NEW PUBLICATIONS.
[Church Defence.] New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
“Our Clerical Friends” appear to be suffering pain from the strong sinapisms of Dr. Marshall. At least, we suspect they must be in pain, from certain suppressed, inarticulate cries and moans of the Church Journal, Churchman, etc. Their doctor is inexorable, however, and has already applied another blister. Their internal disorder is too deeply seated and obstinate to allow of any milder treatment. They have been seized with such a violent madness of fancying themselves priests and playing at Catholic that argument is lost on them, unless plentifully infused with ridicule. Church Defence is unmerciful in its ridicule, like the Comedy of Convocation, but it is also perfectly genteel and polished in its style, and as overwhelming in argument as an essay by Dr. Newman. Those who have laughed over the sparkling pages of the classic Comedy, will enjoy another laugh over this new drama, and those who have been thrown into a rage by My Clerical Friends will be at a loss for epithets wherewith to give vent to their pent-up bosoms when they read this new amiable discussion, which they will and must do, in spite of themselves. Dear friends and would-be Catholics, you might as well laugh with the whole world that is laughing at you! Your little farce is played out. It is a small business to be trying to cheat poor girls who are entrapped by your counterfeit Sisters, by pretending that you are Catholic priests and can give them sacraments. Something else is wanted besides acolytes and nicolytes, candles and high celebrations, mimicry of our sacerdotal dress, and high collars or high altars. You are outdone even in counterfeiting Catholicity by the little Greek schismatical chapel, where there is a better Signor Blitz than any of your feeble imitations. Do, if you please, try something new for the amusement of mankind, and let the curtain fall on the Anglo-Catholic farce!
[The Progressionists, and Angela.] By Conrad von Bolanden. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.
The second of these novelettes by the most popular writer of fiction among the Catholics of Germany is really a charming story. The character of “Angela” is remarkably well drawn, and is the type of a perfect Christian woman, in the three phases which are so full of moral and poetic beauty, as maiden, bride, and mistress of the household. The first one is very different, dealing with incidents and scenes which are not so pleasing, but unfortunately equally real. As both are reprints from the pages of this magazine, our readers will remember them, and no doubt be glad to get them in a separate form. Those who have not read them will find them not only entertaining reading, but full of thought and instruction on most important and practical topics of modern life.
[Life of J. Theophane Vénard], Martyr in Tonquin; or, What Love Can Do. Translated by Lady Herbert. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.
[Life of Henry Dorié, Martyr]. Translated by Lady Herbert. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.
These two works are translations from the French by Lady Herbert, for the benefit of S. Joseph’s Foreign Missionary College at Mill Hill near London, to which she has been a warm friend and liberal patron from the beginning. Americans cannot help feeling a great interest in that institution, for the first band of missionaries it sent forth came to labor among the colored people of our Southern States.
Nothing could be better calculated to stimulate the fervor of the aspirant to the missionary life than the example of these two young Christian heroes worthy of the primitive ages of the church—worthy, it might be said, of the XIXth century; for never was there an age that required more firmness of purpose and constancy to the truth than this, with its glorious confessors of the faith in Asia, and as large an army of martyrs on the other side of the globe undergoing the slower torture of heart and soul that is far worse than that of the cangue.
The lives of the two missionaries before us are affecting to the last degree. Every Catholic youth should read them, if not to fully emulate their example, to which all have not the happiness of being called, at least to catch something of the unworldliness and burning piety they manifested from their very childhood. Indeed, we wish everybody could read them, for there could be no better proof of the holy influences of the Catholic religion upon the young heart. We linger with admiration over the account of their boyhood overshadowed by their future martyrdom. One golden thread runs through their whole lives—one constant aim—the wish to win souls to Christ, and at last to gain the martyr’s crown. And this intense desire for martyrdom was no mere youthful enthusiasm, as was proved when their lifelong prayer was granted. But amid all the self-denial with which they fitted themselves for their glorious destiny, nothing in their character is more striking than the tender affection—passing ordinary human love—apparent in their intercourse with their families, as if religion had refined every fibre of their hearts, and made them more keenly susceptible of love, of suffering, and of devotion to the service of God. They never allowed earthly affections, however, to come between them and their great aim in life. What angels of the sanctuary they were while preparing for the sublime functions of the priesthood! What a lofty conception they had of the sacrament of holy orders that consecrated them to a life of sacrifice! How joyfully they entered upon the life that promised them the radiant crown.
“Prepared for virgin souls and them
Who seek the martyr’s diadem.”
“Souffrir pour Dieu—To suffer for God—will henceforth be my motto,” said Henri Dorié, about to leave his country for ever. Everything at the Séminaire des Missions Etrangères was calculated to strengthen this desire for suffering. Old missionaries, who bore in their bodies the marks of the Lord Jesus, were their professors. Every day they went to pray in the Hall of Martyrs, around which are ranged the relics of those who have suffered for the faith in China, Japan, and the isles of the sea, together with the instruments of their martyrdom—an appalling shrine at which to pray! And the whole room is crimsoned with the light diffused through the red hangings—significant of blood and suffering.... Among other sacred articles in this hall is the blood-stained crucifix of Bishop Borie, whose interesting life has been written by the Rev. F. Hewit.
One of the most affecting scenes related in these books is when a band of missionaries is about to leave for their field of labor. On the eve of their departure, the young apostles all stand before the altar—victims ready for the glorious sacrifice—and one by one the loved companions and friends they are to leave behind come up to prostrate themselves, and kiss the feet of these heralds of salvation, the whole congregation meanwhile chanting: Quam speciosi pedes evangelizantium pacem, evangelizantium bona!—How beautiful are the feet of them who preach the Gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things!
M. Vénard went to labor in Tonquin. When the first missionary to that country—a Dominican friar—landed there in 1596, he found a great cross on that unknown shore, which seemed to prefigure what awaited those who should attempt to evangelize it. And to see how truly, we need go no further back than 1861, when, in the course of nine months, sixteen thousand Christians were martyred in only two provinces of Anam, and twenty thousand condemned to perpetual slavery. This was the year in which M. Vénard was martyred. The letter he wrote his beloved sister in his cage at midnight on the eve of his martyrdom has been styled by an eminent Frenchman “one of the most beautiful pages of the history of the martyrs of the XIXth century.”
Henry Dorié was sent to Corea—the very name of which is symbolical to the Christian ear of persecution and martyrdom. The whole history of the church in that country is written in blood. Its first missionaries were all martyrs, its first bishop, its first converts. In one year—1839—over eight hundred Christians were martyred, and a still larger number perished from want in the mountains where they had taken refuge. But M. Dorié had but one desire—when his labors were ended, to win the palm. His prayer was not denied him.
It is thus the sufferings of Christ are daily perpetuated in some member of his body in various parts of the world. We should all have a share in this great sacrifice of atonement, according to the measure of our calling, if not by personal labors, at least by our prayers and contributions. England is taking up the foreign missionary work. America, too, should have her part in it. Such a work would react on our own hearts, and develop a self-denial and generosity that would constrain us more powerfully in promoting every good work at home. As Archbishop Manning says: “It is because we have need of men and means at home that I am convinced we ought to send both men and means abroad—in exact proportion as we freely give what we have freely received will our works at home prosper, and the zeal and number of our priests be multiplied.”
[The Money God]; or, The Empire and the Papacy. A Tale of the Third Century. By M. A. Quinton. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1873.
The Empire and the Papacy—a title of fresh significance in these days. It is remarkable how soon the Roman emperors realized that their authority could not exist in Rome with that of the pope, the importance of whose office became more and more apparent. The influence of the papacy gradually widened, and so asserted itself as to overshadow the very authority of the emperor himself. It excited alarm. Decius declared he would rather hear of a rival springing up to contest for the empire than of the election of a new bishop of Rome. How notoriously eminent must have been the dignity of that office to excite such jealousy! Was it the dread of this new mysterious power that led so many of the emperors to exile themselves, as it were, from their capital? Though pope after pope lived in Rome, and died there, even if by martyrdom, not one emperor from the time of Heliogabalus till Constantine ended his days in that city. One was killed in Germany, another strangled in Carthage, a third slain in Thrace, a fourth killed by lightning beyond the Tigris; not one died in Rome. And for more than a century and a half they resided elsewhere, hardly daring to show themselves in the capital, because they felt more and more their moral isolation in the midst of the Roman people. Diocletian went to Rome to be recognized as emperor, but returned to Nicomedia. When Maximian was made his colleague and assumed the government of Italy, he did not establish himself at Rome, but chose Milan as his residence. Constantine’s great object, after triumphing over his enemies, was to leave Rome and found a new capital. “The same girdle could not enclose both the emperor and the pontiff,” says M. de Maistre; “Constantine gave up Rome to the pope.” It was a moral necessity that the papacy—a power “far above king, law, or popular right,” should be free, and this has never been contested with impunity since.
In the work before us, the contrasting influence of the empire and the papacy is exemplified in the history of two boys who were stolen from their mother in Thrace and sold at Rome as slaves. Separated in their childhood, one providentially fell into the hands of Agatho, a Christian hermit; the other gave himself to the service of Plutus, the “Money God.” We wish, for the sake of the young into whose hands this book may fall, that the early history of Eva, their mother, had been somewhat veiled. It affords, however, a strong contrast between the violent, passionate courtesan and the subdued and humble Christian which she finally becomes. A confessor of the faith, she fully redeems her early career by a life of penitence. Her sad form gives relief to that of Plautia, a noble Christian matron. Tertullian tells us how much Christianity improved the condition of woman. No sage of antiquity ever thought of developing her spiritual nature and thereby giving her greater moral elevation, but the humblest Christian priest made this a duty. We have only to read the writings of the Fathers, particularly S. Jerome, to realize the great renovation that took place in woman’s nature when her soul was awakened to higher aims and became conscious of a holier destiny. The Acts of the early martyrs set before us some of the noblest types of womanhood. There is a grandeur in their unalterable serenity of soul under persecution, examples of which are given in the book before us. Indebted so greatly to the Christian religion, woman became its efficient supporter. We learn from Ammianus Marcellinus that the first popes were chiefly supported by the offerings of the Roman matrons. Their devotion to the service of the church is manifest from the jealous exclamation of Diocletian: “I hate, as a usurpation of my powers, the influence of these Christian priests over the matrons.”
This tale of the IIId century evinces great familiarity on the part of the author with classical and antiquarian lore as well as the early Christian writers.
[The Nesbits]; or, A Mother’s Last Request, and other Tales. By Uncle Paul. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.
The first of these stories and the principal one, The Nesbits, is a rapid sketch of the life and fortunes of a young American, none the less interesting and, it may be hoped, true to nature because the figure of the hero, Ned Nesbit, is exactly the reverse of the “Young America” of the popular imagination. He is honest, manly, truthful, and religious; and it may be a surprise to some readers to find that those unusual characteristics of “Young America” neither make him insipid nor offer an insurmountable barrier to his success in life. The scenes of the story shift from the backwoods to New Orleans, from New Orleans to Mexico. There is plenty of fresh air, of sea and sky, pleasant bits of Mexican scenery and vistas of Mexican life; there are camping out and long rides and “brushes” with the Indians, hit off rapidly, and though in an unpretentious style, one admirably adapted to its purpose. There is a pleasant and harmless little love-plot that Uncle Paul’s chief readers—the young folk—are likely to vote “slow,” but they will find plenty of other things more congenial to their sanguinary tastes scattered throughout the book, while the tone is thoroughly Catholic from beginning to end. The second story of the volume—“The Little Sister of the Poor”—is a sketch, condensed from the French, of a little hunchback, who, finding her deformity rather an obstacle to her walking pleasantly in the ways of this world, and that even a dower of 10,000 francs did not serve to smooth it down, finally hides it away in religion, and becomes “a little sister.” The story would be very entertaining only that it may tend to strengthen the stupid idea so prevalent among non-Catholics, that the nun’s habit is a good covering for personal deformity, and that a convent is a sort of receptacle for ladies who can “do no better”: whereas, God culls his flowers where he wills, and women in convents are just the same as women anywhere else, with the exception that they have devoted their lives entirely to God’s service. In his last story—“The Orphan”—Uncle Paul has struck upon a vein which might be worked with as much profit as interest. It is a short, indeed too short, sketch of a thing that a few years back was of very common occurrence in this country. An Irish emigrant girl finds herself suddenly bereft of her parents, and placed in the keeping of a Protestant family. The author has made her position superior to that of the generality of her sisters under similar circumstances; she is a ward rather than a servant, and among friends rather than enemies to her race and faith. But even so, she finds herself, young and friendless, placed amid the thousand difficulties of Protestant surroundings. Her triumph over them is very touchingly told. The idea contained in this story might be worked to much greater advantage; and the tracing up some of those poor children who were snatched away and buried among heretical families, which, even if acting with the very best intentions, might consider the religion of these orphans something they were bound to abolish, would form a sadly interesting story, and one which would take in much of our recent Catholic history in this country.
[Wild Times.] A Tale of the Days of Queen Elizabeth. By Cecilia M. Caddell. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
This is a new and handsome edition of a story which, though it came out some years back in London, is probably unknown to very many of our readers. It is just one of those books which Catholics sadly stand in need of to adorn and grace their, to a certain extent, cumbersome literature. Miss Caddell has been fortunate in her choice of Wild Times, and Wild Times have been fortunate in Miss Caddell. The period of the Reformation forms for the Catholic of to-day the most interesting one of English history; and recent researches, such as are exhibited in F. Morris’ late books (Our Catholic Forefathers, and The Condition of Catholics under James I.) and others similar, are bringing that particular period home to us with a clearness and fulness of knowledge which tend to make us acquainted with all the intricacies and common details of life, particularly Catholic life in those wild times, as we are with the humdrum life of to-day. Miss Caddell’s story is really the history of one of the very few noble English Catholic families who stood firm to their faith in that dark hour, and who, for the simple reason of being true to their God, were, according to law, false to their sovereign and country. The chief characters are two young brothers, Sir Hugh and Amadée Glenthorne, the latter a Jesuit educated on the Continent, and returning by stealth to the work of the ministry, which at that time meant martyrdom; the former a fiery, high-spirited English gentleman, whose hot blood and lofty aspirations cannot run tamely in the dismal groove set him by the “law,” because he happens to be a Catholic, but who, when the hour of trial comes, and he is weighed in the balance, is not found wanting. Around these two, with their charming sister Amy, the plot gathers; and the tracing of their fortunes and misfortunes makes a most beautiful and moving tale. There are plenty of other characters in the book: Blanche Monteman, Hugh’s betrothed, and Guy, the lover of Amy, both Protestants, give occasion for some very skilfully constructed complications; and the proud nature of the girl, and the terrible fall of that pride, are given with what the lady author may allow to be called a masterhand. There is also a weird gipsy queen, Ulrique, who turns out eventually to be something quite different, powerfully drawn, whilst the premature death of the mischievous little imp, Tom Tit, is as touchingly told, if not more so, as that of Little Paul Dombey. To enter into the plot of the story further than has been done would be to deprive the reader of Wild Times of half the pleasure of a story so skilfully woven that the interest is sustained to the very last line, and its development hidden until the author chooses to disclose it. The style is of the purest, occasionally rising to the strongest, English. Miss Caddell has mastered the old forms, without making them as wearisome as some of Scott’s Northern dialects cannot fail to be to the unhappy uninitiated. The love in the story is by no means of the namby-pamby order, but good, and honest, and true; in a word, manly and womanly in the true sense of those words; and though mainly carried on between Catholic and Protestant, it serves for that very reason to heighten the interest of the story, and as here depicted seems a very natural thing in those wild times; whilst one has the hope all through that earthly love will blend with a higher. The gradual change effected in the blunt, fiery character of Hugh by the chastening hand of affliction, under which at first he chafes till you fear for him, but finally rises with all his strength of character to the heroism of a Sebastian, is as ably, though naturally and unconsciously, developed as anything the writer remembers seeing in this style of book. The only thing he quarrels with is the preface. Without being dogmatic on the point, it is very doubtful whether, “when the queen—Elizabeth—ascended the throne, Catholicity was still the religion of the great masses of the people, and was either secretly followed or openly professed by a large half of the noblest families in the land.” English history scarcely bears this out; and had only one-half the noblest families in the land been even secretly Catholics, still less such Catholics as Hugh Glenthorne and his brother, England would never have sworn by a goddess in petticoats, and Mr. Froude would never have felt compelled to write his history. Again, when the author speaks of “the brightest and bravest of the band who form a halo of glory round the throne of Queen Elizabeth,” the reader involuntarily asks himself, What band? And the very question is its own answer. Still, a notice is not for a preface; and however one may quarrel with that, with the story itself no fault can be found. It is a beautiful, high-toned, moving picture of noble Catholic struggle, suffering, and death, drawn evidently with infinite pains and after historic study, and with that highest art which is nearest nature.
[Peter’s Journey, and other Tales.] By the author of Marion Howard and Maggie’s Rosary. Wilfulness and its Consequences. By Lady Herbert. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.
The little book before us is intended for a premium-book for schools, and is admirably adapted to this purpose. The stories are thoroughly natural, and written in a good, healthy Catholic spirit. They are calculated to reach the masses in the most satisfactory way which could be chosen, that is, through their children. A great deal is constantly said about the authority of parents in the home, but we should not forget the immense and preponderating element of the children’s influence on their parents. This, if used in the right direction (which means, if guided in that direction by the teacher) may become of the utmost importance. It may civilize many a half-savage unfortunate who seems dead even to the stings of his own conscience; it may turn to serious reasoning the mind hitherto careless, because not exercised on spiritual things; it may shame into decency a character not irredeemably bad, but overgrown with the evil habits of half a century. In Peter’s Journey, or a drunkard’s dream, we see put into plain words the devil’s plea against the victim of intemperance. He claims him as his own by fair barter. “When thou didst ask for drink, did I not ask thee in return, not only thy wife’s affection, thy children’s happiness, thy home’s comfort, but, more than all, did I not demand thy soul? I asked thee openly, and thou didst willingly agree.... Well, didst thou not have the drink, morning, noon, and night? And if so, shall I not have my price in full?” This is a dark, but far from overwrought picture. Yet the mercy of God is greater than even such malicious sins, and till the very last the “pearly shadow” of his angel guardian protects the poor sinner. Peter awakes, and a sudden reformation is at hand. The poor wife, breaking down under her troubles, is weary and fretful, but Peter does not heed this, and in his stormy exit is only stopped by the baby, who is “examining the handle [of the door] with an attention worthy of an amateur locksmith.” Peter raised it in his arms, looked at it for a moment, and then, kissing it almost reverently, gave it to Mike and clumped down-stairs. “Poor Norah hoped he had not got delirium tremens.” It was a long time before Peter came back; when he did, it was behind the rampart of a large basket bursting with eatables. He goes down on his knees to his wife and begs forgiveness in the most charmingly abrupt and natural way, and when Norah recovers from a fainting-fit, everything is bright and happy again. “Certain it is that, when the Angelus rang, it found them sitting side by side, shelling peas, and the baby on his knee, chuckling over a stick of rhubarb that it expected every one to smell every five minutes.” And what is the end? A triumph for Peter, and a hopeful example for all those who are honestly trying to follow in his footsteps. “In the whole parish there is not a cleaner house, better children, or a happier wife than Peter’s.... He collects the subscriptions for the schools, takes the money in church, carries the big banner at processions, and seems to do the work of half a dozen men made into one.... Is there a drunkard to reclaim, Peter is the man to take him in hand, depend upon it. Is there a drunkard’s widow struggling with her little ones alone, Peter will help her and put her in a way to get her living ... and he thanks God for all things, for his home, his little ones, his means of doing good, but, more than all, he thanks him for his wife Norah, and for a journey he took, of which he never speaks, on the Feast of S. Peter and S. Paul.”
Of the “other tales,” we much prefer “A Carpenter’s Holiday.” The evils of bad companionship are here depicted, the absurd temptations which human respect thrusts in the path of young and often weak men, the manliness and true Anglo-Saxon spirit which even outsiders recognize in a firm refusal to yield to such temptations. The character of Sam is very interesting, and the history of his conversion quite a natural one. A lesson here and there is worth taking from it. For instance, the Catholic carpenter says to his friend, “People talk so much about our flowers and candles that really one would think they was a great part of our religion, and, as it is, they’re just nothing.” The old lesson of the example of converts is also well put forward. The end is, of course, an introduction to an earthly paradise, in the shape of a snug little farm, “the house hidden by roses, jasmine, ivy, and honeysuckle ... a dear, large, old-fashioned garden, with its apple and pear trees, its currant and gooseberry bushes, and its bed of flowers and cabbages, never thinking, as grand people’s flowers and cabbages seem to think, that they are not fit company for each other.” We are inclined to think that, if all discontented, restless people believed this sort of thing to be the inevitable reward of virtue, they would immediately become virtuous and leave off being discontented and restless. We should, at any rate. And if this kind of life was the ending to which all good carpenters who spent their early holidays properly had a chance of attaining, why, then, we should be much freer than we are from trades-union strikes and International Associations. “The Carpenter’s Holiday” is the story most full of human interest and natural incident among all the little group by the author of Maggie’s Rosary.—We now come to Lady Herbert’s story of Wilfulness. This is an extract from the diary of a Sister of Mercy, and reveals one of the many phases of silent misery of which a large city is always full. The story is interesting if only as a picture of the heroism, the sacrifices, the sufferings, and the charity of people in humble, struggling circumstances, who could never hope to have their virtues set before an admiring public, and whose only motive was evidently the love of God and reverent trust in his divine providence. The last days of the heroine are touchingly told, her unselfishness in behalf of her father especially. “Every shilling which had been given her to spend in the little comforts so urgently required, had been hoarded up by her for this long-expected situation, when she was determined that her father’s appearance should do no discredit to his kind recommender. ‘Only think,’ she continued, ‘I had enough for everything but one pair of boots, and I could not conceive where that eighteen shillings was to come from. But I set to work and prayed one whole night for it, and the next morning a young priest came to see me, and brought me a sovereign, which he said a gentleman had given him that very day to give to his first sick call!’”
[Two Thousand Miles on Horseback.] A Summer Tour to the Plains and New Mexico. By James F. Meline. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.
This is the fourth edition of this excellent book, which is now published by The Catholic Publication Society. As we noticed this book at some length in The Catholic World for February, 1868, we can only reiterate what we then said, viz.:
“There is just about enough fact to make the work decently solid, a good deal of fancy and impression, and, above all, a light hand. The style as a whole is really good, because it does pretty evenly just what it attempts and professes—sometimes more, seldom less. The descriptions of Denver and Central City, and the account of the Pueblos of New Mexico, interested us especially—the former for its manner, the latter for its interesting and curious facts. But another reader would call our selection invidious, and cite quite another set of incidents. The fact is, Mr. Meline is everywhere vivid, easy, and suggestive, and we do think we like those two parts best because we have friends in Denver and take a special interest in the old Poltec question.”
[Proceedings] of the Fourth Annual Convention of the Irish Catholic Benevolent Union, held at Philadelphia, October 16-18, 1872; together with the Constitution, Addresses, etc. Philadelphia: Office of the Catholic Standard. 1872.
This was a convention of the representatives of nearly 20,000 Catholic workingmen. These men, living in different parts of the country, are organized into numerous beneficial societies, each independent for its own purposes and government, yet enjoying a fellowship with all the others for the sake of mutual benefit. The Benevolent Union makes these men each others’ friends, in sickness and in death, in any part of the country where a society exists. We say it makes them friends—we might better say brothers; for attention and support in sickness and Catholic burial after death are acts more than friendly. Any society which is beneficial and composed exclusively of practical Catholics, can become associated on payment of five dollars initiation fee, and not to exceed twenty-five cents a year for each member—this tax last year having been but ten cents. From these sources a fund is raised to pay the expenses of the conventions and a very small salary to the secretary and treasurer. Any member away from home is entitled to recognition by simply presenting his travelling card. In case of sickness, it entitles him to receive from any affiliated society whatever aid his own would give him, and in case of death, to the expenditure of the same amount for his funeral as would have been allowed at home. Expenses thus incurred are refunded by the society to which the recipient belonged.
The mere statement of these advantages suffices to explain the extraordinary success which has attended the Union. Begun in the little city of Dayton, Ohio, with a small number of societies, it has in four years extended itself in every direction; sometimes creating new societies, sometimes affiliating old ones, everywhere attracting great attention and eliciting the warmest encouragement; until it is not too much to say of it now that it is one of the great beneficial institutions of the country. At the last convention, the President of the Philadelphia City Council extended a public welcome to the delegates. The proceedings were opened by a sermon from the distinguished Jesuit Father Maguire, and the speeches and debates were orderly and dignified, and sometimes eloquent, the most important questions being discussed and decided expeditiously and without ill-temper. Among other things, we noticed that measures were instituted looking to the settlement of immigrants in favorable places, and to their safety and comfort while in transit. A full and minute account was rendered of the receipt and disbursement of the common fund, and expression frankly and powerfully given to the unanimous sentiment of the societies with regard to Catholic education, and of sympathy with the Holy Father in his present distress. There was no evidence whatever of any spirit of rivalry; on the contrary, a committee was appointed to negotiate for the extension of the benefits of the Benevolent Union among other Catholic bodies.
These large assemblages of intelligent and zealous Catholics supply one of the greatest wants of the church. After business matters are fairly disposed of, the convention becomes a great Catholic representative body—not indeed to make laws or to enforce them, but to give voice to the thoughts of the Catholic laity on questions which concern the general welfare of the church. Never did the clergy, from the Pope down to the parish priest, stand in greater need of the encouragement of the faithful, and never before have the faithful exhibited greater alacrity in giving it. Such gatherings as these are the best support which the church nowadays can have in resisting oppression and securing her rights. We therefore pray God to give this Benevolent Union a great success; and we are at a loss to perceive why such should not be the prayer of every good Catholic. The organization of a branch society in a parish will be the best preventive of Freemasonry and other condemned societies; it will secure the poor man and his family from want in case of sickness or accident at home or among strangers; it will give the priest and the educated layman an audience outside the church for the advocacy of Catholic public rights; and at least once a year the convention will exhibit to the American public, in a most striking manner, the unity, the charity, the patriotism, and the power of the Catholic people of this country.
[The Homes of Ober-Ammergau.] A series of Twenty Etchings in heliotype, from the original pen-and-ink drawings, together with Notes from a diary kept during a three months’ residence in Ober-Ammergau, in the summer of 1871. By Eliza Greatorex. Munich: Published by Jos. Albert, photographer to the courts of Munich and St. Petersburg. 1872. New York: Putnam.
Many books have been published about Ober-Ammergau and its Passion-Play. This one is not, however, a mere repetition of their substance under a different form. It is altogether different in substance, and, therefore, a really new as well as most interesting description. The accomplished author does not occupy her pages with an account of the play itself, but takes us into the homes of the actors, and among the scenes of that picturesque German village. Though she is not a Catholic, her heart is full of kindliness, sympathy, and reverence, and we have read her truly exquisite portrayal of the primitive and most Christian life of the favored inhabitants of Ammergau with pleasure and admiration. The etchings are in the style of the best and truest art. The author has been honored by an autograph letter from the King of Bavaria, who, in spite of his faults as a ruler, is a man of taste and cultivation in the fine arts, and by a very kind reception at the private audience which was granted to her by the august Pius IX. We recommend this beautiful volume very cordially to all lovers of art, and of the most genuine, simple, and charming phases of nature and of Catholic piety which are to be found in the modern world, which is so full of glaring but empty illusions. As the edition in the hands of the New York publisher is a small one, those who desire to procure a copy would do well to be in haste about ordering it from the publisher.
[Filiola.] Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1873.
[Ernscliff Hall.] The Reverse of the Medal. Dramas for young ladies’ school exhibitions. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.
The latter of these, a whimsical satire on the discontent of each class with its own duties, pleasures, and belongings, and envy of those of every other class, is amusing. To every rose there is a thorn, and while some envy their superiors in position those luxuries which the latter care nothing for, these again are often constrained to envy the freedom of those on a lower level. But nothing is truer than the adage, that the back is fitted to the burden.
[The Deaf-Mute:] or, The Abbé De l’Epée. Historical Drama in Four Acts. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.
The following, taken from the preface of the work, is a synopsis of this little play: Julius is exposed in Paris at the age of ten by his uncle, who procures a written evidence of the boy’s death, and then seizes upon his property. The Abbé De l’Epée, Director of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in Paris, finds the youth, and educates him. Suspecting the boy to be of noble blood, he bestows all his care on the helpless deaf-mute during eight years, creates his soul anew, as it were, and in the meantime endeavors to find out the place of his birth. For this purpose the Abbé travels with his protégé over a great part of France, and finally arrives at Toulouse, which city the young man recognizes as the place of his home. The Abbé consults the young lawyer Frauval, a friend of St. Alme, who is the son of Julius’s uncle. Darlemont refuses to recognize his nephew, but is at last prevailed upon to restore Julius to his rightful inheritance, by the threatened exposure of his son St. Alme. So the matter is settled amicably, and Julius grants to St. Alme, his former playmate, half of his estate.
THE
CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XVII., No. 99.—JUNE, 1873.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by Rev. I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
[JEROME SAVONAROLA.]
“No breath of calumny ever attainted the personal purity of Savonarola.”—Henry Hart Milman, Dean of S. Paul’s.
The bright and shining fame of Girolamo Savonarola, the man upon whom, in the XVth century, the wondering attention of the whole civilized world was admiringly fixed, fell during the XVIIIth century into oblivion or contempt—a not uncommon fate in that period for religious reputations and religious works. The generally received opinion concerning him was that of the sceptic Bayle, who, with show of impartiality and phrase of fairness (‘Opinion is divided as to whether he was an honest man or a hypocrite’), but with cold and cruel cynicism, covered the unhappy Dominican with his sharpest and most pungent sarcasm, leaving the reader to infer that he was a mean impostor, who most probably deserved the martyrdom he suffered.
In our own day, Dean Milman, of the Established Church of England, asks:
“Was he a hypocritical impostor, self-deluded fanatic, holy, single-minded Christian preacher, heaven-commissioned prophet, wonder-working saint? Martyr, only wanting the canonization which was his due? Was he the turbulent, priestly demagogue, who desecrated his holy office by plunging into the intrigue and strife of civic politics, or a courageous and enlightened lover of liberty?”
And—unkindest cut of all—punishment transcending in degree the worst faults and most terrible crimes of which he has been unjustly accused by his most cruel enemies—modern German Protestantism has placed him in bronze effigy in company with the bigamous Landgrave Philip of Hesse, and with Prince Frederick of Saxony, on the monument at Worms, as one of the predecessors and helpers of Luther. The ascetic Savonarola the acolyte of the beery Monk of Wittenberg! The chaste Dominican the inferior of the sensual Reformer! The ecclesiastic who, in the flower of his manhood and the fulness of his intellect, made the unreserved declaration of Catholic faith[118] in which he lived and died, the aider and precursor of the archheresiarch!
Truly, so far as the judgment of this world is concerned, one hour of the degradation of Worms is sufficient to have cancelled all his sins. Poor Savonarola!
Jerome Savonarola, born in Ferrara, in 1452 (Sept. 21), was the son of Nicholas Savonarola. His mother Helen was of the Buonaccorsi family of Mantua, and his paternal grandfather a physician of Padua of such high reputation that Nicholas, Prince of Este, induced him, by the bestowal of honors and a pension, to come to Ferrara. Jerome’s youth was serious and studious, and, under the fostering care of one of the best of mothers, his character developed favorably. At the age of ten, he went to the public school of his native city, and it was intended that he should complete the usual studies necessary to his becoming a physician.
The traveller of to-day, who sees the deserted squares and grass-grown streets of Ferrara, can form but little idea of the Ferrara of that period; a splendid city of one hundred thousand inhabitants, possessing one of the most brilliant courts of Italy, and witnessing the frequent passage of princes, emperors, and popes, whose presence gave constant occasion for pageants, processions, and banquets. The young Jerome, it was noticed, sought none of these, but was fond of lonely walks and solitude, even avoiding the beautiful promenades in the gardens of the ducal palace.
He pursued his medical studies for some time, but his favorite reading was found in the works of Aristotle and S. Thomas Aquinas. Long years afterward, he said of the latter: “When I was in the world, I held him in the greatest reverence. I have always kept to his teaching, and, whenever I wish to feel small, I read him, and he always appears to me as a giant, and I to myself as a dwarf.” Although, like most youths of his age, he indulged in making verses, his were not of the ordinary callow model. One of his short youthful poems which survived him was on the spread of sceptical philosophy and the decay of virtue. “Where,” he asks—“where are the pure diamonds, the bright lamps, the sapphires, the white robes, and white roses of the church?” Such language, taken in connection with his declaration at the time that he would never become a monk, shows that the idea, although in a negative form, was already working in his mind. He afterwards related that, being at Faenza one day, he by chance entered the church of S. Augustine, and heard a remarkable word fall from the lips of the preacher. “I will not tell you what it was,” he added, “but it is here, graven on my heart. One year afterwards, I became a religious.”
Modern novels and the average silly judgment of worldly people in such matters are usually unable to comprehend why any man or woman should enter a convent unless they are what is called “crossed in love.” Some such story is related of Savonarola, and Milman says of it: “There is a vague story, resting on but slight authority, that Savonarola was the victim of a tender but honorable passion for a beautiful female.” We should also incline to be of the same opinion, were it not that Villari[119] refers to it as having some foundation. He says that, in 1472, a Florentine exile, bearing the illustrious name of Strozzi, and his daughter, took up their abode next to the dwelling of Savonarola’s family. The mere fact that he was an exile from Dante’s native city was sufficient to excite Savonarola’s sympathies. He imagined him oppressed by the injustice of enemies, suffering for his country and for the cause of liberty. His eyes met those of the Florentine maiden. Overflowing with confident hope, he revealed his heart to her. What was his bitter disappointment on receiving a disdainful answer rejecting him, and giving him at the same time to understand that the house of Strozzi could not lower itself by condescending to an alliance with the family of Savonarola. He resented the insult with honest indignation, but, says his chronicler, il suo cuore ne restó desolato—“his heart was broken.” This may all be, but certain it is that the disappointed youth did not instantly rush into a convent to bury his blasted hopes. On the contrary, the incident of the sermon at Faenza occurred nearly two years afterward. On this circumstance he frequently dwelt, saying that a word, una parola, of the preacher still strongly affected him, but he always reserved it as a sort of mysterious secret even from his most intimate friends.
In returning from Faenza, he was light of heart, but found, on reaching home, that a hard trial was before him. It was necessary to conceal his intention from his parents, but his mother, as though she read his secret, would fix her eyes upon him with a gaze which seemed to penetrate his very soul. This struggle went on for a year, and Savonarola often refers to his mental sufferings during that period. “If I had made known my resolution,” he says, “I believe my heart must have broken, and I should have allowed myself to be shaken in my purpose.” Again, on another day, the 22d of April, 1475, Jerome, seating himself, took a lute, and played an air so sad that his mother, turning to him suddenly, as if moved by the spirit of prophecy, said to him in a tone of sorrow: “My dear son, that is a farewell song.” With great effort, the young man continued to play with trembling hand, but dared not raise his eyes from the ground.
The next day, April 23, was the feast of S. George, a great festival for all Florence. Savonarola had fixed upon it to leave his father’s house, and, as soon as the religious ceremonies of the morning were over, he quitted home, and made his way to Bologna, where he knocked for admittance at the
CONVENT OF THE DOMINICANS.
He was then just twenty-two and a half years old. Announcing his desire to enter on his novitiate, he wished, he said, to be employed in the most menial of the offices of the community, and to be the servant of all the others. Being admitted, he seized his first leisure moment that same day to write a long and affectionate letter to his father, in which he sought to comfort him and explain the step he had taken. It is a memorable letter:
“Dear Father: I fear my departure from home has caused you much sorrow—the more so that I left you furtively. Permit me to explain my motives. You who so well know how to appreciate the perishable things of earth, judge not with passion like a woman, but, guided by truth, judge according to reason whether I am not right in carrying out my project and abandoning the world. The motive determining me to enter on a religious life is this: the great misery of the world, the iniquities of men, the crimes, the pride, the shocking blasphemies, by which the world is polluted, for there is none that doeth good—no, not one. Often and daily have I uttered this verse with tears:
‘Heu fuge crudelas terras! Fuge littus avarum.’
I could not support the wickedness of the people. Everywhere I saw virtue despised, and vice honored. No greater suffering could I have in this world. Wherefore every day I prayed our Lord Jesus Christ to lift me out of this mire. It has pleased God in his infinite mercy to show me the right way, and I have entered upon it, although unworthy of such a grace. Sweet Jesus, may I suffer a thousand deaths rather than oppose thee and show myself ungrateful! Thus, my dear father, far from shedding tears, you should thank our Lord Jesus, for he has given you a son, has preserved him to you up to the age of twenty-two, and has deigned to admit him among his knights militant. Can you imagine that I have not endured the greatest affliction in separating from you? Never have I suffered such mental torment as in abandoning my own father to make the sacrifice of my body to Jesus Christ, and to surrender my will into the hands of persons I had never seen. In mercy, then, most loving father, dry your tears, and add not to my pain and sorrow. I am satisfied with what I have done, and I would not return to the world even with the certainty of becoming greater than Cæsar. But, like you, I am of flesh and blood; the senses wage war with reason, and I must struggle furiously with the assaults of the devil.[120] They will soon pass by, these first sad days, bitterest in the freshness of their grief, and I trust we will be consoled by grace in this world, and glory in the next. Comfort my mother, I beseech you, of whom, with yourself, I entreat your blessing.”
In the convent at Bologna, Savonarola spent seven years. During his novitiate, his conduct was the admiration of all his brethren. They wondered at his modesty, his humility, and his faultless obedience. He appeared to be entirely absorbed in ecstatic contemplation of heavenly things, and to have no other desire than to be allowed to pass his time in prayer and humble obedience. To one looking at him walking in the cloisters, he had more the appearance of a shadow than of a living man, so much was he emaciated by abstinence and fasts. The severest trials of the novitiate seemed light to him, and his superiors had frequently to restrain his self-imposed denials. Even when not fasting, he ate hardly enough to sustain life. His bed was of rough wood with a sack of straw and one coarse sheet; his clothes, the plainest possible, but always scrupulously neat. In personal appearance, Savonarola was of middle stature, dark, of sanguine-bilious temperament, and of extraordinary nervous sensibility. His eyes flamed from beneath dark eyebrows; his nose was aquiline, mouth large, lips thick but firmly compressed, and manifesting an immovable determination of purpose. His forehead was already marked with deep furrows, indicating a mind absorbed in the contemplation of grave subjects. Of beauty of physiognomy there was none, but it bore the expression of severe dignity. A certain sad smile, passing over his rough features, gave them a kindly expression which inspired confidence at first sight. His manners were simple and uncultivated; his discourse, plain to roughness, became at times so eloquent and powerful that it convinced or subdued every one.
As Savonarola advanced in his studies, he devoted all the time he could possibly spare to the writings of the Fathers and to the Holy Scriptures. There are no less than four different copies of the Bible still existing in the libraries of Florence, and a fifth in the library of S. Mark, in Venice, of which the margins are covered with Latin notes written by him, which are excessively abridged, and in a writing so fine as to be read only with difficulty. According to the custom of the order, the young monk was in due time sent out on the mission, that is, to different cities and towns, to preach and exercise his other clerical duties. In 1482, he was ordered to Ferrara, whither he went, very much against his will. His relatives desired that he should remain there, in order to be near his family. Referring to this, he wrote to his mother: “I could not do as much good at Ferrara as elsewhere. It is seldom that a religious succeeds in his native place. Hence it is that the Scripture commands us to go forth into the world. A stranger is better received everywhere. No one is a prophet in his own country. Even concerning Christ, they asked: ‘Is not this the son of the carpenter?’ As to me, it would be inquired, ‘Is not this Master Jerome, who committed such and such sins, and who was not a whit better than ourselves? Ah! we know him.’”
THE CONVENT OF S. MARK.
From Ferrara, Fra Hieronimo was sent to the Convent of S. Mark, at Florence. A mass of saintly and artistic recollections cluster around the history of this convent. Holy men passed their lives within its austere cloisters, and eminent artists here consecrated their works by Christian inspiration. It is sufficient to mention from among them the names of Fra Angelico, whose admirable frescoes adorn its walls, of Fra Bartolomeo, known to the world as Baccio della Porta, the equal of Andrea del Sarto, of Fra Benedetto, and of the brothers Luke and Paul della Robbia. Villari dwells on one of its greatest illustrations, F. Sant’ Antonino, the founder or renewer of nearly all the charitable institutions of Florence, and in particular of the Buoni Uomini di San Martino, which exists to this day in all its beautiful Christian edification, if, haply, the tide of modern progress, under Victor Emmanuel, have not swept it away.
F. Sant’ Antonino’s memory is still cherished there as that of a man burning with divine charity, and consumed with the love of his neighbor. His death, which took place in 1459, was deplored in Florence as a public calamity.
The early history of the convent is closely connected with that of Cosmo de’ Medici, who was its munificent patron. Besides large amounts spent on the building, he made them a still more valuable donation. Niccolo Niccoli, a name well known to scholars, a collector of manuscripts of European fame, had spent his life and a large fortune in making a collection of valuable manuscripts which was the admiration of all Italy. At his death, he bequeathed it to the public, but the donation was useless by reason of the heavy debts against his estate. Cosmo paid them, and, retaining for himself a few of the most precious documents, gave all the rest to the convent. This was the first public library in Italy, and it was cared for by the monks in a manner which proved them worthy of the gift they had received. S. Mark became, as it were, a centre of learning, and not only the most learned monks of its affiliated convents in Northern Italy, but the most distinguished men of that period, sought every occasion to frequent it.
Savonarola’s arrival in the Florentine convent had been preceded by his reputation for learning and for piety. It was even said of him that he had made some miraculous conversions, and the story was told that, in making the journey from Ferrara to Mantua by the river, he had been shocked by the obscene ribaldry of the boatmen. He turned upon them with terrible earnestness, and, after half an hour of his impressive exhortation, eleven of them threw themselves at his feet, confessing their sins, and humbly demanding his pardon.
Savonarola was at first delighted with all he saw of Florence. The delicious landscape bounded by the soft outline of the Tuscan hills, the elegance of language, the manners of the people, which appeared to increase in refinement and courtesy as you approached Florence, all had predisposed him to find delight in this flower of Italian cities, where nature and art rival each other in beauty. To his mind, so strongly imbued with the religious feeling, Florentine art seemed like a strain of sacred music, attesting the omnipotence of genius inspired by faith. The paintings of Fra Angelico appeared to him to have summoned the angels to take up their abode in these cloisters; and, gazing at them, the young religious was transported into a world of bliss. The holy traditions of Sant’ Antonino and of his works of charity were still fresh among the brethren, and everything appeared to draw him closer to them. His heart was filled with hopes of better days, he forgot his former disappointments, as well as the possibility that there might be fresh ones in store for him when in time he came to know the Florentines better.
LORENZO THE MAGNIFICENT.
When Savonarola came to Florence, Lorenzo the Magnificent had been its ruler for many years, and was then at the apogee of his fame and his power. Under his sway[121] everything looked prosperous and happy. The struggles that formerly convulsed the city had long ceased. Those who refused to bend to the domination of the Medici were imprisoned, exiled, or dead. All was peace and tranquillity. Feasts, dances, and tournaments filled up the leisure of this Florentine people, who, once so jealous of their rights, now seemed to have forgotten the very name of liberty. Lorenzo participated in all these diversions, and even exerted himself to invent new ones. Among these were the Canti Carnascialeschi, first written by him and sung by the young nobility and gentry of Florence in the masquerades of the Carnival. Nothing perhaps can better depict the corruption of the period than these songs. At this day not only educated young men, but the lowest of the populace, would hold them in scorn, and their repetition in public would be an offence against decency swiftly to be suppressed by the police. And yet such were the occupations of predilection of a prince praised by all, and considered as the model of a sovereign, a prodigy of courtesy, a political and literary genius. And there are those who are to-day inclined to think of him as he was then looked upon, to pardon him the blood cruelly spilled to maintain a power unjustly acquired by him and his, the ruin of the republic, the violence by which he forced from the community the sum necessary for his reckless expenditure, the shameless libertinism to which he abandoned himself, and even the rapid and infernal corruption of the people which he studied to maintain with all his force and mental capacity.[122] And all this must be pardoned him forsooth, because he was the protector of literature and the fine arts!
Among all the Italian historians who have painted Florence at this epoch, there is but little difference except in the variety and depth of the colors used by them. Bruto writes, and what he says is neither useless nor irrelevant reading if, as we progress in his description, we bear in mind to what extent it may be applied to New York in the year 1873 as well as to Florence in 1482. “The Florentines,” he says, “seeking to live in idleness and ease, broke with the traditions of their ancestors, and in immoderate and shameful license fell into the way of the most disgraceful and detestable vices. Their fathers, by dint of labor, fatigue, virtue, abstinence, and probity, had made the country flourish. They, on the contrary, as if they had cast aside all shame, seemed to have nothing to lose: they gave themselves up to drinking, gambling, and the most ignoble pleasures. Lost in debauch, they had shameless intrigues and daily orgies. They were stained with all wickedness, all crime. General contempt of law and justice assured them complete impunity. Courage consisted in audacity and temerity; ease of manner, in a culpable complaisance; politeness, in gossip and scandal.”
SAVONAROLA IN FLORENCE.
In consideration of his acquirements, Fra Hieronimo, was appointed a teacher of the novices, and held the position for four years (1482-1486). In 1483, owing either to a want of preachers or to the high opinion formed of him from his success as a professor, he was appointed to preach the course of Lenten sermons at the church of S. Lawrence. Meantime, what he had learned of the Florentines from personal observation had not tended to raise them in his estimation. He had discovered that, in spite of their finished education and highly cultivated intellects, their hearts were filled with scepticism, and an ever-present sarcasm hovered on their lips. This want of faith and of high principles caused him to shrink anew into himself, and his disappointment was the greater as it contrasted so keenly with the hopes he entertained on entering Florence. With these feelings he for the first time ascended a Florentine pulpit. Hardly twenty-five people came to hear him a second time. Twenty-five persons! They could hardly be seen in the vast building. His voice was feeble, his intonations false, his gestures awkward, his style heavy. His preaching was a failure. But he was not discouraged, and was anxious to make another attempt. His superiors, not caring to renew the experiment in Florence, sent him to San Gemignano for two years. He made no attempt to change his style. The Florentines had been accustomed to preachers who carefully studied the elocutionary part of their sermons, many of them seeking to form themselves upon some classical mould, and their delivery was generally polished and graceful. Savonarola despised these aids, and thundered in his rough, uncultivated way, against scandals and want of faith, speaking with scorn of the modern poets and philosophers, and despising their fanaticism for the classics. The Bible he quoted profusely, and made it the foundation of all his sermons. His success at San Gemignano was by no means a decided one, nevertheless it was sufficient to give him confidence in himself, and to confirm the course he had marked out for himself as a preacher. Returning to his convent, he continued to fulfil his modest duties as reader or professor until 1486, when by his superiors he was
SENT TO LOMBARDY,
where he remained four years. These four years are the most obscure of his life. It is known, however, that during this period he preached in various cities of that country, and especially at Brescia. Here his power in the pulpit first fully revealed itself. He preached on the Apocalypse. With fervid words, imperious accents, and impressive voice, he reproached the people with their sins, and threatened them with the anger of God. Making startling application of the prophecies to Brescia itself, they should see, he told them, their city a prey to furious enemies, who would make their streets run rivers of blood. Crime and cruelty would visit them in their worst shape, and everything would be delivered up to terror, fire, and destruction. His menaces appalled them, and his voice appeared to come from another world. These prophecies were recalled when, a few years later, in 1512, Brescia was taken by assault by the French troops under Gaston de Foix, and the city sacked and devastated with the most dreadful barbarity. Six thousand of its inhabitants were killed.
Savonarola is next heard of at Reggio, in 1486, where a chapter of Dominicans was convened for the discussion of certain questions of theology and discipline. A number of learned laymen were also present, attracted by the prospect of theological discussion. Among these was the celebrated Pico di Mirandola, then only twenty-three, but already famous as a prodigy of intelligence and learning. He was struck by the appearance of Savonarola before the monk had said a word, and had noted his pallid countenance, and sunken eyes, and forehead ploughed with furrows of thought. In the theological debate, Savonarola took no part, but when the question of discipline came up he spoke and thundered. What he said left upon Mirandola the impression that he beheld an extraordinary man, and on his arrival at Florence some time afterward, he besought Lorenzo de’ Medici to have Savonarola recalled to Florence.[123] After preaching at Bologna and Pavia, and delivering a course of Lenten sermons at Genoa, he was, at the instance of Lorenzo, recalled by his superiors to Florence, in 1490. Thus it was that the bitterest enemy of the Medici, the subverter of their power, was by one of themselves invited to return. Notwithstanding his discernment Lorenzo little knew what sad disasters he was preparing for his house, or what a flame he was kindling in the convent which his ancestors had built. In order to give an example of the Christian simplicity he preached, Fra Hieronimo made the journey home on foot, and, owing to physical weakness, accomplished only with difficulty his
RETURN TO FLORENCE.
In his convent he quietly resumed his functions of reader. There was no question of his preaching, for he had not forgotten the icy indifference of the Florentines. Devoting himself sedulously to the instruction of his novices, they became the objects of his tender care and of his fondest wishes. Meantime his powers had increased and his fame had spread. It was echoed from Northern Italy, and confirmed by Mirandola. Gradually the professed brothers of the convent joined the novices in listening to Savonarola’s lectures, and scholars and learned men of the city demanded permission to be admitted to them. Among those was his adviser Pico. The study-room in which he gave his lectures was no longer sufficient to hold the crowd. The garden of the convent was then taken possession of, and there, under the shade of a bush of damask roses, carefully renewed to this day by the brothers of the convent with religious veneration, he continued his lessons. His subject was the exposition of the Apocalypse. The crowd of his hearers still increased, and it was proposed to the Prior of S. Mark that Fra Hieronimo should continue his lectures in the church. This was accorded, and on Sunday, August 1, 1490, crowds flocked to hear the preacher, who, formerly so much despised in Florence, had gained such a reputation in other parts of Italy. From an account of it left by himself, he that day preached a terrible sermon. He continued his explanation of the Apocalypse. The walls rang with his terrible conclusions, he succeeded in communicating to the excited multitude the impetuosity of his own feelings, his voice seemed to them superhuman. The success of that day was complete. Nothing else was talked of in all Florence, and the literati for a short time forgot Plato to discuss the merits of the new Christian preacher. Here is his own account of the event:
“On the first day of August of this year, 1490, I began publicly to expound the Apocalypse in our church of S. Mark. During the course of the year, I continued to develop to the Florentines these three propositions 1. ‘That the church would be renewed in our time.’ 2. ‘Before that renovation, God would strike all Italy with a fearful chastisement.’ 3. ‘That these things would happen shortly.’ I labored to demonstrate these three points to my hearers, and to persuade them by probable arguments, by allegories drawn from sacred Scripture, by other similitudes and parables drawn from what was going on in the church. I insisted on reasons of this kind; and I dissembled the knowledge which God gave me of those things in other ways, because men’s spirits appeared to me not yet in a state fit to comprehend such mysteries.”
The reader will not fail to notice the portentous intimation conveyed in the last sentence of this remarkable record. Savonarola already believed himself the recipient of supernatural communications “the knowledge which God gave me of these things in other ways.” We shall find him presently boldly announcing his celestial visions and commands from heaven, and here may be discerned clearly and at once the point at which his noble mind and pure spirit, disturbed by the excitement of years of mental tension and meditation on Apocalyptic visions, lost its clearness and its balance, and fell into the gravest errors of judgment and doctrine.
THE FAMOUS SERMONS.
Crowds continued to press into the church of S. Mark to hear the preaching of Fra Girolamo, until the utmost capacity of the building no longer sufficed to hold them. For the Lent of 1491, his preaching was appointed to take place in the cathedral, and the walls of Santa Maria del Fiore for the first time echoed to his voice. From this moment he was lord of the pulpit and master of the people, who, increasing every day in number as hearers, redoubled in their enthusiasm for him. The pictures he drew charmed the fancy of the multitude, and the threats of future punishments exercised a magic influence upon all, for sinister forebodings appeared to rule the hour. All this was far from satisfactory or pleasing to the Magnificent Lorenzo, and naturally begat among his adherents a feeling of strong opposition to Savonarola. The result was that a deputation of five of the principal citizens (Domenico Bonsi, Guidantonio Vespucci, Paulo Antonio Soderini, Bernardo Rucallai, and Francesco Valori) waited upon him, with instructions to advise him that he was risking his own safety and that of his convent, and to admonish him to be more moderate in his tone when teaching or preaching. Savonarola abruptly cut short their discourse, saying: “I see that you come not of your own motion, but that you are sent by Lorenzo de’ Medici. Tell him to make haste to repent of his sins, for God is no respecter of persons, and has no fear of the great ones of this earth.” Proud of his independence as a priest, Savonarola desired thus to crush at the outset the established custom in S. Mark of continually bending and prostrating before the house of Medici. At this the deputation pointed out to him the danger he was in of being exiled; and he answered: “I have no fear of exile from your city, which is, after all, a mere grain of dust upon the face of the earth. But although I am only a stranger in it, and Lorenzo a citizen and its head, know ye that I shall remain, and ye shall depart.”
To this he added a few words concerning the actual condition of Florence, which made them wonder at the intimate knowledge he possessed of its affairs. Shortly afterward in the sacristy of S. Mark’s, in the presence of several persons, he said that the affairs of Italy would soon change, for that the Pope, the King of Naples, and Il Magnifico had not long to live.
The ill-will of the Mediceans was naturally strengthened by such an incident as this. Their murmurs increased, and, coming from a small but influential portion of the citizens, Savonarola took it into serious consideration whether he should not give up for the time the prophetic strain of his sermons, and confine himself to the inculcation of moral and religious precepts. There is but little doubt that he struggled earnestly and conscientiously to bring himself to this resolution, and he has himself left the record of it in his Compendio di Rivelazione. “I deliberated with myself,” he says, “as to suppressing the sermon on the visions I had prepared for the following Sunday’s cathedral service, and for the future to abstain from them. God is my witness that throughout the whole of Saturday and during the entire night I lay awake; and every other way, every doctrine but that, was taken from me. At daylight, fatigued and exhausted by my long vigil, while I prayed, I heard a voice which said to me, ‘Fool, seest thou not that God wills that thou shalt persevere in thy path?’ And that day, I preached a terrible sermon.”[124]
It was, doubtless, as he says, “una predica tremenda,” for, persuaded as he was of his divine mission, he no sooner entered the pulpit than, with his imagination excited, his senses in febrile agitation from the effect of vigils and fastings, his subject carried him away into bursts of denunciatory eloquence that frightened while they charmed his hearers. In his excitement he again sees the nocturnal visions of his cell, loses consciousness of his own personality, and confounds the words there heard with the language of Scripture, for in his sermons he frequently, in the rush of language, cites as passages from the Bible the phrases of his own visions. Among these was his famous Gladius Domini super terram cito et velociter.
THE NEW PRIOR.
Meantime, in the interior of his convent, the learning, the simplicity, the profound piety and purity, and benevolence of Fra Girolamo had won for him the love and veneration of all his brethren. At the election of a new superior in 1491, they naturally chose him for their prior. Savonarola, who had always felt and sought to inculcate the higher appreciation of the dignity of the church and its ministers, seized this occasion to protest practically against a ceremony, which to him seemed not only compromising but degrading. Ever since the reign of the Medici, it was the custom for every newly elected prior of S. Mark to render homage and swear fealty to the reigning chief. Savonarola gave no sign of conforming to it, and from his silence might have been supposed to be ignorant of it. Some of the older monks reminded him of it as a formality which they had always considered obligatory. This view of it was natural enough from the fact that the Medici really founded the convent and had been its most generous benefactors. The new prior’s reply was characteristic: “Is it God or Lorenzo de’ Medici who has named me prior? I acknowledge my election as from God alone, and to him only will I swear obedience.” This was carried to Lorenzo, who said: “You see, a stranger comes into my house, and deigns not even to visit me.”
It must be conceded that, considering his position and personal character, Lorenzo acted with great moderation, for he evidently desired to conciliate the prior of the convent and to avoid the scandal of a quarrel with a religious. More than once he attended Mass at S. Mark’s and afterwards strolled in its garden. On these occasions some brother would run to the prior to tell him of the distinguished personage who was walking alone in the garden. “Did he ask to see me?” was Savonarola’s answer. “No, but ...”—“Then let him walk there as long as he pleases.”
The monk judged Lorenzo severely, and acted in consequence, for he knew all the injury to public morals he had done, and looked upon him not only as the enemy and destroyer of liberty, but as the most serious obstacle to any amelioration and christianizing of the people. Failing in one course, Lorenzo began to send to the convent liberal alms and rich gifts, but this only increased Savonarola’s contempt for him, and he even made scornful allusion to it in the pulpit, intimating that such an attempt only confirmed him in his former resolution. Shortly afterward were found in the “alms-box” of S. Mark’s a number of pieces of gold. The prior understood perfectly that they came from Lorenzo, as in fact they did, and, separating the princely gold from the modest offerings of the faithful, he sent it to the Buoni Uomini of the city for distribution among the poor, with the message that “silver and copper sufficed for the wants of the convent.”
Thus far thwarted at every turn, Lorenzo was not the man to give up a struggle once entered upon, and he was determined to turn, if possible, the rising tide of the Dominican’s popularity. The preacher most admired at that period in Florence had for some time been Padre Genazzano—the same whose sermons were attended by crowds when Fra Girolamo could scarce retain a dozen or two of people to listen to him. Lorenzo requested the former to resume his preaching. He did so, and his sermon was announced for Ascension Day. All Florence rushed to hear him. Taking for his text, “Non est vestrum nosse tempora vel momenta”—“It is not for you to know the times or seasons”—he imprudently presumed too far upon his princely patronage, and violently attacking Savonarola by name, qualifying him as a false and foolish prophet, a sower of discord and scandals among the people, so revolted his auditory by his intemperate speech and uncharitable denunciation that, in the short hour of his discourse, he utterly lost the reputation of long years’ acquisition. On the same day, Savonarola preached upon the same text, and, so far as the popular judgment was concerned, remained master of the field. Lorenzo, seeing the total failure of his scheme, and suffering from the rapid advances of a malady that was soon to become mortal, fatigued, moreover, with the struggle against a man whom, in spite of himself, he felt forced to respect, he left him henceforth to preach unmolested.
SAVONAROLA’S SERMONS,
as printed, give us, on reading them, but a very imperfect idea of their effect as delivered. Of that tremendous power he wielded in the pulpit, and concerning which the amplest testimony of both his friends and enemies entirely agree, the source cannot be traced in the published copies of his sermons. The earliest of these are those preached in 1491, on the first Epistle of S. John. It would be a difficult task to present a general idea of this collection. In form, they offer no unity of subject nor connection of parts, added to which, the strong originality and waywardness of Savonarola’s style and studies make it difficult for a modern reader to bring order out of this apparent disorder. He always commences with a citation from Scripture, grouping around it all the ideas theological, moral, and political which it suggests to his mind, resting these in their turn upon fresh Biblical texts. The apparent result to him who reads them to-day is a heterogeneous mass of discordant materials of which the confusion is hopeless. But these sermons were actually preached by Savonarola with a very different result. To him everything was clear. These words before him in manuscript are but the dry bones which he clothes with the magnetic life of inspiration, and to which he gives voice in the thunders of his own eloquence. The fire of his imagination kindles, figures of gigantic power present themselves to his mind, his gesture is animated, his eyes flame, and, abandoning himself to his originality, he becomes what he really was—a great and powerful orator. At times, he appears to fall back into a mass of artificial ideas without connection, again and again to free himself by force of natural talent, for, born orator as he was, he needed the arts of oratory; and it was only when his subject mastered him, and carried him away, that nature took the place of art, and he was eloquent in spite of himself. Of his originality and depth of thought some idea may be gained from the following extract taken from one of his nineteen sermons upon the first Epistle of S. John, in which he explains at length the mysteries of the Mass, giving in it religious precepts and counsels to the people:
“The word we utter proceeds out of our mouths separated and divided by a succession of syllables, in such manner that, while one part exists, the other part is already extinct, and, when the whole word is pronounced, it exists no longer. But the Verb, or the Divine Word, has no divisions; it is one in its essence, it is diffused throughout the created world, and lives and endures throughout eternity like the celestial light which is its companion. Therefore it is the Word of Life, and one with the Father. We accept, it is true, this Word in various senses. By ‘life’ we sometimes mean the natural being of mankind, sometimes we mean by it their occupation. Hence we say, the life of this man is science, the life of the bird is singing. But there is but one true life which is in God, for in him all things have their being. And this is that blessed life which is the object of man, and in which he may find infinite and eternal happiness. Earthly life is not only fallacious, but powerless to give us happiness from its want of unity in itself. If you love riches, you must give up sensual pleasures; if you are abandoned to these, you must renounce the acquisition of knowledge; and if you give up the acquisition of knowledge you cannot obtain offices of responsibility and honor. But the joys of life eternal are all comprised in the vision of God, which is supreme felicity.”
DEATH OF LORENZO.
With a mortal disease fastened upon him, Lorenzo the Magnificent had retired to his villa at Careggi. Hope of his recovery there was none, for the physicians had exhausted the last resources of their art. Even the renowned Lazzaro da Ficino had been called from Pavia, and had administered his wonderful draught of distilled gems without result. Death approached rapidly, and in this solemn hour Lorenzo’s mind turned seriously on his religious duties. He seemed entirely changed. When Holy Communion was to be administered to him, he made a superhuman effort to rise from his bed, and, supported in the arms of those around him, to receive it kneeling, but the priest, perceiving his weakness and his agitation, insisted on his being returned to his couch. It was impossible to calm him. The past rose up before him in horrible visions. As he approached his end, his crimes assumed gigantic proportions, and became every moment more menacing, filling him with a wild dismay, and depriving him of the peace and comfort he would otherwise have derived from the consolations of religion. Having lost all confidence in men,[125] he even doubted the sincerity of his own confessor. Accustomed to have his slightest wish obeyed, he began to doubt if that ecclesiastic had acted with entire freedom. His remorse became harder and harder to bear. “No one ever dared say ‘No’ to me,” he thought within himself, and this reflection, once a source of pride, now became his most cruel punishment. Suddenly the image of Savonarola in its grave severity presented itself to his mind, and he remembered that he at least had never been influenced either by threats or flatteries. “He is the only true frate I know,” he exclaimed, and expressed a desire to make his confession to him. A messenger was instantly sent to S. Mark’s for Savonarola, who was so astonished at the strange and unlooked-for summons that it seemed to him incredible. He gave answer that it appeared to him useless to go to Careggi because his words would not be well received by Lorenzo. But when he was made to understand the gravity of Lorenzo’s condition, and the fact that he had really sent for him, he set off instantly. That day Lorenzo felt himself rapidly sinking. Summoning his son Piero, he gave him his last instructions and his dying farewell. He afterwards expressed a wish to see Pico di Mirandola, who came immediately, and the pleasure of his society had a soothing effect upon the moribund. Scarcely had Pico left, when the prior of S. Mark was announced. He advanced respectfully to the bedside of the dying man. Three sins in particular lay heavy upon his conscience. These were: the sack of Volterra; the plunder of the treasure set apart for the dowry of poor Florentine damsels, which had driven many of them to evil lives; the blood he had shed to revenge the conspiracy of the Pazzi.
While speaking, Lorenzo’s agitation increased alarmingly. But Savonarola, in order to calm him, kept repeating, “God is good, God is merciful.”
“But,” he added, when Lorenzo had finished, “three things are necessary.”
“What are they, father?” asked Lorenzo.
Savonarola’s countenance became grave, and, reckoning upon his fingers, he said: “First, you must have a firm and lively faith in the infinite mercy of God.”
“I have it fully.”
“Second, you must make restitution of all money unjustly acquired, or charge your son to do it for you.”
At this Lorenzo was sorely grieved and perplexed, but with a great effort he signified assent by nodding his head.
Savonarola then rose, and, drawing himself up to his full height, said with solemn countenance and impressive voice, “Lastly, you must restore to the people of Florence their freedom.” He fastened his eyes upon those of Lorenzo, awaiting his answer. The dying man, gathering what little strength was left him, disdainfully shrugged his shoulders without deigning to utter a single word.
Thus—so runs the story—Savonarola left him, and Lorenzo the Magnificent, lacerated with remorse, soon afterwards breathed his last sigh (8th of April, 1492).[126]
The death of Lorenzo seriously affected the public affairs of Tuscany and of Italy. His personal influence over other princes, his prudence and ability, had made him in some sort the moderator of Italian politics. Piero, his son and successor, was in every respect his opposite. Of handsome and powerful physique, he abandoned himself to athletic sports and to gallantry. He possessed a certain facility of improvisation and a pleasing address, but centred his highest ambition on horsemanship, tournaments, and games of strength and dexterity.
He inherited from his mother all the pride of the house of Orsini, but from his father none of that simplicity and modesty of manner which had so powerfully contributed to render him popular. His manners were rough and displeasing to all: he yielded frequently to transports of rage, and one day, in the presence of many persons, gave his cousin a violent blow with his fist. These things were looked upon in Florence as worse than an open violation of the law, and of themselves sufficed to create for him a great number of enemies. Not only to his subjects were his manners displeasing, but from the very commencement of his reign he so disgusted all the Italian princes that Florence soon lost the preeminence which Lorenzo had gained for her. He utterly neglected the public affairs, and was solicitous only to concentrate in himself all the power of the government. Day by day he successively swept away even the few remaining semblances of liberty which Lorenzo had taken great care to leave intact, and to which the people naturally clung with affection. General dissatisfaction spread rapidly, and swept into a threatening opposition even many of the strongest partisans of the Medicean dynasty. A certain uneasy expectation of a change in public affairs began to manifest itself, a change the more necessary and desirable as Piero, deserted by citizens of repute, was forced to surround himself by men either unknown or incapable.
Meantime the multitude pressed around the pulpit of Savonarola, and looked up to him as the preacher of the anti-Mediceans. The fact that Lorenzo, at the approach of death, had desired him for a confessor, gained him many adherents among the admirers of that prince, who rapidly fell away from Piero on account of his personal faults and defective administration. The populace, moreover, recollected that Savonarola, in the sacristy of S. Mark’s, had predicted the approaching deaths of Lorenzo, of the Pope, and of the King of Naples. One portion of this prediction had been verified, and the fulfilment of another seemed close at hand. The vital powers of Pope Innocent VIII. were rapidly failing him, and he died on the 25th of April, 1492. The death of the King of Naples, it was known, must soon follow. And now all eyes were involuntarily turned to the man who had predicted the disasters which seemed impending over Italy, and whose prophecies seemed so strangely fulfilled. The universal belief in his prophecies seemed to confirm Savonarola’s confidence in his own power, and spread his name throughout the world. He was at once the cause and the victim of his own visions. His exaltation increased. The time he had foretold seemed close at hand. He read and re-read the books of prophecy, and preached with greater fervor. It is but little to be wondered at that in this frame of mind his visions went on increasing in number.
Toward the end of the same year, while preaching the Advent sermons, he had a dream which to him appeared like a vision, and which he did not hesitate to look upon as a divine revelation. He seemed to see in the heavens a hand holding a sword on which was written: Gladius Domini super terram cito et velociter. He heard many voices, clear and distinct, promising mercy to the good, but menacing punishments to the wicked, and crying out that the wrath of God was nigh at hand. Suddenly the sword points to the earth, the sky is overcast, it rains swords and arrows, the lightnings flash, the thunders roll, and the whole earth is given up a prey to war, famine, and pestilence.
The vision ceased with a command to Savonarola to menace the people with approaching punishments, to inspire them with the fear of God, and induce them to beseech the Lord to send good pastors to his church, who would seek and save the souls in danger of being lost. In later years we find this vision represented in an infinite number of engravings and medals, and become, as it were, a symbol of Savonarola and of his doctrine.
TO BE CONTINUED.
[DANTE’S PURGATORIO.]
CANTO NINTH.
Forth from the arms of her beloved now,
Whitening the orient steep, the concubine
Of old Tithonus came, her lucent brow
Adorned with gems whose figure formed the sign
Of that cold animal whose tail with dread
Strikes trembling nations; and the night, where we
Now were, had made of her ascending tread
Two of her paces and was making three,
With wings through weariness less fully spread,
When I, in whom the weakness was alive
Of Adam’s nature, sank in slumber’s power
Where sat already on the grass all five.
Near to the dawning and about the hour
When first the little swallow wakes her lays
(Haply remembering her old woes afresh),
And when our mind, relieved of thinking, strays
More of a pilgrim from its cage of flesh
Till to its vision ‘tis almost divine,
Dreaming, I seemed to see in heaven suspended
An eagle that with golden plumes did shine
And with spread wings as he to swoop intended:
And in that place it seemed to be, methought,
Where Ganymede, abandoning his own,
Was up to heaven’s high consistory caught.
Then I considered; haply here alone
His wont to strike is, and he scorns elsewhere
To bear up what he snatches in his feet;
Methought he next wheeled somewhat in the air,
Then struck like lightning, terrible and fleet,
And rapt me up to the empyrean: there
We burned together in so fierce a heat,
And such of that imagined fire the smart,
My dream perforce was by the scorching broke.
Not otherwise Achilles with a start
Rolled his amazed eyes round him, newly woke,
And knowing nothing where he was, when flying
His mother bore him, slumbering on her breast,
From Chiron to the isle of Scyros hieing,
Whence the Greeks, after, forced him with the rest,
Than I too started! so that all repose
Fled from my features; deadly pale and chill
I grew, like one whom fear hath well-nigh froze.
Sole stood my Comforter beside me still;
My face was towards the sea-shore turned; the sun
Was risen already more than two hours high.
“Fear not,” my Lord said, “we have well begun:
Shrink not! but every way enlarge thy strength;
Thou hast arrived at Purgatory! See
Yon cliff that circles it; behold at length
The entrance, parted where it seems to be.”
In the white light that comes before the morn
While slumbering in thee lay thy soul, there came
Over the flowers this valley that adorn
A woman, saying, “Lucia is my name:
This man here sleeping let me take in care;
So shall I speed him forward on his way.”
Sordello, with his gentle comrades there,
Remained: she took thee and, at dawn of day,
Up hither sped, and I behind her straight.
Here she reposed thee; first with her fair eyes
Showing the aperture of yonder gate,
Then vanished and thy sleep in even wise.
As a man, doubting, comforteth his fear
At truth’s discovery, confident once more,
So did I change; and seeing me appear
Without inquietude, my Guide up o’er
The cliff moved on, I following in his rear.
Reader, thou well observ’st to what a height
I lift my matter, therefore wonder not
If with more art I strengthen what I write.
We still approached and now had reached the spot
Where that which first had seemed to me a rent,
Like to a fissure in a wall, my view
Made out a gate, and leading to it went
Three steps, and each was of a different hue;
A guardian sat there keeping the ascent.
As yet he spake not, and as more and more
Mine eyes I opened, on the topmost stair
I saw him sitting, and the look he wore
Was of such brightness that I could not bear.
The rays were so reflected from his face
By a drawn sword that glistened in his hand
That oft I turned to look in empty space:
Then he began: “Speak ye from where ye stand!
What seek ye here? who leads you to this place?
Take heed lest climbing upward from the strand
You come to harm!” My Master answered thus:
“A heavenly lady, of such things aware,
Spake in these words not long ago to us:
‘Go ye up yonder, for the gate is there.’
And may she speed you on your way to good!”
Rejoined that gracious guard. “Up to our flight
Advance you then!” We therefore came and stood
At the first stair, which was of marble white,
So clear and burnished, that therein I could
Behold myself, how I appear to sight.
The second was a rough stone, burnt and black
Beyond the darkest purple; through its length
And crosswise it was traversed by a crack.
The third whose mass is rested on their strength
Appeared to me of porphyry, flaming red,
Or like blood spouting from a vein; thereon
God’s Angel kept with planted feet his tread
Sitting upon the threshold’s gleaming stone,
Which seemed to me of adamant. My Guide
Led me with my good will up that ascent,
Saying, “Beg humbly that the bolt may slide!”
And at those hallowed feet devout I bent.
“In mercy open to me!” I implored,
But first I smote me thrice upon my breast.
He on my forehead with his pointed sword
Traced P. seven times, then spake me this behest:
“Wash thou these wounds when thou hast past the door.”
Ashes or dry heaps dug from gravelly earth
Were of one color with the robe he wore,
From under which two keys he next drew forth.
One was of gold, one silver; first he plied
The white, then used the yellow on the gate,
In such sort as my spirit satisfied;
Then said: “To none is passable the strait
When either of these keys be vainly tried,
And in the wards without response it grate.
One is more precious, one more asketh wise
Counsel and intellect the lock to free,
Because ‘tis this which error’s knot unties.
From Peter’s hand I hold them. He on me
Enjoined this rule, that I should rather err
In opening unto penitents, than be
Slow to unbind, if at my feet they were.”
Then of that pass he pushed the sacred gate,
Saying—“Go in; but be ye warned, before
You enter! who looks back returneth straight.”
And when the hinge-bolts of the holy door,
Which are of strong and sounding metal, rolled
Round in their sockets, the Tarpeian rock,
When robbed of good Metellus and its gold,
Rung not so loud nor yielded such a shock.
At the first thunder, as the portal swung
I looked about, and as I stood intent
Heard Te Deum laudamus! clearly sung,
And the gate’s music with the song was blent.
The same impression what I heard gave me
As on the listener’s hearing is begot
When men with organs join their voice, and we
Now hear the words, and now we hear them not.
[UNITY.]
He who holds not this unity of the church, does he think that he holds the faith? He who strives against and resists the church, is he assured that he is in the church? For the blessed Apostle Paul teaches this same thing, and manifests the sacrament of unity, thus speaking: There is one Body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one Hope of your calling; one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God. This unity firmly should we hold and maintain, especially we bishops presiding in the church, in order that we may approve the Episcopate itself to be one and undivided. Let no one deceive the brotherhood by falsehood; no one corrupt the truth of our faith by a faithless treachery. The Episcopate is one; it is a whole, in which each enjoys full possession. The church is likewise one, though she be spread abroad, and multiplies with the increase of her progeny; even as the sun has rays many, yet one light; and the tree boughs many, yet its strength is one, seated in the deep-lodged root; and as, when many streams flow down from one source, though a multiplicity of waters seems to be diffused from the bountifulness of the overflowing abundance, unity is preserved in the source itself. Part a ray of the sun from its orb, and its unity forbids this division of light; break a branch from the tree, once broken it can bud no more; cut the stream from its fountain, the remnant will be dried up. Thus the church, flooded with the light of the Lord, puts forth her rays through the whole world, with yet one light, which is spread upon all places, while its unity of body is not infringed. She stretches forth her branches over the universal earth in the riches of plenty, and pours abroad her bountiful and onward streams; yet is there one Head, one Source, one Mother, abundant in the results of her fruitfulness.—S. Cyprian.
[THE TROWEL OR THE CROSS;]
FROM THE GERMAN OF CONRAD VON BOLANDEN.
“This is your hour, and the power of darkness.”—S. Luke xxii. 53.
Bolanden’s stories have been received with such marked favor, both in the original and translation, that we have thought a short biographical sketch of the author would be acceptable to the readers of The Catholic World.
Joseph Edward Charles Bishoff, better known as Conrad von Bolanden, was born August 9, 1828, at lower Gailbach, a village of the Palatinate, formerly belonging to Lorraine.
His father was a wealthy merchant, and, when his son had reached a suitable age, he placed him under the direction of a private tutor; but the child gave no indication of talent, and made slow progress in his studies. He exhibited an equally backward disposition in the Latin school at Blieskastel, which he attended at the age of eight years. When his parents afterwards moved to Fischbach in Breisgau, it was his delight to roam through the forests, and remain many hours among the ruins of Hohenburg, situated upon the summit of a high mountain. To his close observation of the beauties of nature at this early age we are doubtless indebted for the graphic descriptions of natural scenery which we find in his works.
Having studied Latin for some time with the reverend pastor of Schönau, he entered, at the age of thirteen years, the Bishop’s Seminary of Speyer. Here also he was accounted a very dull scholar, for the reason that the method of instruction was unsuited to him, and because he had already commenced to write poetry and romances.
In the year 1849, he became a student of the University of Munich, and applied himself diligently to the study of theology, for he felt within himself the vocation to become a priest. During this time, he wrote a feuilleton for the Volkshalle, published at Cologne, in which he describes an incident of the French Revolution. On the 20th day of August, 1852, he was ordained priest by the Rt. Rev. Bishop Nicholas von Weiss, in the seminary-church of Speyer, and became assistant priest of the cathedral. He devoted himself with zeal and enthusiasm to his new sphere of duty; but, at the end of two years, the bodily strength of the young assistant was completely exhausted, and he was made pastor of Kirchheim Bolanden, a small city at the Donnersberg. The parish numbered 1,303 souls, who were distributed among not less than 40 stations, in the midst of Protestants. Here again was a hard and fatiguing field of labor, but the experience which he acquired during his sojourn in Bolanden concerning the nature of Protestantism, was the foundation of his Wedding-tour of M. Luther. In memory of this his first mission as pastor, he called himself Conrad von Bolanden.
Ten months later, he was made pastor of Boerrstadt. There he wrote, within three years, Eberhard of Falkenstein, or the Power of Faith, Franz von Sickingen, and Queen Bertha.
From the year 1859 to 1869, he was pastor of Berghausen, about two miles from Speyer. Now followed in rapid succession novels and historical romances, which were at once translated into all the living languages, and gave the author a more than European fame, since his writings were printed and read also in America. His social romance, The Progressionists, lately reproduced in this magazine, became very popular. Workingmen of all classes made up funds to buy the book. Among the higher class also, and even in the family of a certain prince, this work created a furor; but it was the cause of great trouble to the author. A man of exalted rank and power, whose scandalous habits were known far and wide, imagined that he saw himself depicted in The Progressionists. The wrath of this person was the reason why many, out of fear of incurring his displeasure, avoided the presence of Bolanden. His shattered health, as well as the loss of friends, induced him, in the year 1869, to resign of his own accord his position as pastor, especially as the compensation he had received for his works had secured him an independent fortune. He purchased for himself a comfortable house in Speyer surrounded by a large garden, and there he now lives, always employed in writing, but in strict retirement.
His method of life is very regular. Every morning at nine o’clock he appears in his garden, where he occupies himself with his flowers and fruit-trees, after which he reads the newspapers and letters he has received. He never writes either in the morning or late at night. He commences work at two in the afternoon, and ceases at five.
Having no sisters, brothers, or other near relatives, Von Bolanden’s house is presided over by his aged mother, Eleonore Languet, a venerable matron, whose motherly love is never exhausted, and whose devotion is repaid by the respectful and childlike affection of her distinguished son.
One of the peculiarities of Von Bolanden is his decided aversion to travelling, and to stopping at hotels. “I feel uneasy when out of my house.” he often remarks. Like many literary men, he is very absent-minded; he will look at the clock to ascertain a day or date, and, during the hottest days of summer, he will approach an empty stove to light his cigar.
His great merits as a Catholic novelist, and his fearless exposure of historical falsehoods, as well as his efforts for the religious enlightenment of the people, have been recognized by Pope Pius IX., who has made him a Monsignore. This distinction is important, inasmuch as it implies the approval of Bolanden’s works by the highest authority on earth.
God grant that the intrepid author may be spared for many years to uphold the banner of truth, and increase his merits by waging a combat against the enemies of the Catholic Church.