Catholicity And Pantheism.
Number Four. The Blessed Trinity, Or Multiplicity In The Infinite.
General Idea Of The Blessed Trinity.
Catholic doctrine admits that the most pure, simple, and undivided unity of the Godhead lies in its nature; but that this most simple nature is terminated by three real, distinct subsistences or persons, who form the only true and living Infinite. How this answer affords the solution of the problem will be seen in the course of this treatise, in which we shall endeavor to develop the idea of the church in a scientific form. But, before we proceed to analyze it, we feel obliged to develop it in a cursory manner, in order to enable the reader to follow us in the analysis to which it will be subjected.
We say, then, that the essence of God, absolutely simple, is terminated by three real, distinct, opposite subsistences, which are a primary unbegotten activity, a begotten intelligibility, an aspired goodness; all three in a state of personality. For this primary, unborn activity in the state of personality, in whom the whole Godhead resides, by understanding himself, begets a most faithful conception of himself, an intellectual utterance, a word or logos. Now, the nature or essence of intellectual conception or logos, consists in being the object conceived in the state of intelligibility. It follows, then, that the conception of the primary activity, in whom the fulness of the Godhead resides, is, in consequence, the Godhead itself in the state of intelligibility, whilst the conceiver is the Godhead itself, in the state of intelligent activity. Under this last respect, to wit, of intelligent activity and of intelligibility, the conceiver and the conception are necessarily related to each other; a relation which arises from an opposition of origin, since the conceiver, as such, originating the conception, is necessarily opposed to it, and the conception, as such, by being conceived, is necessarily opposed to the conceiver. In this sense they are necessarily distinct from each other. It follows from this that each one has a concreteness of his own, a termination or a state, by whatever name it may be called; which concreteness is incommunicable to the other, and hence each one has the ownership of himself, and therefore is a person. For the first is the whole Godhead under the termination of unborn intellectual activity, which termination is strictly his own and incommunicable. The second is the fulness of the Godhead, under the termination of intelligibility or conception, which belongs to him alone, and is likewise incommunicable. But because in both resides the whole identical Godhead, though under a distinct, opposite, and relative termination, they are both one and the same God.
God conceiver and God conceived are, then, in nature and essence, one and the same; whilst as the conceiver and the conceived, they are two distinct persons; and in this sense, there is a necessary duality in the infinite. This duality is brought into harmony and unity by the production of a third termination, the Holy Ghost. The conceiver and the conceived necessarily love each other. This is the result of a metaphysical law of the act of intelligence, including subject and object; since to intelligence an object produces an inclination or attraction in the subject toward it. Now the two persons in the Godhead intelligence each other; therefore they love each other. It is, again, the nature of love that the object loved should abide in the subject loving, in a state of feeling or an actively attractive state, a state which human language cannot utter. The best expression we can find is, that the object should abide in the subject in the capacity of beatifying it. The Godhead, under the termination of conceiver, loves the Godhead under the termination of conceived; and, vice versa, the Godhead, under the termination of conceived, loves the Godhead under the termination of conceiver. The result of this operation is a third termination of the Godhead—the Godhead under the termination of love, goodness, or bliss, proceeding from the other two terminations, the conceiver and the conceived. This new termination being distinct from the two former, and opposed to them, inasmuch as it originates from them, is consequently its own, incommunicable to the others, and hence a person. But as it is the same identical Godhead, under the termination of love, the three are but one and the same God. Without these terminations or triplicity in the Infinite, the God cannot exist or live. For what is a being without the knowledge of himself and without love? What is life but action? and action without a term originated is a contradiction in terms. The Godhead must, then, intelligence and love himself. The result of this are three terminations in the Godhead; a primary, unbegotten activity, a begotten intelligibility, an aspired goodness. That these three terminations do not break the unity of the Infinite will be manifest from the analysis to which we shall subject them.
We shall now proceed to vindicate the personality of the three terminations against a class of disguised pantheists—disguised even to themselves—that is, the Unitarians.
Why should these three terminations in the Godhead be persons? Could not the Godhead understand and love itself without supposing three personalities?
We answer that without the admission of three persons in the Godhead, we should necessarily fall into the pantheistic theory concerning God.
The Unitarians will concede to us that God must understand and love himself. Without this he were inconceivable. Now, we beg the Unitarians to tell us what this intelligence and love are? Are they only passing and transient acts or modifications, or are they faculties and attributes? What are they?
Besides essence and nature, which includes substance, our minds cannot conceive any other categories than the following:
1st. Attributes or perfections.
2d. Faculties.
3d. Acts of the faculties or modifications.
4th. Subsistence and personality.
Now, excluding subsistence and personality, the understanding and love of the Godhead must be either an attribute or faculty, or a transient act, or both of these together.
The Unitarians may demur at so many distinctions; but we would beg them to observe that when we see the most sacred dogmas, nay, the very pivot of knowledge, attacked by a flimsy and proud philosophy, we have a right to descend into the depths of science, and ask of the flimsy and boastful philosophy what it means when it attacks so sweepingly and so confidently. This remark has been forced from us by reading the following words of Channing: "We believe in the doctrine of God's unity, or that there is one God, one only. To this truth we give infinite importance, and we feel ourselves bound to take heed lest any man spoil us of it by vain (?) philosophy. This proposition, that there is one God, seems to us exceedingly plain. We understand by it that there is one being, one mind, one person, one intelligent agent, and one only, to whom underived and infinite perfections and dominion belong. We conceive that these words could have conveyed no other meaning to the simple and uncultivated people, who were set apart to be the depositories of this great truth, and who were utterly incapable of understanding those hair-breadth distinctions between being and person, which the sagacity of other ages has discovered."
We have read very few passages of other authors in which we find as much magisterial tone, sweeping assertion, profound ignorance of true philosophy, confusion worse confounded, as in these few lines of Channing.
Is it possible that Dr. Channing should call a hair-breadth distinction, that which lies between essence and nature, and personality? We suspect that the distinction between these terms being so nice, Dr. Channing never apprehended it; and without this elementary apprehension of the most fundamental notions of ontology, Dr. Channing should have kept his peace, and never have written a book touching mysteries, held and defended even unto death by thousands of the sublimest, the profoundest, and the most universal geniuses of Christianity; such men as S. Athanasius, S. Justin, S. Irenaeus, S. Hilary, S. Augustine, S. Ambrose, S. Chrysostom, S. Jerome, S. Fulgentius, S. Thomas, Bossuet, Fénélon, Pascal, Leibnitz, etc. Before the testimony of such intellects, even the self-assurance of Dr. Channing should have hesitated. Dr. Channing, then, along with all those who hold his opinion, will be kind enough to tell us what they mean by God being one mind, one person, one intelligent agent. Are these things attributes, faculties, or acts? Let us define the terms, that the distinction which exists between them may be more manifest. An attribute or perfection is a partial conception of our minds, of a certain nature, and more particularly of the Infinite. The idea of the infinite implies all perfections. But as our limited minds cannot apprehend all that is contained in that idea at one intellectual glance, we are forced to apprehend it partially, and to divide it mentally, and to consider each side apart. The ideas or notions corresponding to all these apprehensions of the infinite, we call perfections or attributes. But let it be distinctly understood; ontologically, that is, in the order of reality, they do not exist out of, and are not distinct from, the essence of the Infinite. A faculty is the capacity of development in a being. An act is the transition from capacity into movement. Now, before we close with the Unitarians, we shall give the definition of individuality and personality as carefully and intelligibly as we can.
That last termination or complement of a being, which makes it a unit, in se, separated or at least distinct from all other beings, which makes it sui juris and incommunicable to all others, constitutes what ontology calls individuality. To illustrate this definition, let us suppose our body in the two different states to which it is subject, when it is united to our soul, and when it is separated from it. It is evident that when my body is yet united to the soul, it is a corporal substance, but not an individuality, because it has none of those elements necessary to constitute individuality. It is not a unit in se, neither is it separated from any other being, because it is united to the soul, and hence it is communicable; and above all, it is not sui juris, since the soul possesses it as its most intimate and most subordinate organ and instrument. Let us take the other state of our body, when the soul has left it.
By this very fact, the body becomes an individuality, that is to say, a unit in se, distinct and separated from any other being, sui juris, and incommunicable. So true is this, that should that body in such a state, undergo any change, or do what we might improperly call an action, that change or action would be attributed to it, and to it alone.
For instance, suppose that body should fall and crush by its weight some living creature, we should say that body has killed that creature, because it is an individuality; whereas, suppose that same body, possessed of the soul, falling at night out of bed, should kill by its weight that living creature, we could no longer say that body has killed, but we should say that man fell last night out of his bed, and killed, for instance, his child; because the union of the body with the soul as its most intimate organ, deprives it of its individuality, and consequently of solidarity.
Personality adds to individuality the element of intelligence, and consequently of self-consciousness.
A person, therefore, is a substance, possessed of intelligence and self-consciousness, forming a unit in se, and hence being distinct from all others, having the ownership of himself, sui juris, and being the principle of imputability for all his actions.
If these notions, on which depend the whole field of ontology, which are the foundation of morality, of all social and political rights of man, on which the very bliss and ultimate perfection of man rest—if such notions are hair-breadth distinctions, we thank God that we are endowed with intelligence enough to apprehend them; else, were a man to-morrow to force us into slavery, on the plea that we are only things, and not persons, we should be at a loss how to stop him, not being able, like Channing, to apprehend our own personality, that supreme gift which makes us feel master and owner of ourselves and accountable for our actions.
Having premised these notions, we say the Unitarians, who grant that the Infinite is endowed with intelligence and will, must admit one of these three things: either the intelligence and will are perfections or attributes, or they are faculties, or they are persons. If they admit them to be perfections, they divide the Infinite; if they admit them to be faculties, they fall into pantheism.
This is what we are going to prove in the following propositions.
First proposition: If intelligence and will were admitted to be mere perfections in God, the admission would imply a division in God and a breaking up of the Infinite.
Before we proceed to prove this proposition, we premise that in the argument we take intelligence and will in action, and not in potentiality; in other words, we take them as acts, and not as faculties.
The reason is because, as we shall prove, there can be no faculties or potentiality in the Infinite. This premised, we lay down the undoubted ontological truth that between intelligence in act and the conception or interior logos, the result of intelligencing, there is and must be a real distinction. In other words, the intellect in act and the conception of the intellect necessarily imply a duality.
The reason of this is evident. First, because between the intellect in action and conception there is necessarily an opposition. The intellect in act, is such, inasmuch as it is not conception, and vice versa. Now, a real opposition implies, necessarily, a real distinction. Again, the conception or interior logos is to the intellect in action as the effect is to its cause, or, better, as the consequence is to its principle.
If, therefore, there were no real distinction between the intellect and the conception, there would be no real distinction between the effect and its cause, the principle and its consequence. Hence, thinking and thought are necessarily distinct. What is true of the act of thinking and of thought is true of the will and its volition, for the same reason. Hence it is evident that the intellect in action, thought or the conception, the will in action and its volition, are necessarily distinct by their very ontological nature and relation. It follows, then, that if we admit them to be mere perfections of the Infinite, we would imply a real distinction in the essence of the Infinite, in other words, a duality of essence; because a perfection in the Infinite is identical with essence, since we have said that perfections have no real existence in re, and are only partial conceptions of our minds, which cannot take in the Infinite at one intellectual glance.
Intelligence in action and conception, therefore, being considered as perfections, would be identical with the essence; and they requiring, in force of their metaphysical nature, a real distinction, the distinction would fall upon the essence of the Infinite. Any one versed in ontology will perceive this truth at a glance. Hence, Unitarians cannot say that the intelligence and the conception of the intelligence, the will and love in the Infinite, are mere perfections, without admitting a real distinction in the essence of the Infinite, and thus admitting a multiplicity of Infinites, which is absurd.
Second proposition: If Unitarians rank the intellect and thought, the will and its volition, of the infinite among faculties, they then fall into pantheism.
Ontology, as we have said, defines a faculty to be a force of development by union with its object.
Its notion implies three elements:
1. A force residing dormant in a being.
2. An object.
3. A union of the force with the object, to render the development actual.
Applying this idea to the subject in question, every one can see at a glance that a faculty cannot be predicated of the Infinite without falling into pantheism.
For it would be to admit in God a force of development, a capacity of unfolding, of actualizing himself.
Now, every faculty of development necessarily begins, from the minimum degree of actuality, to travel by progressive stages of unfolding to an indefinite maximum of progression. Hence, in the supposition, we should be forced to admit that God started from the minimum of life and action, and that he travelled through numberless stages of development, and will travel indefinitely through higher stages in the direction of a maximum of progress never to be attained. Now, this is almost verbatim the pantheistic theory of Hegel.
Every one who has read Hegel will have observed that his idea of the Infinite coincides perfectly with the above. For he starts from a minimum of reality, the Being, Idea, which, through a necessary interior movement, becomes matter, organism, animality, intelligence, etc.
It would not do for Unitarians to say that the argument does not apply to their system, since they admit a substance already existing and perfect as to being, only endowed with faculties. For, in the supposition, they would admit a finite, not an infinite being.
In a finite being we can conceive one already perfect in the order of existence, with faculties or force of accidental development. But we cannot say the same of the Infinite. The positive infinite, so to speak, is essentially actuality itself; hence, perfection itself, all terms which exclude and eliminate every possibility of development. If it be not that it must be the Infinite of pantheism, a mere abstraction and unreality.
From what we have said, we conclude:
First, that the mystery of the Trinity is essentially necessary to the idea of God; that there can be no conception of Infinite actuality but through the supposition of three distinct terminations of the same essence.
Secondly, that Unitarians are absolutely powerless before pantheism; nay, that their system is disguised pantheism; and that by holding fast only to the unity of God, they sap the very foundation of the reality of the Infinite.
The Infinite is essentially living. A living God is essentially conceiving himself by intellect. A subjective conception necessarily implies an objective conception. These two are absolutely and necessarily opposed to each other, and hence, really distinct. Again, a living God, who necessarily conceives himself, necessarily loves himself through his conception. Again, subjective love necessarily implies an objective love, and the two are essentially opposed, and hence distinct.
Thus we have three real distinct relations in the Infinite, a conceiver, a conception, and love.
On the one hand, these three relations cannot be either perfections or faculties; on the other, they cannot be denied of the Infinite without destroying the very idea of the Infinite. It follows, then, that they should be three terminations of the same essence.
The act of intelligence in God is so actual and perfect as to be in the very same state of personality intelligence itself. The production of this act is also so actual and perfect as to be conception itself, a personality distinct from the first. Love, the necessary production of both the intelligence and the conception, is also so actual and perfect, as to be love itself in a state of personality, three distinct subsistences of the same one infinite essence.
Heremore-Brandon;
Or, The Fortunes Of A Newsboy.
Chapter IV.
In the beautiful dawn Dick awoke, hardly remembering where he was, and almost frightened at the wonderful absence of many noises which had never before failed to greet his waking. Not knowing whether it were very late or very early, Dick took the safest view of the subject, and hurriedly dressed himself; then, cautiously opening his door, he looked out to see if there was any sign to guide his further movements: All was silent around him; but the hall door stood wide open, letting in a square of golden sunshine at the foot of the stairs. He went carefully and noiselessly down, and found himself, when he reached the porch, in a flood of glorious light. The flowers that hung above the porch were sparkling in it, for the dew was yet fresh on all the world; a thousand birds were carolling songs of exultation from every tree, while the cool, fragrant morning air came to him in the freshest, purest breezes that ever were known.
Even the pebbles, from which the sun had not yet kissed away a single dew-drop, were sparkling like jewels as Dick approached them on his way to the little rustic gate under the evergreen arch. He stood leaning over it a long time, looking down the cool, shadowy lane, his heart joining in the joyous morning hymn of nature, for the first time heard.
He was standing by the gate, enjoying all, when new voices reached his ears—human voices—and the children all at once came rushing from the garden at the back of the house, in a tumult of delight, surrounding him almost before they were aware of his presence, so intent were they upon their mission to the village.
"Me doing to the 'tore!" exclaimed little Trot, rubbing her hands. "Me dot a pocket."
Which double hint Dick took at once by putting pennies in the "pocket," much to her delight and the older ones' annoyance.
"For shame, Trot!" said Will, "that's as bad as asking; and you can't go to the store either; you'll get wet, the grass is all wet. 'Tan't no good for girls; you stay home."
Whereupon Trot rubbed her brown little fists in her eyes, and loudly bewailed her misery in being only a girl, showing also that she had a will of her own that by no means acknowledged this big boy as its lord and master. Dick attempted to show him that whereas Trot's dress was already a finger deep with wet from the long grass through which she had been tramping all the morning so far, it couldn't make much difference if it got a little wetter. But Will was firm, and Trot inappeasable, until, much to our hero's relief, the noise brought out Rose, who was greatly ashamed of Trot for making "such a time before the strange gentleman," and very firmly decided for Will. In some magic way she sent the boy portion unencumbered by any of the weaker sex, on their way rejoicing, found something for the girls to do, and took Trot's hand so resolutely that not a sob was ventured by that small maiden, so that there was again peace in the land.
Then came breakfast, with a further display of clean calico, a great deal of laughing and merry talk, but in a less leisurely way than at tea, for the day's work was before not behind them. Breakfast finished, the children, our hero, Rose, and Rose's bosom friend, Clara Hays, were sent off to pick berries in the woods. Half the morning they were in getting started; for everybody spoke at once, and everybody hurried and detained everybody else. There were at least a dozen false starts. As soon as seven got to the gate, Trot and Minnie were reported missing; no sooner were Trot and Minnie secured, than some one else was out of the way. But at last they got fairly off, and went down the lane in great glee; the children swinging their pails and baskets in advance, and running back every two minutes to give some valuable information about the road or the woods or the berries, or something equally important. Rose, Clara, and Dick brought up the rear in a manner that showed they had a becoming sense of the responsibility thrown upon them as the elders of the party.
What they did all day in the woods, how many brooks they crossed, who fell in and was fished out with much laughter; how little Trot got in everybody's way, and ate the others' berries as fast as they were picked; how the children met other children on the road; how often all parties rested, and teased each other, and compared the quantity each had picked; and whether Dick, who had soon got over his awkwardness, put his berries into Clara's pail or into Rose's basket, I am not able to relate. I only know they returned at evening very noisy and very tired; and that Rose had a larger stock than any other one of the whole party; and that as she took off her broad-brimmed straw hat, and pushed back the moist curls from her face, this young lady did not go up at once to wash off the purple berry stains from her hands, and to put on the pretty blue muslin with its tiny bit of lace around the neck, but lingered to hear the children, each interrupting the other, until they were nearly all talking at once, tell Mr. and Mrs. Stoffs and Mrs. Alaine the day's adventures. Dick, too, had somewhat to relate, and glanced at Rose while he told it, although it was only what the children had told twice over already, how Mr. Dick—it had come to that with the children—didn't know a turkey from a goose, and had called things by their wrong names all day; whereat Rose laughed with the rest, and then ran up to bathe her glowing cheeks in time to help get tea.
When she came down, she found the children in the same eager excitement, following the two women from kitchen to cellar, from the closet to the table, still telling about the big snake they were sure they had seen run across the path just before them, and the rabbits, and what Minnie had said, and Will had done, and Charley had thought; to all which the listeners gave an attentive ear, laughing when there was need, and surprised at the proper moment. At tea, the day in the woods continued to furnish food for animated discussion, and neither Rose nor Dick looked as if the subject were a tiresome one.
"And how did my little Trot get along?" asked Uncle Carl; but Trot, who was tired, and cross, and impatient for her piece of cake, made no answer.
"Trot tumbled into the water," said Will; "she always tumbles in."
Then Trot who couldn't bear to be teased, looked as if she were about to cry, but was appeased by a word or two from Rose, and Carl asked who pulled her out.
"Oh! I did," answered Will readily; "I and Mr. Dick."
"I see that Mr. Dick is very good to you," said Mrs. Stoffs, with a kind smile toward our hero, who colored and looked his delight.
"I don't think we can get along without Mr. Dick any more, can we?"
The children declared they could not, and Dick was as pleased as if he had just taken a degree; but Rose said nothing about the matter.
Well, that was a merry, merry week; there were so many things needed, and such long walks were required through the woods, and over the hills, and even down to the beach, in order to procure them, while every errand took all day to perform, that Dick learned to walk on the soft grass without stumbling; even to loiter slowly along by Rose's side, not often looking to see where he placed his feet; and the children were such good tutors that he learned the names of the birds and animals and insects that came in his way, and knew where there had been the best cherries in the spring, where there would be the best place for nutting in the fall, and when the grapes would be ripe, "If only he could be here!"
If only he could be here! But a week is only a week, and it will end, if it has a life-time in its seven days. The last day had come, and they all knew it; there had been a better dinner. "Mr. Dick's last dinner with us, you know," they had said to each other; and something more than sweet-cakes and peaches for tea, for "to-morrow Mr. Dick will not be here." But, for all their consideration, Mr. Dick hardly knew that night if he were eating sweet-cakes or bitter bread.
It was a very quiet evening that followed the last tea at Carlton. The children were more silent than usual; even Trot was not proof against the indescribable feeling that settles over a group from which one is about to take his departure. She climbed into Dick's lap, and—an uncommon thing with that restless maiden—did not offer to leave her position all those long twilight hours. When Miss Brandon rode by—as I forgot to state she did at twilight every evening—her beautiful pony, her long dress, her hat with its drooping feather, her veil fluttering in the evening breeze, her buff gauntlets, and her silver-handled riding-whip—things which had set the whole flock in commotion before—were hardly commented upon. When Mr. Irving, so tall and princely, left her side for a moment, and, coming close to the gate, called after Will, it was found Rose had forgotten the usual bouquet of flowers for the ladies, and had to beg the gentleman to wait. Rose felt very guilty; but Dick endeavored to console her by saying that, without doubt, Mr. Irving was glad to have a little more time with such a beautiful young lady as Miss Brandon; and then fell to praising Miss Mary vehemently—how beautiful she was, how gracious and pleasant to all, and yet always remembering she was a grand young lady. Rose thought it very easy to be good and pleasant when people are rich and beautiful; and then Dick tried to comfort her again, and perhaps with better success than before; for her only answer was a silent act of contrition for the envious thought that had flitted across her mind. Then, still in silence, she cut the flowers that she could hardly more than guess at in the gathering twilight. Dick was silent, too; and yet there was a great deal he would like to have said, even though he little suspected that all he had so far made clear to her was that Miss Brandon was to him like an angel in a picture, or a heroine in some old romance, and that, beside her silent act of contrition, poor little Rose's heart had given one great throb, and had then made an act of resignation beside. But Dick found voice to ask for a good-by flower, which Rose gave; and it may be there were spoken then a few words of more solemn meaning, such as will come when two people, young and fresh, find their skies suddenly glowing above them, and their hearts full of grateful praise to God, who has made life so sweet. And it may be that little Rose, who said her prayers so regularly for all sinners and for all who are tempted, said a few broken, bashful words, exhorting Dick to goodness even in the midst of the "snares of the great city," and that he eagerly caught the words as they fell, promised her never to forget them, and inwardly made a quick cry for God's grace to let him die then rather than do aught to offend him who had showered such blessings upon him. It may be, too, that Rose—the simple-hearted maiden—was sure he would never break the promise, and that their good-by there was a request and a promise each to pray for the other. But if so, it was not said in long paragraphs, with flowing periods; for Rose was too conscientious to detain Mr. Irving a moment longer than needful.
But I am afraid Rose had to make another act of contrition that night; for when Will brought her the money for the flowers—the garden was her own—she would not take it, but told him to divide it among the children, himself, of course, included. Dick thought it very generous of her; but I have my own opinion about that. Too soon for all the last "good-nights" were said, and Dick knew he had spent out his last evening in Carlton for who could tell how long? Yet his dreams were not sad. If he did not actually believe he was riding on a splendid great horse, by the side of a fair damsel on a white pony, down the shadowy lane, into the broad road of the future; that he had given Carl a home for life, and a load of toys to the children, with, perhaps, an uplifting of his heart, and a readiness to bear, whatever life should bring him worthy of a faithful Christian, I think it was something "very like it."
The next morning there was a hurried breakfast, after which they all went to the little yellow station-house to see him off, and waved their hats and handkerchiefs until the train was out of sight. A little longer, and they had returned in a rambling procession home, each with some remembrance of him to tell the other, while he was in the city at work once more, but as a different Dick Heremore from the one who had said goodby, not without emotion, to his slovenly landlady.
Chapter V.
When Christmas came around again, and made the first break in the routine of his life after his ever-memorable visit to the country, Dick, now no longer a follower at a distance of that Sunday morning crowd, but a devout and well-instructed Catholic, to whom all the glory and grandeur of the Christmas lights and flowers, the music and the bells, were no longer mysteries; after hearing the grand high mass—not the only one he had heard that day—turned down Fourteenth street, according to the custom of many years, in order that he might pass the Brandons' house, which had ever held a charm for him, since on its broad steps he had first seen the beauty and loveliness of charity. But he was not thinking just then of Miss Brandon, nor of his newsboy days, nor yet of the fast approaching hour when he should present himself at Carl Stoffs's table, in a quarter of the city very different from this, where he was to eat his piece of Christmas turkey. His thoughts, I am afraid, will seem wild ones; but he was young, it was Christmas-day, he had just come from that glorious mass, and the world seemed so small and easy to conquer to one who had heard the "glad tidings," so that he may be forgiven for dreaming, in a less prosaic and unspiritual manner than I can tell you, of a time when he would eat his Christmas dinner neither at a boarding-house nor at another man's board, but would carve his own Christmas turkey, at his own table. Of whatever he was thinking, he did not fail to notice the house, and to glance upward when he came to the stoop where he—was it really he, that rough, shaggy, ragged little newsboy, ignorant and dirty?—where he had, for the first time in his hard young life, heard a voice address him kindly; and his glance changed to a steady gaze of surprise when his eye caught a name on the door-plate that was not Brandon. He looked at the number—that was all right, but the old name was gone. He was perplexed, and walked absently backward and forward for several moments.
"Then Mr. Stoffs was right," he said, "and he" (meaning Mr. Brandon) "has had to come down a peg or two, or he would not have given up his house at this season. I wonder where they have gone now."
He remembered, at this moment, that none of the family had been at Ames & Harden's during the whole fall, and that he had not seen Miss Brandon since she and Mr. Irving had ridden down the lane for the flowers that Rose had forgotten to have ready at the usual hour. It so happened that, remembering the neglected flowers, why they had been forgotten, and how the negligence had been repaired, Dick's thoughts strayed from the graceful figure of the beautiful lady, who had seemed to him more magnificent and gentle than a vision, and turned to another figure, not tall nor stately—to another face, not grand nor graciously sweet.
But when he met Mr. and Mrs. Stoffs, almost the first words he said were,
"I went by the house on Fourteenth street to-day, and Mr. Brandon's name was off the door. I had not heard of their going away."
"It's long ago, though," said Mr. Stoffs.
"Is it any difficulty made them leave their old house?" asked Dick.
"There's been no end of difficulties," answered the German, puffing out great clouds of smoke between every sentence. "Things were bad enough last summer, and when Mrs. Brandon died—"
"Mrs. Brandon dead!" exclaimed Dick.
"Oh! I forgot that was after you left; it was quite an excitement. The horses ran away one night—those same stylish bays of which she was so proud—when she and her daughter were returning from some party, and she was dead before morning."
"And Miss Brandon?" Dick could hardly ask, his terror of the answer was so great.
"Miss Brandon," answered Mr. Stoffs in a formal way, and puffing out greater clouds of smoke than ever, "Miss Brandon was ill for some days, and they were afraid would never get over the shock; your fine ladies are so nervous!"
"Miss Brandon is not that kind," said Dick hastily, vexed by the contemptuous tone of his friend's remark. "And I don't believe fine ladies are any more—more—fussy than others."
"I suppose you know them well enough to be a certain judge," said Carl, who seemed in a very ugly humor.
"Of course I don't know one in the world," answered Dick, with considerable animation and a deeper color in his face. "But I can't see the good of always running down people, just because they happen to be richer than ourselves."
"Hush! now," interposed Mrs. Stoffs, as her husband was about answering, "or no dinner shall you have this day. I will not let you two quarrel."
"You were going to tell me about Mr. Brandon's difficulties," suggested Dick very gently, after both he and Mr. Stoffs had assured their peacemaker that they were never in better humor toward each other. "You were going to tell me about Mr. Brandon's difficulties."
"Yes. His wife she died, and it was found he had used all her money and had lost it, as he had his own; there was a failure and everything was sold out, and so—there's an end of him."
"Did he leave New-York?"
"I don't know. Who asks what has become of a one-time rich man after the bubble has burst?"
"I think I heard he wanted some situation to start life again," said Mrs. Stoffs. "Poor man!"
Mrs. Stoffs was right. Mr. Brandon had tried to start again; but he had been a hard man in his days of prosperity, and an unfaithful man, or he would not be as he was now; and so, many who heartily pitied him and his family for their fall, and who would willingly have given them assistance out of their own pockets, did not feel justified in giving him a position that could be better filled by some man in whom they could trust. Thus among all his rich friends, not one of whom felt unkindly toward him, there was none to push him a plank with which to save himself from drowning.
Dick had learned all that his hosts could tell, and knowing well how fearfully rapid is a man's fall when once he is over the precipice of failure, his heart was heavier than it had ever been for troubles of his own. He sought to sustain his part in the conversation, feeling that a silent guest seems selfish and ungrateful, and tried to laugh as heartily at his friend's jokes as ever; but it was not without an effort, and his friends were keen and saw that he was troubled.
"I do not like it," Carl grunted in his deepest tones, that Christmas night after Dick had gone and the children were asleep; "I do not like it."
"You must not think too hardly of him," answered Mrs. Stoffs, who, with that sort of perception women obtain when they become wives, knew her husband referred to Dick's troubled manner, the anxious way in which he had asked about Miss Brandon, and his hot resenting of Carl's careless words. "You are too hard on him," said Mrs. Stoffs, not because she did not equally dislike it all, but because there would be no conversation between them if old married folks were always to agree.
"Fine ladies, indeed!" muttered Mr. Stoffs, puffing away harder than ever. "Miss Brandon—what for should he care if Miss Brandon was hurt, more than for any other lady?"
"She is poor enough now," said Mrs. Stoffs musingly. "It would not be so strange now;" and under her breath she sighed, "Poor Rose!"
"Not that he has one thought of such a thing," Carl went on consistently; "you women always get such ideas into your heads."
Mrs. Stoffs, being an experienced wife, raised no question about the ownership of the "ideas," whatever they were, but sat looking into the fire for a long time before she spoke again, and then it was to say, "After all, I am glad we were too poor to have Rose come up for Christmas."
"If she would not be satisfied with what we had, so am I," grumbled Mr. Stoffs.
"I was not thinking of that," answered his wife mildly.
"I know Heremore's never such a fool as to be thinking of one so much above him as Miss Brandon," remarked Mr. Stoffs.
"She is not above him now that they are poor," answered his wife.
"It isn't the money that made the difference," said Carl rather impatiently, "it's the habits that money gives. That's what is the matter. Miss Brandon may not be half worthy of him, and yet he would be mad to think of her; it is misery when people marry out of their rank, misery to both."
"But if they love each other?" suggested his wife.
"That only makes the matter worse; he knows not her ways. She has a language that is not his; if they did not care, they could go their own ways, and seek their own. I think Heremore is a great fool; I do!"
"I don't believe he has a thought of such a thing," said Mrs. Stoffs; but there was a manifest question in her voice.
"If he has, he'll rue the day he thought of it first," said her husband emphatically; and there the conversation ended; but when Mrs. Stoffs wrote again to Mrs. Alaine, which she did not do for some time—for to write a letter was an event in the honest woman's life—she thought proper to give her sister a hint of that which they had observed; and Mrs. Alaine, in her turn, thought proper to convey the hint, in the form of information, to Rose, who, however, answered readily,
"Love Miss Brandon? Well, mamma, and why shouldn't he?"
"Because Miss Brandon is not in the same class of life that he is, dear."
"I am sure Mr. Heremore is better off than her father is now," urged Rose; "for he has a regular salary, and Mr. Brandon has nothing left, and nobody will give him any place."
"No doubt, my child; but it is not money that makes the difference. Miss Brandon has her ideas of life now just as she had them when she was rich; and Mr. Heremore is what he is, and would not be different if he were suddenly made a millionaire."
So Rose said no more.
While Mr. and Mrs. Stoffs were thus disturbed about him, Dick, unconscious of any cause he had given for their disquietude, was walking slowly and thoughtfully home. "Where was that little Mary with her fair hair and gentle smile this cold Christmas night?" was the question he kept putting to himself. It was a clear, bright night, with the moon shining on the pavements and the frozen earth, not at all such a night as that during which he had slept by her father's steps, and there was no fear that her fair head was shelterless; but still it was very sad to think of her, whose Christmas days had been such pleasant ones, in mourning for her mother, and perhaps in troubles such as those which men hear, but shudder to see, clouding the girlish youth that is so short, and should be so sunny.
"With God's help I'll find them out before to-morrow night if they are in this city," said Dick to himself, and then walked on more rapidly.
And he kept his word, though not without much trouble; and within twenty-four hours he stood in front of the wretched boarding-house to which poverty and sickness had already reduced the family that, a few months before, had never dreamed of the meaning of want.
But though he had found them out and stood before their door, Dick had done and could do nothing to lessen their trouble. Mr. Brandon had not seemed more unapproachable when, a rich man, he scowled and said hard words to the ill-dressed errand-boy—than he now did to the simple clerk, though Dick himself was richer now than was the once rich merchant. Miss Brandon was, in his eyes, now no less a lady, belonging to a sphere far above him, than she had been when, in all the glory of wealth, youth, and beauty, he had seen her ride down to the Stoffs's cottage to buy flowers for her hair. It seemed to him greater presumption for him to think of approaching her now than it would have been then, so he passed and repassed her door, grieved for her trouble, but more grieved, if possible, that he, with his youth and strength, should be powerless to give her one grain of comfort. How often and often, as he had watched her—she all unconscious of him and his grateful reverence—in her days of prosperity, had he dreamed of her as like some damsel of olden romance in sore distress, and thought that never had knight rushed more joyously or more potently to the rescue than he would to hers. Now his dream had come to pass—she was a damsel in sore distress; but where was his prancing steed, his burnished armor, his ready lance? Then, as he smiled in remembrance of his boyish fancy, he suddenly thought of Mr. Irving, the gentleman—just a boy's ideal of a gallant knight—whom he had seen so often with Miss Brandon in the country. He recollected well the manly bearing of that "perfect gentleman," whom he and Rose had looked upon as a veritable Sir Launcelot; he had seen many an act of "gentle courtesy" shown in a grave, tender way, to the fair lady by whose side he always rode; and where was he now that that fair lady needed her knight as never before?
There was nothing morbid or bitter about Dick. When he asked himself that question, it was with no thought of the common judgment pronounced upon "summer friends." He recognized Mr. Irving's right to aid and comfort the family of his former host. He knew that he had wealth, position, character, and, of course, ample influence, and not for an instant doubted that he would use every means in his power to befriend Mr. Brandon, if only for the sake of that beautiful daughter whom he so evidently admired. Where, then, was Mr. Irving? If he had been here, all this could not have happened. But as Dick asked himself this, it did not occur to him that Mary thought as he thought: if Mr. Irving had been here, all this would not have happened.
At last Dick, fully convinced that he would be guilty of no presumption in speaking his mind to Mr. Irving on this subject, cheerfully turned his steps homeward, and resolved that the first moment he had of his own should be spent in seeking Mr. Irving, and informing him of what he could not now be aware of, the downfall of the Brandons. For the fall of the Brandons, as he heard from one or two who knew, had been very great, very rapid, and, it was feared, was not yet completed. Mr. Brandon had never held his head up since his failure, but dragged around, shabbily dressed, querulous and half-sick, dejected and clearly miserable. His two sons had been given very poor situations, on very niggardly pay, by a relative in another city, who, having always been odiously cringing to Mr. Brandon when he had money, seemed to delight now in heaping humiliations upon his sons. So great a crime it was in his eyes to be better bred, better educated, and more kindly cared for than were his own rude, blustering, ignorant boys. If only Fred and Joe had been taught whence come adversity and prosperity, doubtless these humiliations would have been crowns of glory for them; but theirs had been only a vague, dreamy sort of faith, which they never suspected had any application to their real life. I dare say they were very idle, useless, self-conceited and aggravating boys; but I can't help feeling sorry for them in their troubles. Miss Brandon, Dick was told, had not recovered her strength since the accident, and however well she might have been, with all her accomplishments, could not have done more than she was now doing: giving music-lessons to a few persons residing near her new home.
But all hope of seeing Mr. Irving faded the first thing the next day; for Dick's questions brought the unwelcome information that he had left home in October for two years' travel in Europe, and Dick, of course, could not presume to write to him.