The Catholic World, Vol. 20, October 1874‐March 1875

by Various

The Leap For Life.

An Episode in the Career of Pres. MacMahon.

I.

In Algeria, with Bugeaud,

Harassed by a crafty foe,

Were the French, in eighteen hundred thirty-one;

Swarthy Arabs prowled about

Camp and outpost and redoubt

Crouching here and crawling there,

Lurking, gliding everywhere,

Tiger-hearted, under stars and under sun,

Seeking by some stealthy chance

Vengeance on the troops of France—

Vengeance fierce and fell, to sate

Savage rage and savage hate

For the deeds of desolation harshly done.

II.

On a rugged plateau,

Forty miles from headquarters of Marshal Bugeaud,

Lay an outpost, besieged by the merciless foe.

Day by day close and closer the Arab lines drew

Round the hard-beset French.

To dash out and flash through,

Like a wind-driven flame, they would dare, though a host

Hot from Hades stood there. But abandon the post?

Nay, they dare not do that; they were soldiers of France,

And dishonor should stain neither sabre nor lance;

They could bravely meet death, though like Hydra it came

Horror-headed and dire, but no shadow of shame

For a trust left to perish when danger drew nigh

Should e'er dim the flag waving free to the sky.

But soon came a terror more dread to the soul

Than war's wild thunder-crash when its battle-clouds roll,

And the heavens are shrouded from light, while a glare,

As of hell, breaks in hot, lurid streams on the air!

It was Famine, grim-visaged and gaunt,

To the camp most appalling of foes—

Slow to strike, slow to kill, but full sure

As the swift headsman's deadliest blows.

O'er the ramparts it sullenly strode,

Glided darkly by tent and by wall,

Spreading awe wheresoever it went,

And the gloom of dismay over all;

Blighting valor that ne'er in war's red front had quailed,

Blanching cheeks that no tempest of strife e'er had paled.

III.

Then a council was held, and the commandant said

Direst peril was near; they must summon swift aid

From the Marshal, or all would be lost ere the sun

Of to-morrow went down in the west. Was there one

Who, to save the command and the honor of France,

Would ride forth with despatches? He ceased, and a glance

At the bronzed faces near showed that spirits to dare

Any desperate deed under heaven were there.

But the first to arise and respond was a youth

Whose brow bore nature's signet of courage and truth,

In whose eye valor shone calm and clear as a star

When the winds are at rest and the clouds fade afar.

Who was he that stood forth with such resolute air?

Young Lieutenant MacMahon, bold, free, débonnaire,

Never knight looked more gallant with shield and with spear,

Never war-nurtured chieftain less conscious of fear.

In his mien was the heroic flash of the Gaul,

With the fire of the Celt giving grandeur to all;

And he said, head erect, face with ardor aglow,

“I will ride with despatches to Marshal Bugeaud!”

IV.

It is night, and a stillness profound

Folds the camp; Arabs stealthily creep

Here and there in the moonlight beyond,

With ears eagerly bent for a sound

From the garrison, watchful and weak;

O'er the tents welcome night-breezes sweep,

Bringing balm unto brow and to cheek

Of men scorched by a pitiless sun

To a hue almost swarthy and deep

As the hue of the foe they would shun.

V.

Stretching dimly afar,

Between slopes that are rugged and bare,

Half obscure under moonbeam and star,

Half revealed in the soft, misty air,

Runs a rude, broken way that will lead

Gallant rider and sure-footed steed

Westward forth to the camp of Bugeaud,

Forty miles over high land and low;

But the steed must be trusty and fleet,

And the bridle hand steady and keen

That shall guide him by rock and ravine,

Where each stride of the galloping feet

Must span dangers that slumber unseen;

And beyond, scarce a league to the west,

Yawns a treacherous chasm, dark and deep,

Where death lurks like a serpent asleep,

And the rider must ride at his best,

And his steed take the terrible leap

Like a winged creature cleaving the air,

Else a grim, ghastly corpse shall be there,

With perchance a steed stark on its breast,

And the moon shall look down with a stare

Where they lie in perpetual rest.

VI.

Now the silence is broken by neigh and by champ

And the clatter of hoofs, and away from the camp

Rides MacMahon, as gallant, as light, and as free

As the bridegroom who goes to his marriage may be.

With prance and with gallop and gay caracole

His swift steed bounds along, as if spurning control;

But the bridle-hand guides him unerring and true,

And each stroke of the hoofs is thew answering thew.

Through the moonlight they go, fading slowly from sight,

Till both rider and steed sink away in the night.

But they go not unheard, and they speed not unseen;

Dark eyes furtively watch, flashing fiercely and keen

From dim ambush around; then like spectres arise

White-robed figures that follow; the rider descries

Them on slope and in hollow, and knows they pursue.

But he fears not their craft or the deeds they may do,

For his brave steed is eager and strong, and the pace

Growing faster and faster each stride of the chase.

Now the slopes right and left seem alive with the foe

Gliding ghost-like along, but still stealthy and low,

As wild creatures that crouch in a jungle; they think

To entrap him when back from the terrible brink

Of the chasm he returns, for his steed cannot leap

The dread gulf, and the rider will halt when its steep

Ragged walls ope before him, with death lying deep

In the darkness below; they will seize him, and take

From his heart, by fell torture of fagot and stake,

Every secret it holds; then his life-blood may flow,

But he never shall ride to the camp of Bugeaud.

VII.

Still unflinching and free through the moonlight he goes,

And each pulse with the hot flush of eagerness glows.

Now a glance at the path where his gallant steed flies,

Now a gleam at the weird, spectral forms that arise

On the dim, rugged slopes, then still onward and on,

Till he nears the abyss, and its gaping jaws yawn

On his sight; but the rider well knows it is there,

And his speed is soon cautiously checked to prepare

For the desperate leap; he must now put to proof

The true mettle beneath, for the slip of a hoof

Or a swerve on the brink will dash both into doom,

Where the sad stars shall watch o'er a cavernous tomb.

Girth and bridle and stirrup are felt, to be sure

That no flaw shall bring peril—and all is secure;

Then with eyes fixed before, and brow bent to the wind,

And one thought of the foe and his comrades behind,

And a low, earnest prayer that all heaven must heed,

He slacks bridle, plies spur, and gives head to his steed.

With a bound it responds, ears set back, nostrils wide,

And the rush of a thunder-bred storm in its stride!

Now the brink! now the leap! they are over! Hurrah!

Horse and rider are safe, and dash wildly away;

Not a slip, not a flinch, swift and sure as the flight

Of an eagle in mid-air they sweep through the night,

While the baffled foe glare in bewildered amaze

At the fast-flying prey speeding far from their gaze;

And the soft stars grow dim in the dawn's early glow

When MacMahon rides into the camp of Bugeaud.

The Year Of Our Lord 1874.

A general glance at the movements of the past year will scarcely prove encouraging, even to the most devout believer in the glory and the destiny of the golden century drawing so rapidly to its close. Our own nation, which—with steam, electricity, railroads, the newspaper as it stands to-day in all its power and pride (vide the current number of the New York Herald), and other great material developments of the age—may consider itself at will as either the mightiest product or the enfant gâté of the century, has not too great matter for self-congratulation. Our national year, that dawned on disaster, has struggled through a painful life only to close in gloom, with perhaps a faint though uncertain glimmer afar off of better times to come. The “Christian” statesmen who have had the country and its management all to themselves these many years past have left behind them a bitter legacy. The great scandals—for even scandals in these days have a greatness of their own—which at length broke up the ranks of the “Christian” statesmen were sufficiently touched upon last year, and are only called to mind here as tending in great measure to explain the year of national distress we have just passed through.

All through the winter months the poverty and misery of the masses in New York and other of our chief cities were unexampled in our history; nor was the revival of business during the spring, summer, and fall seasons of such a nature as to warrant the hope of being able to stave off a similar calamity in the early months of the coming year. The real cause of the distress is known to all—the general stagnation of business in 1873, resulting chiefly from the panic of the previous year, which in turn resulted from the corruption in high places of the national, State, and municipal guardians of the public trusts. Public confidence was shattered; business was at a standstill, the masses consequently idle, while a general reduction in the rate of wages begot strikes among such as were not idle. In this connection it may be well to call to mind what was generally observed at the time: the significant absence of the Irish and Catholic body from the seditious meetings; yet on that body fell the burden of the distress. What the disciples of the “Christian” school of statesmen, who gave cause for the sedition by their corruption and dishonesty, would be pleased to term their “foreign” faith, “foreign” education, obedience to the trained body-guard, the priesthood, of a “foreign” potentate, the Pope, alone prevented their falling in with the ranks of sedition. Yet the preaching and practice of the “foreign” faith, we are constantly assured, is the greatest danger to the republic.

The trials of the severe season, however, brought out into startling prominence one great fact: the willingness and resources of the public to encounter an unexpected demand of this kind. New York, for instance, was overrun with public charities and associations for the relief of the poor, the unfortunate, the maimed, the halt, the blind, the fatherless children, helpless women, and so forth. In short, there was scarcely a department of human misery which had not its corresponding asylum, aided in most instances by the State, erected often and paid solely by the State, as well as a variety of others set on foot and kept a-going by private philanthropy or charity. Money from public and private resources had been pouring into these asylums for long years past, without any startling demand being made upon them in return. Now was the time to prove the utility of those institutions, of which we were so justly proud. What was their actual condition? They were for the greater part found practically with exchequers already exhausted, without anything like adequate results being shown. An inquiry as to where all the money had gone succeeded in tracing considerable sums as far as the pockets of the directors, their wives, families, and friends, generally, after which all traces mysteriously [pg 562] disappeared. The good old maxim that “charity begins at home” would seem to have impressed itself as a necessary truth on the minds of the dispensers of our public charities, and it seems to have been carried out severely to the letter. One consolation was afforded the public, however. For some time past its conscience had been offended by the granting of certain sums—small enough indeed, in comparison with the necessities of the cases—out of the public funds to those social offences known as “sectarian” charities—sectarian charities!—and these sums, such as they were, had within the year been very judiciously and properly withdrawn, in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution, as expounded by the men from whose ranks sprang the Christians of the Crédit Mobilier school. It was no small satisfaction to see, in the time of trial, that the public was justified in withdrawing from such institutions the State appropriations, on the ground that they were not distributed as in purely State asylums. How the “sectarian” charities contrasted with the others in the administration and distribution of their funds may be left to the records of the year to tell, as unfolded in the columns of the daily press. Whether a general remodelling of our public institutions, in view of the flagrant mismanagement exhibited last year, be not desirable, is left to the consideration of those most concerned in the matter—the public themselves. As they stand they are an eyesore to honest men, a standing breach of public confidence, and a gross violation of the public contract, to say nothing of what they may be in the eye of a heaven that seems to be getting farther and farther remote from the earth, whereon God once was pleased to walk with the father of mankind.

Our class of statesmen found an easy solution of what Mr. Disraeli esteemed the most difficult problem of politics—the feeding of a people by the government—by an increase of money; and an increase of money is the simplest thing in the world, when money is only so much paper stamped by the government with promise to pay at no very precise date. All that the government had to do in order to ease matters was to draw an unlimited number of I O U's on itself—itself being practically bankrupt for the time being, but relying on the prospect of something eventually “turning up” to its advantage.

The sad conflicts in Arkansas and Louisiana, the hostility between black and white, come in the same order. In this case, in Louisiana at least, the President and his advisers did not show themselves as well as in the quashing of the bill for inflation of the currency. While the party that had recourse to an absolute revolution in the State and in the face of the nation cannot but be condemned, inasmuch as the approaching elections might have peacefully served their purposes to the same end, much more is the government to be condemned which in the first instance gave its sanction and support to a great and standing wrong. Fortunately, but little blood was spilt; yet one drop in such cases is an indication of the neighborhood of a deluge. All hope for the dispersion of this impending deluge rests now chiefly with the party which was returned to power at the November elections.

If the year leaves us with so much to lament, so many vexed problems to solve, so many rocks ahead in our national course, and with only a half-confidence in the crew who are in charge of the ship of state to guide it over the unrevealed dangers of unknown seas, what shall be said of Europe, with its divided nationalities, ambitions, and policies, and only danger as a unit?

The general arming of the nations that began almost half a century ago, but was hurried into feverish activity since the Franco-German war, may now be said to be completed. Russia within half a dozen years will, if peace so far favors her, have three millions of soldiers in the field; France almost as many; Germany, by the enrolment of the Landsturm, has made itself a nation of soldiers; Austria, Italy, and the rest all follow in due order. All Europe is at this moment armed to the teeth, solely to preserve peace. One is irresistibly reminded of an old verse about a strong man armed keeping his house.

A set of fanatics assembled in London to sympathize with the Prussian government in its “struggle” with its Catholic subjects—that is to say, with the wholesale imprisonment of the Catholic bishops and clergy, the suppression of Catholic religious societies, the fining of Catholic ladies for presenting addresses of condolence to the imprisoned ecclesiastics. The meeting of sympathy called forth a very remarkable letter of gratitude [pg 563] from the German emperor, and occasioned a general jubilee on the part of the German official press. So far, so good. In the meanwhile a French bishop, thinking, probably, that it is hard for a man whose sole crime consists in the fact of his being a Catholic bishop to be imprisoned for that offence, ventures to deliver a mild opinion on the matter in a pastoral to his flock. Straightway comes out a Prussian official paper with an editorial that for solemnity and massiveness might have been written by the Emperor himself, warning, not the French bishop, but all France, that if it cannot restrain itself from that shocking habit it has acquired of using intemperate language against a neighboring and unusually friendly power, Germany, painful as the task may be to its feelings of humanity, will positively be compelled to take its own measures for its own defence. France immediately takes the hint, eats the leek with all becoming meekness, and a circular couched in the language of the Academy is despatched to the bishops generally, the plain English of which would be to hold their tongues on all German matters, unless, of course, they have something pleasant to say. That may be a very easy task for the bishops, but there still remain those bêtes-noirs of offending governments, the gentlemen of the press; and gentlemen of the press, in France as everywhere else, are unhappily distinguished not so much, perhaps, for having opinions of their own, as for giving vent to those opinions, and setting them down in indelible ink. M. Veuillot, the editor of L'Univers, is just one of these unfortunate beings. M. Veuillot has a rather strong way of putting things when it pleases him, and M. Veuillot is hardly the man to take a diplomatic hint. The sad duty becomes incumbent on his government, therefore, to give M. Veuillot and his paper a vacation of a couple of months. The vacation was called suspension. It was duly explained that the German government had had nothing whatever to do with the matter, though, strange to say, the French government had never thought of suspending M. Veuillot for hammering away at itself.

Belgium and Italy were threatened in like manner for allowing their subjects freedom of opinion in so important a matter. Even England was warned, but the warning had small effect.

It was whispered, though the correspondence never came to light, that at one period during the past year some sharply-worded notes passed between the German government and our own. What the cause of the sharply-worded notes may have been remains a diplomatic secret. The only thing significant about the matter is that the whisper took shape about a month after the arrest and imprisonment of Archbishop Ledochowski, who had the immortal honor of being the first of the German bishops to surrender the liberty of his person for his faith in this strife. That imprisonment called forth an unanimous condemnation from the American press—not the sectarian press of any creed—that did it honor, and led one to hope that such a thing as principle still existed on the earth, and that genuine homespun American love of liberty was not a meaningless thing.

To the charge of necessary disloyalty to the ecclesiastical laws of Prussia, Catholics will perforce plead guilty—the same Catholics who before the passing of those laws never dreamed of or were accused of disloyalty to the state. Those laws are an insult to the age and to all time. There is not a line of them that does not betray the steel of the executioner, red almost with the blood of his victim. The spirit of Brennus is abroad. The scales of justice show a sadly uneven balance; but the sword of the barbarian tossed in ends all disputes and argument.

Our modern Brennus has struck his blows so rapidly and truly that the world still stares at him in dazed wonder. Success has waited on his footsteps, and men who worship success are not yet sufficiently masters of themselves to measure that success aright. They are afraid to question the actions of a man who seems to strike with the inerrancy of fate. Prince Bismarck had certainly the world on his side; and if the world begins now to fall away from him and recoil, to recover its senses a little, and to question the right and wrong of his actions, he has none but himself to blame.

The signs of the past year tell us that the recoil is beginning to set in. The elections early in the year went against the government. The Catholics gained a large majority on their former number even in Prussia itself. Alsace-Lorraine returned its members simply to protest against annexation, while the socialists were strengthened also. The government still holds a strong majority, it is [pg 564] true; but the falling away from its standard within four years of its mightiest triumphs was so significant of what was likely to ensue should the government persevere in its policy, that the first thing taken into consideration immediately after the elections was the restricting of the franchise to such voters as it was felt would return a safe and sure majority for the government. Next to this came measures for the restriction of the liberty of the press, which by the efforts of the Catholic party were defeated.

The obvious question will force itself on the mind: Why should a government so strong and mighty, so beloved of the people, as we are always assured, tremble at the popular voice and at the criticism of a newspaper? The answer is easy. The army bill followed. The government required a peace-effective voted once for all of four hundred and one thousand men. That army was to stand, and, once the bill was passed, parliament was to have no further voice in the matter, whether in regard to payment of the bills or in regulating the number of men. That was to pass completely out of its hands.

For once even the “blustering majority” did not save the government. The terrible danger of the scheme was obvious. The mere presence of so tremendous a standing army was a standing menace not only to the country and its liberties, but to its neighbors. It did not breathe the spirit of peace and rest in the government, and of proper regard for a country already worn and disturbed by three harassing wars occurring in quick succession; while the taking out of the hands of the Houses the control over so large an item of the public funds as was embraced in the bill, was a blow at their privileges to which not even faith in absolutism could blind them. A storm was at once raised. The government staked its existence on the measure. Marshal Moltke rose up in the House, and made a speech in defence of it that will be remembered. He spoke of the alarm caused by Germany to its neighbors. He told them that what they had gained in a few months it would take them fifty years to keep and secure. It was necessary that, though they might not draw the sword, their hand should be for ever on the hilt. He assured them that, after all, wars undertaken and carried through by regular armies were the swiftest and therefore the cheapest. An important consideration that last. As a final argument the veteran told them that “a standing army was a necessity of the times, and he could not but ask the House to devote the figure of four hundred and one thousand rank-and-file as a peace-footing once for all.” A peace-footing! But even the marshal's seductive eloquence could not move them.

Prince Bismarck fell sick and retired to Varzin. The Emperor's birthday came round, and the generals of his empire came to congratulate him. He assured them that he would dissolve parliament rather than alter the bill. But his imperial majesty forgot that there were more kingdoms than Prussia concerned in his measures now, and that the dissolution that once before served the King of Prussia sufficiently well might, in the disturbed state of affairs, prove a dangerous experiment to the Emperor of Germany. Finally, as is known, somewhat better counsels prevailed, and a compromise was effected, which limited the figure to three hundred and eighty-five thousand men for seven years. This was a severe check to the government, while it was a lesson to the people to distrust rulers who, in the light of their own schemes, considered the empire as a mere instrument, forgetting wholly that they were for the empire, not the empire for them.

There are many matters in the internal history of Germany during the past year that deserve to be dwelt upon particularly and at length, but a few of which only can be glanced at here. The desire to expand and strengthen itself abroad is natural, and it is strange that the government organs should be so anxious to disavow so praiseworthy an object, provided the motives that urge it are good. It is strange, at the same time, to see how it continues its repressive emigration laws; how anxious so mighty an empire is to keep all its children at home, where they may be serviceable in the Landsturm; and how anxious those children are to get away and come out to us here, leaving behind them and surrendering forever all the glory and the promise of the newly-founded empire. It is strange, also, to note to what little tricks so great a government can descend in its self-imposed conflict with its Catholic subjects; as, for instance, the forged Papal decree respecting the future election of the Sovereign Pontiff that found its way into the columns [pg 565] of the Cologne Gazette at so opportune a moment as the eve of the German elections. Simultaneously with its appearance we were reminded of the significant declaration of Prince Bismarck in the German parliament, June 9, 1873: “If the message is brought to us that a new Pope has been elected, we shall certainly be entitled to investigate whether he has been duly, properly, and legitimately elected”; that is to say, whether the veto of the head of the Holy Roman Empire—who of course is the Emperor William—and of the other powers possessing a veto whom the German government might influence, has been exercised. “Only if we are satisfied on these heads will he be able to claim in Germany the rights belonging to a Roman Pope.”

Out of consideration for Prince Bismarck we pass over those fierce parliamentary storms where his keen opponents, Von Windthorst and Von Mallinkrodt, twitted the Chancellor himself with having been actually guilty of the disloyalty to Prussia and the German soil which he falsely attributed to the Catholics. The prince, amid thunders of applause, charged them with malicious lying; but the charge, though momentarily effective, was not a happy one, as the disclosures of Gen. Della Marmora subsequently showed. Italy was threatened in consequence of Della Marmora's indiscretion, but the threat proved ineffectual. The general said his say, and the lie was stamped on its author. Prince Bismarck's popularity was on the wane, if not in Germany itself, certainly in a very large circle outside of Germany where he had hitherto been worshipped as one who with some justice described himself as “the best-hated man in Europe.” Then, fortunately for himself, as fortunately as a scene in a drama, came the Deus ex machinâ in the pistol of Kullmann to relieve him from his momentary misfortunes. Prince Bismarck was not the man to miss so fine an opportunity of turning to account the insane attempt of the son of a madman on his life, and we were flooded with the time-honored taunts of means to ends because a man of notoriously bad and violent character, who happened to have been present at some Catholic meetings, committed the wicked and utterly unjustifiable act of firing a pistol at the Chancellor. There are some two hundred million Catholics in the world; there are in Germany fourteen or fifteen, in Prussia alone eight millions, of the same creed. Of all these millions one man, of wicked antecedents and insane descent, is found to commit an act abhorrent to the Catholic conscience all the world over, and at once the universal conscience of that mighty multitude is with a benignant generosity centred in the person of this wretch, who, whether, as many believed, a dupe of the government tools or a dupe of his own disordered intellect, was equally a wretch. Why not turn the argument the other way? Why not wonder at the sublime patience of the people who see the sacred persons of their bishops and priests dragged from the altar-steps, stripped of their goods, and buried in fortresses, for the crime of violating laws that were made to be violated, without moving a hand to prevent such constant outrages, because the teachings of those disloyal priests and bishops, of that arch-foe to German nationality, the Pope, never cease to forbid armed resistance to the most oppressive laws that were ever framed? Two or three officials have been sent alone among a vast multitude of Catholics to drag before their very eyes the priest whose Mass they have just attended, from the altar of Christ to a prison—for what possible purpose but to provoke bloodshed and insurrection? Happily, the people were still by the efforts of the clergy restrained from putting themselves at the mercy of a government that knows no mercy; but who shall say how long that patience will endure? And this is the government whose sole aim is the unity and consolidation of Germany and the happiness of every section of its people!

As the Von Arnim case is still pending, it is useless to conjecture what the documents may contain whose possession prompted Prince Bismarck to arrest and confine in a common prison the man who next after himself stood the foremost in the German nation. The arrest to the world at large showed more forcibly than anything that has yet taken place to what lengths the chief of the Prussian government can go; how easily he can trample under foot every tradition of civilization and every feeling of humanity to crush a foe or sweep from his path a possible danger to himself. It is probable that the documents turn chiefly on his foreign policy, and would stamp in indelible characters that policy, which it needs no [pg 566] writing to tell us threatens not only the church, but the peace of Europe, and, through Europe, of the world, perhaps for centuries to come. Such disclosures would in the eyes of outraged Germany and Europe necessitate his deprivation of a power he has so fatally abused.

France struggles on still without a government; that is to say, without a government of which six weeks of existence could be safely predicated. The changes in the ministry have been changes of men rather than of measures. The various parties are still at daggers-drawn and rather on the increase than otherwise. The Count of Chambord seems for the present to have retired from the contest—a wise and patriotic example, which if all could follow, the country might be allowed breathing time and some fair chance of arriving at a sound judgment as to what was the exact government it wanted—a problem which the French nation has seemed incapable of solving since the first Revolution. The Bonapartists have profited by the withdrawal of the Count, and displayed an earnestness, boldness, and activity which have been crowned with some success, but marked by the disregard of the nation and its submergence in the family name and fame that seem the chief characteristics of “the Napoleonic idea.” The coming of age of the son of the late emperor was marked by a theatrical display and oracular speeches worthy of the Second Empire at its zenith. There have been the usual “scenes” in the French Assembly. The “intervals of ten minutes” and “intervals of a quarter of an hour” have been alarmingly frequent, and after some sittings the air bristled with challenges from warlike deputies, which afforded excellent material for the illustrated journals; but, on the whole, few more dangerous weapons than the peaceful pocket-handkerchief were drawn, and the pocket-handkerchief, as all public orators know, is a vast relief in trying moments. M. Thiers has preferred the Apennines to the tribune, and has happily spoken more in Italy than in the Chambers. M. Gambetta, for a man of his calibre, has been singularly well behaved on the whole, and we have not had so many of those journeys to the disaffected districts of which at one time he threatened to be so fond. Sad to say, it is the soldier-president who has thus far kept the disorderly parties from flying at each other's throats by the sheer force of the army, on which he silently leans all the while. France is practically in the hands of a military dictator. She is happy in her dictator—that is all. Marshal MacMahon, on succeeding M. Thiers, promised to answer for order, and he has kept his word. More than that, he has, wisely for France, however sad it may be to say so, made the Assembly keep its word and abide by the septennate which it conferred on him. He has used his vast power with a singular discretion, a patriotism unexampled almost in the face of opportunities that would turn the head of many a greater man, and an honest single-mindedness that has clearly nothing else than the good of the whole country in view. The last symbol of a now ineffectual protection, and indeed for a long time an insincere one, of the Holy Father, has been withdrawn in the Orénoque. It is better so. It is better, perhaps, since matters have been pushed so far, that the Holy Father stand absolutely alone, powerless and defenceless, in the eyes of earth and heaven. The power of God alone can now restore to him what is his by right. To-day among all the European governments there is none so poor as to do him reverence. England has recently withdrawn even its shadow of a diplomatic representative, which possibly marks the beginning of the “little more energy in foreign policy and little less in domestic legislation” that Mr. Disraeli advised while still in opposition.

In all other respects except politics France has every reason to be congratulated. The earnest turning of the people's heart to God, the desertion of whom called down such terrible punishments, seems in no degree to diminish. The seasons have been propitious, and the vintage of 1874 has been of unexampled excellence and productiveness. The exports of the year were marvellously increased, and God's blessings would seem to be raining down again on this sorely-tried land and people. All that is needed is a good and firm government, of which, however, as yet, there seems no immediate prospect. France is as open as ever to surprises; and it is absolutely impossible to forecast its political future.

England has experienced a peaceful revolution similar to our own, and one almost as astonishing in its suddenness, though, as in our case, there were not wanting indications of the change in parties [pg 567] which has taken place, as will be found duly noted by those who care to look at The Catholic World's review for 1873. On January 22 Mr. Gladstone issued his memorable “prolix narrative,” announcing, to the surprise of all men, the immediate dissolution of Parliament. The sudden and, under the circumstances, unexampled action of the premier looked remarkably like a desire to take time by the forelock, and by the suddenness of the attack shatter and utterly discomfit the slowly-gathering forces of the opposition. If such were the real intention, it was miserably miscalculated and singularly ill-advised. The country was as much outraged as shocked, and showed its appreciation of Mr. Gladstone's skill at a coup by returning a very handsome Conservative majority, so that Mr. Disraeli, happy man! found himself, to his own surprise, no less than Mr. Gladstone's, within three weeks of the dissolution, at the head of a strong government and party, with his old rival deep in the shade. The result of the English elections may prove a lesson to popular leaders for the future not to presume too much on their popularity, not to jeopardize a powerful party, and throw an empire into sudden confusion by what looks too much like a freak that it is hoped may win by “a fluke.”

The most significant lesson of the elections, perhaps, was the instantaneous triumph of the Home Rule party in Ireland, while as yet it was to all appearance in its infancy, and almost beneath the rational notice of the English press. It had only provoked derision and calumny. We were constantly told that it had no hold on the heart of the people, that it claimed no men of note, that the nobility and gentry held aloof from it, and so forth.

The “wild adherents” of the “wild folly” have taught even the London Times to respect them; and much reason had they to be pledged to their wild folly, if the words of a man whose opinion is certainly of some value on the subject have any weight: “Ireland at this moment is governed by laws of coercion and stringent severity that do not exist in any other quarter of the globe.” Those words were spoken on the 4th of February, 1874. The speaker was Mr. Disraeli, the present Prime Minister of England. The laws that provoked the observation of so eminent an English statesman still prevail in Ireland. The appeal for amnesty for the unfortunate remnant of the Irish political prisoners has, since those words were spoken, been refused by Mr. Disraeli. And yet the Irish calendars for this year, as for many a year past, were the cleanest in the world and the freest from crime of all kinds. Such is the nation governed at this moment by laws such as Mr. Disraeli has described. The result of such government can scarcely recommend its dispensers to the nation governed, and yet their appeal for control of their own affairs, which the English Parliament confessedly does not understand, and, if it did understand, has, as it acknowledges, too much business on its hands properly to attend to, is a wild folly!

The chief piece of English legislation during the year has been what was embodied in “the bill to put down ritualism”—that is to say, the regulation of divine worship as understood in the church established by act of Parliament. Ritualism, or the “Romanizing tendency,” as it is strangely termed, in the Anglican Church, has been put down, as far as an act of Parliament can put it down. Our ritualists on this side were put down also, for their bishops followed that authority in their church known as the British Parliament, composed respectively of Anglicans, Dissenters, Jews, Quakers, and other sects, with, worst of all, a strong contingent of Roman Catholics. That hydra-head of the Anglican Church regulated for it to a nicety, pronounced upon its devotions, practices, sacraments, vestments, ornaments, postures of the body, bendings of the knee, elevations of the hands, prostrations, crossings, and so forth, as calmly and in as business-like a fashion as though it were sitting on an income tax; and the church that we are so solemnly assured by learned men like Bishop Coxe, if it dates not exactly from the Ist, certainly dates from somewhere in the neighborhood of the IVth, century, with a subsequent lamentable gap up to the XVIth, when the Apostle Henry and others of that ilk came to renovate and restore it to its pristine purity, bowed meekly to the infallible decision of the business-like assembly of Jews, infidels, Quakers, Dissenters, Anglicans, and Roman Catholics. What would S. Peter and S. Paul think of it all?

Something far more serious than this, and of far deeper import to the nation, [pg 568] was the long and persistent strike of the agricultural laborers, which was carried on on a most extensive scale, and with a union that was not thought to exist in the successor of the Saxon hind. Once the ball of disaffection is set rolling, it is very hard to say where it will stop. It is clear that the unions have at last permeated the entire body of the English laboring-classes. The trades-unions are too often cousins-german to the secret societies. The mass of the English agricultural classes, in common with the vast majority of the English laboring-classes and artisans, have no religion at all. The disaffection with the present order of things in England, though less pronounced than in most modern European nations, has been long gathering, is rapidly spreading, and is beyond all doubt of a nature to excite considerable alarm. Loss of religion, it is needless to say, leaves the minds and hearts of men open to all evil, and it would be beyond stupidity to shut one's eyes to the very plain fact that the spirit of evil and of general disaffection is particularly active all the world over just at present. Banish religion, banish the guiding hand of God from your objective laws and from the heart and sight of your people, and the people will look on the powers that be, of whatsoever nature, as oppressors, on the rich as despoilers of the poor, on the employers as their tyrants.

A most important movement, and one that we welcome with all our hearts, is the bold step taken at last by the English hierarchy in founding a Catholic university in England. The want has long been felt in that country of a centre of Catholic intellect, culture, and thought, to vie with those seats of learning which the piety of their Catholic forefathers had left as priceless heirlooms to their Catholic children, but which, with all holy places and all holy things, had by the national apostasy become perverted from the purpose of their pious founders, and fallen by a too easy lapse from centres of false faith to centres of no faith at all. In England and Ireland, as with us, the means of providing higher education for students desirous of attaining it have been hitherto necessarily and lamentably deficient. The Catholic University in Ireland and this later one in England give promise that, with proper encouragement from the wealthy and intelligent laity, this long-felt want will be at length adequately supplied. These are days when the Catholic laity, to whom now all positions, or at least very important ones, are fairly open, are in duty bound to take their stand as becomes loyal children of a mother universally assailed. The laity can penetrate where the clergy have no voice. They are, as S. Peter called them, and as they have so signally proved themselves in Germany, “a kingly priesthood.” But to take a stand similar to that taken by the noble German phalanx, that “thundering legion” in the service of the pagan empire, they must be equal to their adversaries in culture, refinement, and address, all which come more by education than from nature. Many a great mind has retired within a narrow circle for which it was certainly not born, and its efforts rendered half nugatory by lack of that early association and training which a great university, an intellectual focus of the brightest minds in the galaxy of letters, is intended to and does supply. We look, then, with as much hope as expectancy to this step on the part of the English hierarchy, who have saved their children from the allurements of a Satanic culture by supplying them with men of recognized intellectual standing and acknowledged faith in Christ and in his church. Our only hope is that in our own country we soon may rival them.

Some mention will probably be looked for here of the controversy, as it is called, which has sprung up in consequence of a recent pamphlet written by Mr. Gladstone; but there is little need of such mention, inasmuch as Mr. Gladstone seems to have been sufficiently answered by the very men whom his pamphlet was intended chiefly to affect—the Protestants of England. Whether so intended or not, it was beyond all doubt an attempt altogether unworthy the high character of the distinguished author to rouse the rancor of the English Protestants against their Catholic fellow-subjects. Could we altogether rid ourselves of the respect with which Mr. Gladstone, take him all in all, has hitherto inspired us, as a man whose heart was as large and loyal as his intellect, and that intellect inspired with reverence for God and holy things, his latest exploit could only be described as a vulgar “No Popery” appeal to the worst classes and most degraded passions of English society, delivered in bad taste and worse faith, and, to crown [pg 569] the list of offences, as a political mistake, which has already failed in its object of establishing him, as Earl Russell once was, and as men of the Newdegate and Whalley type would be, as the English “No Popery” champion and leader, while it effectually alienates from him once for all a large and influential body of supporters on whom he has often counted, and on whom there was no reason to believe that a genuine change of front on his part might not have led him to count again. That his pamphlet is all this is true; that Mr. Gladstone intended it to be all this there is too much reason to believe, but of that he himself alone can tell. If the leader of the English Liberal party is pleased to be patted on the back by the men in Germany who patted on the back the orators of Exeter Hall who met to sympathize with the German persecution of Germans whose only crime was their Catholic faith, and whose only stain was and is their readiness to sacrifice life, lands, and liberty in defence of that faith, he is welcome to his ill-earned applause and doubtful honor.

The space already given to the important topics touched upon leaves little room for comment on others. And indeed the story, as far as the Catholic Church and general politics are concerned, is much the same all the world over. Austria has followed in the wake of Prussia, though its ecclesiastical laws do not seem to have been carried out with the brutal thoroughness of its neighbor. Italy continues in its downward course. The state of its finances is appalling, and yet it plies whip and spur with reckless speed into chaos. Brigandage, in the south chiefly, grows worse and worse. Civil marriage there, as in Prussia, is the law established. A new phase of the secret societies crops out from time to time. It has tried the scheme of popular election of the curés as did Switzerland and Germany, with a like result in all cases—an absurd fiasco. It has made great strides in the way of popular education, with the result pictured by the special correspondent of the London Times: “The property that is taken from some of the Capuchin convents in Tuscany, and sold at auction, is bought back at the auction by ‘pious benefactors,’ who recall the scattered fraternity to their deserted and desecrated homes, and restore monachism on conditions more favorable than those on which it stood before its suppression. The central government and the municipalities in Italy strain every nerve to supply the people with a free and good education, but their schools have to strive hard to withstand the competition which is raised against them by the Scolopii in Florence, the Barnabites in Milan, and the Ignorantins in Turin.... There are now Waldensian, Methodist, and other evangelical churches and schools in Rome, as in other Italian cities, but their success is not very encouraging, even in the opinion of their candid promoters.” And we may add, for the benefit of the ardent but foolish supporters of the Van Meter and such like schemes, a further extract from the same correspondent: “Attempts to allow the people to elect their parish priests without the permission of, and even in direct opposition to, the bishop of the diocese have been made in some Mantuan rural districts and elsewhere, but hitherto with no extensive or decisive results; and the Gavazzi, Passaglia, Andrea, and others, who would have ventured on a reforming movement within the church itself, have met with no support whatever, either on the part of the government authorities or of public opinion.”

The celebration of the twenty-eighth anniversary of the elevation of our Holy Father, Pope Pius IX., to the chair of Peter, was general throughout Christendom, but desecrated in Rome by the infamous action of the usurping government in clearing the streets of the crowds who were peacefully returning from the Te Deum in S. Peter's. Violent arrests were made on no pretext whatever, some of the persons arrested being English and American Protestant ladies. On the evening following, and with the connivance of the present Roman authorities, a hideous crowd assembled at midnight to howl cries of hate and blasphemy under the windows of the Sovereign Pontiff. Not religion alone, but common humanity, seems to have been banished from Rome by the entrance of Victor Emanuel. Our constant prayer should be that the great Pontiff, whose conspicuous virtues, and sufferings so patiently borne for Christ's sake, may be preserved to his children long to witness with his own eyes the end of the blasphemy, violence, and imposture which now beset him on all sides.

Switzerland has almost out Prussiaed [pg 570] Prussia in its assault on the Catholic Church. So much for the freedom of the typical republic! It has changed its constitution into despotism, driving away the Catholic voters from the polls by intimidation and violence. Even Loyson has felt himself compelled to cry out against its excesses, and resigned his curacy at Geneva. The constitution which it has now adopted, it rejected only two years since. It completely subjects religion to the state, and renders it impossible for a Catholic priest to remain in his native country and practise the duties of his office. Civil marriage here again is the order of the day. Marriages, it used to be said, were made in heaven. Their birthplace has been transferred to the office and celestial presence of his eminence the town-clerk.

In Spain the struggle has assumed a fiercer and more determined character than ever. Castelar, who is already and very deservedly forgotten, was president at the opening of the year. His success in that rôle was what might have been expected, and what has fully justified the opinion held of him throughout in these pages. He was defeated on reading his message to the Cortes in January—a message of despair. General Pavia cleared the Cortes and took possession with his troops. The movement was so well planned that no rising took place. Indeed, it was hard to say for what or for whom a rising should have been made. There was no government; almost all the prominent men had been tried in turn and failed, and the last was the least capable of all. Serrano came to the front again; the whole movement was probably his. Cartagena, which had so long held out against a bombardment by sea and land, was taken soon after, and there remained no foe in the field but Don Carlos, who had profited by the diversion at Cartagena. Bilbao was seriously threatened by the Carlist forces, and would have proved, if taken, an important prize to them. Serrano hastened to its relief with all the available forces of the country, and, aided by Marshal Concha, succeeded in raising the siege without inflicting any material loss on the enemy. Marshal Concha he left to prosecute the campaign, and for the first time since their last rising the Carlists found themselves sore beset. A bullet at Estella, however, ended the checkered career of the most dangerous opponent they had yet encountered, and victory after victory of more or less importance has, with an occasional reverse, continued to crown their arms. More than once have we been assured of their annihilation, only to see them appear with renewed strength, and add another victory to their crown. Through the influence of Germany the European powers with the exception of Russia, have recognized a republic which does not exist, and does not promise to exist, in Spain. At one time Prussia threatened to interfere immediately, and may at any time renew the attempt. The reason for this interference is obvious. A Prussianized Spain would serve as a double-barrelled gun, covering at once Rome and France. Whereas the success of Don Carlos is the success of a Catholic sovereign and a Bourbon; consequently a friend to France, whatever may be the government in that country. Russia's refusal to join in its schemes was, however, a little too significant to ignore, and love, which was never at fever-point between what are now the rival powers in Europe, was not increased by this rebuff. In the meanwhile Spain is suffering terribly in blood, in commerce, in everything that makes the life of a nation, by this prolonged struggle, which it was our hope to see concluded ere this by the victory of the only man who can promise the Spaniards a safe and vigorous government, and who has proved himself possessed of all the qualities of king, general, and, as far as we are able to judge, truly Christian leader—Don Carlos.

In Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, and other of the South American states, the struggle between church and state in Europe has been repeated, even to the seizure of property, the expulsion of priests and nuns, the imprisonment of bishops and priests. One little republic alone, that of Equador, has set a noble example to the world of loyalty to the Catholic faith and to the Apostolic See by devoting a large sum out of the public funds to the aid of the Holy Father. The secret societies have seemingly as strong a hold in South America as in Italy, and the boldness with which they act is manifested by the severity of the sentences passed on the Bishops of Olinda and Para, the Archbishops of Caracas and Venezuela, and the aged Bishop of Merida. Those are still Catholic states, and it is to be hoped that [pg 571] all true Catholics there will exert themselves and use the lawful power that is in their hands to put a stop to the scenes of outrage and brutal violence that are constantly on the increase.

It is time that civilized governments, or those that claim the title, should unite to put a stop to the horrible periodical massacres of Christians in China, of which the details reach us from time to time, particularly during the past year. It is a shame upon all nations that peaceful women should be outraged and brutally cut to pieces, as are the Catholic nuns in that country. The European powers and our own could, if they chose, put a stop to this infamous practice—for practice it is. And our own government might well take the initiative in the matter. We welcome the Chinese into this country. They come in swarms; they find home and labor, and reward for their labor. They live among us, and leave us, unmolested to the last. Their very idolatry is allowed; and yet at almost stated intervals their countrymen rise up and horribly mutilate and murder our dearest and best.

Of actual wars during the year there have been happily few. The defeat of the Ashantees, and the burning of their capital city by the British forces, adds, it is to be presumed, a new lustre to the glories of England. The Dutch retaliated for their defeat of the year previous in Acheen by in turn defeating the Achinese. Russia is securing its footsteps as it advances into Asia. An invasion of Formosa by the Japanese, who are becoming more and more amenable to European customs, ended strangely by a payment of indemnity on the part of China and the departure safe home of the Japanese. The usual chronic revolutions might be recorded of one or more of the South American states, but beyond this there is nothing very sanguinary to record.

An event that will long be memorable, and which excited very general interest outside, was the departure for the first time of a body of pilgrims from this country to Lourdes and Rome, under the guidance of the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Fort Wayne and the Rev. P. F. Dealy, S. J. They were received with special marks of affection by the Holy Father, who declared that in this country he was more Pope than in any other.

An event that excited extraordinary commotion and a general display of a strange splenetic hate on the part of the English press was the quiet conversion to the Catholic faith of the Marquis of Ripon, who, in addition to his hereditary title and established character as an English statesman, added that of Grand Master of the Freemasons in England. Among other conversions was that of the Queen Dowager of Bavaria.

We are not in the position to compare the statistics of the past year's capital crimes or suicides with those of former years; but whether they be greater or less, they are alarmingly great. Suicide and murder were startlingly frequent during the year; and as far as passing glances at the reports in the newspapers would justify an opinion, they seem in most cases to have resulted from wicked and immoral lives. For a time masked burglary threatened to become the fashionable crime of the year. A speedier sentence and a more honest dispensing of the law than often prevails would more materially, perhaps, than any other means tend to diminish the long annual list of offences against life and property. Education, to be sure, is a great thing, and there will be an opportunity in the coming year of seeing how the new law of compulsory education for all children will work in the State of New York. The question is too large a one to enter into here. As has been shown over and over again, compulsory education with us means practically a compulsory Protestant education; for Protestantism, if not actually taught, is done so at least negatively, for many of the class-books teem with Protestantism from cover to cover. That, however, is a matter within the power of remedy to a great extent. The compulsory education of Prussia that is so much extolled allowed the Catholic priest and the Protestant minister to teach their respective religions at stated hours, in opposite corners of the schools, even though they had Sunday-schools as well. But our only safeguard is our own schools for our own children, and it is gratifying to note the zeal with which both clergy and laity have combined during the past year to establish Catholic schools all over the country. That is the first thing to be done. Let us first have our own schools, and then we may fairly see about the management of our own moneys.

Only a few of the distinguished dead [pg 572] who have gone out with the year can be mentioned. The church in the United States has lost five venerable servants and pioneers of faith, in Bishops Melcher of Green Bay, O'Gorman, of Omaha, Whelan of Wheeling, McFarland of Hartford, and Bacon of Portland. The College of Cardinals has lost three of its members: Cardinal Barnabo, the great Prefect of the Propaganda, to whom the church in this country is greatly indebted; Cardinals Falcinelli and Tarquini. The Christian Brothers lost their venerable superior, Brother Philippe, whose funeral was attended by the chief notabilities of Paris, together with a vast crowd of people of all ranks and conditions in life, so much so that as the white flag was the suspicious color just then, and as that flag has the misfortune under its present holder of being connected with religion, the keen-scented gentry of the press discovered in this last tribute to a man who had spent his life in doing good a Chambordist demonstration. The death of Mgr. de Merode was a great loss to the Holy Father, as well as to a multitude of friends. An interesting comparison might be made between the purposes to which he devoted his vast wealth and those of a man still more wealthy who died within the year—the Baron Mayer de Rothschild. His admiring chronicler in the leading English journal informs us that the baron, who, in addition to his other admirable qualities, was a silent member in the English Parliament, spared no expense to erect in his own palace a museum “adorned with all that is beautiful.” “He applied himself systematically to breeding race-horses,” in compensation for which exceptional virtue the same glowing chronicler assures us that “when he won, a year ago, the Dudley, the Oaks, and the St. Leger, all the world felt that a piece of good and useful work had been performed.” Well, well! Did not our own Sumner leave life this very year amid general regret, sighing only that his book was not completed? Had that been finished, he would not have cared. And, thinking thus, went out one who is a part of our history, and whose name, though it did not fulfil all its earlier promise, was great among us. Ex-President Fillmore died almost unnoticed. Certain news of the death of Dr. Livingstone in 1873 arrived during the year. Art has lost Kaulbach, who devoted his undoubted genius to attacking the church, and Foley. One of the men of a century died in Guizot. Merivale and Michelet are lost to history, Shirley Brooks to light literature. Strauss, the infidel, perhaps, has learnt at last the truth of an awkward verse in S. James. Not only Germany, but the Catholic cause all the world over, has sustained a sad and in a sense irreparable loss in the great and chivalrous leader of the Catholic centre in the German parliament, Herr von Mallinkrodt, whom divine Providence was pleased to call away in the height of a career of great usefulness to the church and to society. He was a foe whom Prince Bismarck dreaded and had reason to dread—one of those men whom no weak point escapes, no side issue can divert, no opponent cow. Adam Black and the monstrosity known as the Siamese Twins died during the year.

And now the glance at the outline of the general year and some of its chief incidents is completed. With every succeeding year we look forward with more anxiety than confidence into the future. There are terrible forces, long concealed, nearer the social surface than they ever were before, and they come up now, as a consequence probably, just when the general bond that ought to hold the human family together is at the loosest; when men are ready to burst all bounds and call everything in question; and when the lights of the age can only tell man that he is nothing more than a fortuitous cohesion of irresponsible atoms, begotten of void only to fall back into it. The only bond that can bind the human family together is “the one law, one faith, one baptism,” preached nineteen centuries ago in Judæa by the lips of the Son of God. And it is just that faith that is now being as fiercely assailed as it ever has been within the Christian era. There is not merely an arming of material forces going on silently. There is a clash of faith, of intellect, of moral principles, of all that guides and constitutes the inner and the greater life of man; and of the double collision, the material and the spiritual, that seems to hang over us and make heavy with foreboding the air of all the world. Though supernatural faith may not doubt as to the issue, human weakness cannot but tremble and grow faint at the prospect.