The Unity Of Scientific And Revealed Truth.
[Footnote 158]
[Footnote 158: A discourse pronounced by the Archbishop of Malines on his first pastoral visit to the city and university of Louvain.]
I have not been able to come among you as soon as I desired. The duties of my office, and especially the difficulties which always surround one's initiation to a new sphere of duties, are the causes of this delay. Had I the leisure, my first visit after my entrance into this vast diocese would have been to Louvain—to Louvain, so celebrated for its glorious traditions—to Louvain, which has ever remained true to them. To the attraction of great historical remembrances are joined in my case ties of a more intimate nature. This pulpit recalls to my mind the days of a ministry which must always be dear to my heart, and which was far less onerous than that which has replaced it; for if in those days I spoke of the cross, it was surely without carrying the one which now weighs upon my shoulders. Yet it is with joy that I address for the first time, as pastor of their souls, the children of this city, twice blessed by the Church for the signal services she has rendered to the Christian world, both by her ancient university, and by the one which lives again in our time with so much lustre.
Louvain bears a great title, because she symbolizes a great thing—the unity of science and faith. How, then, my brethren, can I avoid speaking of her, and of that unity which men now strive to banish from the schools of learning? Everywhere it seems as if some invincible power had given the command to expel Christianity from our schools in the name of science. I gladly seize, therefore, the first opportunity which has been offered me to consider this question, because it deeply interests the living minds of the age, because it is one of the great cares of our social life, and because here the two interests are united in one place: the interests of science, because I speak of Louvain; the interests, of religion, because I speak from this sacred pulpit.
Not always in their efforts against the unity of science and religion do we find our opponents frankly declaring war upon Christianity. No; its enemies prefer to extinguish it by stratagem. They wisely fear the love of parents for their offspring; and while they are eager to destroy the faith of the one, they hope to accomplish their task without the knowledge of the other. It is on this account that they have sought and found the proper word to conceal their design, and this word is neutrality in teaching. I wish, then, to show you two things:
First. That neutrality in teaching, as far as it regards the Christian religion, is evidently impossible; that a teacher must unavoidably declare himself for or against the Christian faith, even as Christ himself said, "He that is not for me is against me."
Second. Science cannot declare itself against the Christian faith without denying itself, without being unfaithful to its own principle, which is reason, and without renouncing the very conditions of a free, perfect, and progressive science.
May the Mother of Science and Faith, Mater Agnitionis, obtain for us from the incarnated Wisdom the light which we need!
I.
When I speak of instruction, I do not intend to designate certain branches of study in particular, but I refer to the whole course of teaching in each of its three degrees. I affirm, then, that neutrality in teaching is an evident impossibility, so far as it regards Christianity in each of these three degrees, and more especially in the highest grade of instruction. This could be demonstrated by running over a great number of the various branches of study; but in order to be more concise, though not less conclusive, I will speak of only two among them, history and morals, upon which no school can be silent. They will suffice to convince you that the school which is not Christian is necessarily antichristian, and that it will ever be impossible to be neutral.
Let us begin with history. If the Christian religion were a mythology, certainly we could separate it from the teaching of history, and banish it to the domain of fable; but Christianity before as well as after the Incarnation is a great historical fact; nay, it is the greatest fact of history. This fact is a living one in that religious society which embraces every nation. This living fact speaks and affirms itself divine; not divine in man who accepts it, but divine in that which constitutes its essence, in its doctrine, in its worship, and in its doctrinal and sanctifying power.
Christian teaching affirms that Christianity is a divine fact. Anti-Christian instruction denies it. What, then, can neutral instruction be? If it neither affirm nor deny, necessarily it doubts, and consequently it must teach doubt. But is not the teaching of doubt formally antichristian? The divine Author of Christianity teaches us that, in the presence of the proofs of his mission, doubt is inexcusable: "If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin: but now they have no excuse for their sin." (John xv. 22.)
We will see, in a few moments, why this doubt is inexcusable; but we only affirm a self-evident truth when we declare neutrality to be impossible, because he who is not for the faith is necessarily against it, and to teach doubt is only another way to deny truth. But perhaps it will be said that neutral instruction will say nothing concerning this matter; that it will pass by the fact of the Christian religion in silence; and that, without relegating it to the domain of mythology, it will quietly ignore its existence. Now, the absurdity of this position is still more manifest, for Christianity is linked to everything in this world. We cannot take a step in history without meeting with it; if you search the annals of antiquity, of the first centuries of the Christian era, of the middle ages, or of modern times, at every age alike you will see Christianity before you, and everywhere it governs all other things from its lofty height.
The pretence of silence in this matter is therefore one of two things: it is either nonsense or it is hypocrisy. It is nonsense when it is said, as I have recently been informed it is in a certain classic work adopted by our schools, that it will contain no question about sacred history, nor about the history of the church, whether of the old or the new alliance, because these questions are all beyond the scope of history. The chain of facts which a Bossuet has unrolled in his discourse upon universal history—that marvellous chain of facts beyond the scope of history! The expectation of redemption among all the people of the globe, which is proved by the universality of expiatory sacrifices, and by foreshadowings which redemption can alone make intelligible; the establishment of Christianity in its last and definite form, its civilizing influence, its trials, its long-continued struggles, its triumphant existence—these are all beyond the scope of history! This pretended silence, then, is not nonsense, it is hypocrisy; it is only, like the neutrality which it defends, the hollow mask of infidelity.
Again, neutrality is not less impossible in the sphere of morals than in history. What is morality? It is the science of duty. By itself, it is the science of means furnished by reason to overcome our passions. Therefore to morals belong these absorbing questions: Why have the passions revolted against reason? Why does not the same beautiful harmony reign in the moral as in the physical order? Why are there, as it were, two men within us, and why do we know what we ought to do, and why do we follow the opposite? What is the cause of this deep-seated evil, which is only too well known to us all? What is the remedy for it? Where shall we find the strength to conquer this interior revolt? Where are the arms with which we can triumph?
He who knows not this knows nothing. But faith has positive answers for these fundamental questions. It teaches us that the revolt of passions in human nature is the first result of the revolt of the human mind against God; that the soul, which did not wish to submit to its Creator and its Master, has rightly suffered the uprising of its own slaves, the senses and the appetites; that, if it would vanquish them, it must humiliate its pride, lament its evil deeds, implore the grace of God, pray to obtain again its lost strength. It teaches us that by prayer we seize familiarly the divine armor, "armaturam Dei orantes" and that only by its aid can we hope to combat and to triumph. This is Christian teaching. And will not that teaching be antichristian which denies what Christianity, in this respect, declares to be true? Certainly it must, because in the teaching of morals, to be silent concerning the necessity of grace and of prayer, by which man freely obtains grace, is to make an avowed profession of antichristianity. To say nothing of the grace which strengthens our nature; to say nothing of grace, which not only strengthens, but elevates nature above itself; to say nothing of the life of grace, as if, when compared with the physical and intellectual life, there was not a far more noble life, which all men have experienced, since no one is completely abandoned by its merciful inspirations—this is not a neutral course; it is antichristian, formally antichristian.
I might prove to you here that instruction upon morals is not only antichristian when it is silent concerning the means given us by faith to conquer these passions, but also when it refuses to recognize the great motives for fulfilling our duties, for these motives are so many Christian truths. I might show, or rather recall the fact, that these truths have transformed private and public morality, that they have begotten modern civilization; and those are indeed blind and ungrateful who enjoy the fruit of this civilization, while they would miserably tear the fair tree from the hearts of their Christian countrymen.
But I must be satisfied with placing these arguments before you; and I am the more readily contented with this sketch, because I know that it is not requisite to say everything, in order to be understood. I am convinced that I have said enough to make it clear, both to your reason and to your conscience, that instruction must be Christian, or it will become antichristian; that science is necessarily either for or against the holy faith; and that its pretended neutrality is only an unmeaning word. Hence it follows that the organization of public instruction on the basis of a deceitful neutrality is in reality the affirmation of antichristianity in the state. [Footnote 159]
[Footnote 159: In Belgium, there is a society which bears the title of The League of Instruction. This society is free to organize antichristianity in its schools, but always defraying its own expenses, and at its own risk and peril. This society has become dissatisfied, because its members know that they cannot gain the confidence of the people; hence they have sought to remove the obstacles by imploring the protection of the state.]
II.
It remains for us to see that, when science declares against the Christian faith, it really denies its own principle, that is to say, reason. And why? Because it is reason which invokes the light of faith, and it is reason which recognizes it. It is reason which invokes the light of faith. For what is reason? Reason is that one of our powers which reaches after truth; it is that faculty which is ever forcing us to search out the "why" of things. It has even the same name as its object, for the reason and the "why" of anything are one. Again, we only act reasonably when we know why we are acting. Even in our most insignificant actions, we always propose to ourselves an intention, an end which determines them. In order, therefore, to live reasonably, we must know why. It is necessary to know the why, or the end, of life, so that the first words of our catechism answer the first question of reason. Why are you in the world? Is it only to go to the cemetery? Has man been placed upon the earth only that he may be thrown into a grave? Humanity will never accept this doctrine. The generations of the human race kneel at the tombs of their ancestors and protest against this monstrosity—the miserable and absurd system of those who clamorously desire a liberty of the human mind, which can only terminate in corruption and worms. The human conscience and human reason unite in declaring that life is only a journey, that its end is beyond the tomb, and that to die is to attain it. But what do we attain? Where do we arrive? Here reason searches, and trembles while she seeks. She looks, and feels that she is powerless to penetrate single-handed into the abyss of the future life. The learned and the ignorant are equally baffled, and can only say, "It is necessary to return to the other world, in order to know what really is done there." The gospel tells us the same; no one has penetrated the heavens except he who came from them: "No one has ascended into heaven, except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven."
Let us try then, brethren, to discover what reason asks, and justly asks. It asks the "why" of life; it does not care to exist without knowing "why" and knowing it with certainty. It can obtain certitude in many other spheres of thought; but it wishes to be assured upon this far more than upon any other question. Let us, then, state how reason has certitude in some other matters, and how it wishes and can attain it in this.
We know the things of the exterior world with certainty, and reason tells as to admit that which is well attested by the senses. We know the things of the interior world, of that world which is within our own breasts, because reason tells us to admit what is revealed by our self-consciousness. We know the great mass of truths of the intellectual world with certainty, for our reason tells us that we must acknowledge the truths proclaimed by evidence. We know that which is passing upon the earth in the present day. We know events which occur in distant quarters of the world, and we know the facts which are separated from us by long intervals of time, because our reason tells us that history and the testimony of mankind are reliable grounds of certitude.
But that which we wish to know more than all these things is the end of our own existence; and we wish to know this precisely, because we are reasonable beings. Our reason longs to know more of the meaning of our creation; it desires to know what is true in regard to our end, because this truth must be divine and eternal. But to be certain of divine truth, must not reason be willing to obey the voice of God? To be certain of eternal truth, must we not accept the testimony of eternity? The testimony of God was implored in every age, and from this it comes that faith, which is the acceptance by human reason of God's revelation, is a constant, perpetual, universal fact, even as the fact of reason itself. It is ridiculous to urge against the truth of revelation the various religions which claim to be revealed; for the counterfeits of revelation do not prove more against it than the perversion of reason proves against reason. The wanderings of reason do not compel us to deny the truth of human reason, so neither do the misrepresentations and counterfeits of revelation force us to deny its truth. We have seen, therefore, what reason requires; let us see how it recognizes revelation when it meets with it.
There is a certain manner of speaking indifferently of all religions which is used as a cloak to hide the desire to confound them. This is common in the world of letters among men of scanty science. But serious science, like a sincere conscience, discovers divine revelation, in spite of its human alterations, by certain signs and characteristic marks which are unmistakable. These signs have been multiplied by Providence with love; but I wish to insist here upon that token which has not only followed past ages in their course, but has, if I may so speak, grown with their growth: that grand characteristic which reveals the author of nature, and which assures us of the giver of revelation, is unity. The unity of nature reveals God as the creator, the harmony of the heavens and of the earth recount the glory of their author: "The heavens explain the glory of God." It is the chant of the unity of space. But the unity of time is not less splendid than the unity of worlds; it is the harmony of centuries in Jesus Christ, who has revealed God as the author of revelation. Nature and revelation are, then, the two great works in which God is revealed by the same sign—queenly and all-powerful unity! The unity of time in Jesus Christ, and in him alone, is a fact without a parallel; more easy for us to rejoice in than to depict. Yet here is the master-stroke of a great pencil: "These are great facts, clearer than the light of the sun itself, which make us know that our religion is as old as the world, and demonstrate that he only could be its author who, holding all things in his hand, has been able to begin and continue that which holds all centuries in its embrace. To be expected, to come, to be adored by a posterity which will last through every age, is the character of him whom we adore, Jesus Christ, yesterday, to-day, and to endless ages, the same." This, then, is the manifest sign of divine revelation, the unity of time in Jesus Christ.
St. Augustine spoke of this sign, considering it, however, under only one of its aspects, when he answered those persons who envied the good fortune of those who conversed with the risen Christ: "The apostles saw one thing, but they believed another; and because they saw, they believed that which they did not see. They saw Jesus Christ risen, the head of the Church, but they did not yet see this body, this Universal Church, which Jesus Christ announced to them," this marvellous and almost incredible Catholicity, extending over every country, with its unbloody sacrifice of the great invisible Victim, with the manifestation of conscience and remission of sins, with its perpetuity to the end of time, with its centre of unity established by these words: "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The apostles saw none of these things, and how could they believe in such apparently incredible promises? But they were in the presence of the risen Christ; they had seen him dead and crucified, they saw him living and glorious, and it is from his mouth that they received the promise of that which they did not see. "They have seen the head," says St. Augustine, "and they have believed in the body; we see the body, and we believe in the head. We are like them, because we see, and therefore we believe that which we do not see."
It is necessary for us to recall here what St. Thomas Aquinas says upon this point: "No one believes, unless he sees what is necessary to be believed." It is because we are reasonable that we are believers. It is also because we are believers, we are Christians; and it is as Christians and children of Catholicity that we love with the same affection faith and science, the plenitude of science, the liberty and progress of science. The plenitude of science, for, without its harmony with the sphere of faith and the truths which surround our faith, science must always be incomplete.
There is a science to-day which calls itself "positive" meaning that it is founded on well-attested facts. It is indeed good to rely upon facts. Facts should undoubtedly be the basis of natural science. Still the natural sciences are not the only ones which should be sustained by facts. The moral order, as well as the physical, appears to be a magnificent assemblage of facts. Humanity with its reason, its conscience, its sublime inclinations, its immortal yearnings—is not humanity a grand fact? Then this great fact must be considered as it really exists, in its entirety, and not as mutilated by the false spirit of a system. If the order of facts to which positivism would limit us were the only order, do you know what humanity would be? An ant which disputes with the grains of sand. But humanity will never allow itself to be thus dishonored.
To the moral fact of humanity corresponds that which we have seen triumph over centuries—the fact of revelation. I say it corresponds to them, because Christian revelation offers the only satisfactory reply to questions which philosophers have always asked and never answered. I say it corresponds, because Christian revelation has alone thrown a flood of light upon the mysteries of the positive state of humanity, and it alone affirms that it bears a sovereign remedy for the moral disorder of our nature: "Come to me, and I will refresh you." Do we really possess science, then, if, in the presence of these two great facts and of this divine appeal to experience, we obstinately close our eyes and shut our ears? Have we science when, without investigation, we assert as the first condition the gratuitous denial of the possibility of the things that were to be examined? What is really this pretended scientific position? It is the attitude of fear. If science would be perfect, it must investigate every order of facts, investigate their character, declare their harmony. It is when it states the harmony of the facts of the natural order with the facts (I say facts) of the supernatural order, the harmony of the actual condition of the human race with the revelation which enlightens its depths, then it is that science becomes perfect, or at least always tends more and more toward perfection. The very names which represent this harmony are, as you are well aware, the greatest names of science.
But will science be free, some one asks, if it is bound by revelation? Does it cease to be free because it is bound by nature? That which troubles certain minds on this point is due to a false and pitiable notion of liberty. In what respect is liberty everywhere distinguished from license? In this, that liberty always moves within the sphere of law, and license always beyond it. In the order of science, the law is the truth established. The liberty of science is not, then, absolute in its independence, as has been recently declared by an academician. No; liberty is not the independence of science, for it consists precisely in the fact of its dependence upon truth. The servitude of science, on the contrary, consists in its dependence upon opinion. Indeed, it is not the freedom of the human mind, but license, mother of servitude, which pretends to-day to reduce everything to opinion. This pretence is the negation of science. To possess science is to know with certainty; to have only opinions is to doubt; and to submit to doubt is slavery. The true man of learning never asserts when he is ignorant; but science does not require less certainty, and only becomes science when she can attain it. Science is therefore science only because the truth controls it, and by controlling it, preserves it from the servitude of opinion, so that this shining sentence of our Lord concerns also the learned: "The truth shall make you free."
"But does not experience show that in bearing the yoke of truth we are sure to yield to illusions?" I answer, is it not proven that those who resist the evidence of a divine order, whether in the work of revelation or in the work of nature, bend beneath every breath that passes, turning to every wind of doctrine, yield to every caprice of intellect, and frame their convictions according to the phrases which are daily set forth by the press of both hemispheres? Have you never met with one of these slaves? They are ready to believe anything that is affirmed without evidence, provided it is contrary to the faith, and they are willing to accept any theory as a demonstrated fact, so long as it can be used against Christianity. What is this but the credulity of incredulity?
The notion of progress is not less false among them than that of liberty. Do they not say every day that faith is incompatible with progress, because revelation is immutable? Is not nature also immutable? Is the immutability of nature an obstacle to the progress of natural science? Why, then, is the immutability of revelation, which we have seen clothed with the same divine sign as nature—why, then, is this immutability an obstacle to the progress of the moral sciences? Is it not concerning the progress of these sacred sciences that Pius IX. has recently adopted the words of Vincent of Lerins, and made them his own? "Progress exists, and it is very great; but it is the true progress of faith, which is not constant change. It must be that the intelligence, the science, the wisdom of all ages, as well as of each one in particular, of all ages and centuries of the whole church, should, like individuals, increase and make great, very great progress; so that posterity may have the good fortune to understand that which antiquity venerated without comprehending; so that the precious stones of divine dogma may be cut, exactly adapted, wisely ornamented, that they may enrich us with their grace, their splendor, and their beauty, but always of the same kind, that is to say, the same doctrine, in the same sense and with the same substance, so that, when we use new terms, we do not say new things." You understand then, my brethren, that the immutability of revelation does not offer a greater obstacle to the progress of sacred science than the immutability of nature places in the way of the natural sciences.
The popes were not only the friends of the progress of the sacred sciences; they were the most ardent supporters of all science, as well as of the progress of letters and arts. The facts which prove this are so numerous that I shall content myself with recalling those which concern you more directly. Who founded the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in England? The popes. Who founded the universities of Paris, Bologna, Ferrara, Salamanca, Coimbra, Alcala, Heidelberg, Prague, Cologne, Vienna, Louvain, and Copenhagen? Again the popes. Who instituted the professorships of the Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Chaldaic Languages at Paris, Oxford, Bologna, and Salamanca? A pope—Clement V. By whom, during two centuries, were sustained, encouraged, recompensed, the works of savants which finally led to the knowledge of the system of the world? By the popes and the cardinals of the holy Roman Church. This is what those ignore who do not blush to perpetuate the fabulous condemnation of Galileo by the Church. Neither the Church nor the sovereign pontiffs have ever condemned Galileo. Galileo was condemned by a tribunal of theologians, who soon withdrew this condemnation to give astronomy the same liberty which was granted to Galileo himself, whose sombre prison is only a romance. Where was this system of the movement of the earth adopted by Copernicus, and then first taught by Galileo? At Rome, in 1495, by Nicholas de Cusa, professor in the Roman University, forty-eight years before the birth of Copernicus, and one hundred and thirty-nine before that of Galileo. Nicholas de Cusa defended at that time this system in a work, dedicated to his professor, Cardinal Julian Cesarini. Pope Nicholas V. raised Nicholas de Cusa to the cardinalate, and named him Bishop of Brixen, in Tyrol. Again, it was at Rome, toward the year 1500, that Copernicus explained and defended this system before an audience of two thousand scholars. Copernicus was made Canon of Königsberg. Celius Calcagnini, who taught the system of Cusa and Copernicus, in Italy, about 1518, was appointed apostolic prothonotary by Clement VIII., and confirmed in this position of honor by Paul III.; it was to Paul III. that Copernicus dedicated his work De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium. At last, when the renowned Kepler, who developed and completed the system of Copernicus, was on this account persecuted by the Protestant theologians of Tübingen, the Holy See used its utmost endeavors to place in the University of Bologna this savant, so Christian in his ideas, and who had not merely embraced the system of Galileo, but had given it an immense weight by the authority of his immortal discoveries. If I insist on this episode, it is because bad faith is stubborn in its efforts to find an argument against the conduct of the popes in the great history of the moral progress of science. The Church never fears the light. She knows and teaches that the light of reason and the light of faith come from the same source. She knows that one of these truths will never contradict the other, and that among the proofs of revelation we must not forget its harmony with the sciences. The sects cannot withstand the presence of science; never has pagan or mussulman become a savant without losing his poor, bewildering faith. It is not so of the true religion. From Clement of Alexandria and Origen to Descartes, Leibnitz, Pascal, Kepler, and De Maistre, to say nothing of our contemporaries, science and faith have dwelt together in the greatest minds of Christendom.
Continue this glorious tradition, young men of the Catholic university, and remain always worthy of your Alma Mater! Become truly men, and you will be men the more powerful and useful the more faithful Christians you are.
And you, city of Louvain, be justly proud of remaining, through your university, the object of noble envy to the nations which surround you. Ireland has taken you for her model; France and Catholic Germany look upon you, and endeavor that they too may possess something which resembles you. Never cease to be yourself, the city of science and of religion, that your children, ever faithful to these two lights, may be consoled, during their life and at the hour of death, by the thought that their love has never divided these two great things which have been united by the infinite wisdom of God.
The Story Of Marcel,
The Little Mettray Colonist.
Chapter XI.
"Wide o'er the brim, with many a torrent swelled,
And the mixed ruin of its banks o'erspread,
At last the roused-up river pours along,
Resistless, roaring, dreadful."
Thomson.
The first inundations of the Loire with which we are acquainted have been made known to us by the celebrated historian and bishop St. Gregory of Tours, who has left detailed accounts of eight dreadful disasters that occurred in the space of eleven years; that is, from 580 to 591. In the archives of France there is preserved an edict of Louis le Debonnaire, son and successor of Charlemagne, who, touched by the piteous complaints made to him by the inhabitants of Touraine and Anjou, whose harvests were in constant danger from the sudden risings of the river, ordered the building of dams and embankments, which, modified by some of his successors and strengthened by others, became at last the magnificent structures we behold them at the present day, between Blois and Tours.
Nevertheless, the capricious river has never yet during all these long centuries been kept for any time within its bed. Its devastations were fearful in 1414, and again in 1615, when the sudden melting of the enormous masses of snow which had fallen on the surrounding country during the winter caused so frightful a catastrophe that it has since been known in French history as the "Deluge of Saumur." The beginning of the seventeenth century saw ten risings of the Loire in ten years; and the Duke of Saint-Simon has left us, in his celebrated memoirs, a notice of one in 1708, which was the cause of much misery. In more modern times, France has had, every eight or ten years, to deplore some dreadful misfortune arising from the same source, and the more favored portions of that beautiful land have been compelled repeatedly to come to the aid of the ruined population of the basin of the Loire, whose farm-houses had been swept away by the flood, their harvest-fields devastated, their cattle drowned, and who, too often, alas! had also had to weep over irreparable losses far more bitter than these—the life of dear ones lost in the surging waters.
About five years after Marcel's admission into the Mettray Colony, one of the most terrible of these visitations overtook the inhabitants of the banks of the picturesque stream. A long continuation of rainy weather had swollen the Cher and the Allier, both tributaries of the Loire, and the river, rising suddenly, broke through its strong embankments and spread itself over the country. The local authorities, of every degree and station—prefect, subprefect, and mayors—with the soldiers, engineers, and townspeople of Tours, all hastened to the relief of the drowning villages and farms, and all did their duty; but even among these courageous men the young Colonists distinguished themselves by their energy and self devotion.
The inundation had commenced in the night, and when daylight revealed the extent of the disaster, the director assembled the youths.
"Boys," cried he, "the Loire has risen, the country is under water, and hundreds of families are in danger of their lives. Boys, the oldest and strongest of you must go and help to save them!"
The lads looked at one another an instant in silence, then broke forth in a cry that rang far and near, "Long live Demetz! Long live our director!" a cry that was a perfect explosion of gratitude and of pride; for the poor fellows fully comprehended all that their wise and good director meant them to understand—his confidence in their honor, their honesty, and their courage.
And well they justified his trust in them! More than a hundred were soon actively at work raising dikes and clams, propping houses, and carrying succor to the distressed.
Marcel, Polycarpe, and one of their companions, a young baker, named Priat, to whom both of them were much attached, were among the foremost in these labors. They had gone with some others to carry help to a village containing about twenty families; it was situated only two hundred yards from the river, and completely surrounded by water. An immense quantity of wood—wrecks from other villages swept away by the flood—drifted about in the streets, and was dashed incessantly against the water-soaked walls of the houses, shaking them terribly; two, indeed, had fallen in the night and been washed away. On the roofs, or leaning from the upper windows of the tottering dwellings, were to be seen the frightened inhabitants imploring aid; the mothers holding out their little ones and praying for pity. It was a heart-breaking sight, and the noise of the ever-rising and surging river, of the wind and pouring rain, of the shocks of the drift-wood, increased the terrors of the scene. Nor was it possible to approach near enough to the houses to save any of the unfortunates shrieking for help; for every boat belonging to the place had either been swamped or had been torn from its moorings by the overwhelming current and carried away.
"Let us run to Saint-Pierre," cried Polycarpe, after he and his companions had contemplated the fearful spectacle for a few moments with consternation. "We may find a boat there!"
He started off as he spoke, followed by half a dozen of the Colonists. Marcel did not accompany them, for he had heard cries of distress from the windmill, a short distance off, and had hastened thither with three or four more. The water at this point was quite seven feet deep, and the building evidently giving way. There seemed to be no possibility of saving the miller and his wife and child, for the flood rushed so fiercely around the mill that the most experienced swimmer would not have ventured into it. Marcel was gazing in hopeless pity at the fated building, when a man on horseback trotted into the midst of the group of despairing spectators. A sudden thought struck the boy.
"Give me that horse!" cried he; "quick, give me that horse!"
"What do you mean, youngster?" asked the man, somewhat surprised by the imperative tone and unexpected demand of the stranger.
"For God's sake, lend me your horse; every moment that we lose may cost a life!"
As he spoke he turned toward the mill, where the unfortunate family could be seen at the window, stretching forth their imploring hands and crying for help. The traveller got off his horse without another word, and, quick as lightning, Marcel was in the saddle and spurring the animal forward into the water. Before his surprised companions well comprehended what he intended to do, they saw him breasting the furious current and struggling to reach the windmill.
They saw him reach it at last, and then the miller letting down his wife to him by a rope passed under her arms. The poor woman held her child clasped closely to her bosom, and though she clung to her deliverer with a grasp that almost strangled him, she seemed to think only of her babe, whispering to it as Marcel urged the panting horse back again to the land, "Thou art saved, my little one, thou art saved!"
The brave boy placed the mother and child in safety in the hands of the admiring spectators of his courage and self-devotion; then, without staying for a moment's breathing or rest, forced his unwilling horse again into the flood.
This time the owner of the good beast made some indignant remonstrances. "Both boy and horse will be lost," cried he; "they are both, tired now; they can never fight against the current!"
"Why don't the miller throw himself into the water and swim? He's fresh and the others aren't."
"Suppose he don't know how," answered one of the bystanders; "and if he did, do you think he could stem that torrent?"
"Why, he'd be carried down the Loire to the sea, just like a piece of straw," said another.
"The horse, the horse, look how he strains! he's giving way! he's lost his footing!" cried half a dozen at this instant.
For a moment the strong, high-spirited animal was hurried along by the foaming, eddying stream, then with a mighty effort recovering himself he reached the mill, and the miller had just time to drop down and cling with a death-grip to the pale, intrepid rider, when the building toppled over and was carried away!
Cries and tears of joy hailed them as they approached the dry land; the young Colonists surrounded their heroic companion, and presently bore him off to Mettray for a change of clothing and some refreshment; his trembling frame told how much he needed them. But the family he had saved so gallantly did not let him depart before they had thanked him with tears of gratitude, while the owner of the noble horse pressed his hand in both of his and swore to be his friend through life.
"You're a brave fellow, and I honor you," cried he. "I'll be your friend, and a true one, or my name's not Charles Rodez!"
The poor miller with his wife and child were taken to a house prepared to receive and succor the unfortunate victims of the inundation. Food and warm clothing and beds were here ready for the half-starved and half-drowned families that were arriving continually—poor, despairing people who had most of them lost their little all, and some of them a father, or husband, or child.
Scarcely had Marcel, cold and wet, but very happy, been borne off in triumph by his comrades, when there appeared on the road, coming toward the village, a great truck drawn by two horses, and loaded with a large boat and its oars.
Polycarpe and his friend Priat had been successful in their search, and were now returning at the head of the little band of Colonists who had followed them to Saint-Pierre.
The people in the water-logged houses of the village fairly screamed with hope and joy when they saw the procession, and then the boat taken off and launched. A dozen Colonists were eager to jump in, but Polycarpe and Priat were given the precedence, and they, with another well-grown youth, presently pushed off into the fast and furious stream. It was hard work to keep clear of the drifting beams that were hurled along, rather than carried, by the current through the narrow streets of the village; harder still to get the boat near enough to each tottering house to take off the frightened family from the roof or out of the windows.
Once, indeed, it came near being swamped, with eight persons on board, by the sudden falling of a wall of the house from which they had just been saved. Polycarpe's quick eye saw the coming danger in time to give such a vigorous pull with his oar that the boat sprang forward just out of reach of the stones and beams, but she was so violently rocked by the concussion of the falling materials with the water that it seemed a miracle that she did not capsize.
And once, too, the brave boy missed his footing as he climbed on a roof to take off a lame old man, and fell headlong into the water. An admirable swimmer and diver, he did not lose his presence of mind, but passed under the boat and came up on the other side; he was soon hauled in by poor Priat, who was more frightened and affected by this accident than by any other event of that terrible day.
All day long the work of rescue went on. When the three rowers were exhausted with fatigue, three others took their places. There was not one among the young Colonists who hung back or shirked the danger; not one who did not give proof of courage and Christian charity. The boat went and came, until, at last, one after another, all the poor peasants were in safety. When night fell, not a house of the village was left standing, but not a life had been lost.
Chapter XII.
"Not always full of leaf, nor ever spring,
Not always endless night, nor yet eternal day;
The saddest birds a season find to sing,
The roughest storm a calm may soon allay.
Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,
That man may hope to rise, and fear to fall."
Southwell.
The services rendered by the young Colonists during the inundation attracted unusual attention to the Colony, and visitors from Tours, and even from Paris, flocked in numbers to Mettray every Thursday and Sunday. The afternoons of these two days were set apart for the public, who were permitted to be present at the boys' gymnastic exercises, and for whose pleasure the band of the military establishment performed its best pieces.
On one of these occasions, about a couple of months after the events we have endeavored to describe in the preceding chapter, Marcel remarked a gentleman whose countenance he seemed to remember, who appeared to be looking at him, almost examining him, with much attention. Toward the close of the exercises, he perceived the same gentleman in conversation with one of the head-officers of the place. Presently they came to him.
"Marcel," said the officer, "this gentleman wishes to ask you a few questions."
"I want to ask you, my boy, if you recollect ever to have seen me before!" said the gentleman, with an encouraging smile.
"Yes, sir," replied Marcel; "I believe that I have. I think that you are the Commissary of Police in the Rue des Noyers."
"I was; I see that I am not mistaken either. I never did forget a face that struck me. You are the boy who, some years since, found a bag of Napoleons in the street and brought it to me. Am I not right?"
"Yes, sir," said Marcel, looking down.
"Well, my good fellow, your honesty saved a poor man from a broken heart; but he was very ill for a long time from the dreadful emotions of that night, and circumstances prevented my seeking you out immediately, and so it happened that, when I did go to the address you gave me, I only learnt that the woman with whom you lived was dead, and no one could tell me anything about you. I suspect that no one would. Perhaps I was recognized to be the Commissary of Police, and inspired no great confidence. But I am glad to see you again, my boy. I have just learned something of your history, and I rejoice to find that I was not mistaken in the opinion I formed of you that night that you brought me the bag. I often regretted that you received no reward. I don't know how it happened either. You're a brave fellow, too, as well as an honest one, they tell me. Shake hands, will you?"
He took Marcel's hand as he spoke; the boy burst into tears; the past returned so vividly to his recollection at that moment; the commissary's long speech brought back so much that had almost been forgotten, so much misery and shame and sin, that the different present overpowered him. The good-natured visitor patted him on the shoulder in a kind, fatherly manner, his eyes glistening with sympathy.
"Come," said he presently, "tell me what you intend to do when you leave the Colony. I hear that your time will soon be out now. What trade have you learned?"
"I am a gardener," replied Marcel. "I always loved flowers, and I should like to cultivate them."
"Quite right," said his new-found friend. "Well, I shall look out for a place for you. And now, my boy, remember that I am your friend, a sincere one, and be sure to write to me in any emergency. This is my address, M. de Morel, Rue du Luxembourg, Paris; take care of this card, and do not forget to let me know two or three months before you leave the Colony."
He gave Marcel his card, with another cordial shake of the hand, and, returning to his party, shortly after left the establishment.
Marcel had a long talk with the father of the family and Polycarpe that evening. They both agreed that the promised influence of M. de Morel was a bright prospect for Marcel's future career.
"This friendship, however, is not absolutely necessary for your prosperity hereafter, Marcel," said the father. "You know well that Mettray never abandons her children. Our good director would find you a suitable situation, and continue to watch over your interests. But still I think you must do as this kind gentleman wishes. It is a pleasant and useful thing to have friends; one cannot have too many good ones!"
"You will get acquainted with the poor clerk, very likely," remarked Polycarpe. "Wouldn't you be glad to know him? I should, I think."
"Yes, I think I should too," answered Marcel thoughtfully.
The friends went to bed that night very happy; Marcel to dream of that future garden, the aim of all his ambition, in which he wandered, hand in hand with the poor clerk, until the clarion sounded; Polycarpe to fancy himself marching, drums beating, colors flying, at the head of a regiment of Zouaves!
There is not a pleasanter place in Paris than the Garden of Plants—the people's delight and the people's own!
Who that has seen it in spring can forget its magnificent avenues of linden-trees, fragrant with the delicious perfume of the tassel-like blossoms; its grand old chestnut-trees, covered with spikes of creamy-white or rose-colored flowers; its lilac-bushes, its pear-trees, white with blossoms, as if they had been snowed on! And then the twitter of birds, mingled with the bleating of sheep and goats, and the soft lowing of cows! Delightful sights and sounds in the very heart of poor old Paris, close by the door of the hospital! 'Tis there that the pale Parisian workman spends his holiday with his wife and children; 'tis there the little ones learn to love and be gentle to God's creatures.
How pleasant it is in the warm summer-time, when the shady avenues are crowded with bands of happy children, jumping the rope or playing at hide-and-seek behind the thick trunks of the old trees planted by Buffon, while their smiling mothers sit near with their sewing. How beautiful then are the gay parterres of bright-colored flowers so skilfully grouped, so harmoniously contrasted! How interesting the rich botanic garden, where so many strange exotic plants, each with its common as well as scientific name legibly inscribed near it, can be freely and conveniently studied by all!
Who that has climbed the little hill, on whose summit stands the Cedar of Lebanon, and rested beneath the glorious spreading branches, has not felt it a heart-warming sight to watch the crowds of hard-working people rambling with their children amidst the trees and flowers of this magnificent garden; here stopping to feed the patient elephant, who seems to pass his life begging for bits of bread; here contemplating, with some aversion perhaps, the clumsy hippopotamus bathing its unwieldy form in its tank; then making a long pause before the monkeys' palace, where some twenty of those natural gymnasts excite roars of laughter by their tricks; and then again before the great cage of the many-colored parrots, that look to the delighted children like giant flying-flowers? And as they stroll along, the goats and sheep, and soft-eyed gazelles and fawns, that beg by the way, get each a few crumbs of black bread and many caresses; and the boys jest en passant with the bear at the bottom of his pit—"Old Martin" they call him—and they bribe him to climb the great pole placed expressly for him, with a bit of crust; and the little girls pity the eagle as they pass by his narrow grated prison. Sitting there under the cedar, the eye falls almost involuntarily on a group of pretty houses, nestled together in a corner not far from the Museums of Natural History. They are the residences of many of the professors attached to the Garden of Plants—professors of botany, of comparative anatomy, of mineralogy and geology, of natural history, etc.—men of world-wide reputations, whom the privileged inhabitants of Paris may hear lecture on these various sciences, in well-ventilated, well-warmed halls, twice every week, for nothing.
In an out of the way nook, but quite near to the homes of these celebrated men, there was one quaint, old-fashioned little house which, in the spring of the year 1859, had been appropriated as the dwelling of one of the head-gardeners, a young man of great intelligence in his profession, and who had lately been appointed to the situation.
It was a very little house, it is true, but large enough for the tenant and his young, newly-made wife, who thought it, for her part, the sweetest nest ever built. It was covered with climbing roses; they could scarcely be shut out by the windows and doors, so that it had received the name of "The House of the Roses." Outside, it needed no other ornament to be beautiful; inside, its charms were neatness, cheerfulness, cleanliness, and quiet.
But the afternoon that we present it to our readers the little house was in a bustle, for wife Gabrielle and her maid Marie were preparing a dinner far more elaborate than was usual in that simple household, and very anxious were the two little women that every dish should be worthy of the occasion, for the banquet was to feast the return of an old friend from the war in Italy.
The master of the house had but just got home from his daily occupations when there came a vigorous ring at the door, and he ran to open it.
"Marcel!"
"Polycarpe!"
The two friends threw themselves into each other's arms, unable to utter another word.
"How well and happy you look!" exclaimed Polycarpe at last, laying his hand caressingly on his friend's shoulder and gazing affectionately at him.
"And you, Polycarpe, what a tremendous fellow you are with your turban and your great beard!" returned Marcel, looking with admiration at the supple, sinewy form of the handsome Zouave, on whose broad chest shone the Cross of the Legion of Honor.
The blushing young wife received her husband's old friend with a cordiality that soon put the soldier quite at his ease, and by the time the dinner was ended they were chatting together as if they were acquaintances of ten years' standing.
"Now, Marcel," said Polycarpe, when the happy trio were quietly seated in the little salon through whose open windows the fresh roses peeped in, perfuming the soft evening air—"now, Marcel, you must tell me something more about yourself than the few letters I have received from you have contained."
"First, let me tell you something, Monsieur Polycarpe," cried Gabrielle. "Let me tell you that I shall be grateful to you, and love you as a brother to my dying day, for having saved Marcel from being a soldier."
"Madam," replied the Zouave, laughing, "you must love me as your brother, but you owe me no gratitude. Why, I had always wished to be a soldier, and it was the most natural thing in the world that I should exchange my good number for Marcel's bad one. But that drawing for the conscription is really a dreadful ordeal!"
"Thank God that you have come back to us!" ejaculated Marcel softly.
"Oh! that horrible battle of Solferino!" cried Gabrielle with a shudder. "When Marcel knew that you had been engaged in it, I thought that he would go distracted, until he was assured of your safety."
"He ought to have seen us Zouaves, how ready we were for the fight; not a man among us who would have backed out!"
"It was because I knew your impetuosity, Polycarpe," said Marcel, "that I despaired of ever seeing you again."
"Well, my friend!" said the soldier, pressing his friend's hand, "here I am, safe and sound, with two legs and two arms; there is many a brave man who came back from Solferino who cannot say that!"
"I have always been lucky," continued he after a short pause; "I entered the army a simple soldier, without a single friend, and yet here I am with the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and next month I shall get my epaulettes!"
"I am not surprised, not in the least surprised. You acted like a hero in Italy, I know, or you would not have been decorated! We shall see you a captain soon!" And Gabrielle clapped her little hands with delight at the thought.
"Come, Marcel," cried Polycarpe, laughing, "I shall become too vain if I listen to your wife any longer. Come, tell me; when we parted, you for Paris, and I for the army, how did you get on?"
"It will be a twice-told tale to you, Polycarpe, for you must have received my letters!"
"Never mind! There are gaps in what I know of your doings, and they must be filled up."
"Well, then, after that painful parting with our friends at Mettray, I proceeded to Paris, and went immediately to see M. de Morel; he was just as cordial as he had given me reason to believe he would be, and one of the very first things he did was to take me to see Gabrielle's father."
"Do you know who he was, Monsieur Polycarpe, or is that one of the gaps you mentioned?" interrupted Gabrielle, smiling.
"Oh! no, that is not a gap," replied the soldier. "I know that it was your father who lost the bag of gold Marcel was so fortunate as to find."
"What a dreadful remembrance that night is to us all even now! I was very young then, but I can perfectly recollect my poor father's despair, and my mother's bitter weeping. I have never since heard of a sum of money being found, without picturing to myself the loser's agony, and some such scene of wretchedness as I witnessed in my own home!"
"Monsieur Tixier received me as if I were his son," continued Marcel.
"Well, you were to be!" said Gabrielle archly.
"But I certainly never should have dared to have thought of such a thing then," replied her husband, smiling. "I saw Mademoiselle Gabrielle sitting at work by her mother's side; but I little dreamt that that fair young girl would ever be my wife!"
"How glad we were to see him, you can imagine, Monsieur Polycarpe! We had wanted for years to prove our gratitude to him! But you know we had never been able to find him. In the street where he used to live they told father that Pelagie Vautrin was dead, and the family with whom Marcel lived had moved."
"You can understand how that happened, Polycarpe," continued Marcel, "for you know that your unfortunate father was never seen again after that day when we so hastily fled the house. And then your mother and Loulou left the neighborhood."
"Poor father, poor mother, both gone!" sighed the soldier. "How often have I hoped to possess a decent home of my own that I might save them from a miserable old age! They are both gone, for I cannot help believing that my father is dead."
"Loulou will be a comfort to you; the good sisters in Rue St. Jacques have brought her up well. She is a good, industrious girl, and an excellent needlewoman. Gabrielle has had her to spend the day with us twice, and we are very fond of her."
"Madame Gabrielle, how can I thank you! What kind, good friends you are to me!" The brave Zouave hid his face for a moment in his hands; when he raised it, his cheeks glistened as if they had just been washed with tears.
"Go on, Marcel, what happened after you had made the acquaintance of M. Tixier?"
"Very shortly after, M. de Morel succeeded in getting me a place in the staff of gardeners attached to the Garden of Plants, and here I have worked steadily on while you have been fighting my battles, Polycarpe."
"You have fought your own, Marcel, and manfully too!"
"Happy years they have been—my profession pleased me, and I made many friends, and as time went on I was promoted, until, at last, six months ago, I was appointed one of the head-gardeners, with a good salary and this little house rent free."
"And then, Monsieur Polycarpe, my good father, who had known for a long time that Marcel and I loved one another dearly, made him understand that my mother would be happy to call him her son!"
"Yes, when my way was clear before me, my good friend bestowed on me the best little wife that ever man was blessed with; and where do you think we went for our wedding trip?"
"Where? Why, to Mettray, of course," cried Polycarpe excitedly.
"Yes, to Mettray. We staid with Rodez at Tours; he was very kind to us, and took us to see all our friends. First of all, Priat; he is foreman to the richest baker in the town, and is very highly esteemed by his master. He was very glad to see me again, and we talked a great deal of you and of the Zouaves."
"Good fellow! I shall go to see him, one of these days!" exclaimed Polycarpe.
"Yes, do. Then we went to Mettray. How my heart beat when I caught sight again of the chapel steeple! I saw many new faces, but our kind director, and the good abbe, and the father of our family were there just the same, all well, and so glad to see me, and so glad to know that I was prosperous and happy; and they admired my little wife so much!"
"Enough, enough, Marcel!" interrupted Gabrielle, brightly blushing and smiling.
"Marcel," said Polycarpe after a short silence, "I have been on the battle-field, my comrades falling by hundreds around me, while I was spared; I have seen death in its most fearful shapes, and human suffering inconceivable to the imagination of those who have not witnessed it, and I have escaped, unhurt, untouched; but I declare to you that when the battle was over and the danger past, I never felt that overpowering gratitude that fills my heart when I remember Mettray. For, after all, what is physical pain, what is the loss of this life compared to that corruption of the heart and conscience that was ours when we first entered the Colony? I do not believe that I have ever closed my eyes in sleep since I quitted that saving home before praying, 'God bless the founders of Mettray!'"