great clothes-baskets to receive them: the people declare that the very horses kneel! The feast of Corpus Christi was unfortunately not witnessed by our travellers. Calderon, in his Autos Sacramentales, speaking of it, says:
"Que en el gran dia de Dios,
Quien no está loco, no es cuerdo!"
Here is indeed "a voice from the land of faith." The choir on the occasion dance before the host a dance so solemn, so suggestive, and so peculiar, that no one who has witnessed it can speak of it without emotion. Fernan Caballero talked much also of the great purity of morals among the peasantry. Infanticide, that curse of England, is absolutely unknown in Spain; whether from the number of foundling hospitals, or from what other reasons, we leave it to the political economists to discover. A well-known Spanish writer describes the women as having "Corazones delectos, minas de amores," and being "puros y santos modelos de esposas y de madres." (Exceptional hearts, mines of love, and being pure and holy models of wives and mothers.) They are also wonderfully cleanly, both in their houses and their persons. There are never any bad smells in the streets or lodgings. Fleas abound from the great heat; but no other vermin is to be met with either in the inns or beds, or in visiting among the sick poor, in all of which they form a marked contrast to the Italian peasantry, and, I fear we must add, to the English!
Their courtesy toward one another is also widely different from the ordinary gruff, boorish intercourse of our own poor people; and the very refusal to a beggar, "Perdone, Usted, por Dios, hermano!" [Footnote 143] speaks of the same gentle consideration for the feelings of their neighbors which characterizes the race, and emanates from that divine charity which dwells not only on their lips, but in their hearts. One peculiarity in their conversation has not yet been alluded to, and that is their passion for proverbs. They cannot frame a sentence without one, and they are mostly such as illustrate the kindly, trustful, pious nature the people. "Haz lo bien, y no mira á quien." (Do good, and don't look to whom.) "Quien no es agradecido, no es bien nacido." (He who is not courteous is not well born.) "Cosa cumplida solo en la otra vida." (The end of all things is only seen in the future life.) And so on ad infinitum.
[Footnote 143: "Forgive me, for the love of God, brother!">[
No description of Seville would be complete without mention of the "patio," so important a feature in every Andalusian house; and no words can be so good for the purpose as those of Fernan Caballero, which we translate almost literally from her "Familia de Alvareda:"
"The house was spacious and scrupulously clean; on each side of the door was a bench of stone. In the porch hung a little lamp before the image of our Lord, in a niche over the entrance, according to the Catholic custom of placing all things under holy protection. In the middle was the 'patio,' a necessity to the Andalusian; and in the centre of this spacious court, an enormous orange-tree raised its leafy head from its robust and clean trunk. For an infinity of generations had this beautiful tree been a source of delight to the family. The women made tonic concoctions of its leaves, the daughters adorned themselves with its flowers, the boys cooled their blood with its fruits, the birds made their home in its boughs. The rooms opened out of the 'patio,' and borrowed their light from thence. This 'patio' was the centre of all— the 'home,' the place of gathering when the day's work was over. The orange-tree loaded the air with its heavy perfume, and the waters of the fountain fell in soft showers on the marble basin, fringed with the delicate maiden hair fern; and the father, leaning against the tree, smoked his 'cigarro de papel;' and the mother sat at her work; while the little ones played at her feet, the eldest resting his head on a big dog stretched at full length on the cool marble slabs. All was still, and peaceful, and beautiful."
From Once a Week.
Sir Ralph De Blanc-Minster.
The Vow.
Hush! 'tis a tale of the elder time,
Caught from an old barbaric rhyme,
How the fierce Sir Ralph of the haughty hand
Harnessed him for our Saviour's land!
"Time trieth troth!" thus the lady said,
"And a warrior must rest in Bertha's bed;
Three years let the severing seas divide,
And strike thou for Christ and thy trusting bride!"
So he buckled on the beamy blade,
That Gaspar of Spanish Leon made,
Whose hilted cross is the awful sign:
It must burn for the Lord and his tarnished shrine!
The Adieu.
"Now a long farewell! tall Stratton tower,
Dark Bude! thy fatal sea:
And God thee speed, in hall and bower,
My manor of Bien-aimè!
"Thou, too, farewell! my chosen bride,
Thou rose of Rou-tor land:
Though all on earth were false beside,
I trust thy plighted hand.
"Dark seas may swell, and tempests lower,
And surging billows foam;
The cresset of thy bridal bower
Shall guide the wanderer home!
"On! for the cross! in Jesu's land,
When Syrian armies flee,
One thought shall thrill my lifted hand,
I strike for God and thee!"
The Battle.
Hark! how the brattling trumpets blare!
Lo! the red banners flaunt the air!
And see! his good sword girded on,
The stern Sir Ralph to the war is gone!
Hurrah! for the Syrian dastards flee:
Charge! charge! ye western chivalry!
Sweet is the strife for God's renown,
The Cross is up and the Crescent down!
The weary warrior seeks his tent:
For the good Sir Ralph is pale and spent;
Five wounds he reaped in the field of fame,
Five in his blessèd Master's name.
The solemn leech looks sad and grim,
As he binds and soothes each gory limb;
And the girded priest must chant and pray,
Lest the soul unhouseled pass away.
The Treachery.
A sound of horsehoofs on the sand!
And ha! a page from Cornish land.
"Tidings," he said, as he bent the knee;
"Tidings, my lord, from Bien-aimè.
"The owl shrieked thrice from the warder's tower:
The crown-rose withered in her bower:
Thy good gray foal, at evening fed.
Lay in the sunrise stark and dead!"
"Dark omens three!" the sick man cried;
"Say on the woe thy looks betide."
"Master! at bold Sir Rupert's call,
Thy Lady Bertha fled the hall!"
The Scroll.
"Bring me," he said, "that scribe of fame,
Symeon el Siddekah his name;
With parchment skin, and pen in hand,
I would devise my Cornish land!
"Seven goodly manors, fair and wide,
Stretch from the sea to Tamar-side,
And Bien-aimè, my hall and bower,
Nestles beneath tall Stratton tower!
"All these I render to my God!
By seal and signet, knife and sod:
I give and grant to church and poor,
In franc almoign for evermore!
"Choose ye seven men among the just,
And bid them hold my lands in trust,
On Michael's morn and Mary's day
To deal the dole and watch and pray!
"Then bear me, coldly, o'er the deep,
'Mid my own people I would sleep:
Their hearts shall melt, their prayers will breathe,
Where he who loved them rests beneath.
"Mould me in stone, as here I lie,
My face upturned to Syria's sky;
Carve ye this good sword at my side,
And write the legend, 'True and tried!'
"Let mass be said, and requiem sung;
And that sweet chime I loved be rung:
Those sounds along the northern wall
Shall thrill me like a trumpet-call!"
Thus said he and at set of sun
The bold crusader's race was run.
Seek ye his ruined hall and bower?
Then stand beneath tall Stratton tower!
The Mort-main.
Now the demon watched for the warrior's soul
'Mid the din of war where blood-streams roll;
He had waited long on the dabbled sand
Ere the priest had cleansed the gory hand.
Then as he heard the stately dole
Wherewith Sir Ralph had soothed his soul,
The unclean spirit turned away
With a baffled glare of grim dismay.
But when he caught those words of trust,
That sevenfold choice among the just,
"Ho! ho!" cried the fiend, with a mock at heaven,
"I have lost but one I shall win the seven!"
Original.
Guettée's Papacy Schismatic. [Footnote 144]
[Footnote 144: The Papacy: Its Historic Origin and Primitive Relations with the Eastern Churches. By the Abbé-Guettée, D.D. Translated from the French, and prefaced by an original biographical notice of the author, with an Introduction by A. Cleveland Coxe, Bishop of Western New York. New York: Carleton. 1867, pp.383.]
This volume purports to be the translation of a late French work entitled, "The Papacy Schismatic; or, Rome in her Relations with the Eastern Church—La Papauté Schismatique; ou Rome dans ses Rapports avec I'Eglise Orientate." Why the translator or editor has changed the title we know not, unless it has been done to disguise the real character of the work, and induce Catholics to buy it under the impression that it is written by a learned divine of their own communion.
Whether equal liberty has been taken with the text throughout we are unable to say, for we have not had the patience to compare the translation with the original, except in a very few instances; but there is in the whole get up of the English work a lack of honesty and frank dealing. On the title-page we are promised an Introduction by the Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Western New York, but in the book itself we find only the "Editor's Preface" of a few pages. Even this preface lacks frankness, and seems intended to deceive. "The author of this work," writes the editor, "is not a Protestant. He is a French divine reared in the communion of Rome, and devoted to her cause in purpose of heart and life." This gives the impression that the author is still a member, and a devoted member, of the communion of Rome, which is not the case. "But his great learning having led him to conclusions contrary to those of the Jesuits, he fell under the ban;" that is, we suppose, was interdicted. This carries on the same deception, making believe that he was interdicted because he rejected some of the conclusions of the Jesuits, while he remained substantially orthodox and obedient to the church, a thing which could not have happened, unless he had impugned the Catholic faith, the authority, or discipline of the church in communion with the apostolic See of Rome.
We read on: "Proscribed by the papacy, ... he accepts at last the logical consequences of his position, ... receiving the communion in both kinds at the hand of the Greeks in the church of the Russian Embassy at Paris." Why not have said simply: The author of this work was reared in the communion of Rome, but, falling under censure for opinions emitted in his writings, he left that communion, or was cut off from it, and has now been received into the Russian Church, or the communion of the non-united Greeks, and has written this book to prove that the communion, that has received him is not, and the one in which he was reared is, schismatic? That would have told the simple truth; but we forget, the editor is a poet, and accustomed to deal in fiction.
The editor, who has a rare genius for embellishing the truth, tells us that "the biographical notice prefixed to the work ... gives assurance of the author's ability to treat the subject of the papacy with the most intimate knowledge of its practical character." It does no such thing, but, on the contrary, proves that he never was devoted in purpose and life to the communion of Rome, and that even from his boyhood he assumed an attitude of real though covert hostility to the papacy. His first work was a history of the church in France, the plan of which was conceived and formed while he was in the seminary, and that work is hardly less unfavorable to the papacy than the one before us. Its spirit is anti-Roman, anti-papal, full of venom against the popes, and he appears to have carried on his war against the papacy under the guise of Gallicanism, till even his Gallican bishop could tolerate him no longer, and forbade him to say mass.
His biographer gives a fuller insight into his character, perhaps, than he intended. "From a very early age," he says, "his mind seems to have revolted against the wearisome routine" of instruction prescribed for seminarians, "and, in its ardent desire for knowledge and its rapid acquisition, worked out of the prescribed limits ... and read and studied in secret." That is, in plain English, he was impatient of direction in his studies, revolted against making the necessary preparation to read and study with advantage, rejected the prescribed course of studies, and followed his own taste or inclination in broaching questions that he lacked the previous knowledge and mental and spiritual discipline to broach with safety. There are questions in great variety and of great importance which it is very necessary to study, but only in their place, and after that very routine of studies prescribed by the seminary has been successfully pursued. Most of the errors into which men fall arise from the attempt to solve questions without the necessary preparatory knowledge and discipline. The studies and discipline of the college and the seminary may seem to impatient and inexperienced youth wearisome and unnecessary, but they are prescribed by wisdom and experience, and he who has never submitted to them or had their advantage feels the want of them through his whole life, to whatever degree of eminence he may have risen without them. It is a great loss to any one not to have borne the yoke in his youth.
It is clear from M. Guettée's biography that he never studied the papal question as a friend to the papacy, and therefore he is no better able to treat it than if he had been brought up in Anglicanism or in the bosom of the Greek schism. He is not a man who has once firmly believed in the primacy of the Holy See, and by his study and great learning found himself reluctantly forced to reject it; but is one who, having fallen under the papal censure, tries to vindicate himself by proving that the pope who condemned him has no jurisdiction, and never received from God any authority to judge him. He is no unsuspected witness, is no impartial judge, for he judges in his own cause. His condemnation preceded his change of communion.
The editor speaks of the great learning of the author, and says "he writes with science and precision, and with the pen of a man of genius." It may be so, but we have not discovered it. His book we have found very dull, and it has required all the effort we are capable of to read it through. To our understanding it is lacking in both science and precision. It is a book of details which are attached to no principles, and its arguments rest wholly on loose and inaccurate statements or bold assumptions. A work more deficient in real logic, or more glaringly sophistical, it has seldom been our hard fortune to meet with. As for learning, we certainly are not learned ourselves, but the author has told us nothing that we did not know before, and nothing more than may be found in any one of our Catholic treatises on the authority of the see of Peter and the Roman pontiff. All his objections to the papacy worth noticing may be found with their answers in The Primacy of the Apostolic See Vindicated, by the lamented Francis Patrick Kenrick, late archbishop of Baltimore, a work of modest pretensions, but of a real merit difficult to exaggerate.
Though M. Guettée's book is far from bewildering us by its learning or overwhelming us by its logic, we yet find it no easy matter to compress an adequate reply to it within any reasonable compass. It is not a scientific work. The author lays down no principles which he labors to establish and develop, but dwells on details, detached statements, assertions, and criticisms, which cannot be replied to separately without extending the reply some two or three times the length of the work itself, for an objection can be made in far fewer words than it takes to refute it. The author writes without method, and seems never to have dreamed of classifying his proofs, and arranging all he has to say under appropriate heads. Indeed, he has no principles, and he adduces no proofs; he only comments on the proofs of the papacy urged by our theologians, and endeavors to prove that they do not mean what we say they do, or that they may be understood in a different sense. Hence, taking these up one after another, he is constantly saying the same things over and over again, with most tiresome repetition, which require an equally tiresome repetition in reply. Had the author taken the time, if he had the ability, to reduce his objections to order, and to their real value, a few pages would have sufficed both to state and to refute them. As it is, we can only do the best we can within the limited space at our command.
The author professes to write from the point of view of a non-united Greek, who has little quarrel with Rome, save on the single question of the papacy. He concedes in some sense the primacy of Peter, and that the bishop of Rome is the first bishop of the church, nay, that by ecclesiastical right he has the primacy of jurisdiction, though not universal jurisdiction; but denies that the Roman pontiff has the sovereignty of the universal church by divine right. He says his study of the subject has brought him to these conclusions:
"1. The bishop of Rome did not for eight centuries possess the authority of divine right that he has since sought to exercise;
2. The pretension of the bishop of Rome to the sovereignty of divine right over the whole church was the real cause of the division," or schism between the East and the West. (P. 31.)
These very propositions in the original, to say nothing of the translation, show great lack of precision in the writer. He would have better expressed his own meaning if he had said: The bishop of Rome did not for eight centuries hold by divine right the authority he has since claimed, and the pretension of the bishop of Rome to the sovereignty of the whole church by divine right has been the real cause of the schism. We shall soon object to this word sovereignty, but for the moment let it pass.
These two propositions the author undertakes to prove, and he attempts to prove them by showing or asserting that the proofs which our theologians allege from the Holy Scriptures, the fathers, and the councils, do not prove the primacy claimed by the bishop of Rome. This, if done, would be to the purpose if the question turned on admitting the claims of the Roman pontiff, but by no means when the question turns on rejecting these claims and ousting the pope from his possession. The author must go further. It is not enough to show that our evidences of title are insufficient; he must disprove the title itself, either by proving that no such title ever issued, or that it vests in an adverse claimant. This, as we shall see, he utterly fails to do. He sets up, properly speaking, no adverse claimant, and fails to prove that no such title ever issued.
It suffices us, in reply, to plead possession. The pope is, and long has been, in possession by the acknowledgment of both East and West, and it is for the author to show reasons why he should be ousted, and, if those reasons do not necessarily invalidate his possessions, the pope is not obliged to show his titles. All he need reply is, Olim possideo.
That the pope is in possession of all he claims is evident not only from the fact that he has from the earliest times exercised the primacy of jurisdiction claimed for him, but from the council of Florence held in 1439. "We define," say the fathers of the council, "that the holy apostolic see and the Roman pontiff hold the primacy in all the world, and that the Roman pontiff is the successor of blessed Peter, prince of the apostles and true vicar of Christ, and head of the whole church, the father and teacher of all Christians, and that to him is given in blessed Peter, by our Lord Jesus Christ, full power to feed, direct, and govern the universal church; et ipsi B. Petro pascendi, regendi, et gubernandi plenam potestatem traditam esse."
This definition was made by the universal church, for it was subscribed by the bishops of both the East and the West, and among the bishops of the East that accepted it were the patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria, and the metropolitans of Russia, with those of Nicaea, Trebizond, Lacedaemon, and Mytilene. We know very well that the non-united Greeks reject this council, although the Eastern Church was more fully represented in it than the Western Church was in that at Nicaea, the first of Constantinople, Ephesus, or Chalcedon; but it is for the non united Greeks to prove that, in rejecting it and refusing obedience to its decrees, they are not schismatic. At any rate, the council is sufficient to prove that the pope is in possession by the judgment of both East and West, and to throw the burden of proof on those who deny the papal authority and assert that the papacy is schismatic.
Before producing his proofs, the author examines the Holy Scriptures to ascertain "whether the pretensions of the bishop of Rome to a universal sovereignty of the church have, as is alleged, any ground in the word of God." (P. 31.) The translation here is inexact; it should be: "Whether the pretensions, etc., to the universal sovereignty of the church have, as is alleged, their foundation in the word of God." The author himself would have expressed himself better if he had written "the sovereignty of the universal church," instead of "universal sovereignty of the church." But the author mistakes the real question he has to consider. The real question for him is not whether the primacy we assert for the Roman pontiff has its ground in the written word, but whether anything in the written word denies or contradicts it. The primacy may exist as a fact, and yet no record of it be made in the Scriptures. The constitution of the church is older than any portion of the New Testament, and it is very conceivable that, as the church must know her own constitution, it was not thought necessary to give an account of it in the written word. The church holds the written word, but does not hold from it or under it, but from the direct and immediate appointment of Jesus Christ himself, and is inconceivable without her constitution.
The author makes another mistake, in using the word sovereignty instead of primacy. Roman theologians assert the primacy, but not, in the ecclesiastical order, the sovereignty of the Roman pontiff. Sovereignty is a political, not an ecclesiastical term; it is, moreover, exclusive, and it is not pretended that there is no authority in the church by divine right but that of the Roman pontiff. It is not pretended that bishops are simply his vicars or deputies. In feudal times there may have been writers who regarded him as suzerain, but we know of none that held him to be sovereign. He is indeed by some writers, chiefly French, called sovereign pontiff, but only in the sense of supreme pontiff, Pontifex maximus, or summus pontifex, to indicate that he is the highest but not the exclusive authority in the church. The council of Florence, on which we plant ourselves, defines him to be primate, not sovereign, and ascribes to him plenary authority to feed, direct, and govern the whole church, but does not exclude other and subordinate pontiffs, who, though they receive their sees from him, yet within them govern by a divine right no less immediate than his. The real and only sovereign of the church, in the proper sense of the term, is Jesus Christ himself. The pope is his vicar, and as much bound by his law as the humblest Christian. He is not above the law, nor is he its source, but is its chief minister and supreme judge, and his legislative power is restricted to such rescripts, edicts, or canons as he judges necessary to its proper administration. The sovereign makes the law, and the difference, therefore, between the power of the sovereign and that claimed for the Roman pontiff is very obvious and very great. Could the author, then, prove from the written word that the pope or the Holy See is not the universal sovereign of the church, he would prove nothing to his purpose. Yet this, as we shall see, is all he does prove.
The author pretends, p. 32, that the papal authority, sovereignty he means, is condemned by the word of God. The assertion, understanding the papal authority as defined by the council of Florence, is to his purpose, if he proves it. What, then, are his proofs? The Roman theologians, that is, Catholic theologians, say the church is founded on Peter, and cite in proof the words of our Lord, St. Matt. xvi. 18: "I say unto thee that thou art Peter, and upon this rock will I build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." But this does not prove that Peter is the rock on which the church is founded. The church is not founded on Peter, or, if on Peter, in no other sense than it is on him and the other apostles. The rock on which the church is built is Jesus Christ, who is the only foundation of the church. St. Paul says, 1 Cor. iii. 11: "Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ himself."
That Jesus Christ is the sole foundation of the church in the primary and absolute sense, nobody denies or questions, and we have asserted it in asserting that he is the real and only sovereign of the church; but this does not exclude Peter from being its foundation in a secondary and vicarial sense, the only sense asserted by the most thorough-going papists, as is evident from what St. Paul writes to the Ephesians, ii. 20, as cited by the author: "You are built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ being himself the chief cornerstone." The principal, primary, absolute foundation is Christ, but the prophets and apostles are also the foundation on which the church, the mystic temple, is built. The author says, same page: "The prophets and apostles form the first layers of this mystic edifice. The faithful are raised on these foundations, and form the edifice itself; finally, Jesus Christ is the principal stone, the corner-stone, which gives solidity to the monument." This is very true, and we maintain, as well as he, that there is "no other foundation" in the primary sense, "no other principal corner-stone than Jesus Christ;" but he himself asserts, as does St. Paul, other "foundation" in a secondary sense. So, though our Lord is the principal or first foundation in the sense in which God is the first cause of all creatures and their acts, yet nothing hinders Peter from being a secondary foundation, as creatures may be and are what philosophers terms second causes.
But in this secondary sense, "all the apostles are the foundation, and the church is no more founded on Peter than on the rest of the apostles." Not founded on Peter to the exclusion of the other apostles certainly, but not founded on Peter as the prince of the apostles, or chief of the apostolic college, does not appear, and it is never pretended that Peter excludes the other apostles. Our Lord gave, indeed, to Peter alone the keys of the kingdom of heaven, thereby constituting him his steward or the chief of his household; but he gave to all authority to teach all nations all things whatsoever he had commanded them, the same power of binding and loosing that he had given to Peter, and promised to be with them as well as with him all days to the consummation of the world. There is in this nothing that excludes or denies the primacy claimed for Peter, or that implies that our Lord, as the author says, merely "gave to Peter an important ministry in his church."
The author labors to refute the argument drawn in favor of the primacy of Peter from the command of our Lord to Peter to "confirm his brethren," and the thrice repeated command to "feed his sheep;" but as we are not now seeking to prove the primacy, but simply repelling the arguments adduced against it, we pass it over. He attempts to construct an argument against the primacy of Peter from the words of our Lord to his disciples, St. Matt, xxiii. 8: "Be ye not called Rabbi; for one is your Master, and all you are brethren. And call none your father on earth; for one is your Father, who is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters; for one is your master, Christ. He that is greatest among you shall be your servant." "Christ, therefore," p. 48, "forbade the apostles to take, in relation to one another, the titles of master, doctor, or even father, or pope, which is the same thing." Why, then, does the author take the title of Abbé, which means father, or suffer his editor to give him the title of Doctor of Divinity? His non-united Greek friends also come in for his censure; for they call their simple priests papas or popes, that is, fathers; nay, if he construes the words of our Lord strictly, he must deny all ecclesiastical authority, and, indeed, all human government, and even forbid the son to call his sire father. This would prove a little too much for him as well as for us.
The key to the meaning of our Lord is not difficult to discover. He commands his disciples not to call any one master, teacher, or father, that is, not to recognize as binding on them any authority that does not come from God, and to remember that they are all brethren, and must obey God rather than men. God alone is sovereign, and we are bound to obey him, and no one else; for, in obeying our prelates whom the Holy Ghost has set over us, it is him and him only, that we obey. He commands his disciples to suffer no man to call them masters: for their authority to teach or govern comes not from them, but from their Master who is in heaven, and therefore they are not to lord it over their brethren, but to govern only so as to serve them. "Let him that is greatest among you be your servant." Power is not for him who governs, but for them who are governed, and he is greatest who best serves his brethren. The pope, in reference to the admonition of our Lord, and from the humility with which all power given to men should be held and exercised, calls himself "servant of servants." The words so understood—and they may be so understood—convey no prohibition of the authority claimed for the Roman pontiff as the vicar of Christ, and father and teacher of all Christians, by divine authority, not by his own personal right.
Here is all the author adduces from the Scriptures, that amounts to any thing, to prove "that the papal authority" is "condemned by the word of God," and nothing in all this condemns it in the sense defined by the council of Florence, which is all we have to show.
From the Scriptures the author passes to tradition, and first to "the views of the papal authority taken by the fathers of the first three centuries." He does not deny that our Lord treated Peter with great personal consideration, and thinks Peter may be regarded in relation to the other apostles as primus inter pares, the first among equals, but without jurisdiction; and he says, p. 48, "We can affirm that no father of the church has seen in the primacy of Peter any title to jurisdiction or absolute authority in the church." But the first father he finds who, as he pretends, absolutely denies the primacy Catholics claim for Peter, and consequently for his successor, is St. Cyprian, who seems to us very positively to affirm it.
The author has a theory, which he pretends is supported by St. Cyprian, and which explains all the facts in the early ages which have been supposed by Roman theologians to be favorable to their doctrine of the papacy. He does not bring it out very clearly or systematically, and we can collect it only from scattered assertions. He denies that Peter had any authority not shared equally by the other apostles; or that the bishop of Rome had or has by divine right any pre-eminence above any other bishop; or that the church of Rome has any authority not possessed equally by the other churches that had apostles for their founders. He concedes that Peter and Paul founded the church of Rome, but denies that St. Peter was ever its bishop or bishop of any other particular see. How, then, explain the many passages of the fathers of the first three centuries, which undeniably assert Peter as "the prince of the apostles," "the chief of the apostolic college," the superiority and authority of "the see of Peter," "the chair of Peter." and recognize the jurisdiction actually exercised in all parts of the church by the bishop of Rome? No man can read the early fathers, and deny that the church of Rome was regarded as the church that "presides," as St. Ignatius calls it, as the root and matrix, as St. Cyprian says, of the church, as holding the pre-eminence over all other churches, with whose bishop it was necessary that all others should agree or be in communion. The author does not deny it; but Peter meant "the faith of Peter," "the chair of Peter meant the entire episcopate," which was one and held by all the bishops in solido, and the pre-eminence ascribed to the church of Rome was in consequence of her exterior importance as the see of the capital of the empire. This is the author's theory, and he pretends that he finds it in the Treatise on the Unity of the Church, by St. Cyprian.
"In fact," he says, p. 79, "he (St. Cyprian) positively denies the primacy of St. Peter himself; he makes the apostle merely the type of unity which resided in the apostolic college as a whole, and by succession in the whole episcopal body, which he calls the See of Peter." "After mentioning the powers promised to St. Peter, St. Cyprian remarks that Jesus Christ promised them to him alone, though they were given to all. 'In order to show forth unity,' he says, 'the Lord has wished that unity might draw its origin from one only.' 'The other apostles certainly were just what Peter was, having the same honor and power as he.' 'All are shepherds, and the flock nourished by all the apostles together is one, in order that the church of Christ may appear in its unity.'"
But to this explanation of St. Cyprian there is a slight objection; for we are not able to see from this how the unity of the apostolic college or of the church of Christ is shown forth, manifested, or made to appear, that is, rendered visible, which is the sense of St. Cyprian, or how it can be said to draw the origin of unity from one when it only draws its origin from many conjointly. St. Cyprian says our Lord, "ut unitatem manifestaret, unam cathedram constituit, unitatis ejusdem originem ab uno incipientem sua auctoritate disposuit;" that is, that our Lord established by his authority one chair, made the origin of unity begin from one, that the unity of the body might be manifested or shown forth. St. Cyprian evidently teaches that the unity of the church derives, as the author holds, from the unity of the episcopate, and the unity of the episcopate from the unity of the apostolic college; but that the unity of the apostolic college or apostolate may be manifested, and hence the unity of the church be shown forth, or rendered visible, our Lord made its origin begin from one, that is, Peter. All the apostles, indeed, had what Peter had, that is, the apostolate, partook of the same gift, honor, and power; but the beginning proceeded from unity, and the primacy was given to Peter, that the church of Christ and the chair, the apostolate, by succession the episcopal body, if you will, may be shown to be one. All are pastors, and the flock, which is fed by all the apostles in unanimity, is shown to be one, that the unity of the church of Christ may be demonstrated. "Hoc erant utique et caeteri apostoli quod fuit Petrus, pari consortio praediti et honoris et potestatis, sed exordium ab unitate profiscatur; et primatus Petro datur, ut una Christi ecclesia et cathedra una monstretur. Et pastores sunt omnes, et grex unus ostenditur, qui ab apostolis omnbus [omnibus?] unanimi consensione pascatur, ut ecclesia Christi, una monstretur." [Footnote 145]
[Footnote 145: Opp. Cypriani, Migne's Edition, De Unitate Ecclesiae, pp. 498-500. The words primatus Petro datur, are wanting in some manuscripts, and are rejected by Baluze and some others as an interpolation, and Archbishop Kenrick does not cite them in his Primacy, when they would have been much to his purpose. It is thought that they were originally a marginal note, and have crept into the text through some ignorant copyist; but it is just as easy to suppose that they were omitted from the text by some careless copyist, and placed in the margin by way of correction, and afterward restored to their proper place in the text. When several years ago we examined the question with what ability we possess, we came to the conclusion that they are genuine, or, at least, that there is no sufficient reason for regarding them as spurious. They express what is obviously the sense of St. Cyprian, and seem to us to be necessary to carry on and complete his argument. Nevertheless, we have made none of our reasoning against M. Guettée rest on their genuineness.]
St. Cyprian endeavors to show not simply that the church is one and the episcopate also one, but that our Lord has so arranged it that the unity of each may be made to appear and both be seen to be one. The unity of the apostles, of the pastors, or of the church, regarded as a collective body, is invisible. How, then, if it does not arise from one, or if it has no visible centre and beginning in the visible order, is it to be made to appear? St. Cyprian evidently holds that the unity of the apostolic body establishes the unity of the episcopal body, since he holds the bishops to be the successors of the apostles; and the unity of the episcopal body establishes the unity of the flock, which in union with the body each pastor feeds, and therefore the unity of the entire church of Christ. But he just as evidently holds that the apostolic unity in order to exist must begin from a central point, or have its centre and source whence it proceeds, and radiates, so to speak, through the whole apostolic body, making of the apostolate not an aggregation, but a body really one, with its own central source of life and authority; an organic and not simply an organized body, for an organized body has no real unity. Hence, he makes the unity start and radiate from one, as it must if unity at all. This one, this central point, he holds, is, by the ordination of the Lord, Peter. Of this there can be no doubt.
As we understand St. Cyprian, whose treatise on the Unity of the Church is, perhaps, the profoundest and most philosophical ever written on that subject, the church is an organism with Jesus Christ himself for its invisible and ultimate centre and source of life. But as the church is to deal with the world and operate in time and space, it must be visible as well as invisible. Then the invisible must be visibly expressed or represented. But this cannot be done unless there is a visible expression or representation in the exterior organic body of this interior and invisible centre and source of unity, life, and authority, which our Lord himself is. To establish this exterior or visible representation, our Lord institutes the apostolic college and through that the episcopal body, through whom the whole flock becomes in union with their pastors, who are, in union with the apostles, one organic body; but only on condition of the unity of the apostolic college which unity must start from one, from a visible centre and source of unity. Hence, our Lord chose Peter as the central point of union for the apostolic college, and Peter's chair, the "una cathedra," as the visible centre of union for the episcopal body, and through them of the whole church, so that the whole church in the apostolate, in the episcopate, and in the flock is shown to be one, represented with the unity and authority it has in Jesus Christ.
The trouble here with the author's theory is, not that it makes Peter the sign and type of the unity or authority of the apostolic college, and the chair of Peter the type and figure, as he says, of the unity and authority of the episcopate, but that it does not do so; for it recognizes no visible apostolic or episcopal unity, since it recognizes no visible centre or source from which it originates; and hence neither the apostolate nor the episcopate, save as Jesus Christ, is a unity, but an aggregation, as we have said, a collection, or at least, a sort of round robin. By denying the primacy or centre and beginning of unity to Peter and Peter's chair individually, it denies what St. Cyprian maintains was instituted to manifest or show forth unity. It denies both the manifestation of unity and external unity itself, both of which are strenuously insisted on by St. Cyprian, who, indeed, says expressly in his letter to St. Cornelius, the Roman pontiff, that "the Church of Rome," that is, "the chair of Peter," is the centre whence sacerdotal unity arose.
The author says, p. 67, that "St. Cyprian was right in calling the Church of Rome the chair of Peter, the principal church, whence sacerdotal unity emanated. But for all that, did he pretend that the bishop enjoyed authority by divine right? He believed it so little that, in his De Unitate Ecclesiae, he understands by the chair of Peter the entire episcopate, regards St. Peter as the equal of the other apostles, denies his primacy, and makes him the simple type of the unity of the apostolic college." The Church of Rome "was the source of sacerdotal unity in this sense, that Peter was the sign and type of the unity of the apostolic college." St. Cyprian makes St. Peter, p. 79, "merely the type of the unity that resided in the apostolic college as a whole, and, by succession, in the episcopal body, which he calls "the see of Peter." "The see of Peter, in St. Cyprian's idea, is the authority of the apostolic body, and, by succession, of the episcopal body. All the bishops had the same honor and the same authority in all that relates to their order, as all the apostles had the same honor and authority as Peter." (Pp. 79, 80.)
Peter, then, is the sign and type of apostolic and episcopal unity, and "the chair of Peter," or "the see of Peter," is the sign and type of apostolic authority. But supposing this to be so, and Peter to have been in no respect distinguished from the other apostles, or to have held no peculiar position in the apostolic body, how came he to be regarded as the sign and type of apostolic unity, and his chair as the sign and type of apostolic authority? There is a logic in language as well as in the human mind of which it is the expression, and there is a reason for every symbolical locution that gains currency. If the fathers and the church had not held Peter to be the prince of the apostles and his see the centre and source of apostolic authority, would they or could they have made his see or chair the symbol of apostolic authority, or Peter himself the symbol, "the sign and type," of apostolic unity? Why the see of Peter rather than that of Andrew, James, or John? or Peter rather than any other apostle? The fact, then, that St. Peter and his see or chair were taken as symbolic, the sign and type, the one of apostolic unity, and the other of apostolic authority, is a very conclusive proof that the primacy was given to him and his see by our Lord, and by succession to the holy apostolic see and the Roman pontiff, as the fathers of Florence define and Roman theologians hold.
Again, how could Peter be a sign and type of apostolic unity or his see the sign and type of apostolic authority, if he, Peter, had no relation, and his see none, to that authority not held equally by all the apostles and their sees? In the church of God there are and can be no shams, no make-believes, no false signs or types, no unrealities, no calling things which are not as if they were. Signs which signify nothing are not signs, and types which represent nothing are simply no types at all. The real apostolic unity and authority are internal, invisible in Jesus Christ himself, who, in the primary and absolute sense, as we have seen, is the rock on which the church is founded, the sole basis of its solidity and permanence, the sole ground of its existence and fountain of its life, unity, and authority. Peter and Peter's see, if the sign and type of this invisible unity, must represent it or show it forth in the visible order. But how can Peter represent that unity, unless he is in the visible order its real centre and source, in which it begins and from which it emanates? Or how can the see or chair of Peter be the sign and type of the invisible apostolic authority, unless it really be its source and centre in the visible order? The external can represent the internal, the visible the invisible, only in so far as it copies or imitates it. In calling Peter the sign and type of apostolic unity, the author then concedes that Peter represents our Lord, and that he is, as the council of Florence defines, "the true vicar of Christ;" and in making Peter's see the sign and type of apostolic authority, he makes it the real centre in the visible order of that authority, and consequently concedes the very points which he rejects, and undertakes to prove from St. Cyprian are only the unfounded pretensions of the bishop of Rome.
That the primacy here unwittingly conceded by the author is not that absolute and isolated sovereignty which the author accuses Catholic theologians of asserting for Peter and for the bishop of Rome as his successor, we readily admit, but we have already shown that such a sovereignty is not claimed. The pope is not the sovereign, but the vicar or chief minister of the sovereign. He governs the church in apostolic unity, not as isolated from the episcopal body, but as its real head or supreme chief. His authority is said to be loquens ex cathedra, speaking from the seat of apostolic and episcopal unity and authority. He is the chief or supreme pastor, not the only pastor, nor pastor at all regarded as separate from the church. He is the visible head of the church united by a living union with the body; for it is as necessary to the head to be in living union with the body, as it is to the body to be in living union with the head. Neither can live and perform its functions without the other; but the directing, controlling, or governing power is in the head. St. Ambrose says, "Where Peter is, there is the church;" but he does not say Peter is the church, nor does the pope say, "L'Eglise, c'est moi," I am the church. Succeeding to Peter as chief of the apostolic college, he is the chief or head of the church. The author's theory makes the church in the visible order as a whole, acephalous, headless, and therefore brainless.
The author bases his assertion that St. Cyprian denies the primacy of Peter on the fact that he says, "All the other apostles had what he had, the same honor and the same power." This is with Mr. Guettée a capital point. His doctrine, so far as doctrine he has, is that the church has no visible chief; that all the apostles had equal honor and authority; that all bishops as successors of the apostles are equal; that one bishop has by divine right no pre-eminence above another; and that, if one is more influential than another, he owes it to his personal character or to the external importance of his see. And this he contends is the doctrine of St. Cyprian. But, if he had understood St. Cyprian's argument, he would have never done that great saint such flagrant injustice. St. Cyprian's argument is, as is evident from the passage we have cited at length, that, although all the apostles received the same gift, the same honor, and the same power, yet, for the sake of manifesting unity, our Lord constituted one chair from which unity should begin, and gave the primacy to Peter, that the unity of the apostolic or episcopal body and of the whole church of Christ might be shown. The author himself contends that the apostolate, and by succession the episcopate, is one and indivisible, and held by the apostles or bishops in solido. Then, if all the other apostles had the apostolate, they must have had precisely what Peter had, and if the other bishops have the episcopate at all, they must have precisely what the Roman pontiff has, yet without having another apostolate or another episcopate than that which they all equally receive and hold in its invisible unity, or anything in addition thereto. He may, nevertheless, be the head or chief of the episcopal body and the centre in which episcopal unity and authority in the visible order originate, and from which they radiate through the body, and from the bishops to their respective flocks, and bind them and the whole church together in one, which, as we understand it, is the precise doctrine of St. Cyprian, and certainly is the doctrine of the Roman and Catholic Church.
The author, even if a learned man, does not appear to be much of a philosopher or much of a theologian. There are depths in St. Cyprian's philosophy and theology which he seems unable to sound, and heights which are certainly above his flight. He is, we should judge, utterly unaware of the real constitution of the church, the profound significance of the gospel, the vast reach of the Christian system, its relation to the universal system of creation, or the reasons in the very nature of things there are for its existence, and for the existence and constitution of the church. All the works of the Creator are strictly logical, and together form but one dialectic whole, are but the expression of one divine Thought. Nothing can appear more petty or worthless than the author's shallow cavils to a man who has a little real theological science.
The author cites the controversy on the baptism of heretics, in proof that St. Cyprian denied the jurisdiction of the bishop of Rome, or his authority to govern as supreme pontiff the whole church, but unsuccessfully. St. Cyprian found the custom established in Carthage, as it was also in certain churches in Asia, to rebaptize persons who had been baptized by heretics, and he insisted on observing the custom. He complained, therefore, of St. Stephen, the Roman pontiff, who wrote to him to conform to the ancient and general custom of the church. Whether he conformed or not is uncertain, but there is no evidence that he denied the authority of the Roman pontiff, and he certainly did not break communion with him, though he may have regarded his exercise of his authority in that particular case as oppressive and tyranical. It would seem from the letter of St. Firmilianus to St. Cyprian, if genuine, of which there is some doubt, as there is of several letters ascribed to Cyprian, and from the address of St. Cyprian to the last council he held on the subject, which Mr. Guettée cites at some length, that the question was regarded as one of discipline, or as coming within the category of those matters on which diversity of usage in different churches and countries is allowable or can be tolerated, and on which uniformity has never been exacted. He insisted not that all the world should conform to the custom he observed, but defended, as our bishops would to-day, what he believed to be the customary rights of his church or province. That he was wrong we know, for the universal church has sustained the Roman pontiff.
We do not think the author has been very happy in placing St. Cyprian on the stand against the primacy of the holy apostolic see and the Roman pontiff. The saint is a much better witness for us than for him.
The author, unable to deny the preponderating influence of the Roman pontiff and his see in the government of the church, and the importance everywhere attached to being in communion with the bishop of Rome, seeks to evade the force of the fact by attributing it not to the belief in the primacy of the Church of Rome, but to the superior importance of the city of Rome as the capital of the empire, as if the Catholic Church were merely a Roman Church, and not founded for the whole world. We, indeed hear something of this when Constantinople, the New Rome, became the rival of Old Rome, and its bishop, on account of the civil and political importance of the city, set up to be oecumenical bishop, and claimed the first place after the bishop of Rome; but we hear nothing of it during the first three centuries, and the author adduces nothing to justify his assumption. All the fathers, alike in the East and the West, attribute the primacy held by the Church of Rome not to the importance of the city of Rome in the empire, but to the fact that she is "the church that presides," is "the principal" or governing "church," is "the see of Peter," holds the chair of Peter, "prince of the apostles," is "the root and matrix of the Catholic Church," and that Peter "lives" and "speaks" in its bishops. Now, whatever our learned author may say, we think these great fathers, some of whom were only one remove from the apostles themselves, and nearly all of whom gained the crown of martyrdom, knew the facts in the case as well as he knows them, and that there is every probability that they meant what they said and wrote.
"We see," says the author, p. 48, "that as early as the third century the bishops of Rome, because St. Peter had been one of the founders of that see, claimed to exercise a certain authority over the rest of the church, giving themselves sometimes the title of 'bishop of bishops'; but we also see that the whole church protested against these ambitious pretensions, and held them of no account." That the bishop of Rome was accused by those whom the exercise of his authority offended of assuming the title of bishop of bishops, by way of a sneer, may be very true, but that he ever gave himself that title, there is, so far as we are aware, no trustworthy evidence.
"The church protested against these ambitious pretensions." Where is that protest recorded? That bishops were then as now jealous of their real or supposed rights, and ever well disposed to resist any encroachment upon them, is by no means improbable; and this, if the bishops generally held that the Roman pontiff had no more authority by divine right over the church than any other bishop, must have made it exceedingly difficult for him to grasp the primacy of jurisdiction over them. Their power to resist, in case they believed they could resist with a good conscience, must have been, being, as they were in the fourth century, eighteen hundred to one, somewhat greater than his to encroach. That the bishops or simple priests whom the Roman pontiff admonished or censured protested sometimes, not against his authority, but against what they regarded as its unjust, arbitrary, or tyrannical exercise, is no doubt true, and the same thing happens still, even with those who have no doubt of the papal authority; but that the whole church protested is not proven; and in all the instances in which protests were offered on the part of individual bishops that came before an ecclesiastical council, the universal church uniformly sustained the Roman pontiff. When St. Victor excommunicated the Quartodecimans, some bishops remonstrated with him as being too severe, and others opposed his act, but the council of Nicaea sustained it. Even before that council, the author of the Philosophumena, whose work must have been composed in the early part of the third century, treats the Quartodecimans as heretics, although, except as to the time of keeping Easter, their faith was irreproachable. So on the question of the baptism of heretics, the whole church, instead of protesting against the decision of St. Stephen, approved it, and follows it to this day. It will not do to say the whole church treated the acts of these popes "as of no account."
The writers of the letters attributed to St. Cyprian and Firmilianus are good evidence that the popes claimed and exercised jurisdiction over the whole church in the controversy on the baptism of heretics, and Tertullian affords no mean proof of the same fact at a yet earlier date. In a work written after he had fallen into some of the heresies of the Montanists, he writes, as cited by our author, p. 78, "I learn that a new edict has been given, a peremptory edict. The sovereign pontiff, that is, the bishop of bishops, has said: 'I remit the sins of impurity and fornication.' O edict! not less can be done than to ticket it—GOOD WORK! But where shall such an edict be posted? Surely, I think, upon the doors of the houses of prostitution." This passage undoubtedly proves that Tertullian himself, fallen into heresy, did not relish the papal decision that condemned him, and perhaps that he was disposed to deny the authority of the Roman pontiff; but if it had been generally held that the Roman pontiff was no more in the church than any other bishop, and therefore that his decision could have no authority out of his diocese or province, would his decision have so deeply moved him, and called forth such an outburst of wrath? If the claim to the primacy of authority in the whole church, and therefore to jurisdiction over all bishops, was not generally recognized and held, what occasion was there for so much indignation? What point would there have been in the sneer, or force in the irony, of calling him the sovereign pontiff, or the bishop of bishops? Tertullian's language, which was evidently intended to exaggerate the authority claimed by the Roman pontiff, plainly enough implies that he was generally held to have authority to make decisions in doctrine and discipline for the whole church, and that a censure from him was something of far more importance than that from any other bishop or patriarch.
The author cites to the same effect as Tertullian the work published at Paris a few years ago under the name of Origin, entitled Philosophumena, "justly attributed," he says, "to St. Hyppolytus, Bishop of Ostia, or to the learned priest Caius." The authorship of the work is unknown, and no documents have yet been discovered that enable the learned to determine with any degree of certainty by whom it was or could have been written. The work, however, bears internal evidence of having been written by some one belonging to the East, and who lived during the pontificates of St. Victor, St. Zephyrinus, St. Callistus, St. Urban, and perhaps St. Pontian, bishops of Rome, that is to say, from 180 to 235, certainly not later. The work, when published by M. Miller at Paris, in 1851, attracted the attention of English and German Protestants by its gross charges against the two venerated Roman pontiffs and martyrs, St. Zephyrinus and St. Callistus—charges which for the most part refute themselves. But though Protestants have not been able to make much of it against the papacy, Catholics have found in it new and unexpected proofs of the authority extending over the church in all parts of the world, exercised by the popes of that early period. "In his invectives," says the Abbé Cruice, "the adversary of Callistus acknowledges his great power, and furnishes new and unexpected proofs of the supremacy of the holy see." The Abbé Cruice, who, we think, we have heard recently died Bishop of Marseilles, published at Paris, in 1851, an interesting History of the Church of Rome under the pontificates of St. Victor, St. Zephyrinus, and St. Callistus, in which he has incorporated these proofs with great judgment and effect. As we are not now considering the affirmative proofs of the primacy of the Holy See, but the arguments intended to prove the papacy schismatic, we can only refer the reader to this learned work and to the Philosophumena itself. We will only remark that the unknown author is far more bitter against the popes than his contemporary Tertullian, and leaves more unequivocal evidence to the extent of the papal power. No one can read the Philosophumena without perceiving in the complaints and incidental remarks of the author that the hierarchy at the end of the second century was as regularly organized as now, and precisely in the same manner, with the Roman pontiff at its summit.
The author, p. 82, says Tertullian, who in several passages refers to the Church of Rome as a witness to the apostolic tradition, "does not esteem her witness testimony superior to that of others." Perhaps so, for in the cases referred to Tertullian had no occasion to discriminate between one apostolic church and another. He is using against heretics the argument from prescription. Their doctrines are adverse to the apostolic tradition, and therefore false. If any one would know what is the apostolic tradition, he may learn it from any of the churches founded by apostles "where their sees still remain, where their epistles are still read, where their voice still resounds, and their face, as it were, is still seen. Is it Achaia that is near thee? thou hast Corinth; if thou art not far from Macedonia, thou hast the Philippians; if thou canst go to Asia, thou hast Ephesus; if thou dwellest near Italy, thou hast Rome, whose authority is near us," that is, near us in Africa. It is true Tertullian pronounces a eulogium on the Church of Rome that he does not on the others, but no great stress need be laid on that. Any one of the apostolic churches was sufficient for determining the apostolic tradition, and there was no reason why he should mention the primacy of the see of Peter if he held it, and it would have weakened his argument if he had appealed to that primacy, doubtless then as now rejected by heretics.
But this leads us to a remark which it may be well to bear in mind. All the churches founded by the apostles were during the whole of the first three centuries in existence, and preserved the apostolic doctrine or tradition, and it could be learned from Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, Ephesus, etc., without the necessity, at least on ordinary occasions, of recurring to the supreme authority of Rome. The author quotes several of the fathers who call the see of Antioch Peter's see; he might have gone further, and shown that each of the four great patriarchal sees, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, were so-called, and because they were held to have been founded by Peter. This is the reason why they received the dignity and authority of patriarchal churches. Peter was held to survive and govern in each one of them, but more especially in Rome, where he gave his life for his faith, and where stands his tomb. It is Peter who governs one and indivisible in them all, and consequently, to get Peter's authority, it was not, except in the last resort, necessary to apply to his successor in the see of Rome. It is this fact, misapprehended by the author, that has made him assert that the see of Peter, or the chair of Peter, means the universal episcopate which all the bishops, as St. Cyprian says, hold in solido. Every bishop in communion with Peter's see, no doubt, was regarded as solidaire with the whole episcopal and apostolic body, as we have already explained; but we have not found the "see of Peter," or "chair of Peter" applied to any particular churches, except those tradition asserted were founded by Peter, and only those sees had originally patriarchal jurisdiction, and this fact is in itself no slight proof that the primacy was held to be vested in Peter as we have already explained, and the author has given us the opportunity of proving from St. Cyprian.
This fact that Peter was held to govern in the four great patriarchal sees, though supremely only in the Church of Rome, explains why it is that in the early ages we find not more frequent instances of the exercise of jurisdiction beyond his own patriarchate of the West by the Roman pontiff. The bishops of these Petrine churches were not originally called patriarchs, but they exercised the patriarchal power long before receiving the name, and probably from times immediately succeeding the apostles. So long as these patriarchs remained in communion with the bishop of Rome, their head and chief, most of the questions of discipline, and many of those of faith, could be, and were, settled by the patriarch, or local authority, without resort to the Roman pontiff. But when these sees fell off from unity into heresy or schism, Peter remained only in the Roman see, and all causes that had previously been disposed of by the patriarchs of the East had to be carried at once to Rome, before the supreme court.
Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch were the three chief cities of the empire, and the capitals the first of the empire itself, and the others of its two largest and most important prefectures. This fact may seem to favor the author's theory that the ecclesiastical superiority is derived from the civil superiority; but had this been so, Jerusalem would hardly have been selected as the seat of the third patriarchate of the East. The geographical position and civil and political importance of these cities may have influenced the apostle in selecting them to be the chief seats of the ecclesiastical government he under Christ was founding, but could not have been the ground of their superior ecclesiastical jurisdiction, because the church was not organized as a national religion, or with a view to the Roman empire alone, and the apostles themselves carried the gospel beyond the farthest limits of that empire, into regions never penetrated by the Roman eagles. The church was catholic, and was to subsist in all ages and teach all nations, as well as all truth. Our Lord said, "My kingdom is not of this world;" it does not hold from the kingdoms of this world, and is independent of them, both in its constitution and in its bowers. These remain always and everywhere the same, whatever the revolutions or the rise and fall of states and empire. The authority of the church is immediately from God; her grandeur and glory are spiritual, and not derived from the greatness, grandeur, wealth, or power of earthly cities. St. Augustine makes the city of Rome the type of the city of the world, which he contrasts with the church or city of God. The idea that the rank or the authority of the bishop derived from the civil rank and importance of the city in which he held his see was a Constantinopolitan idea not heard of till the fifth century, and, as we shall see in its place, one of the chief causes of the schism between the East and the West.
The author denies that St. Peter was ever, in the proper sense of the word, bishop of Rome, or of any particular see. If he is right, how could the unity of the church have a visible starting-point or centre? or how could it be said to begin from Peter or the chair of Peter, as his own witness, St. Cyprian, asserts? If Peter had no particular see, established his see, or set up his chair, his cathedra, nowhere in particular, the whole argument of St. Cyrian [Cyprian?] as to the origin and manifestation of unity is baseless, and goes for nothing. Besides, it is contradicted by universal tradition. The testimony that Peter had his chair at Rome is ample, and leaves nothing to be desired. But this is not the point. It is for the author to prove that he was not bishop of Rome; for he has undertaken to prove the papacy is schismatic, and at every step he takes, the burden of proof is on him. Where are his proofs?
The author says St. Linus was bishop of Rome when Peter first arrived in that city. A church which has a bishop is already a church founded and constituted. Yet the author allows and cites authorities that prove that Peter was the founder, or at least one of the founders, of the Roman Church! That St. Linus was the first bishop of Rome after St. Peter there is no doubt; that he was the first bishop, or bishop of Rome, before the arrival of St. Peter in the city, there is no evidence, but any amount of testimony to the contrary. We say there is no evidence. The lists given by the fathers sometimes enumerate him as first and sometimes as second, as they do or do not include the apostle; but all make him the successor of St. Peter. The fathers, in giving the lists of other apostolic sees, are not uniform, and sometimes they include and sometimes they exclude the apostle, and reckon only from his death. Eusebius says, as cited by the author, p. 144, "After the martyrdom of Paul and Peter, Linus was the first that received the episcopate at Rome." Tertullian, as also cited by the author, p. 145, says that "Peter sat on the chair of Rome;" but he contends that Tertullian "does not mean that he was bishop, but that he taught there," that is, St. Peter was a professor of theology at Rome! This might do if Tertullian had been treating of the Sorbonne, or of the French university, but will not answer here. In ecclesiastical language, chair, cathedra, means simply the seat of the bishop, and, figuratively, the episcopal authority. To say Peter sat in the chair or cathedra of Rome is saying simply he was bishop of Rome. The presumption is, that Tertullian meant what he said, understood according to the usages of the language he used. Besides, if chair may sometimes be used figuratively for teaching, it is the author's business to prove that it must mean so in this particular case. This he does not and cannot do.
The author pretends that the tradition which makes Peter seven years bishop of Antioch and twenty-five years bishop of Rome is obviously false; for any one can see by counting that there was not time enough for it between the day of Pentecost and the martyrdom of Peter. We do not pretend to be very good at counting, but as we count, seven years bishop of Antioch and twenty-five years bishop of Rome make in all thirty-two years. The day of Pentecost, according to the usual reckoning, was in A.D. 33, and St. Peter suffered martyrdom at Rome under Nero, A.D. 66, or at the earliest 65. Tillemont says 66, which leaves thirty-three, at least thirty-two years; and we see no reason to suppose that the organization of the church at Jerusalem and committing it to the care of James, its first bishop, and the setting up of his chair at Antioch, might not all have been done before the close of the year of the crucifixion. But even an error in the chronology would not prove that Peter was not bishop of Rome.
The pretence that it was incompatible with the dignity of an apostle to be the bishop of a particular see has nothing to sustain it. It is not necessary to suppose Peter, by establishing his see at Rome, was obliged to confine his whole attention and labor to that particular church, or that he remained constantly at Rome. Indeed, it is very possible, and thought by many to be very probable, that he committed the care of that church daring his absences to St. Linus as his vicar, and there are several authorities to that effect. Some of them join St. Anacletus, Cletus, or, as the Greeks say, Anencletus, and St. Clement, successively bishops of Rome, with St. Linus in the government of the Roman Church under Peter during his lifetime; but, however this may have been, tradition is constant that St. Linus was the immediate successor of Peter, which at least implies that Peter was regarded as having held the see as well as having assisted in founding it; for otherwise St. Linus could not have been regarded as his successor, and no reason could be assigned why he was called the successor of Peter rather than of Paul, who also assisted in founding it, and is honored even to-day by the Roman Church as one of its founders.
We have taken up the author's theory point by point, and we find him utterly failing to establish it in whole or in part. His allegations are set forth with great confidence, but the authorities he cites do not sustain them, and are either not to his purpose or, like St. Cyprian, point blank against him. He may have demolished the man of straw which he himself had set up, but he leaves standing the papacy as held by the Catholic Church and defined by the council of Florence. He has asserted in very strong terms the ignorance, the chicanery, the sophistry, and the dishonesty of the Roman theologians, and leaves no doubt in the minds of intelligent readers that he greatly excels them in the qualities and practices he ascribes to them; but he adduces nothing beyond his own assertions and misrepresentations against their fairness and candor, and their intelligence and learning. His sneers at them are pointed only by his own ignorance or malice, and present him in a most unfavorable light. His cant, so abundant against them, is very stale and simply disgusting. From first to last he proves that he lacks, we will not say the humility of the Christian, but the modesty and reserve of real learning and science, and that he is moved not by love of truth, but by a spirit of hatred and revenge.
Here we might well close, for the author has refuted from St. Cyprian himself, by proving by his own witness the primacy of jurisdiction by divine right was possessed even in the third century, while he has left all the arguments and authorities adduced by the Roman theologians from Scripture and tradition to prove affirmatively the papal authority by divine right, or by the positive appointment of Jesus Christ in their full force. But the reasons which induced us in the first place to begin the examination of the author's lucubrations induce us to go through with them. The work has been translated and published here under Protestant auspices, set up as an important work against the papal authority and the Church of Rome, "the root and matrix of the Catholic Church," as says St. Cyprian, and, were it left unnoticed or unreplied to, many people might take it to be really what it is represented to be, and conclude that we cannot answer it because we have not done it.
Besides, the controversy between large classes of Protestants and Catholics is narrowed down to two questions, the honor we render to Mary the mother of God, and the authority we attribute to the Holy See and the Roman pontiff. M. Guettée, having been reared in our communion and gone out from us because he was not of us, and having in this work done his best to prove the papacy schismatic, and that its assertion has been the cause of the schism between the East and the West, affords us as good an occasion as we can expect to discuss the latter question, and to consider the arguments, facts, and authorities alleged in their defence by those who refuse their obedience to St. Peter in his successor. The work is rambling, and made up of details most wearisome to read, and difficult to bring into a shape in which its real value can be brought to the test, but it is a fair specimen in spirit and arrangement of the works written against the Roman and Catholic Church, and contains in some form all that schismatics allege first and last against her. We may as well make it our text-book for the discussion as any other. But we have already trespassed long enough on the patience of our readers for this month.
Translated from the French.
The Crucifix of Baden.
A Legend of the Middle Ages.
Will you follow me to Baden? Not to that elegant and wild and whirling Baden of painted faces and flashy toilettes, where gentlemen of the turf display their horsemanship on the plain of Iffezheim; where the majesty of old Germany elbows, in the Trinkhalle, the princes of Bohemia; but to the fresh, dark, silent, almost unknown nooks of that Baden which God has made and which man has yet left untouched; where the artist wanders for his picture, the poet for his inspiration, the dreamer for his vision, the Christian to murmur his prayer; for it is to a burial-ground that I am about to lead you. But fear not on that account; this burial-place of Baden has comparatively but little of the mournful in its appearance; it is truly, as its name declares, the Fried Hof—the Court of Peace. Under that green turf, under those flower-clad hillocks, there lie bodies that suffer no more, but sleep in quiet; their souls may suffer, indeed, and be in pain, but their souls are no longer there; and can repose alone be frightful? Look around, and, as far as the eye can reach, what beauty shines in the landscape, what a charm invests the distant meeting of earth and sky! Look up to the gray blue heaven, pale and transparent, as is ever that sky which stretches over the valley of the Rhine; to those pure white clouds floating like distant sails on a stormless sea; to those distant hills, with outlines softening as they recede; to the green woods that fringe their sides; to those walls which time has breached; those crumbling towers; those ruined castles which seem to overhang the plain of the dead—man's work, and the hands that created it, becoming dust together. These sights may, indeed, be melancholy, but they are peace-giving too; for there in the midst hangs Christ bowing his weary head and stretching out his bruised arms in yonder great crucifix of stone.
In a churchyard, nothing is more frequent, nor, so to speak, more natural, than to see a crucifix. It is there like the flag on the bastion, the mast on the vessel. Without it the place would be accursed and desolate, for hope would be wanting there. All know and acknowledge this, but, nevertheless, few passers-by bestow a glance on the holy image. Some faithful ones may, when they see it, make the sign of the cross; others bend slightly before it; well-bred people uncover; free-thinkers, with proud look and step, with unbending knee and body erect, pass it by, they who would bow so low before the coronet of a prince or even the key of a chamberlain.
And certainly indifferent, timid, and free-thinking ones come to the Fried Hof of Baden; but there, few stop not and marvel, if by chance their eyes fall upon its crucifix. There is upon that rigid face—those features of stone—a look of life, of flesh and blood, which enchains you, moves the depths of your heart, speaks to you. To understand that gaze, it is not necessary to be a Christian; alas! it is enough to be a man. Those lips, half parted in a sigh, tremble in the stone; those half-closed eyes seem really to weep; agony sits upon every feature; bitterness of soul has worn every one of those furrows, the arch of the brows has been contracted, the pure lines of the profile broken, the calm of the forehead destroyed by a sorrow, overwhelming, silent, inconsolable; and you would have before you the image of human misery the most complete, the deepest, the most horrible, if a ray from the Majesty on high did not come to elevate and illumine that petrifaction of grief.
When you have long studied those features and contemplated their agony, you involuntarily ask yourself: Where did the sculptor find so suffering a face, so living an agony? whence came his model? for you feel that those features once were the flesh of one to whom ordinary grief were as nothing. That look of life, that pain so real, came certainly from a human heart that once beat beneath them, and in them painted its wounds, its tortures, and its agony. They were seen, and not merely created in the artist's brain.
Yes; you are right. Those features are those of a suffering, repentant, and miserable man. If you approach the base of the crucifix, you will see graven in the once soft stone, in long Gothic letters, and in the Suabian dialect of the fifteenth century, these short and simple words, which are the explanation and the ending of its story:
"MINA, OTHO.
"May God receive you and pardon me."
Nothing more; no signature to the work, nor name added to the prayer. But young souls, simple hearts, poetic spirits, which still may be found at Baden, in spite of "sport" and "the turf," will relate to you the birth of the work and the fate of the artist; for, alas! the story of the crucifix is also the story of the sculptor.
Chapter I.
It was a populous, busy, and bright city, Baden of old, as it flourished in the fifteenth century, in the days of the Margrave Bernard of Staehberg. Less noisy than to-day, it was more picturesque. Where great hotels, white villas, and regular edifices now rise, then only narrow crooked streets were seen; where Gothic houses, those old German dwellings, of which a few still stand at Augsburg, at Ulm, and especially at Nuremberg, reared their sculptured gables and pointed roofs, wherein were set windows looking like half-opened eyes, while beams projected from the wall beneath and supported little balconies, and long, narrow windows with leaden sashes glistened in the glory of their little, thick, greenish hued and diamond-shaped panes.
Nevertheless, those streets in which the sun-rays rarely penetrated, (caught as they were in their way by the projecting fronts of the houses,) were one day of the beautiful month of May, 1435, filled with people in holiday dress, bearing curious and smiling faces, with fluttering pennons, shining armor, and broad banners. It was the day of the tournament, and the gossips grouped themselves together to see pass the barons of the mountains and plains, and to relate to each other the high achievements of each doughty noble and the traditions of his family, while they awaited the return from the burg of the proud victors or humbled vanquished.
But of the general joy, the cries that rang through the town, only a few faint and expiring echoes reached a lonely and distant street, where the houses, lower and more scattered, no longer stood close together, but began to grow scattered through the fields. One of these houses, the largest and almost the last, was distinguished from its neighbors by two peculiarities. The front of the first story, instead of being cut by those narrow leaden-sashed openings joined one to the other, through which the light of day might scarcely enter, offered to the gaze a huge window with larger, neater, and more regular panes than any around. Through the openings on the ground floor a narrow spiral staircase might be seen winding its polished steps and balustrade of stone, carved like lace, beneath a roof of wood delicately cut in graceful flowers, branches, arabesques, and interlaced figures. Above all, in a little wooden niche, a little carved shrine, which surmounted the pointed gable, was the form of an angel with folded wings, chiselled in pure white marble. One might imagine that the heavenly messenger had stopped there to rest in the middle of some long journey; that he gazed calmly down and protected with his frail hands the high gray house which he seemed to bless; so that the gossips, who all knew the dwelling and held its master in high esteem, called his abode The House of the Angel.
And the good burgesses wondered not to see the white statue on that gray front, nor did they marvel at the graceful scrolls and arabesques of the pretty staircase, and that huge dazzling window, for they knew that the last served to light the studio of the sculptor Sebald Koerner, and that the two ornaments of the house, the marble angel and the carved roof, were his work.
Sebald Koerner was justly esteemed and even admired by the burgesses of Baden. It was not that he was very famous or very rich; that he earned much money or made much noise in the world. But it was because he was honest, patient, true; at once pious and dreamy, modest and intelligent. He lived only for his art, and scarcely partook at all of the passions, the aims, the entrancements of the crowd. He did not place himself above it, but without it, and men hold in high respect those who from a calm retreat behold the torrent of human life rush by. As an artist, he had rivals, but no enemies; as a man, he had his failings, but no vices; as a father, he had a treasure, a fair-haired daughter, named Mina, who had seen the flowers of seventeen springs bloom. Sebald Koerner might call himself a happy man.
But he was not only a happy man, he was a wise one, and what God had given him of strength, genius, calm, and happiness he guarded carefully, lest he might lose it in the tumult of the life of men. Therefore the day of the tournament, which had so stirred the peaceful city of Baden with rumors of pleasure and joy, saw old Sebald shut himself up in his atelier. He had worked since dawn, while the swords of others were clashing and shields and breastplates resounding, while plumes and banners flashed through the air, and horns and clarions awoke the echoes; and he had first prayed, for such was his custom, and he imagined that prayer brightened his inspirations—men were so ignorant and barbarous in those "dark ages"! Then with a skilful and pious hand he wielded hammer and chisel through long hours well employed, and now, although the sun was sinking behind the mountains, he still worked, standing before his great stone bas-relief, only interrupting himself from time to time to cast a glance full of parental love on his daughter Mina.
Upon Mina fell the last ray of the sun, which, after kissing the verdure of the mountain, shone through the panes and made her long silver-gray gown glitter like silver itself, and seemed to light a beam of dark light in the centre of each of her large black eyes. Those were splendid eyes, and rarely seen in one so fair, for Mina was a blonde, and the golden threads of her purse were not brighter than those her hair, but only less soft and close. Nothing could equal the perfect purity and grace of her forehead and cheeks, the whiteness of her skin, the delicacy of the lines of her face: she seemed a beauteous statue, to which God, in reward to its designer, had given life and motion, and a loving heart and golden hair.
The bas-relief which the old sculptor was finishing seemed indeed as if long and difficult labor had been spent upon it. It represented a religious subject, for any but religious subjects were scarcely known, in those times when minds were so simple, imagination so quiet, and intelligence so limited, according to our strong-minded ones of this age; in those times when pilgrims marvelled at the beauty of a Child Jesus, or the chaste grace of a Virgin Mary; when the Apollos, the Minervas, the Venuses and Adonises, forgotten or unknown, were yet buried in the darkness of centuries and under the dust of ruins.
What Sebald Koerner wished to represent was the dawn of the resurrection day.
The cave of the sepulchre was there, rocky, vaulted, and low. At the entrance knelt Peter, with wide-opened eyes and trembling lips, and Magdalene wept, stretching forth her arms. Yes, she wept, for the sepulchre was empty. The stone which closed the tomb moved to one side, allowed the scattered bands which wrapped the sacred body and the abandoned winding-sheet to be seen, and the angel seemed to announce to the two faithful followers the glad and great tidings—the tidings of triumph and of consolation—Resurrexit: non est hic: words graven on the banderole which hung from his hand.
Old Sebald's angel was noble, radiant, and beautiful, as became a messenger of heaven. The sculptor, with something of artistic caprice, had placed a golden star upon his forehead, and with the fond pride of a father had given to his face the features of his beautiful Mina, so that, when he smiled upon his angel, it seemed to him that he smiled upon his daughter, and, when he turned to his daughter, he became grave, and moved as if he looked upon a celestial visitant.
"I am satisfied with thee, my daughter," said he, after silently comparing for some moments the two faces. "I find nothing to change in thy pure brow, thy modest attitude, or thy soft gaze. All that I cannot copy is thy smile. And thy smile is sweet, my Mina, but it is too lively, too childish, too mocking; it is earthly, and not, I am sure, the smile of the bright ones above."
"Marvel not that it should be so, my father," replied Mina, while her eyes glistened: "Above, angels smile in ecstasy, love, and piety, while I here can only bear the smile of youth and hope."
"Thou art right, my child; I would not blame thee. Hope is natural to the young. Long years are before them; they may expect to see their projects accomplished, their brightest dreams realized. Melancholy and weariness are the lot of old fathers, old dreamers, and old workers such as I."
"And why, father," returned Mina gayly, "shouldst thou be sad? Hast thou not an art which is better than a fortune? a name which is known throughout Baden as well as those of our oldest barons and bravest knights? Thou art never idle; thou lackest a companion never. Noble ladies and proud lords offer thee a respectful salute as they pass the door of the House of the Angel; and, when they are not here, thy little Mina remains; and thou thyself makest holy companions for thyself when carving some beautiful Virgin or sweet child-Jesus."
"'Tis that which often makes me tremble, my child. Hath my spirit enough of inspiration, are my hands pure enough to reproduce those holy features? to give to stone, or marble, or wood the charm and majesty of those divine forms which from their golden halos call and smile on me? to express the sweetness of the Christ-child, the tenderness of Christ the Mediator, or the virginal motherhood of his holy mother? No; to inspiration must be added the heart of a Christian; and if I have dared too much and but ill succeeded; if to those sacred faces I have given too much of man's fall and misery, then am I guilty, and then have I failed in my aim—in more than my aim, for then my peace of conscience and repose of soul, too, are lost. These, Mina, are the fears that weaken and the questions that disquiet me, and so often render my hand unsteady, and mark care upon my brow."
"Thou art very wrong to be so troubled, my father," said Mina, lifting her head with a little air of triumph. "From Strasburg to Nuremburg, from Constance to Augsburg, all who have hearts and eyes and frequent the churches say there is in this world no man like thee to carve angels and saints."
"Ay; so say men," replied Sebald, "but God hath not yet said it, he who sees and judges my works; and from him must come my courage and my strength, for I would destroy all the works of my hands if by them I knew that he was offended. Look, my child, this bas-relief is nearly completed, and until now I was satisfied with it, but a scruple comes and weighs heavily upon my mind. This angel is very beautiful, Mina, since he bears thy face, but have I not presumed too much in giving him thy features? As one of the host of heaven he is perfect, so far as aught beneath God himself can be perfect. But thou art but a child of earth; thou art good, thou art tender to thy old father; thou art his only treasure, and yet more beautiful than this angel, but wilt thou be always calm, pure, and radiant as he?"
"I will try, my father," answered Mina, with an air of half rebellious resolution, mingled at the same time with deep tenderness.
"Promise me, Mina, that thou wilt ever seek to be angelic and joyous, and in the midst of the world to live retired from it, that the weaknesses and griefs of men may ever remain far from thee and never afflict thee. I am old, and, when I shall rest in the tomb, thou wilt be the heiress of my name and the guardian of my memory. Then learned men, princes, travellers, who may perchance have heard of my fame, may come. Thou wilt salute them at the threshold, and when they ask for old Sebald, thou, pointing to my deserted studio and empty seat, wilt reply, 'Resurrexit: non est hic: He hath succeeded; he hath finished his years of toil, and reposeth in his fatherland.' And I, my Saviour!" continued old Koerner, "I will then know whether I knew thee on earth. After thou hast done this, my daughter, dismiss the travellers and bid the princes farewell. Live in simplicity and retirement with a few old friends, my poor child, for thou hast no mother, or with some faithful companion whom thou mayest wed.'
"Father, father!"' cried the young girl, "why speak of sorrow and death in the beautiful spring, when the sun shines so brightly, and when thou art finishing the beautiful angel to whom thou hast given such radiance and youth? If thou couldst give him youth, my father, it is because thou yet possessest youth and long wilt possess it. And thinkest thou that, if thou wert no longer on earth, many would give a thought to thy little Mina, who is young and ignorant, and who is not a lady? No, those to whom strangers would come to speak of thy fame, whom, after thy departure, they would seek, are sure to be thy pupils Johann Muller, Franz Steinbach, and even—and even—Sir Otho of Arneck, who carves so bravely, and wears such glistening arms."
"As to the two first, thou art perhaps right, my daughter," said Koerner, who had again begun to work, and was lightly polishing the tunic of the angel with the edge of his chisel. "Franz hath ardor and Johann almost genius. But for the knight, Sir Otho, he amuses himself with sculpture as with training his hawks or with the wrestling of his varlets."
"Art not too severe?" asked Mina lowering her eyes and puckering her rosy lips into a little pout. "I thought the knight of Arneck had something of talent; that thou thyself saidst the day he modelled the great St. Michael."
"In good truth, he might have talent, were he more pious, more humble, and were he not a noble. Thinkest thou, Mina, that inspiration will come in the midst of the clamors of a passage-at arms, the charms of a concert of lutes, or of a circle of great ladies listening to the words of a handsome cavalier, or the lays of a minnesinger? No; who would consecrate his labors to the honor of God and the saints must seek his inspiration, looking upward to heaven, studying the mountains and the fields, or praying in the churches. Then let him return and work and adore, lest the holy vision fly or the sweet fervor grow cold."
"Nevertheless, my father, the Chevalier Otho, is very assiduous, and I have more than once heard thee marvel at his zeal."
"Assuredly, he has been zealous. But can he really bear that zeal in his heart, wherein he bears the pride of his high lineage, the gallantry of a courteous knight, and all the cares of his seigneury? No; his ardor is but the flame of burning straw, which quickly dies. I cannot even understand why the knight of Arneck should take up the chisel—he who should content himself with the sword."
"Yes, yes, father, he wields it marvellously!" cried Mina, in a burst of enthusiasm.
"And therefore should be content with it. But Sir Otho knows not what he wants. To day he practises a new thrust, and to-morrow he cuts stone or models a statue. See, he has not finished the fine armor of his archangel, and yet he could not keep from the tournament. And nevertheless, he promised to be here before evening."
Mina did not reply to these last words, but threw a vague, sorrowful glance toward the sun, which yet shone, but was fast sinking.
Sebald, yet touching up various parts of his bas-relief, did not turn his head, and for some moments silence reigned in the atelier.
Soon the fall of a light and vigorous step was heard on the little pointed black stones which formed the pavement of the street.
"It is perhaps Sir Otho," said Sebald, and continued his work.
"If it were he, he would come on horseback," replied Mina, whose cheeks, despite her, were covered with the blush of expectant happiness, and in a moment she had left her seat, opened a portion of the large window, and was leaning joyfully over the sculptured balcony.
But she soon returned, looking sad.
"No, father, it is not he; it is only Johann," said she, and she seemed to awake from a dream.
"Then let him come up quickly," replied the old man, well pleased with the news, but still working on.
A moment after he arose, as he heard the footfalls on the stair, and turned to greet the most beloved and studious of all his pupils.
Chapter II.
The new-comer was a young man of perhaps twenty-eight years, pale, delicate, and slightly stooped. His large blue eyes, candid and intelligent, gave a charm to his young though thoughtful face, whence light emotions seemed to be banished to give place to the workings of a vigorous mind. Johann, at first sight, did not seem handsome, but he became more and more interesting on acquaintance. The simplicity of this look and costume— a dark gray doublet, leathern belt, and cap without either clasp or plume— certainly neither attracted nor retained the gaze. Johann saluted the beautiful Mina, who returned his greeting with a look of playful anger, and then hastened to greet his master.
"Well, Johann, what news?" asked Sebald, advancing with outstretched hand.
"That I have not come alone, master. Your business is done; the prior of the monastery of Fremersberg is here. I have spoken in your name, and he binds you neither by designs nor advice. You will be at full liberty to execute according to your own will the sculpture of the chapel. You need only confer with him as to the time and conditions of the work. The prior wished much to visit your atelier and see your beautiful bas-relief, of which the fame has spread far and wide, but you know that he is old and infirm. The stair was too steep for him to mount, and I left him in the hall below, where he awaits you."
"Very good; I go, my brave boy and thanks to thee. Hast been in the city, Johann?"
"Yes, master, I was carried away by the crowd and could not avoid the tournament."
"Very well, then, amuse Mina with the story of all the fine things that thou hast seen. An old father and his statues are not very joyous company for a girl of seventeen."
With these words Koerner left the room, and Mina, who until now had remained silent and pouting, came forward with animated looks and flashing eyes:
"Then you saw the tournament, Johann?" she began.
"Yes, Demoiselle Mina."
"Who were the victors?"
"There were three, as there were three encounters. The Gaugrave Siegfried of Ehrenfels; the old Count of Arenheim; and our acquaintance, our fellow of the studio, Otho of Arneck, who triumphed on foot and on horse, and received the finest of all the crowns."
"Ah!" exclaimed Mina, with a joyous sigh, while a sudden blush overspread her countenance.
"And," continued Johann, "it was the richest and most beautiful of the ladies of the Margravate who gave it him—the Countess Gertrude of Horsheim, whose father possesses the entire valley of the Murg."
"Ah!" exclaimed Mina again, but this time her sigh was one of anguish, and she grew pale.
Johann Muller gazed on her a moment in silence, then turned away and walked a few paces with the air of one who meditates some resolution or prepares a discourse; then he returned, and stood with downcast eyes before the young girl.
"Demoiselle Mina," said he, "we have known each other since infancy. Would you, for the sake of our old friendship, allow me to ask you one question, and then to offer you a single counsel?"
"I will reply to your question, if it be suitable for me to do so, and I will list your counsel if it be good," replied the girl with a slight haughtiness in her manner.
"You shall judge," said Johann. "Demoiselle, you take much interest in all that passes in the city."
"I seek not to conceal it. I am young and full of life, and I love to gaze upon brilliant cavalcades, shining breast-plates, floating plumes and broidered doublets; I like to hear of the nuptials of such a baron, or the mourning of such a castellan. My father forbids it not, nor think I that you will blame it. Such tastes are far from marvellous at my age."
"Nor marvel I at them; but if they are imprudent, demoiselle?" asked Johann with a look of affliction.
"Imprudent! Why?" returned Mina quickly, a flash gleaming from beneath her long lashes.
"Because—because," stammered Johann, "to me it seemeth that the happiness of a young maiden like thee, beautiful, good, and virtuous as thou art, is better assured when it flourishes beneath the shadow of her home. Baronesses and countesses may display their great names and fine apparel at courts and tourneys; but for thee, demoiselle, thy pride, thy rich apparel, and thy true dignity are thy sweet virtue in the first place, and, after, the renown of thy father, and such gifts are but little prized by the great ones of the world. Thou wilt better enjoy them and better preserve them by not exposing them without thy dwelling."
"And have I not remained there?" cried Mina, almost in tears. "Go I ever to rejoicings unless my father bears me company? Was I ever seen, while he works here, to babble or even to smile without?"
"'Tis not that I would charge," replied Johann, "All see thee ever here, tranquil, smiling, and pure, like yon bright marble cherubim, which hovers over thy house, and, even if he were not there, still might thy dwelling be called the House of the Angel. But if thy thoughts wander abroad whilst thou remainest here; if thou dost always desire ardently to see those rejoicings of which thou knowest naught, or that world which thou scarcely knowest, thou wilt become unhappy, demoiselle, and it is that evil I wished—that thou must escape."
"But why, my good Johann, disquiet thyself about my happiness?" asked Mina in a kinder tone.
"Why, Mina, why? Because from childhood I have grown by thy side; because for long years it seemed thou wert my sister; because later I thought thee my friend; because I would gladly bear the burden of thy sorrows, and count thy hopes as mine own."
"I thank thee, Johann; thy heart is good and true," replied the girl, while her eye sought the distant mountain behind which the setting sun was soon to sink.
"Sayest thou so, Mina? I know nothing of that; I but feel that I have a heart that loves thee that would regard no effort, recoil from no sacrifice that would bring to thee joy, glory, or happiness."
"Truly art thou generous, Johann," replied the girl, nodding her fair head. "But I need naught; I am tranquil and happy, and will probably never find occasion for the exercise of thy devotion."
"Ah! if some day thou mayst find aught of consolation in my tenderness!" cried Johann, clasping his hands and fixing a timid glance full of emotion upon her. "Mina—I sometimes dreamt—pardon me—but thy father was always so affectionate to me, and thou hast often been so kind—I sometimes dreamt that some day Sebald Koerner might call me son—that thou, Mina—thou mightest give me a name dearer, tenderer, holier yet. But your looks tell me I have hoped in vain before your mouth has spoken—and yet, to thee would I have consecrated so much of devotion and love, if thou hadst become my wife!"
The maiden motioned with her hand and turned away with a sigh.
"We would be neither rich nor powerful," continued Johann, "but nevertheless I thought we might be happy. If thou shouldst desire fine apparel, Mina, I would have given thee them from the rewards of my toil; if thou shouldst desire glory, I would have worked until thou wouldst bear my name with pride. For thee would I have strained my uttermost strength, what talent I may own, my youth—and of thee I would have asked only that thou shouldst remain joyous and beautiful, and shouldst love me a little. And how peacefully would thy old father live—how happily die, seeing thee happy and beloved, ay, adored! Yes—adored, Mina; I have said the word and will not unsay it."
Uttering these last words, Johann lowered his eyes and bent his head before her, as if to express by his mien the deep tenderness of his heart. She stretched forth her hand, moved by these simple declarations of a love almost hopeless, but yet so full of life.
"Dear Johann—faithful Johann," said she at length, "thou art good and kind, but—speak no more thus. Thou hast said that in our childhood thou lovedst me as a sister. Let me still be thy sister. I will never be thy wife. I will neither lie nor forswear myself. I would shelter myself behind the grating of the cloister of Lichtenthal or sleep in yonder cemetery rather than give thee my hand, because with it I should not give my heart, and thou wouldst not see remorse and regret in the heart of thy wife. Johann! let us be friends, and, if thou lovest me, try to forget thy dream."
"I may never forget it," murmured the young sculptor. "My love is as old as I, Mina; it forms part of my life. But if God, some day allows its flame to be quenched, it will be because he will light in its place a purer and loftier one, and God alone may console me, Mina, when I shall have lost—"
At this instant the joyous notes of far off-trumpets broke the calm silence of the air.
"What sounds are those?" asked Mina, turning to the window.
"Probably the departure of the vanquishers of the tourney. After the distribution of the crowns, they were invited to the burg, and are now separating, doubtless to change their costume for the ball of the evening. Perhaps, too, some of the barons may be returning to their castles, and, if so, their banners will soon appear at the end of the street."
"I am very curious to see them pass," said Mina, and, leaving Johann alone in the atelier, she pushed a stool upon the balcony, and there, leaning upon the railing, her little head with its golden hair supported by her white hand, she awaited the coming of the brilliant cortege.
Chapter III.
Toward evening, indeed, knights, bannerets, squires, and men-at-arms scattered themselves through the roads and the streets of the town. One of the most brilliant, though least numerous parties were making their way toward where the town became confounded with the country. Two nobles rode in advance, helmet on head and lance in hand, attired in brilliant armor, over which were thrown pourpoints of fine velvet. Behind, their squires bore their banners, one showing gilt battlements in a field gules, the armorial bearings of the barons of Arneck, the other the green oak and argent field of the rich counts of Broeck.
"My dear Otho," said the last named, throwing upon his young companion a glance of almost paternal affection, "I am well satisfied with thee; thy deeds shone bright in to-day's joustings. Thy brothers-in-arms had begun to laugh at thee, and to say thou hadst become but an image-maker. But to-day showed that the noble remained in thee."
"You are very kind, my lord count," replied the young knight.
"Not so, in sooth; I but look to thy interest, as in duty bound. Although thy domains, my friend, be of limited extent, thou hast a name ancient enough, a brilliant fame, and a brave enough form to make it a pleasure for many a rich and proud demoiselle to give thee her hand and dowry, and to change name and title for those of the barons of Arneck."
"You flatter me, lord count," replied Otho, raising himself in his saddle and joyfully stroking his mustache. "Hath one of those fair ladies of whom you speak deigned to cast a glance upon me?"
"More than one has done so, as well thou knowest," returned he of Broeck; "and even to-day the richest and most beautiful of them all, Gertrude of Horsheim, spoke and smiled graciously as she placed the crown upon thy brows."
"Lady Gertrude," said Otho, "hath truly a sweet voice and teeth of exceeding whiteness."
"Moreover, she hath two castles in the valley of the Murg and a thriving village in the plain. Her father is a stout lord, who, I well know, will not object to thee for a son-in-law. I know, Otho, that Master Sebald Koerner has a pretty daughter, and that thou art sometimes charged with wishing to espouse her. But wouldst thou truly, in the lightness of thy heart, add to the battlements of thy shield the chisel of such a father-in-law? They say that you make between you a complete company of stone-cutters, and that thou art the mason and he the sculptor. I wish thee well, my friend, and therefore do I scold and mock thee. I know that in thy heart's depth thou art as proud as thou art brave. So far thou art Sir Otho, Baron Otho, and all noble ladies smile upon and salute thee. Wouldst be called Otho the citizen, Otho the image-maker, and have all ladies turn their backs upon thee or point thee out as some wonder?"
"Truly, not so: and never will I give them reason for so doing," replied the young knight, with a face scarlet with shame.
"Then," said De Broeck, "reply suitably to the invitation I am about to offer thee. In a fortnight I give a festival at my castle. There will be jousts in the great court, banquets in the great hall, balls and hunts, tilting for the ring, and shooting with the bow. The Countess Gertrude will be there, and thou canst enroll thyself among the number of her suitors. Siegfried of Thunn will be there, too; he bore the ring from thee lately, and thou hast thy revenge to take. All this, I hope, promises enough of pleasure, and is better than thy statues and images. So, Otho, thou wilt come? I may count upon thee!"
"Assuredly, my lord count, it is an honor and happiness to obey you," replied the young knight, taking leave of his protector with a courteous inclination.
The two escorts separated, and Otho, dismissing his, took the direction of the house of the old sculptor.
A few moments after, Mina and Johann saw him enter the atelier.
"Here I am at last, my dear master," said he, pressing the old artist's hands with real affection. "Did you think I had forgotten you in the midst of tiltings and passages-at-arms?"
"There was certainly reason that you might," replied Sebald, smiling. "In the midst of thrusts of lance and crushing of helms, you could scarce think of kneading clay or cutting statues."
"That may be, but a pupil can always find time to give his dearest, his oldest friend and most excellent master pleasure. And what think you, Master Koerner, I bring to-day?"
"Firstly, a crown, if rumor speaks truth," answered the sculptor; "secondly, some broken casques and battered harness. Those, I believe, are the gleanings of the tilt-yard."
"Then, master, you are wrong. I bring something different from all these. Would you know what? An order from the margrave, written with his own hand and sealed with his own seal, for Master Sebald Koerner to begin, with no greater delay than a month at most, the decoration of the chapel and the grand hall of his castle of Eberstein."
"How! The margrave choose me!" cried Sebald, his eyes lighting up with joy.
"And certes, my master, could he have made a better choice? After the tournament we met in his castle, and he there spoke of his castle of Eberstein and the embellishments he proposed, but he had not yet fixed his choice upon a sculptor. In short, I brought forward your name; I praised your St. Christopher; I recalled your Virgin Mary to his mind; some other nobles seconded me, and—here is the order written upon parchment."
"Thanks! thanks! my true friend! my dear pupil!" cried the old master, pressing the young knight's hand. "Through your good offices some memories of me may remain in my country. The thick walls of the castle of Eberstein will protect and preserve my statues, and they may perhaps be gazed on when time shall have crumbled into dust the saints I have carved for the pediments of the houses of the city, and the Christs I have raised by the roadsides. And it is you, noble Otho, who have brought to me the brightest crown, the sweetest joy, a sculptor can wear or taste—the assurance of the duration—mayhap the glory of his works!"
"Dear master, why so much of compliment and gratitude? Would I not do much more for the love of art and of you?"
And while he spoke, the knight's eyes sought those of Mina, smiling and blushing in a corner, and repeated in their silent language, "And for the love of thee, too, fair girl."
"This day is a day of gladness for me," continued old Sebald. "Johann conducted hither after vespers the prior of the Augustines, who hath confided to me the decoration of his chapel."
"Pah! a monastery of poor monks!" exclaimed Otho, shrugging his shoulders slightly, and throwing a disdainful glance on the humble Johann and his gray doublet. "Not a very brilliant or lucrative undertaking, I should say. You will neither win a load of glory nor mountains of gold there, my dear master. But each brings what he finds and gives what he has," said the young knight, withdrawing his gaze from Johann and turning on his heel.
"I could find nothing better," said Johann in a tone of discouragement, "although I, too, would work for the glory and fortune of my master."
"And thy master accepts thy good intentions with joy, my son," answered old Sebald, taking his hand, "for he knows that they come from a devoted soul and a sincere heart. I have not only a noble art and a good daughter; I have also two brave pupils, two true friends. God be thanked, he hath made me a happy man!"
Happy, O poor Sebald! Ay, if thou hadst no daughter. Alas! why does Mina gaze with such simple admiration upon the noble countenance and gilt spurs of the knight? Why does she hang enchanted upon the sweet accents of his voice?
As long as he came regularly to the studio, Mina was smiling and happy; but one day he came not, and on the next she received a letter.
Chapter IV.
From the day Mina received that letter she lost her freshness and gayety.
Then commenced a long and bitter series of nights without repose and days without hope. She sometimes said sadly to herself that, as the sun shines not always clearly, as the sky is not for ever blue, so the smiles and joys of maidens are of short life; and that, while timid women remain around the hearthstone, young and valiant knights must depart to the wars or on long journeys, like the great silver herons which pass a season on the borders of limpid waters, and then depart on outspread wing to return, when the gloomy winter has passed, to find once more their nests in the long grass, and their clean bath among the budding reeds. She thought all this, and then reasoned a little and prayed much more; but she often trembled; she ever was in pain, and, becoming weak, she became unhappy.
Her cheeks grew pale; her brow clouded; her eyes ceased to sparkle. She no longer took pleasure in seeing from her balcony the archers of the margrave pass, nor in confining with golden cords and tassels her shining hair or waving robe. Her sadness and languor at last attracted the attention of her father. He thought that his frequent absences, the solitude of the house, alone caused his daughter's weariness and illness. Ceasing for a while his labor, he passed a few days with her, or brought her with him from time to time, hoping to wean her thoughts from their melancholy by the sight of the great ornamented halls and the beautiful park of the castle of Eberstein.
But often, when he had led her to the great park and allowed her to wander there, going himself to finish a keystone, to carve a capital, or decorate a moulding, he found her not on his return crowned with wild flowers, or culling odorous berries and grapes, or following with eager eye the bounding deer. No; almost always Mina sat by the margin of some solitary pond, plucking the leaves from willow branch or pulling a wild rose to pieces. But her gaze bent not to the branch or to the flower. It wandered over the surface of the water, slowly and sadly, and ofttimes seemed to seek some invisible form in its depths, and then turned tearful from the waves, as if sorrowing at not therein perceiving the object of its longings.
The old sculptor wondered and grew sad, as a good father would, and then consoled himself with the reflection that often tender hearts were subject to passing griefs, and that it takes but little to trouble the gayety of the happiest maidens. But it was the weariness of idleness he feared most for Mina, and he made every effort to distract her thoughts.
"Listen, my child," said he one beautiful morning in July, when the earth smiled fresh and glittering in the dew—"listen. It is too fine a day for me to wish to work in. In my old age I must have from time to time a little recreation—fresh air and sun-light; if it please thee, we will go to the city."
"As thou wishest, father," replied Mina, rising with vacant eye and dreamy air.
"And methinks a little walk and a few cheerful visits would do thee wondrous good. It is long since I have seen Master Hans Barthing, the gold-smith, mine ancient neighbor and old friend, and his daughters Jeanne and Bertha will not be vexed to have thee their companion for a day. Let us start, then, my daughter. Ah! here is Johann! Well, let him come. Johann is an excellent youth, and is always welcome with Master Barthing as with me. Johann, my son," continued the old sculptor, turning to the young man, "it is useless to take up the chisel to-day. Thou shalt help me to buckle my mantle. We are going to take a walk, and I invite thee to accompany us."
"I will go willingly," replied Johann, who rarely went out in Mina's company, and who, poor boy, marked with a white mark those days when the pretty girl deigned him a friendly look or word.
Soon the three visitors arrived at the house of Master Barthing, the jeweller, whose talent was well known and valued even beyond the frontiers of the margravate of Baden, and whose frank cordiality and joyous humor were justly prized by his friends and neighbors.
"You here at last, Master Koerner!" cried the old goldsmith, rising from his leathern arm-chair and doffing his furred cap as soon as he perceived his visitors. "Come you to examine my treasures or to ask a diamond from my shop? But, pshaw, my old Sebald, you need them not; you have other treasures and owe no man for them; and here," he continued, looking on Mina, "is your most brilliant, your most precious diamond. Come. Jeanne! Bertha! here is a happy visit a charming friend."
The two girls rushed forward and gave their ancient neighbor a thousand caresses and a thousand kisses.
"How changed thou art, Mina!" exclaimed Jeanne suddenly.
"Thou art wearied, I am sure," added Bertha, "in thy great lonely house. It cannot be very diverting to have ever around thee but marble and stone, and plaster and statues. Why dost come so seldom to visit us? Together we can amuse each other; we can recount legends as we spin; or Jeanne, who hath a good voice, can trill some love-lay of the minnesingers. And what will amuse thee perhaps more than aught else will be to see the beautiful and shining jewels in our father's workshop. I know well, my dear friend, that many fine things are to be seen in thy father's atelier, but there everything is white for ever white, and that must be somewhat saddening. But a young girl is always rejoiced and glad when she contemplates at her leisure rich diadems and rings, enamelled flasks, and glittering necklaces."
"Courage, child! courage, Bertha!" cried the goldsmith, laughing. "It is a dutiful daughter who to love of her father joins love of his trade. Well, if thou thinkest Mademoiselle Mina will take pleasure in seeing my enamels, my jewels, and my diamonds, as soon as our collation is finished thou shalt take her to my atelier. I have there something I think exceeding fine, in fact a veritable master-piece. But it becomes me not to praise myself. You will see; you will judge, and you will give me your opinion."
Half an hour after they entered the long and narrow gallery where the goldsmith showed forth his richest jewels, his most massive and skilfully chiseled pieces of silver, his best finished and most precious works. Brilliant lights seemed to sparkle and shine from all sides in this room of wonders. Everywhere glittered gold, rubies, sapphires, while pearls lent their soft white light, and diamonds and opals their thousand colors. Great show-cases full of enamellings shone like the sun; rings, reliquaires, clasps, laid out on tables, seemed to form a vast train of sparks whose fires mingled in shining light, and chains and necklaces formed slender garlands of stars and variegated flame.
And while the two old men followed, chatting, behind, the three young girls wandered with light step in advance hither and thither, trying on this necklace, toying with these rings, admiring that reliquaire, tearing their entranced eyes from those wildernesses of beautiful forms, of rays and colors. Between the two groups came Johann, the poor youth feeling no inclination to join one and not daring to approach the other; lonely Johann, who admired alone, and from time to time sighed.
Suddenly Master Hans advanced before the girls, and, taking a key from the huge purse which hung at his belt, he unlocked a casket of cedar wood, and unrolled a carpet of emeralds on a field of glittering gold, before the eyes of the spectators.
"How beautiful! how dazzling!" cried the maidens.
"Whence came such splendid jewels, such magnificent stones?" asked Master Sebald. "One would think the treasures of the Eastern magicians, of whom crusaders' legends tell, were spread before him."
"This," replied Master Hans, plunging his hand into the casket and drawing forth a chain set with emeralds, "is the treasure of the house of Horsheim, to which I have added, by the order of the present lord, some of my rarest stones. The count is about to celebrate the marriage of his daughter, and, besides her dowry of beauty and of castles, he wishes to give her a splendid one of jewels."
"Ah! then beauteous Lady Gertrude is to be married at last," said Mina, with a sigh of relief, for she had not yet forgotten how on the day of the tournament Johann had told her that Otho had received the crown from the hands of the young countess.
"Yes, Demoiselle Mina; and the wedding, they say, takes place in a fortnight, and will be one of the most brilliant ever celebrated in the margravate of Baden."
"But whom doth the countess marry?" asked Johann, who, without knowing why, felt his heart beat painfully.
"If rumor speaks sooth, a knight of but moderate fortune, but of goodly form, large heart, and name of renown. They say 'tis the Baron of Arneck; but of this I am not sure, for I have never seen the count and lady together when they come the city."
"What! Otho, my pupil?" interrupted Master Sebald.
"And why not, old friend? If, as I think, it be he, thou wilt henceforth see him but rarely, for hereafter he will have much else to do besides moulding clay or chiselling statues."
"Ah! I fear me much the brave knight is lost to sculpture," replied Sebald, smiling.
But Johann smiled not. He drew near Mina and followed her movements with looks of anguish. He saw her cheek blanch and a cloud come over her eyes, and, fearing lest she should faint, pushed a seat to her.
But Mina refused it with a resolute gesture, and without trembling approached the casket.
"Are you sure that it is Otho of Arneck she marries?" asked she in a strange tone, gazing fixedly upon Hans Barthing. "In any event, the bride will be brave in this glistening chain. Ah! if it were I—if I were rich and possessed castles, and were a countess—think you that I would not be beautiful with these green flashings and diamonds in my hair and about my neck?"
Mina, speaking thus with a bitter laugh and vacant stare, twined the chain around her neck and through her wavy tresses, and, in doing so, her little fingers moved so fast that none could see how they trembled.
But suddenly her words ceased, her eyes closed, her hands fell by her side, and with a feeble cry she fell upon the chair.
"My daughter! O my daughter! What aileth thee?" cried old Sebald, running to her.
"'Tis naught; a weakness; nothing more." said the goldsmith. "The heat of to-day was, indeed, enough to make a young girl faint. Quick, Bertha! Jeanne! bring hither the Queen of Hungary's water and open the windows."
"It is doubtless the influence of the stones that hath made poor Mina ill." murmured one of the jeweller's daughters, who seemed to stand terror-stricken. "Thou knowest, father, that the sapphire brings happy dreams, the opal misfortune on its possessor, and the beryl can cause faintings. It is then perhaps, the emeralds which cause Mina's illness. She is not accustomed to gaze upon them, and they glitter so—the shining stones!"
"Yes, it is certainly the jewels and their light and the heat," stammered Johann, who, on his knees, was holding the fainting girl's hands within his own, and trying to restore their warmth. "But Demoiselle Mina recovers not. Think you not, Master Sebald, that it would be well to take a litter and return to your dwelling?"
"Assuredly," replied Master Koerner, surprised and anxious at his daughter's swoon.
Chapter V.
On the way home Mina opened her eyes, but she remained mute and mournful. But when, after she had been placed on a lounge in the lower hall of her dwelling, she saw that her father was about to direct Johann to hasten the arrival of a leech, she bent over to the old sculptor and retained him with a hand cold as ice.
"I would speak a word with Johann alone," she murmured. "Wilt thou permit me, my father?"
"Surely," replied the old man, fixing upon her a look of wonder, but hastening to leave the chamber.
Then Mina feebly called Johann, and made him a sign to sit at her feet.
"Thou saidst one day, my good brother Johann," said she, "that thou wouldst spare no effort, recoil from no risk to procure me joy or happiness."
"So said I; so will I do," answered the poor youth, bending on her a look full of emotion.
"Then, Johann, thou canst preserve my greatest happiness, cause my greatest joy. I know that I cannot deceive thee; I noted thy gaze when Hans Barthing spoke of the marriage of Otho and Gertrude. Know then, Johann, that the knight of Arneck is my true—my only love; and now I would know if he hath betrayed me. It is peace of heart I need for my cure, Johann, and not the skill of the leech. Depart then, good Johann, and go to Horsheim. There thou wilt easily learn who is the countess's betrothed. And thou mayest even, without being perceived, see them pass by together, speaking low, walking hand in hand, believing themselves alone. Thou wilt return and tell me all, Johann, and I will gain strength to live until thy return; for it would be too bitter to die if Otho remaineth faithful. Thou wilt go—wilt thou not, my brother—my only friend?"
Johann's only reply was a kiss imprinted on Mina's hand and a silent pressure of her taper fingers, while two great tears rolled from his eyes. Then he departed from the House of the Angel, and, after having called the physician, saddled his horse and left the town that very evening, following the line of the high hills which stretched away toward the Rauhe Alps, at the foot of which was the castle of Horsheim.
To be Continued.
Original.
Forebodings.
Pretty Nan to Flora said,
"Prithee, why so gay?"
Dark-eyed Flora bent her head:
"He is gone away."
"Strange!" quoth Nan. "If 'twere my heart,
None could be more sad.
Absence gives the keenest smart.
Tell me, why art glad?"
Dark-eyed Flora, with a sigh,
'Gan to braid her hair,
Whilst to Nan she made reply:
"Hark! my sister dear.
"Chanced it on a summer morn,
Laughingly I chose
These long tresses to adorn
With a beauteous rose.
"Of the flower he made request,
I in wilfulness
Did refuse, and as a jest
Gave it a caress.
"But I did not long deny.
Said I: Plucked for you,
Take; but care it tenderly,
'Tis my rose-love true.
"Nameless was the pain and dread
Filled my aching heart.
Soon I saw my rose-love dead,
Idly torn apart.
"Thus he would my heart's love fling
Coldly, idly by.
Than to wear his wedding-ring,
Rather would I die.
"Ah! the cruel, ugly smart!
Fear my love did slay.
Pined I sadly in my heart
Till he went away.
"'Gainst the power of his voice
All in vain I strove.
Freed by absence, I rejoice,
Now I dare to love!"
Abridged from The Dublin University Magazine.
The Minor Brethren.
[The ensuing portion of an article from which we have stricken out the remainder on account of its objectionable statements, although not strictly in conformity with the Catholic view of the lives of the saints, furnishes a graphic sketch of the life of St. Francis, and an evidence of the approximation many Protestants are making toward a more candid and reasonable view of Catholic subjects.—ED. C. W.]
The towns of Italy were in advance of those of other countries; many of them were beautifully built, and celebrated for their wealthy and powerful citizens. Such a town was Assisi in Umbria, and such a citizen was Pietro Bernadone when his son Francisco was born—Francisco Bernadone, afterward Pater Minorum, Pater Seraphicus, then St. Francis, with a place among the saints in the hagiology of the church, now high up on stained-glass windows of thousands of churches, in illuminated missals, imperishable in history, and honored by men of all subsequent times and creeds as a great reformer and benefactor to humanity, an ardent, enthusiastic Christian. We shall contemplate the character and work of St. Francis as the "SALT" infused into the world at one of those periods of its corruption, and in order to do this we shall endeavor to delineate the man as clearly as we can from the acts of his life and the emanations of his mind; then examine his great work, and its effect upon the church in general, and upon that of our own country in particular.
We shall endeavor to portray St. Francis, the founder of the Friars Minors, not according to the phantoms of imagination, or the caricatures of prejudice, but from the records of his life, and still more efficiently from his works and sayings. Fortunately the materials are ample. There is a life of St. Francis, written by Thomas of Celano, the probable author of the sublime mediaeval hymn, the "Dies Irae," and, as he was a follower and an intimate friend of the saint, he writes with authority. At the command of Gregory IX., he committed to writing his knowledge of the life of St. Francis, which work was called the "Legenda."
A second life was written by John of Ceperano; a third by an Englishman, being a metrical version of that of Celano; a fourth by three companions of the saint, (a Tribus Sociis,) Leo, Angelus, and Ruffinus, compiled at the command of the minister-general of the order, Father Crescentius; a fifth by the same Thomas of Celano, being a fuller sketch, at the request also of Crescentius; and a sixth, written at the request of nearly the whole order by St. Bonaventura, who, when a child, had seen the saint.
All of these biographies are extant in the Acta Sanctorum, written in what Carlyle would term "monk or dog Latin, still readable to mankind." [Footnote 146] His works are scanty, but such as they are, they bear the impress of the man's mind. It must be remembered that St. Francis made no pretensions to being a scholar, a theologian, or an author; in fact, he was a little inclined to deprecate these things; therefore, his literary remains are only a few letters, hymns, addresses, colloquies, predictions, and apothegms.
[Footnote 146: Past and Present.]
His father, though an avaricious man, yet lived in the profuse style characteristic of the leading Italian merchants, and young Francisco was brought up accordingly, so that his youth, up to the age of twenty-five, was spent in vanity. During that time, he excelled all his companions in gay frivolity, and the vices common to a young man with a rich father, proud of his son. He was the admiration of all, and led many astray by his example. He dressed in soft and flowing robes, spent his time in jesting, wanton conversation, and singing songs. Being rich, he was not avaricious, but prodigal; not having to work for his fortune, he cheerfully set about spending that of his father.
An incident is recorded in the life by the three companions which is not mentioned by Thomas of Celano nor Bonaventura.[Footnote 147] It is, that during a disturbance between the citizens of Assisi and the people of Perugia, young Francisco was captured, and, with others, placed in prison. Whilst there his manner was so different from the rest, they being sad and he more gay than ever, that they asked him the reason. "What do you take me for?" said he. "I shall yet be adored all over the world." He spent nearly a year in this durance, and, when peace was declared, returned to Assisi, and devoted his attention to the sale of his father's wares, until his conversion, which happened some years later. During the interval he fell ill, and began to lament for the sin of his past life, and to make resolutions of amendment. He recovered, and, with the recovery, the penitence and the resolutions all vanished.
[Footnote 147: It is alluded to, however, in the life of St. Columba Reatina.]
He pursued his former life until a circumstance happened which very nearly changed his whole career. A certain nobleman of Assisi was about to undertake a military expedition against Apulia, and young Francisco was immediately fired with the longing to become a soldier. He had a mysterious dream, which he misinterpreted into an encouragement. After making all preparations, he set out and reached as far as Spoleto, where he had another dream which convinced him of his mistake, and sent him back to Assisi. From that time he began to reflect, and in the embarrassment of his thoughts would retire into solitary places, and pray to God to guide him and direct him what to do.
He spoke in enigmas, and told his friends that he should not go to Apulia, but would make his name famous at home. In reply, they demanded what were his plans? was he going to take a wife? "I am"—said Francisco—"I am going to take a more beautiful and noble wife than you have ever seen, who will excel in beauty and wisdom all women."
He now took to fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. The mysterious work had commenced; his whole nature changed; he isolated himself from all his companions, began to hear voices from heaven, to see visions, and to listen to calls from the Invisible.
Whilst in this state, he was one day returning from a neighboring market, where he had sold some of his father's goods, and passed by the church of St. Damian, which had fallen into ruins. A light flashed upon his mind. He had previously, when praying in the fields, heard a voice say to him, "Francis, go and repair my house," and therefore, without a moment's hesitation, he entered the church, found the old priest, bowed before him, kissed his hands, implored him to accept the money which he was taking home, and permit him to remain there. The cautious priest allowed him to remain, but refused to take his father's money, when Francisco, in a fit of indignation, threw it aside contemptuously.
By this time the father began to be uneasy about the fate of his eccentric son and set out to make inquiries for him. Francisco then retired to a neighboring cavern. Here he staid some time, but at last, resolving to brave it out, he returned, wasted and wan, to Assisi. The people thought him mad, and pelted him through the streets, when his father, hearing a noise, went out, and, recognizing his son, seized him, dragged him home chastised him severely, shut him up in a dark place, and firmly bound him, that he might be safe till he returned from a journey he was about to take.
In the father's absence, however, the mother, after trying in vain to reason with him, let him go, and he immediately returned to the church where he had been hiding. His father, upon his return, upbraided his wife for releasing his disobedient son, and resolved upon bringing the matter to a settlement.
To this end he went to the church, saw Francisco, and, finding him more obstinate than ever, decided upon letting him have his own way, but, with characteristic prudence, demanded the money from his son which he had received for his goods. This being restored, he was appeased, and then suggested that, as Francisco had devoted himself to poverty, he would not require any patrimony, and might release his father from all claim upon him. To this Francisco willingly consented. A formal document was prepared, and the parties appeared before the bishop, when Francisco not only renounced his inheritance, but, taking off his clothes, threw them to his father, with these words: "Up to now I have called thee my father on earth, but now I can securely say, My Father, who art in heaven." The bishop was so delighted that he embraced him, and gave him his cloak.
Thus was Francisco divorced from the world, from father, mother, and kindred, and married to poverty, to whom from this time forth he devoted his life. An incident is recorded of him here which was indicative of one portion of his great work. He was out alone on a certain day, when a wretched leper crossed his path. Francisco instinctively shrunk from the sight, but, suddenly recollecting that his object was to subdue himself, he ran after the leper, seized his hand, and kissed it.
From that time he resolved to adopt the care of the lepers as a peculiar portion of his work, and we find him shortly afterward entering the leper hospital and devoting himself to their service, washing their sores with his own hands, dressing them, and once even kissing them.[Footnote 148] Then he returned once more to Assisi, the scene of his youthful revelry, and in the garb of a mendicant begged in the streets from those who once knew him in luxury, for money to rebuild the church of St. Damian, as he felt the injunction to do so was still upon him.
[Footnote 148: Bonaventura says: "Educebat plagarum putredinem et saniem abstergebat.">[
His enthusiasm told upon men's minds, and money flowed in rapidly, so that he not only rebuilt that church, but another also, St. Mary of Porzioncula, which he then frequented, and to which he was ever afterward deeply attached. One day when attending mass in this church, and the gospel was read, the words, "Take nothing for your journey, neither staves nor scrip, neither bread nor money, neither have two coats apiece," sank deep into his soul. He went out of the church, took off his shoes, laid aside his staff, threw away his wallet, contented himself with a small tunic and a rope for a girdle, struck out for the strict apostolic rule, and endeavored to persuade others to follow his example.
The first instance of the mighty contagion of that example occurred in the conversion of one Bernard de Quintavalle, a man of wealth and repute, who came to Francisco, and offered himself and his all to him. The saint proposed that they should go to the church of St. Nicholas and seek for guidance. They did so, and, when the mass was over, the priest opened the missal, after making the sign of the cross. The first response was, "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor;" the second, "Take nothing for your journey;" and the third, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." "Let us obey the divine command," said Francis. Bernard immediately did so to the letter, and adopted the same dress as his master.
Thus was the foundation laid of that great order of Minor Brethren. It is possible that St. Francis, for we must call him now by his canonized name, had not dreamt of such a thing as founding an order; but converts increased; Peter of Catania and four others. Egidius Sabbatini, John de Capella, and Sylvester were then added, and they all retired to a hut in the plain of Rivo Torto.
When they numbered eight, St. Francis gave them a solemn charge, and dismissed them by twos in different directions to preach the gospel of peace and forgiveness. They met after a short time, and, as their numbers increased so rapidly, St. Francis drew up his first rule, which differed very little from that of the Benedictines, save that it enjoined at the outset a solemn injunction, ingeniously evaded afterward, that they should have no property, but live in obedience and chastity. "Regula et vita istorum patrum haec est scilicet vivere in obedientia et in castitate et sine proprio." Their clothing was to be of the poorest kind; for novices for one year, "duas tunicas sine caputio et cingulum et braccas et caparonem usque ad cingulum;" for those who were finally admitted, "unicam tunicam cum caputio et aliam sine caputio, in necesse, fuerit et cingulum et braccas." No brother should be called "prior," but all should be termed Minor Brethren, "fratres minores," and the one should wash the other's feet.
Humility was strictly enjoined. They were to live on charity; to beg their bread if necessary, and not to be ashamed, but rather to remember that our Lord Jesus Christ was not ashamed, was poor and a stranger, and lived on charity, both he and his disciples. They were stringently cautioned against women, or, as St. Francis ungallantly puts it, "A malo visu et frequentia mulierum." Wherever they went, they were to remember that, and no one of them was to counsel women in secret. They were to travel on foot; not to have any beast, save from extreme infirmity, or the most urgent necessity. [Footnote 149]
[Footnote 149: Quod nullo modo apud se nec apud alium, nec aliquo modo bestiam aliquam habeant.]
Having drawn up this rule, St. Francis, with two or three of his followers, went to Rome to procure the pope's sanction to the order. They met the pope on a terrace of the Lateran Palace, and threw themselves at his feet. He, annoyed at the interruption, turned away indignantly from these men with bare, unwashed feet and coarse attire, and bid them begone. They retired to pray, whilst Innocent III. in the night had a vision which induced him to send the next morning for those strange men whom he had repulsed. He received them graciously, approved of their rule, and they departed in joy to Assisi. His march back was a triumph. The people came out to meet him from the villages, and many deserted their homes to join him on the spot. The next step taken by St. Francis was to make a modification in his rule: he found many people were converted to his views, but from the ties of children and business occupations could not possibly follow him.
To meet such wants, he instituted what was called an Order of Penitents, by which those who joined were compelled to pray, to fast, and to live according to certain rules, and wore beneath their ordinary garb the penitential girdle. This Order included both sexes, and people of all classes. One member of it was, however, destined to greater things, the young and beautiful Clara, a daughter of the house of Ortolana. She had, from childhood, been brought up most religiously by her mother, and the weird eloquence of St. Francis finished the task.
An interview was arranged, and the saint suggested an elopement, which was successfully effected, and Clara was abducted by St. Francis to the church of Porzioncula. Many other young ladies soon followed, and it was then necessary to institute new rules for these fair converts. The church of St. Damian, which St. Francis had rebuilt, was turned into a convent, with Clara (who was afterward canonized as St. Clara) as its abbess. A letter is extant in the works of the saint, which runs as follows: "Francis, to his very dear Sister Clara, and the Convent of the Sisters of St. Damian, health in Christ. Because by the inspiration of our Lord ye have made yourselves daughters and handmaidens of the Highest, of the most high King and heavenly Father, and have betrothed yourselves to the Holy Spirit to live according to the teaching of the gospel; it is my will, and I promise that I and my brethren will have always for you the same diligent care and special solicitude as for ourselves. Farewell in the Lord."
In the year 1216, the first general council of the new order was held in the Porzioncula, when Tuscany, Lombardy, Provence, Spain, and Germany were assigned to the principal followers of St. Francis as mission grounds. The saint himself took France as his own field of operations. At this point a meeting took place between St. Francis and one who stands in the church almost on an equality with him, Dominic, the founder of the order of Friars Preachers.
Three years after the first, the second council was held, and a grand sight it was—five thousand brethren encamped around the church. To this great body, infused with the spirit of one man, Ugolino was introduced, and made such a flattering speech, and gave such glowing predictions of their future power and glory, that St. Francis became alarmed, and quickly perceived that, if the protector were allowed to have free play, he would soon ruin his charge. He therefore interfered, reiterated the severity of their rule which forbade all dreams of glory or power, told them they must always be the Minor Brethren, the poor of the world, and after redistributing them amongst several countries, broke up the assembly never more to venture on another gathering into one spot of such inflammable materials. When they were all dispersed, their great founder went upon a holy mission to the army then under the walls of Damietta. He advised the Christians not to engage with the Saracens, and predicted their defeat if they did, but the army were too eager for plunder and bloodshed. They engaged, and six thousand slaughtered Christians fulfilled the prophecy.
Then St. Francis resolved upon taking a step which made his name still more famous in history. Confiding his project to only one, who was to accompany him, Illuminatus [Footnote 150] by name, St. Francis, although a reward was set upon the head of every Christian, wandered up to the lines of the enemy, was seized, and taken before the sultan. Strange to say, instead of ordering him to be executed, the sultan received him courteously, listened to his preaching patiently, and asked him to remain with him in his tent. St. Francis replied, "I will remain willingly with you, if you and your people will only become converted to Christ; but if you doubt, order a fire to be kindled, and I will enter into it with your priests, and see who is right." The sultan, who had perceived that one of the chief priests had vanished at these words, replied: "I do not think any of my priests would submit to the torture for the sake of their religion." Then said St. Francis: "If you will promise for yourself and your people to adopt the Christian religion if I come out uninjured, I will enter it alone." The sultan, however, declined, and after vainly offering rich presents to St. Francis, sent him back in safety to the Christian camp.
[Footnote 150: It is sometimes stated that St. Francis went alone, but the lives by St. Bonaventura, by the Tres Socii, and by St. Thomas of Celano, all mention this Illuminatus as his companion.]
After this memorable interview. St. Francis returned, preaching in all the countries as he passed through. One day after his return, as he was praying in the church of St. Mary, Porzioncula, a vision of our Saviour appeared, and promised that, to all who should thereafter confess their sins in that church, plenary remission should be granted. St. Francis immediately went to the pope at Perugia, and procured the granting of the indulgence, in consequence of which a ceremony is held to this day annually, in the church of St. Mary of the Angels, when the peasantry assemble to confess their sins and receive the promised indulgence.
Then comes the last great tradition of his life—the receiving the stigmata. It is recorded, and firmly attested by the great men who wrote his biography, that, on a certain morning, at the hour of the holy sacrifice, when St. Francis was praying on the side of Mount Avernia, Jesus Christ appeared to him under the form of a seraph crucified on the cross, and when the vision had disappeared, St. Francis was marked with the wounds of Christ in his hands, his feet, and his side.
Various grave discussions arose amongst the faithful about the truth of this legend. Only nineteen years after its presumed occurrence a Dominican preacher had declared openly his disbelief of it, but then he was a Dominican. The Bishop of Olmutz, however, followed in the wake, when Pope Gregory IX. (Ugolino of old) wrote, reproaching them with their want of faith; and Alexander IV., who succeeded, declared he had seen with his own eyes the stigmata of St. Francis.
Shortly after this incident, St. Francis sickened, and, exhausted by long fastings and vigils, wasted gradually, until, as Bonaventura says, he was only skin and bone—"quasi sola cutis ossibus cohaereret." One day, during his illness, a companion said to him: "Brother, pray to God that he may have mercy upon thee, and not lay his hand so severely upon thee." St. Francis reproved him for such a speech, and, though he was very weak, threw himself on the ground, and, kissing the earth, said: "I thank thee, O Lord God, for all my pains; and I pray thee, if it be thy will, multiply them a hundred-fold, because it will be most acceptable to me; for the fulfilment of thy will in me will be my supreme consolation." And his brethren noticed that, as his bodily pains increased, his joy was greater. He predicted the day of his death, and begged to be carried to his beloved Porzioncula, that he might yield up his spirit at that spot where he had first received divine grace. It was done, and he insisted upon being laid naked upon the bare ground, when he turned to his companions and said: "I have done my part; what yours is, may Christ teach you." When his last hour was come, he had all the brethren on the spot called to him, addressed them kindly on preserving their vows of poverty, and upholding the faith of the Catholic Church; he then laid his hands upon them, and pronounced his blessing upon all present and absent. "Farewell," said he, "all my sons; be strong in the fear of God, and remain in that always; and since future temptation and tribulation are near, blessed are they who continue in the things they have begun. But I hasten to God, to whose grace I commend you all." Then he called for a copy of the gospels, and asked them to read him that of St. John, beginning at the words, "Before the day of the passover," etc., when he suddenly broke out into the psalm: "Voce mea ad Dominum clamavi, voce mea ad Dominum deprecatus sum," continued to the words, "Me expect justi donec retribuas mihi," when, as they died away on his lips, the spirit of the great founder passed gently out of his poor emaciated body, and returned to its Maker.
Thus died St. Francis, in the odor of sanctity; and perhaps we cannot more appropriately conclude this brief outline of his life than by giving a translation of a sketch of his character and personal appearance, as written by one who knew him, Thomas of Celano, the author of the Dies Irae. It forms a graphic portrait of the man, and may serve as a fair specimen of hagiography. In his life of the saint, he thus writes:
"Oh! how beautiful, how splendid, how glorious did he appear in the innocence of his life, in the simplicity of his words, in the purity of his heart, in his love of God, in brotherly charity, in fragrant obedience, in angelic aspect! Gentle in manners, placid in nature, affable in conversation, faithful in undertakings, of admirable foresight in counsel, able in business, gracious to all, serene in mind, gentle in temper, sober in spirit, stable in contemplation, persevering in grace, and in all things the same; swift to indulge, to anger slow, free in intellect, in memory bright, subtle in dissertation, circumspect in choice, simple in all things; rigid toward himself, pious toward others, discreet to everybody; a most eloquent man, of cheerful aspect, and benevolent countenance, free from idleness, void of insolence. He was of the middle stature, rather inclined to shortness; his head was of the medium size, and round, with an oblong and extended face, a small smooth forehead, black and simple eyes, dark brown hair and straight eyebrows; his nose was thin, well proportioned, and straight; his ears erect and small, and his temples were smooth; his tongue was placable, though fiery and sharp; his voice was vehement, though sweet, clear, and sonorous; his teeth well set, regular, and white; his lips of moderate size; his beard was black, and not very thick; his neck thin; his shoulders straight, with small arms, thin hands, long fingers and nails; he had thin legs, small feet, a delicate skin, and very little flesh. He wore a rough vest, took very little sleep, and though he was most humble, he showed every courtesy to all men, conforming himself to the manners of every one. As he was holy amongst the holy, so amongst sinners he was as one of them." [Footnote 151]
[Footnote 151: Thomas de Celano in Vita Sti. Francisci. Acta Sanct.]
Before we advance further, we must say a few words upon a subject well known to all who have investigated the originals of ecclesiastical history—the miracles attributed to the saints. Their biographies are spangled with miracles—that of St. Francis especially. The Acta Sanctorum is a compilation of some fifty or sixty folio volumes, containing sometimes five or six different lives of each saint, written by men in different ages and countries, ranging from the eighth to the fourteenth century. All these writers unite in one thing, the ascription of miraculous powers to the saints. The question then arises, can this be wholly and entirely false? can it be utterly without one grain of truth in it?—a tissue of falsehoods wilful, wanton falsehoods consistently written by men at vastly different times, and in remotely distant countries? We must premise at once that we are not for a moment going to defend the absolute truth of the wonders attributed to the saints. We do not believe for an instant that their bodies were sometimes lifted from the earth, and carried up into the sky, like St. Francis; or that they walked dry-footed over the sea, as did St. Birim, when he left the corporalia behind him at Boulogne; nor that commands and directions were given them direct from heaven, through the medium of crosses, images, or pictures; but we cannot help reflecting as to whether it is possible for such a systematic body of history to be handed down to posterity in one continuity of falsehood for some eight or nine centuries; or whether we may come to the conclusion that it is a superstructure of exaggeration built up upon some basis of truth. It may help us, perhaps, at the outset, to notice what were the characters of the writers of these lives; were they men likely to be deluded by fanaticism, or likely to lend themselves to the perpetration and perpetuation of wanton falsehood?
If we turn over the volumes of the Acta Sanctorum, we shall find, on the contrary, some of the brightest names in the annals of literature, piety, and philanthropy; some of the deepest scholars, the most acute reasoners, the most elaborate thinkers recorded in the annals of fame; of men whose works have been and still are the guiding lights of theological and philosophical investigation. There are Bridferth, Eadmer, Lanfranc, Anselm, William of Malmesbury, Thomas à Kempis, Bonaventura, and many others, all distinguished for intellect and piety. Some of them, too, were honored by a personal acquaintance with the subjects of their memoirs, as in the case of Bridferth, the contemporary of Dunstan, of Eadmer of Anselm, of Thomas of Celano and St. Francis. Can it be that these scholars, trained to philosophical investigation—these profound thinkers—these holy archbishops and bishops should connive together to delude posterity with a tissue of lies—of wanton lies, which might have been easily contradicted by contemporary writers, many of whom were bitter enemies both of the writers and their religion? Yet we find no such contradiction.
We have plenty of contemporary history handed down tolerably perfect as regards incidents, dates, accurate reports of great councils, descriptions of battles and sieges, lives of statesmen, warriors, and scholars, with views of both sides, debated, refuted, or confirmed. And are we to believe that in this matter of the lives of the saints only have all contemporary writers, friends and foes, scholars, holy men, great benefactors of their age, conspired successfully together to hand down an enormous fabric of falsehood, and at the same time secure the silence of all contemporary history? This is the great difficulty.
A distinguished English writer, the elder D'Israeli, has endeavored to account for these strange tales in the lives of the saints by suggesting they were written as exercises and religious theses, when each student filled up his outline with all the wonders he could invent to invest his subject with greater glory. That is a theory accepted by many who are already prejudiced toward its acceptation; but it is a frivolous theory, to which we object the improbability of these great men, whose names are already mentioned, being set down, some of them in the maturity of their lives, to write religious exercises of that nature. Is it not rather possible that there may be something in all this history which we can neither understand nor explain?
Let us examine for a moment into what we may venture to call the natural history of miracles. We find the Bible itself is an immense repertoire of miracles from Moses down to the apostles, and it contains no distinct announcement of a withdrawal of that power from the church. It was confirmed by Christ, who endowed his apostles with the same power, and who said one or two things in his addresses to them which, we think, will throw some light upon this vexed question.
It is quite certain that there have never been any miracles wrought in the world by any who did not receive the power from God. We are not prepared to estimate what degree of change was produced in the relations between man and God by the fall; we are certain of this, that a gap was placed between the two, so wide that Christ was sent to bridge it over; that an apostasy ensued, and a disunion so complete that his death alone was able to provide the means of reunion and reconciliation. Then it follows that faith was the only possible mode to man of recovery of what was lost by man; faith before the promise and faith after its fulfilment, and in the proportion of the strength of that faith, and the consequent change of life in the heart and nature of him who possessed it, was the reunion with God promised. But how does this bear on miracles? In this way. Turn to the Bible, and it will be seen that of every man who is recorded to have performed miracles, it is also recorded that he had this immovable faith, and that his life was ordered accordingly. Faith, prayer, and fasting have ever been the elements of the life necessary to miracles, and we are not prepared, nor are we able to estimate what would be the result of such a course of severe discipline as some of the saints went through toward a recovery of that lost union with God. It is a singular fact that, in the life of Christ, we find it was only after his fasting and prayer in the wilderness that he began to perform miracles, as though during that severe trial of temptation, fasting, and prayer the perfect union between himself and his Father had been sealed by the final gift of miraculous power. And thus was it that, when in after times his disciples were unable to cast out the devils, and appealed to him for the reason of their inability, he replied, "This sort goeth not out but by fasting and prayer;" and we are told elsewhere that the disciples of Jesus did not fast. So that we find in the Bible there is a close connection between the active development of the spiritual, and the subjugation of the corporeal life, and the working of miracles.
All the prophets led that life, they were given to prayer, fasting, and solitude. It was the peculiar life of Jesus; retired to the mountains, the deserts, and by-places for prayer, and he attributed the miraculous power to the results of this life. [Footnote 152] Is it, then, possible for a man by strong faith, accompanied by fasting and prayer, in these later days to regain that close, mysterious communion with his Maker which should give him a supernatural power? We reply that we have not the means of answering the question, for the simple reason that we never have an opportunity of seeing it tried. Without wishing to insinuate anything invidious, have we any record in ecclesiastical or other history, of bishops, priests, or men of any class during the last 400 years spending whole nights in prayer, or consecutive days in fasting, such as we read, upon indisputable authority, was the practice in the olden times of the prophets, and the later times of men who devoted their lives to the imitation of Christ? [Footnote 153]
[Footnote 152: In the life of St. Francis we are told that "solitaria loca quaerebat," "una die dum sic sequestratus oraret," "cum die quadam egressus ad meditandum in agro," "dum per sylvam iter faciens.">[
[Footnote 153: Our Protestant fasts are a "lucus a non lucendo," consisting of fish of various descriptions, curiously prepared by the protean art of cookery, with very substantial adjuncts, and accompanied by good wine. No miracles were ever wrought upon that diet.]
There are plenty of hints scattered throughout the Bible and Testament that there is a mysterious connection yet to be recovered between man and God, if men will only fulfil the required condition, and we repeat that it is not in our power to estimate the results of such a life as we have mentioned—a life of spiritual discipline, of development of the soul, and subjugation of the body—because we have no examples around us; but we ask, if such life were pursued, what is there to prevent our believing that to some extent the words of our Divine Master, who led that life himself, would yet be verified, and "this sort" would still "go out through fasting and prayer"? Nay, further, we may add in illustration that the phenomena which are recorded as attending the careers of such men as Whitefield, Wesley, and Irving have never yet been explained away by any scientific theory or law; so that, in conclusion, as we find in the Bible an emphatic and reiterated record of miraculous power accorded to persons of a certain habit of life and thought, as our Lord, when on earth, attributed that power to the pursuing of that peculiar life—as in every instance where miracles are attributed to men, they are proved to have led such lives—it cannot be thought too much to suggest that, making great deductions and allowances for exaggeration, there may be some basis of truth underlying that fabric of historical and traditional record of the lives of the saints.
Many of those incidents described so mysteriously are capable of explanation. It is often recorded of these men that they saw visions and heard voices. For instance, it is said of St. Francis that, on one occasion, when he was long praying in a solitary place, the Lord appeared to him as if on the cross, and so visible was this [Greek text] to him that ever afterward, when any thought of Christ's sufferings came into his mind, he could not help bursting into tears; also, that one night the Lord appeared to him, and said, "Francisce, quis potest melius facere tibi dominus aut servus?" And again, on another occasion, "Francisce, vade et repara domum meam." Within the range of our own experience, who is there amongst us who has not had similar visions in the slumbers of the night, or heard similar voices in the day? Have we not had sweet converse with dear departed friends, and heard voices that have long been silent? What bereaved mother has not often heard the cry of her lost infant, or solitary widow seen the form of a lost husband in the phantasms of the night? If such things happen to ordinary men, we submit that we are unable to estimate the result of the mode of life and the severity of spiritual training which those men underwent, because it is foreign to our habits, and not within the range of our experience.
We now proceed to give a brief criticism upon the intellect of St. Francis. He has left very little behind him. Only a few sermons, hymns, letters, and sayings, from which we can glean that he must have been an earnest preacher of the true popular type, driving home his truths by familiar illustrations, the type of that peculiar preaching which rendered his order so popular, and paved the way for their marvellous success. We subjoin a few extracts, which illustrate not only his style, but the design of his order. In one of his epistles he says: [Footnote 154]
[Footnote 154: Ep. ii. Ad universes Christi fideles.]
"Let us not be wise and prudent according to the flesh, but simple, humble, and poor; and let us hold our bodies in contempt, because we are all miserable and putrid; as the Lord says through the prophet, I am a worm and not a man. We should never desire to be above others, but subjected and submissive to every human creature, for the sake of God. And upon all who do so, and persevere unto the end, the holy spirit will rest, and make in them his tabernacle and his mansion, and they shall be sons of the heavenly Father, whose works they do, and shall be the brides, brothers, and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ. Brides are we, since faithful souls are joined to the Holy Spirit; brothers are we of Jesus Christ, when we do the will of his Father who is in heaven; mothers are we, when we bear him in our hearts and bodies through love, and bring him forth by the sacred operation of our example, which ought to shine before others. Oh! how glorious and great to have a Father in heaven! Oh! how holy to have a betrothal of the Spirit! Oh! how sacred, how delightful, well pleasing, peaceful, sweet, loving, desirable above all, is it to have a brother who has laid down his life for the sheep, and has prayed his Father for us, saying, 'Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me. Father, all those whom thou hast given me in the world are thine, and thou hast given them to me, and the word which thou hast given me I have given them, and they have received it, and know well that I came from thee, and have believed that thou hast sent me. I pray for them: I sanctify myself, that they may be sanctified as we are. And I will, O Father! that where I am there they may be also, and see my glory in my kingdom.'" [Footnote 155]
[Footnote 155: We translate from the Latin of St. Francis, which is somewhat different from our version.]
A graphic picture of a death-bed scene follows soon after the above beautiful passage in the same epistle.
"The body droops, death draws near, relatives and friends come, and say, 'Arrange thy house.' And behold, his wife and his sons, his relatives and friends, pretend to weep; and he, looking up, sees them weeping, and is moved, and says, my soul and my body, and all my goods, I place in your hands. Verily, that man is cursed who deposits his soul, his body, and all his goods in such hands; or, as the Lord says by the prophet, cursed is that man who places his trust in man. And then they send for the priest, who says to him, 'Dost thou wish to receive absolution from all thy sins?' he replies, 'I do.' Wilt thou make restitution from thy substance for those things which thou hast obtained through fraud and deception?' He says, 'No.' 'Why not?' asks the priest. 'Because I have divided all amongst my relations.' And then his speech begins to fail, and he dies miserably. But let all men know that wherever any man dies in sin, without making satisfaction, which he can, but will not make, such a demon seizes his soul, and drags it from the body with such agony that no one can conceive who has not experienced it. And all his money, power, and knowledge, which he thought he had, are taken from him; and his relations and friends, to whom he has given his goods, take them, and divide them, and then say, Cursed be his soul, who might have given us more, and did not; who might have hoarded more, and did not. Worms destroy his body, demons his soul; and thus he loses both soul and body for the sake of this brief life."
Humility, deep and sincere, was the great characteristic of his life. He was in his own words, "Franciscus parvulus et vester servus in Domino;" "Homo vilis et caducus;" "minus servorum;" "indigna creatura Domini." Being asked, one day, why he wore such scanty clothing in the depth of winter, he replied, "If we are clothed within with the flame of our heavenly country, we shall easily bear this external cold." One of the brethren asked him why he scarcely took anything to sustain nature. "Because," said St. Francis, "it is difficult to satisfy the necessity of the body without indulging the longing of the senses."
On an occasion a brother asked him if he might have a psalter. "When you have got a psalter," replied St. Francis, "then you will want a breviary; and when you have got a breviary, you will sit in your chair as great as a lord, and you will say to your brother, 'Friar, fetch me my breviary.'" There was a competition amongst the brethren as to who should bring in the greatest number of female devotees, when St. Francis checked their ardor by the caustic remark, "I am afraid, my brethren, that when God forbade us wives the devil gave us sisters." Here we must take our farewell of the saint. Willingly would we devote more space to him; but we have much yet to say about his work, especially as it influenced the destinies of our own land. He was a great man, an enthusiast in the highest sense of the word; his character and career remind us forcibly of John the Baptist; his food was locusts and wild honey, his raiment was scanty, he was a voice crying in the wilderness of a wicked world, and his name will last for ever.
But we advance to investigate the doings of the order in England. At the second general chapter held by St. Francis, at Porzioncula, in the year 1219, when the brethren were divided into parties and sent out on their missions, England was one of the first mission stations assigned. France was the first, then came England, chiefly, it is thought, through the influence of an Englishman, one William, who was a follower of St. Francis. The honor of leading this mission was assigned to Brother Angnello [Footnote 156] de Pisa, who was made minister-general of the order in England.
[Footnote 156: Angnellus sic, in Eccleston MSS., and in Monumenta Franciscana.]
His authority was as follows: "Ego Frater Franciscus de Assisio minister, generalis praecipio tibi Fratri Angnello de Pisa per obedientiam, ut vadas in Angliam et ibi facias officium ministeriatus. Vale. Anno 1219. Franciscus de Assisio." [Footnote 157]
[Footnote 157: Collectanea Anglo-Minoritica, p. 5.]
They were also fortified with letters recommendatory from Pope Honorius, addressed to all "archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, and other prelates of the church," enjoining them to receive the bearers as Catholics and true believers, and to "show them favor and courtesy." The actual date of their landing in England is disputed. Eccleston in his MSS., "De Primo Adventu Minorum," gives the year 1224, but the more probable date is 1220, which is given by Wadding, the annalist of the order, and confirmed by Matthew Paris, who under the year 1243 speaks of the Friars Minors, "who began to build their first habitations in England scarcely twenty-four years ago." As they had no money of their own, and lived upon what was given them, they were transported to England from France by the charity of some monks of Fécamp. They were nine in number, four clergymen and five laymen. The former were Angnellus, a native of Pisa, Richard de Ingeworth, Richard of Devonshire, and William Esseby. The laymen were Henry de Cernise, a native of Lombardy, Laurence de Belvaco, William de Florentia, Melioratus, and James Ultramontanus. They landed at Dover and proceeded to Canterbury, where they were hospitably received and staid two days at the Priory of the Holy Trinity. Then four of them set out for London to present the apostolical letters to Henry III., who received them very kindly, which, as they did not want any money, he would be most likely to do.
The other five were housed at Canterbury at the Priests' Hospital, where they remained until a place could be procured for them; such accommodation was found in a small chamber beneath the school-house, where they remained shut up all day, and at evening, when the scholars had gone home, they entered the room, kindled a fire, and sat round it. The four monks who went to London were kindly received by the Dominicans, with whom they staid a fortnight, until one John Travers hired a house for them in Cornhill, which they divided into cells by stuffing the interstices with straw.
The citizens, at the instigation of one Irwin, who afterward became a lay brother, removed them to the butchery or shambles of St. Nicholas, in the Ward of Farringdon-within, close to a place called Stinking-lane, where they built a convent for them. The foundations were laid at Christmas, 1220, and it was five years in course of building. The different portions were built by different citizens. William Joyner built the choir, William Walleys the nave, Alderman Porter the chapter-house, Bartholomew de Castello the refectory, Peter de Haliland the infirmary, and Roger Bond the library; even in those days the citizens, when they did anything in the way of charity, did it royally. Two brethren, however, were sent on to Oxford, where they were also kindly received by Dominican friars, according to Eccleston; but a story is told in the annals of the order of the two brethren who were making their way toward Oxford, when they came to a sort of manor-house, about six miles from Oxford, which was a cell of Benedictine monks, belonging to the abbey of Abingdon.
Being very hungry and tired, they knocked at the gate; and the monks, from their strange dress and extraordinary appearance, taking them for masqueraders, admitted them, hoping for some diversion. But, when they found they were a new order of friars, they turned them out of doors; but one, more gentle than the rest, went after them, brought them back, and persuaded the porter to let them sleep in the hay-loft. Both versions may be right, as the circumstance occurred outside Oxford; and Eccleston's account commences with their advent in that city when they were received by the Dominicans, with whom they remained for about eight days, until a rich citizen, Richard Mercer, let them a house in the parish of St. Ebbs. Then the two brethren go on to Northampton, where they were received into an hospital. They procured a house in the parish of St. Giles, over which they appointed one Peter Hispanus as guardian.
Then they went to Cambridge, where the townspeople gave them an old synagogue, adjoining the common prison; but afterward, ten marks being given them from the king's exchequer, they built a rough sort of oratory on a plot of ground in the city. After that another settlement was made in Lincoln, and gradually in many other cities; so that in thirty-two years from their arrival they numbered 1242 brethren in forty-nine different settlements. Their first convert was one Solomon, of good birth and connections.
When only a novice, he was appointed procurator of his house; that is, he had to go out to beg for it. The first place he went to was the residence of a sister, who gave him some bread, with the following remark: "Cursed be the hour when I ever saw thee!" So strict was their poverty, that one of the brethren being ill, and they having no means to make a fire, got round him, clung to him, and warmed him with their bodies, "sicut porcis mos est." [Footnote 158]
[Footnote 158: Eccleston de Adventu Minorum.]
They walked about barefooted through the snow, to the horror of the spectators. Brother Solomon injured his foot so severely that he was laid up for two years; and whilst ill the Lord appeared to him, accompanied by the apostle Peter. And by way of contrast, we are told shortly after that the devil appeared to one Brother Gilbert de Vyz, when he was alone, and said to him, "Do you think to avoid me? At least you shall have this," and threw at him a fistful of vermin, and then vanished: "et projecit super eum plenum pugillum suum pediculorum et evanuit," so states Master Eccleston.
The second convert was William of London; then followed Jocius of Cornhill, a clerk, who went to Spain, labored, and died; John, another clerk; Philip, a priest, who, being a good preacher, was sent to Ireland, and died there. Then came several magistrates, amongst whom were Walter de Burg, Richard Norman, Vincent of Coventry, Adam of Oxford; but one of the greatest accessions was in the person of Adam Marsh, better know as Adae de Marisco, who was destined to found that distinguished school at Oxford which boasts such names as Scotus, Occam, Roger Bacon, and others. Adam was called Doctor Illustris. After him came John of Reading, abbot of Ozeneyae, and Richard Rufus. Then came some military men, Dominus R. Gobion, Giles de Merc, Thomas Hispanus, and Henry de Walpole.
As their numbers continued to increase, people built churches and convents for them in all parts of the country. The master of the Priests' Hospital at Canterbury built them a chapel; Simon de Longeton, archdeacon of Canterbury, helped them; so Henry de Sandwyg, and a certain noble lady, Inclusa de Baginton, who cherished them in all things, as a mother her sons: "quae sicut mater filios sic fovit eos in omnibus."
Angnellus now set out upon an inspection of the different settlements, and, after pausing for a time at London, came on to Oxford, where, as things were promising and converts gradually coming in, he founded a community, over which he placed William Esseby as guardian of the house, which Ingeworth and Devonshire had hired. Adam of Oxonia joined the company, and then Alexander Hales, whom St. Francis, it is thought, admitted in the year 1219, as Hales passed through France on his way to England. Angnellus then conceived the idea of having a school of friars at Oxford, and built one near their house. He then addressed himself to Doctor Robert Grostete, one of the most distinguished lecturers in the university, to beg him to instruct the brethren. Grostete consented, and the school was soon thronged with ardent Franciscan converts, who listened with delight to the lectures of that man who, as bishop of Lincoln, was destined to such a glorious career.
And now Angnellus was instant in encouraging the brethren to attend the lectures, and make progress in the study of the Decretals and canon law; and as he found them very diligent, he thought he would honor them with his presence at one of their meetings and see how they progressed; but when he arrived there, he was horrified, to hear that the subject under discussion by these young monks was whether there was a God!! Utrum esset Deus! Frightened out of his propriety, the good man exclaimed: "Alas! alas! simple brethren are penetrating the heavens, and the learned dispute whether there may be a God!" [Footnote 159] It was with great difficulty they calmed his agitation. He only submitted upon their promise that, if he sent to Rome for a copy of the Decretals, they would avoid such mighty questions, and keep to them.
[Footnote 159: "Hei mihi, hei mihi, fratres simplices coelos penetrant et literati disputant utrum sit Deus." See Wood, Antiq. Oxon, lib. i. p. x.]
The first Franciscan who taught in the school was William Eton, under the direction of Grostete, who was not a Franciscan: he was succeeded by Adam de Marisco, who is sometimes called the first of the order who taught; he was, however, the first who taught alone, the others teaching under the direction of Grostete. Sixty-seven distinguished men filled this chair, some of whose names have been immortalized.
The influence of the study of Aristotle was telling vitally upon the theology of the schools. At first his writings were studied through very imperfect translations made from the Arabic, with Arabic commentaries—then a mixture of Neo Platonism was infused, and the devotees of scholastic theology at Paris fell into such errors that the study of his works was prohibited by the synod of that place in the year 1209. Six years afterward this prohibition was renewed by the Papal Legate; but as men began to find that there was a great difference between the philosophy of Aristotle, filtered through Arabic commentators and Arabic translators, and Aristotle himself, a revival took place in favor of the Stagyrite, and Gregory IX., in 1231, by a bull modified the restriction. New translations were now made and purged from errors.
A new era in scholasticism commenced; the two rival orders, the Dominicans and Franciscans, began to apply the Aristotelian method to theological questions; Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas [Footnote 160] taking the lead in the former order, in opposition to the teaching of Alexander Hales.[Footnote 161] the Franciscan, who lectured at Paris. Bonaventura [Footnote 162] endeavored to amalgamate scholasticism with mysticism; but at length appeared John Duns Scotus, [Footnote 163] who lectured at Oxford, Paris, and Cologne, a Franciscan, and worthy opponent of the Dominican, Thomas Aquinas. We must not omit another distinguished member of the Oxford school who flourished at the same time, Roger Bacon, [Footnote 164] perhaps the most distinguished man of the age.
[Footnote 160: Doctor Angelicas.]
[Footnote 161: Doctor Irrefragabilis.]
[Footnote 162: Doctor Seraphicus.]
[Footnote 163: Doctor Subtilis.]
[Footnote 164: Doctor Mirabilis.]
He taught at Oxford. He, however, saw the prominent errors of the disputation of the times, and has left on record, in the preface to his Opus Majus, the following criticism, which is worthy of attention: "There never was such an appearance of wisdom, nor such activity in study in so many faculties, and so many regions, as during the last forty years; for even the doctors are divided in every state, in every camp, and in every burgh, especially through the two studious orders, (Dominicans and Franciscans,) when neither, perhaps, was there ever so much ignorance and error. The mob of students languishes and stupefies itself over things badly translated; it loses time and study; appearances only hold them, and they do not care what they know so much as what they seem to know before the insensate multitude."
Again, in lib. ii., he says: "If I had power over the books of Aristotle, I would have them all burnt, because it is only a loss of time to study in them, a cause of error and multiplication of ignorance beyond what I am able to explain." We must give Roger Bacon the credit of speaking more particularly of the wretched translations in use, though his view of Aristotelian philosophy was strangely confirmed centuries afterward by his still greater namesake, Lord Bacon, who said, after many years of devotion to Aristotelianism, that it was "a philosophy only strong for disputations and contentions, but barren of the production of works for the benefit of the life of man." Thus were ranged under two scholastic standards the two great orders of mendicant friars, the Dominicans and the Franciscans; the former being called Thomists, and the latter Scotists. A fierce doctrinal controversy then raged between them, the animosity of which was heightened by a jealousy which had always existed on the part of the Dominicans from the time when St. Francis rejected their founder's overtures to unite the two orders.
In the year 1400 England maintained and included sixty convents; and at the time of the dissolution, the Franciscans alone of the mendicant orders had ninety convents in England, besides vicarships, residences, and nunneries.
To a generation of men who had heard no preaching, or, if any, nothing they could understand, the enthusiastic discourses of these men were like refreshing showers on a parched soil; for in the thirteenth century the sermon had fallen into such disuse that an obscure and insignificant preacher created a great sensation in Paris, although his preaching was rude and simple. Both doctors and disciples ran after him, one dragging the other, and saying, "Come and hear Fulco, the presbyter, he is another Paul." [Footnote 165] The Franciscans diligently cultivated that talent, and from the general favor in which they were held by nearly all classes of the community, especially by the common people, we may conclude that the style they adopted was essentially a popular and engaging style, in direct contradistinction to the scholastic discourses delivered at rare intervals from the pulpits of the churches. Then a Franciscan mingled amongst the poor; he too was poor, one of the poorest, and the poor saw their condition elevated to an apostolic sanctity; his raiment was coarse like theirs; his food also as coarse, for it was their food shared often with him at their own tables; they sat at his feet and listened to him, not in trembling servitude, as at the feet of one whom they had been taught to regard with superstitious awe, but as at the feet of a dear brother, one of themselves, who had hungered with them and sorrowed with them.
[Footnote 165: Vide Jacobi, a Vitriaco Hist. Occident, c, 6.]
Then the Franciscan preached everywhere—at the street corner, in the fields, on the hill-side; his portable altar was set up, the sacrament administered to the people, and the gospel preached as in the old apostolic times, by the river-side, in the high roads and by-ways, under the bare heavens. No wonder that they won the hearts of the degraded populations of the countries in which they settled, that the poor ran to them and flocked round them, and that the good and great were soon drawn over to their side; it was the revival of apostolic simplicity, and as the excited crowds were swayed under their fervent eloquence, and myriads of tearful eyes were turned up to their gaze, it was like the miracle in the wilderness, the rock had been smitten, and the waters gushed forth.