THE DESTINY OF MAN IN A FUTURE LIFE.
Doctrine and speculation concerning the destiny of man in that future which follows the termination of his earthly life, have always held a most important place in all religions and systems of philosophy. Nothing interests the human mind so much, when it escapes in any degree from the spell of present, sensible preoccupations, and is awakened to the sentiment of its own perennial nature and duration. The recent agitation of the public mind in England and the United States concerning retribution in a future life has shown how universal and deeply seated is the anxiety to know what lies beyond the veil which separates the period of existence on this side, from the endless duration on the other side, of the common grave into which all human generations descend. The question of eternal punishment has occupied the pulpits and the press, as the one most deeply disturbing the general mind of that great mass of men whose traditions and beliefs are derived from Christianity, although they are themselves actually separated from the great Christian body, the Catholic Church. That which strikes the mind of an instructed Catholic most forcibly in all this discussion is the want of clear and settled principles in philosophy and theology, the lack of the requisite premises and data, the absence of any sure criterion for deducing certain conclusions, testing and determining doctrines and opinions. The controversy seems to be interminable, for all those who have no lawful and unerring external criterion in authority. And it really is so. For this reason, we regard it as the only practicable way for a Catholic to take in treating of this subject, that he should present the doctrine of revelation as defined and declared by the church; and resort to reason and the Holy Scripture, only to refute objections to the Catholic doctrine from these sources, and to present corroborative proofs and explanations, in so far as these can be found and their validity as certain or probable established.
We do not propose to discuss directly the subject of the reality and the nature of eternal punishment. There is a previous question respecting the destiny for which man was originally created, upon which depends the whole solution of the subsequent one concerning the necessity or contingency of its attainment. We must know what this destiny is, and what are the means ordained by the Creator for securing its fulfilment, before we can know whether there is a danger of final and irretrievable failure on the part of those who are placed in the way of attaining their end, involved in the very nature of these means.
In plain words, is there a heaven for man hereafter, and what is the way to obtain it? The doctrine of hell is the shadow of the doctrine of heaven, and follows it necessarily, when it is rightly presented.
The idea of heaven is that of a state of endless and perfect beatitude, in the possession of the sovereign good, and of every kind of inferior good suited to the nature of man. This idea is absolutely incompatible with every form of atheism, which does not acknowledge the existence of the sovereign good. It is entirely above the scope of philosophy and natural theology. For, although God, the sovereign and infinite good, is manifested by the light of reason, as the first and final cause of all things, the light of reason does not disclose the possibility of a light intrinsically superior to the natural light, by which the created spirit can see God in his essence, and thus obtain the sovereign good as its own proper possession. Much less can it discover any reason why man should be regarded as destined to such an elevation above his own natural mode of knowledge. The utmost that can be proved by pure philosophy is the possibility of a perfect and permanent state, in which the ideal of humanity only partially realized in this life is brought into complete and actual existence. It is certainly most consonant with the dictates of sound reason to expect that God will bring all reasonable creatures to a state of permanent felicity, unless they voluntarily thwart his benevolent purposes. But it does not seem possible to determine with certainty whether this benevolent will of God determines him to put an end to all moral and physical evil in the universe or not, from arguments of pure reason. The whole subject of the existence of evil must remain covered with obscurity, so long as it is considered in the light of mere rational philosophy. It is only by the light of divine revelation that the dealings of God with the human race become intelligible, and we are able even to reason about the future destiny of man in a satisfactory manner. Even those who profess to be guided by this light, if they follow the rule of private judgment, fail to obtain clear and consistent ideas. The proper idea of the heaven for which men were created, if not lost, is obscured in the minds of the greater part of those who profess to be Christian believers and yet reject the authority of the Catholic Church. All other doctrines connected with this fundamental one are similarly obscured and perverted, rendering the theology which rests on them absurd or inadequate.
It is supernatural beatitude which the revelation of God proposed by the Catholic Church discloses to faith as the end for which man was created. By its very essence and definition it is infinitely beyond and above the end which human nature spontaneously aspires to attain, in which it finds the perfection and scope corresponding to its essence and its capabilities. To attain this end it needs grace, or a supernatural mode of being and acting, elevation above every nature excepting only the divine, transformation, and, in a sense, deification. Such a destiny for a mere creature, especially one which is lowest in the intellectual order, would be inconceivable, and incredible, unless explicitly revealed by God. Even when it is made known by revelation, its intrinsic possibility cannot be apprehended or proved by reason. It is one of the mysteries which is above reason, and the utmost we can do by a rational argument is to prove that it has been revealed by God, and therefore rationally demands our assent to its truth because of the divine veracity. We can, however, by a rational argument, prove that such an elevation of a created nature must necessarily be supernatural and cannot be effected by any evolution of a natural capacity, or expansion of the intrinsic being even of a pure spirit, although it were to increase in intelligence by an indefinite progress for ever.
Cognition is a vital act, immanent in the intelligent spirit, determined in perfection by the essence of the spirit itself, and incapable of transcending its limits as a created and finite being. By this act other beings are received into and united with the intelligent being, according to the mode of the recipient; that is, ideally, by a representation through which they are perceived and known as objects in their own proper reality outside of the subject. This representation cannot exceed the capacity of the intelligence which is its active recipient. The idea by which a created spirit receives God into itself and unites itself to him, cannot represent his essence and produce immediate cognition, because the essence of God absolutely and infinitely transcends all genera and species of created beings. The highest angel can perceive no essence which intrinsically transcends his own, and must therefore represent God to himself by and through himself, that is, analogically and by abstractive not intuitive cognition. His intellectual vision is as utterly incompetent to perceive the essence of God, as the sensible vision of man is to see a pure spirit, or his finger to touch the points of an argument. The indefinite increase of the power of sensible vision will never bring it any nearer to spiritual vision, and, in like manner, the indefinite increase of intelligence will never bring it any nearer to divine intuition. The essence of a created spirit is finite and its intellectual light is finite. Its immediate intelligible object is within the limits of its created nature. As the mind of man cannot rise to any natural knowledge of God except by discursive reasoning from first principles on the works of God, that is, by the argument from effects to the first cause, so the purely spiritual being cannot rise above his own intellectual cognition of God as the cause and first principle of his own intelligent nature. It is vain, therefore, to think that it is the grossness of the body, or the body itself, which hinders the human spirit from seeing God. Separated from the body, and elevated to an equality with the highest angel, it could never possess itself of an intelligible object outside of its own supreme genus as a created spirit, outside the limit of created and finite being.
It is evident that all the perfection and felicity of an intelligent being is measured and determined by its intelligence. It possesses the object in which it voluntarily rests as its chief good by cognition, and according to the mode of its cognition. No creature, therefore, by its nature, can rise to that state of immediate communion with God which is properly called friendship, which demands as its basis a similitude and equality resulting from a real filiation, such as the creative act cannot impart to a being brought into existence out of nothingness. The possession of the sovereign good belongs exclusively to the nature of God. To the created nature is due only a participation and imitation of that sovereign good within its own specific and finite limits of being. The heaven in which God eternally dwells in his own infinite beatitude is not therefore the natural term and end of man’s future destiny, nor of the natural destiny of any higher order of creatures. The distance dividing the most perfect beatitude of created nature from that of the uncreated and creative nature is equally infinite with the distance between the essence of God and created essences. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit alone have natural society, each person of the Blessed Trinity with the other persons, in unity of intelligence and volition, in the possession of the divine essence, the sovereign good, the absolute beatitude.
A created spirit cannot be raised to this divine level, unless God so unites his divine essence with the essence of his creature, in an interior and vital union penetrating to its very centre and the seat of its intelligent and vital action, that in the essence of God present to it as immediately as it is present to itself, it sees as through a divine medium that same divine essence as its immediate object, without losing its own proper act and distinct individuality.
That God can and does thus elevate created nature we know by divine revelation. Jesus Christ is true God and true man in two distinct natures and one person for ever. All the blessed in heaven are affiliated to God after his likeness, in an inferior degree which leaves them in their distinct personalities. This state of glory is properly speaking what is called the kingdom of heaven. Annexed to it, as the proper inheritance of those who share in the royalty of the Son of God, is every kind of the most perfect natural beatitude, in the possession and enjoyment of everything which the universe contains, according to the different natures of men and angels.
It is evident, without any reasoning on the subject, that in proposing this supernatural and purely gratuitous beatitude to created beings, God might select whom he pleased as the recipients of so great a grace, and prescribe any conditions which are possible and reasonable for securing its permanent possession. It is perfectly consonant with justice and goodness, that it should be made a prize and reward of merit, and that a state of trial and probation should be appointed for those who were permitted to aspire to this reward. Divine revelation, whose teachings are confirmed by universal experience, makes known to us, that in fact God did place the angels, and afterwards mankind, in a state of probation for this supernatural destiny. A probation must be real and not illusory. It involves the possibility and danger of failure. It must have a prescribed period for each individual and for the whole number. When this period is finished, those who have failed are by the very terms of the probation finally excluded from the hope of retrieving their loss. Divine revelation informs us that the probation of the angels was terminated long ago, and resulted in the winning of eternal beatitude by a certain number and the loss of it by the others. One among the chiefs of the angelic hierarchy rebelled against God and drew after him many other spirits, and with these fallen angels for his ministers and associates, he has continued and will continue on the earth the revolt he began in another sphere, until the day appointed for the final judgment. He has continued it on this earth, by seducing men to join in his rebellion, and making war against Jesus Christ and his kingdom, the universal church. The conditions of human probation are of a very special and peculiar nature, in accordance with the specific nature of mankind, which is extremely different from that of the angels. The angels, as pure spirits and having a simple, intellectual essence, were created singly, and in the actual possession from the first instant of existence of their complete being. Man was made a rational animal, by the law of his nature increasing numerically by generation, and progressing from an inchoate state to his perfection through gradual and successive stages of growth. The first progenitors of the race alone, were immediately created, in full maturity of perfection, and endowed with all the natural and supernatural gifts suitable for their high destination, to be transmitted to their offspring. Their disobedience and fall entailed on themselves and their descendants the loss of the supernatural destiny and of all the gifts and privileges connected with it. Nevertheless, the human race was restored again by another dispensation, which is that of the Redeemer Jesus Christ. All those who receive from him the grace which he merited by his atonement, and do not wilfully and finally reject this grace, obtain in the end a complete resurrection to the glory and beatitude of heaven. The rest of mankind are for ever excluded from the kingdom of heaven. This is a summary of first principles and fundamental truths pertaining to the very essence of Christianity. In so far as the destiny of mankind is concerned, the first constitution of human nature in the person of the common progenitor of the race in the state of grace and integrity, with a right to the kingdom of heaven; the ruin of the whole human race by the sin of Adam; the redemption of the race through Jesus Christ; are the sum of the teaching of the Old and New Testaments, of the traditional doctrine concurrent with it, and of the common belief of all generations of men who have professed to make this doctrine their rule of faith, especially those who have lived in the full light of Christianity. It is idle to pretend to call any doctrine different from this by the name of Christianity, for the whole world knows that this is of the very essence of the genuine, historical religion which acknowledges Jesus Christ as its founder. Those who reject it, and yet call themselves Christians, are only philosophers, professing a merely natural religion, partly constructed from materials borrowed from Christianity and altered to suit their own private notions, but really in its fundamental principles and distinctive character nothing more than a system of rationalism. The traditional and orthodox Christianity has invariably taught that all men naturally descending from Adam and Eve need salvation, and can receive it only through an act of gratuitous mercy on account of the merits of the divine Redeemer. No man is entitled by the rights of his natural birth to heaven, or capable of obtaining a right to it by any exertion of his natural powers. All are under a doom of exclusion from the kingdom of heaven. That future state, with all its circumstances of locality and other adjuncts and environments, to which all are destined by virtue of this doom, is called in the authorized language of the Catholic Church Infernum, in the English language, Hell. The doctrine of hell as an eternal state is therefore necessarily the shadow which must accompany the doctrine of heaven. It is impossible for any one to believe in salvation by grace through Jesus Christ, without implicitly at least acknowledging that all men might have been left under the doom of destination to the infernal state, without any prejudice to the justice or the goodness of God. The case is not one whit altered, if one supposes that all men are actually saved because Christ died for all. If the mercy of God were universal, it would still remain evident that mercy is not identical with justice. It could not be argued that any man has a natural right to salvation, because salvation is bestowed as a boon upon all men. It is vain, therefore, to argue on à priori grounds, that all men must eventually be saved. In truth, it has never been a doctrine of traditional and orthodox Christianity, that the simple fact of redemption placed every one of the human race in the possession of an inalienable right to final salvation. That many never recover the lost right to heaven, and that many who have obtained it lose it again irretrievably and for ever, is the common and universal doctrine of Christians. The efforts made to twist the language of Christ and the apostles into a contrary sense are so futile, that only a fixed determination to force the Holy Scripture into agreement with one’s own private opinions and feelings can account for them. The doctrine of the Catholic Church is unalterably determined. The fallen angels were not redeemed by Jesus Christ, and for them there is no restoration to the place which they have forfeited. Of men, all, be their number greater or smaller, who have been regenerated by the grace of Christ, and have passed out of this life in the state of grace, will obtain the kingdom of heaven, and the remainder will be forever excluded. The notion of an ἀποκατάστασις or future restitution of all angels and men, proposed as a mere theory by Origen, and alluded to by one or two other Catholic Fathers of the early ages as a possible conjecture, was universally reprobated and condemned by the church as soon as it attracted general attention. There is no doubt as to the Catholic faith on this matter.
The recent discussion has turned chiefly on the question of moral probation, the cause and reason of the mutability and liability to error in the intellect and perversion in the will of rational beings, and the manner and extent of their passing through the state of mutability to a state of permanent stability in good or evil. The errors of Origen were derived from the Platonic philosophy. So far as the Periarchon really presents his fanciful conjectures, we must consider them as vagaries of a man who, although richly endowed with intellectual gifts and moral virtues, was destitute of a truly rational and Christian philosophy, and therefore unable to think consistently, when he ventured beyond those primary doctrines of the faith which were clearly known to him. We perceive the same cause of aberration and incoherence in most of the current statements and expositions of theological opinion which appear in our modern publications. It would seem that Origen considered it to be a necessary law of creation, that God must create all souls alike, and in an elementary state, with a most capricious and uncontrollable liberty to choose good or evil, so that they were for ever liable to indefinite mutations of character and condition, and could never become stable in one fixed position. His state of restitution was no more permanent and eternal than the previous one of degradation. There is no eternal heaven possible, according to his hypothesis, or rather that of the Periarchon, any more than an eternal hell. Our modern Protestant religious writings are affected by a similar tendency to a chaotic confusion of ideas. It would be an endless task to attempt to follow them through the maze of conflicting and incoherent reasonings with which they contend mutually, and strive to construct some sort of rational and credible eschatology. It is only in Catholic theology based on dogmas of faith, and a philosophy in harmony with this theology derived from the ancient masters of intellectual science, that a remedy for this chaotic state of things can be found. We cannot do more at present than merely state a few sound and certain principles, without attempting to reproduce the arguments by which they have been often and fully demonstrated.
The first principle we lay down is, that God can impart his own immutability of intelligence and will to intelligent beings. It is because his intelligence is infinite that God is immutable, that is, can never change his mind. His will necessarily conforms to his intelligence, and he therefore is, and is in full possession of, the sovereign good, by his self-existing essence.
The intelligent creature participates in this intelligence, in that degree of being which God gives him. The object of the spontaneous and natural act of intelligence is the real verity of being, and by his intelligent nature he can never be deceived. The object perceived by the intelligence contains in it the good, toward which the will moves by a spontaneous and natural act. It is only necessary that the object be so placed before the intellect that it compels assent, to make all error, voluntary or involuntary, impossible. The good which is thus perfectly presented necessarily draws the will to itself, and thus immutability in good is produced. Error in the intellect is an accident and a defect in nature, and all perversion of will or evil choice is a consequence of error. The liability of sinning is therefore no necessary adjunct of the spontaneity or liberty of will which is an attribute of intelligent beings. It is removed by making the intelligence perfect. It is easy, therefore, for God to make any intelligent being immutably good, even from the beginning of his existence, since it is easy for him to give to nature any degree of perfection, within the purely natural order.
In the supernatural order, the gift of the intuitive vision of the divine essence imparts to the recipient the knowledge and possession of the sovereign good, with which it is immovably united by a spontaneous and necessary act. It can no more lose its beatitude than it can lose its essence. It is as impossible for one of the blessed to be changed into a sinner, as for an angel to become an ape.
Liability to error and sin belongs, therefore, not to any necessary order of things, resulting from natural and necessary laws which God is obliged to follow in creation and providence, but it is a condition of defectibility pertaining to a law of probation which God has established by his sovereign will.
This defectibility supposes an equilibrium or indetermination of the will in respect to contraries which is overcome by a self-determining power. Such an equilibrium can only exist, when opposite objects, in which some good corresponding to the spontaneous tendency of the will is contained, are presented to the intellect as desirable and worthy of choice; in such a way that the motives for choice balance each other. The will must follow the intellect, and therefore an error in the choice must be preceded by an erroneous judgment, which is possible only when the object presented to it does not compel assent. Moral probation requires that there should be an obligation, arising from the eternal law of God or a positive command, to choose one of the opposite objects and reject the other. It is this which makes these objects contrary to each other in a moral respect, and is the reason why liberty of choice between them is called the liberty of contrariety, and the determination to the one is a virtuous, while that to the other is a vicious act. It is easy to understand this liberty of contrariety and the moral discipline which is requisite for its due control and direction, in respect to human nature. From its complex constitution, the sensible good is often opposed to the rational good, and reason, which ought to govern, is easily deceived by the imagination. In the case of pure spirits, it is more difficult to see how they can be subject to any illusion, or capable of undergoing any moral probation. In the natural order, they are perfect, and cannot err in the apprehension of that which is truly desirable as their chief good. They are not, therefore, capable of probation in the moral order of pure nature. But in the supernatural order, the object proposed to them being presented in an obscure, supernatural light, which does not compel assent, there is room for a suspension of the act of consent, and a power of rejecting the sovereign good by a voluntary self-determination, in adhering to the inferior object which they naturally comprehend and love. In fact, it was in this way that the fallen angels sinned and rebelled against God. In like manner, Adam, who was elevated to a perfect state like that of the angels, and enjoyed absolute dominion over all sensible concupiscence, underwent a supernatural probation, in which he fell through the seduction of Eve, who was the instrument of the demon, who had previously made her the victim of his diabolical sophistry.
The only moral order which is known to exist as an order of probation, in reference to an ultimate destination and end of intelligent creatures, is the one which is supernatural. If we conjecture that the universe is filled with intelligent beings who are neither angels nor human beings, we have no need and no reason to imagine that they are subject to a moral probation with the trials and pains connected with the order under which angels and men were constituted. The great problem of the reason of probation is one which is restricted within the sphere of those beings who have been constituted by the Creator in the order of a supernatural destiny. The difficulty of the problem arises exclusively from the moral and physical evil which is an incident of probation. In itself, the sufficient reason for probation is obvious and evident. The origin and nature of evil really present no insoluble difficulty, when the principles of sound theology and philosophy are understood. The difficulty consists in accounting for the permission of sin and misery in view of the known attributes of infinite goodness and almighty power in God. If the final conclusion of the vicissitudes and temporary evils of the state of probation were a universal ἀποκατάστασις, including the eternal abolition of evil in the universe and the attainment in general and in each individual of a permanent good of the highest order, to which the temporary conflict of good and evil was a necessary means, the human reason might be completely satisfied. But, although in general, and in a multitude of individuals, this is really the predestined and certain result, it is not the case with another multitude, the whole number, namely, of those who finally forfeit the sublime destiny to which they had an original right, but which they have lost irrecoverably. There is a repugnance in the human mind to the contemplation of permanent and eternal evil in the universe, and this is much increased by the human sensibilities, and natural sympathy with those of our own kind who suffer even the consequences of their own violation of the eternal law. This repugnance causes the effort to find a way of escape, or at least of mitigating the severe integrity of the truth by resorting to some kind of fatalism. These efforts are all futile and foolish. It is absurd to question the infinite goodness or the infinite power of God. The fact that moral and physical evil exists, is only too well known by experience. There is but one way to account for it, which is that God permits it as incident to the law of moral probation. We can have no knowledge of the finality of evil except from the divine revelation. And, that revelation having made known to us that the decision of destiny for each individual at the term of his probation is irreversible, it is reasonable, as well as imperative in respect to faith, to assent to the judgment of God because of his own knowledge and veracity, whether we can or cannot understand how and why that judgment is consistent with his goodness.
There is no prohibition placed on the exercise of intellect and reason in seeking to understand these revealed doctrines, provided we respect the authority which God has established as our extrinsic rule and criterion of truth. Under this regulation, reason can go very far toward solving the problem of the origin, nature, and reason of evil.
The origin of evil is in the abuse of free-will by intelligent beings who are placed by the Creator in a state of probation. Its nature is merely privative, consisting in deficiency and disorder. The sufficient reason for permitting it is either that it is a necessary incident to any order of moral probation, or to such an order as the one actually established, in view of the greater glory of God and the greater general good of the universe. The evil condition, or state of deficiency and privation, into which intelligent beings are degraded in consequence of their abuse of the power of free choice, is the natural consequence of their voluntary sin, and is, in itself, permanent and irremediable. Since the order of probation is supernatural, and the power of efficaciously electing the sovereign good is a grace freely given by God, sin, which is a supernatural death, is eternal in its duration and consequences, unless God restores the lost state of grace by his divine power. He can easily do it, and it is therefore vain to attempt, as it were, an apology for the Almighty, by pretending that he actually does all that is possible, to restore the fallen, and to bring every intelligent being to the perfection for which he was originally destined. It is by the will of the Almighty, that each one who has been placed in a state of probation, if he passes out of that state with the guilt of sin upon him, is for ever deprived of the grace which is absolutely necessary for expiation and restoration. The probation of angels ended long ago, and those who sinned were left without any offer of pardon and reconciliation. The pardon which is offered to men, is offered to them as a gratuitous act of mercy on the part of God, which is available so long as they live and have the use of reason and free-will. Probation ceases with death, and all merit and demerit become eternal. The doom awarded to merit is eternal reward, to demerit eternal punishment. The final privation of that good which is the reward of merit, and of that grace which is necessary for making the least movement toward it, is a penalty which God has annexed to sin. This is the Christian and Catholic doctrine, and to deny it is equivalent to a complete renunciation of the genuine Christian religion. The recent developments of the extent to which this fundamental tenet of orthodox Protestantism is disbelieved or doubted among the various sects, are an evidence that their dogmatic and historical basis is crumbling and passing away with unexpected rapidity. The genuine dogmatic system of Protestantism is Calvinism. And although the Calvinistic system retains a number of the fundamental articles of Catholic faith, its omissions and additions and perversions make it as a whole self-contradictory and absurd. The principle of private judgment logically results in rationalism, and no such system as Calvinism can long stand a rational test. All other theological systems which have sprung up as modifications of the Luthero-Calvinistic system are too incoherent and incomplete to be permanent. An irresistible current is sweeping away all these fabrics hastily built upon the sand, leaving only a confused débris of truths and errors to the amazement of mankind. While this breaking up of old and general beliefs and convictions is in many respects lamentable and dangerous, we recognize, nevertheless, that there is a divarication in the irresistible logical current which is sweeping them into the sea of oblivion. The tendency of the general mind is not exclusively destructive. There is a yearning and an effort toward universal truth, and a deeply-seated conviction that this truth is really contained in Christianity rightly understood, which makes a strong and wide counter-current, bearing away from the tide that sets so strongly toward materialism and atheism. We recognize in the views and arguments more or less rationalistic which have been recently put forth in respect to the future destiny of the human soul, a revival of ethical and theological ideas in respect to the relation of the soul toward God, which are more in harmony with the Catholic faith than those of the old Protestant belief. The intrinsic, inherent good qualities and state of the soul itself, its voluntary determination to the good, its actual perfection in spiritual excellence and virtue, are acknowledged to be the ground and measure of the relation of friendship with God, and the want of this subjective fitness and worthiness is confessed to be a necessary cause of a corresponding alienation. The state of interior rectitude, integrity, and likeness to God, is acknowledged to be the necessary qualification of congruity and condignity in the soul, which gives it an aptitude to receive from the Creator that permanent and perfect enjoyment of its highest good which constitutes its everlasting beatitude. Sin is acknowledged to be the supreme evil of the soul which deprives it of its true good and degrades it below the order in which its proper excellence and felicity are placed. Therefore, the whole question of the final restoration of all intelligent beings who have lapsed from good, is resolved into a question respecting the cessation or the perpetual continuance of a moral order, under which renovation is possible, and the possibility sure to become actual, by a necessary and eternal law, in every individual instance. What is the criterion by which those who maintain this ἀποκατάστασις intend to determine its truth or falsity? It must be either divine revelation distinctly and certainly made known, or pure human reason. Every one who thinks logically must select between the two. As we have before said, we judge it by the criterion of revelation. What is the Christian, that is, what is the Catholic doctrine, founded on the veracity of God, clearly declared, and unalterable? We have already stated it, and it is known to all men. Those who still profess that they have in the Scriptures interpreted by their own private judgment an infallible rule of faith, are bound to demonstrate that their doctrine is clearly taught in the Scriptures, or is at least compatible with what is taught in them. It is open to any Catholic writer to discuss the matter with them on that ground if he thinks fit to do so, and it may be of some utility. It is equally suitable to discuss the question on purely philosophical grounds with those who do not admit revelation. But, as this is not our present purpose, we confine ourselves to the statement of what is the Catholic doctrine, and merely affirm that it is impossible to bring any conclusive argument against it, either from Scripture or from reason. It is really only the objections from reason which have any weight in the minds of men. Now, it is impossible to prove from reason that God may not propose to intelligent creatures a supernatural end to be attained by their voluntary operation under a moral law, and fix definite limits to their probation; or that it is not just to leave those who have misused their liberty by turning away from their prefixed end, in the permanent state of privation of their sovereign good. Nor is it possible to prove that penalties are not justly inflicted as a retribution for violations of law, in the state which succeeds the term of probation. It is God alone who is the judge of the nature and quantity of retribution which is due according to justice to individual demerits. Reason is not qualified to criticise the divine judgment which has decreed an eternal penalty for sin. The only rational mode of inquiring into the penalty for sin in the future life, is by seeking to ascertain what the divine revelation actually discloses and teaches on this momentous subject. This is determined with certainty by the Catholic rule, and taking all that is contained in this certain doctrine as a point of departure and a regulating principle, a theological and philosophical exposition of its relations with the other known principles and doctrines of revelation and reason manifests its harmony with all these truths, in a sufficiently clear light to command a firm rational assent. If all difficulties and obscurities are not completely removed, many misconceptions and apparent objections are dissipated, while the obscurity which finally remains is shown to be a necessary accompaniment of the dim light, by which the human mind, in its present condition, perceives these remote objects of eternity; and to make part of that limitation of knowledge which is an element of our moral discipline.
It is a demonstrable truth, contained in the first principles both of natural and revealed theology, that God has made all things for good, and that he will not permit the abuse of free-will by his creatures to thwart the final attainment of the end he has proposed, by causing permanent disorder in the universe. St. Thomas teaches that the punishment of the future life is decreed for this very reason. “It pertains to the perfect goodness of God, that he should not leave anything inordinate in existing things. Now, those things which exceed their due quantity are comprehended in the order of justice which reduces all things to equality; but man exceeds his due measure of quantity when he prefers his own will to the divine will by satisfying its desires inordinately; and this inequality is removed, when man is compelled to suffer something contrary to his own will according to God’s established order” (Con. Gent., iii. 146). F. Liberatore, commenting on this text, says: “Punishment is therefore a certain reaction of reason and justice for the restoration of the disturbed order. The argument which demonstrates the necessity of a sanction for the natural law, shows also that when God punishes those who commit mischievous acts he is not impelled by a movement of vengeful ire, but only by the love of goodness and order. For retribution, which proceeds from the order of justice according to the quality of the works done, imports in its very notion the concept of rectitude and goodness” (Eth., c. iii. art. 2).
In respect to the essential nature of the punishment, the same author lays down the proposition: “That the punishment of retribution for the impious consists principally in the loss of their ultimate end. By those good works which are commanded by the law, man puts himself on the road which leads straight to his end. For virtuous actions are a kind of steps by which a man walks toward this end; while on the other hand by vicious actions he deflects from his end and goes in an altogether opposite direction. Therefore, when the time destined for the journey has expired, it will necessarily follow that the one who has travelled by the road leading to his end should attain his end. Again, it is necessary for a similar reason that the one who through disregard of his end has followed a road leading in an entirely opposite direction should be deprived of the attainment of his end. It is a contradiction to assert that a way leading to a certain term does not lead to it; and equally absurd to say that this same term is reached by a way which leads directly away from it. Therefore, it necessarily follows that at least the loss of the ultimate end should follow the violation of the natural law and be, as it were, a certain internal and natural sanction for it. But the loss of the end inflicted in view of the acts which one has committed has the nature of a punishment.
“Nevertheless, that by no means suffices for a complete retribution corresponding to the works done; but a positive infliction of punishments according to the diversity existing between individuals is requisite. Therefore they are not all to be made to receive an exactly equal punishment (which would happen if they were only deprived of the attainment of their end), but to be chastised by a greater or lesser positive punishment according to the quality of their transgressions. This is required for still another reason, viz., that by their vicious acts they have not only despised their end but also positively disturbed the right order.” (Ibid.)
The reproach of dualism, and of a failure to establish a final subjugation of evil by good and of disorder by the triumph and domination of order, made against the orthodox doctrine, is shown by these arguments, in connection with other well-known principles of Catholic theology and philosophy, to be groundless. There is no dualism in God, for his creative act, and all that he does for bringing it to its ultimate term, proceeds from love diffusive of the good of being in a wise and benevolent order. There is no dualism in the essence and being of intelligent creatures, in respect to God or each other. Their essence is good, and all nature whatsoever is essentially good. No evil substance does or can exist. Evil is privation and disorder. The temporary disorder, which is permitted as an incident to the liberty of a state of probation and movement toward a stable order, is rectified in the final ordination of all things under the supremacy of sovereign law. The loss of some good, which might have been added to the actual sum of good if all had attained their end, is compensated by the greater good which God has brought out of evil. Reason and order and law are vindicated and satisfied, by the compulsory subjection and homage of those who have refused to give their concurrence and pay their just tribute of obedience and labor freely. Privation does not disfigure the spiritual universe in which all that is requisite to consummate order and beauty exists, any more than empty space disfigures a stellar system. The good has therefore a complete and universal triumph, which leaves no deordination in the universe.
Disorder is only in the moral order of liberty in the election of contraries, by which the permanent order of those who exercise this power is determined. Those who rise above the moral order go to a higher order which is permanent; those who fall below it go to an order beneath which is permanent. The moral order passes away, and with it all conflict between opposing moral forces. Those who have fallen below their proper destiny receive precisely what is due to them and results naturally from their voluntary choice. Whatever is superadded to the misery naturally involved in the state of alienation from God and the frustration of their proper end, is directed to remove and prevent but not to perpetuate and increase deordination; and thus eternal punishment, whatever its nature, qualities, and instrumentalities may be, really restricts the limits of evil. It is the bonum honestum and not the bonum delectabile which is the just and reasonable object of the primary and direct complacency of intelligent beings. The bonum delectabile is secondary. That which is most contrary to this highest good is the revolt of free-will against the will of God. When the term allowed by the Almighty for the rebellion of Lucifer to run its course has been reached, it will be suppressed by that act of sovereign power, which places each one of those who have merited exclusion from heaven in a fixed and unchangeable state, precisely suited to his character. No further disturbance of the moral order is possible, no further privation can be incurred, no new injuries can be attempted against any of God’s creatures. Those who suffer, actually endure nothing beyond the retribution justly due to the demerits of their state of probation, and their suffering compensates in the order of the bonum honestum for their offences against that order, restoring the disturbed equilibrium of justice. It is an effect of the divine goodness frustrated (in respect to them) of its intention, and deprived of its due quality as bonum delectabile by their own voluntary opposition to the benevolent will of God. Socrates and Plato taught that it is better even for the one who deserves punishment to undergo it than to remain in impunity. Assuredly it is better for the common order which he has violated. Impunity for great political frauds is the greatest of disorders in a community, and the punishment of the criminals is a reparation to the public honor and the sanctity of right, which adds decorum to a state. This is in virtue of an eternal and universal law, and holds good in the supreme order, with which the ethical constitution of human society is in an analogical resemblance. Justice reduces all things to equality, by subjugating the inordinate wills of created beings under the coercive force of the reaction of reason and order against their rebellion. The inequality removed by this violent reaction is measured by the voluntary and free excesses of the rebels and transgressors against the sovereign will of God. Beyond this measure, there is no violence done to the spontaneous desires and natural tendency to good intrinsic to the essence of every intelligent being. Unless there is an inequality caused by voluntary contrariety to the divine will, there is no opposition, and therefore there must be a perfect harmony and equality of proportion between the eternal order and the wills of those who are subject to it. Therefore, there is no such thing possible as pain, discontent, deficiency from the bonum honestum and bonum delectabile of nature, in the eternal world, except that which is the retribution for voluntary transgressions.
The thousands of millions of human beings who never attain the use of reason, never run the risks of probation, and pass into the eternal state without merit or demerit, enjoy the good of being which is consonant to their nature in whatever actual condition it exists. Those whose nature is regenerate, and spontaneously seeks the sovereign good of the supernatural order, go immediately into the kingdom of heaven. Those whose nature is not regenerate possess an immortality in which they enjoy the natural good of being. There is no such thing as fatality, calamity of chance, misfortune, or deordination of any kind in the true ἀποκατάστασις and restitution of all things, which succeeds the present inchoate, temporary order. It is the absolute and universal and eternal reign of God by his eternal law, which is identified with the physical and spontaneous laws of being, and gives liberty of action within the ordained circumference, without any possibility of escape from the orbit assigned to each individual existence.
We return now to that which we proposed at the beginning as a primary question, not for those who are already certain by Catholic faith, but for inquirers into the mystery of human destiny beyond the veil. Is there a heaven, and what is the way by which it can be attained? Modern rationalism presents at best nothing higher that the eternal state into which human nature fell by the transgression of Adam, and from which we are redeemed by Christ. This species of philosophical and semi-Christian Theism, which is respectable in pagans and those who are in a similar condition of dim enlightenment, has no intellectual foundation which can stand or give support, in opposition to the clear Christian revelation. The firm assent to its really sound and rational principles and their logical conclusions, inexorably demands a further assent, to the physical, moral, and metaphysical demonstration by which the certain truth of Christianity is made evident to reason. A consistent and thorough rejection of Christianity reacts with irresistible logical violence against the first premises of natural theology. The prevailing rationalism is materialistic and atheistic. The contrary of Catholic faith, the real error of the age, the logical alternative of genuine undiluted Christianity, is anti-spiritual, anti-theistic Nihilism. To those who have a repugnance for the hell which is the shadow of heaven in Catholic doctrine, the night-side of the supernatural, this system cannot be very attractive; unless they are in despair, and already so unhappy and hopeless that existence seems to them an intolerable evil. In this system there is nothing besides hell. Hell is the necessary, eternal reality, the only being. The negation of all eternal good, of all beatitude whether natural or supernatural, is the one, fundamental dogma of Pessimism.
The aspiration and longing for beatitude which cannot be wholly extinguished in any human soul, and which manifests its vehemence even in the most gloomy and despairing utterances of scepticism, is strong and vivid among the multitude of half-believers, whose Christian descent has left in their minds, as an heirloom, some indistinct idea of the heaven of Christian theology. Even though they practically seek to satisfy their thirst for the true good by the pleasures of the present life, they wish to cherish the hope of a higher future happiness in the next world. Therefore, they eagerly welcome any plausible teaching or speculation which seems to make a happy immortality their sure ultimate destiny, and are glad to think they run no risk of losing it, and need not give themselves trouble to find the way to gain it. Conscience, and the moral sense which has had a semi-Christian education, will not permit those who still cling to their traditional religion to believe that the majority of adults are actually fit for perfect happiness, or capable of passing out of this life at once into heaven, without undergoing some thorough transformation of character. The view presented by the most reasonable and high-toned of the writers and preachers who have recently advocated universal salvation, or a doctrine tending in that direction, places a prospect of indefinite trial and suffering before those who have sinned during their mortal career, as awaiting them hereafter. Its happy termination in the heaven promised to the good is something which is inferred by their own reasonings and conjectures, but which cannot be proved with certainty by reason, much less shown to be a promise of the divine word. Over against this there is the general belief of mankind; the general consent of those who have read the Holy Scriptures in the interpretation of their plain and obvious sense; and the teaching of the Catholic Church from the very beginning, which she will certainly never change. It is much more reasonable to take the authority of the church as the criterion of truth in regard to this momentous matter than to decide it by private reasonings or private interpretations of Christian doctrine. The Catholic doctrine proposes a heaven of supernatural beatitude and glory to every one, and points out a sure way by which any one may secure it, no matter how much he may have sinned in the past. It is the most rational course to begin at once to follow the road which leads to the right end, and leave with God the responsibility of administering his own just and sovereign laws by giving to each one that retribution which he has deserved.
Note.—The reader is referred for a more full exposition of the relation of the supernatural to the natural order, and the other principal topics belonging to the subject of the future destiny of man, to the following works: Aspirations of Nature, by the Rev. I. T. Hecker; Problems of the Age and The King’s Highway, by the Rev. A. F. Hewit; Catholicity and Pantheism, by the Rev. J. de Concilio; The Knowledge of Mary, by the same author; and Catholic Eschatology, by H. N. Oxenham.
LINES.
SUGGESTED BY ST. FRANCIS DE SALES’ TREATISE ON THE “LOVE OF GOD.”
O precious book! in lines of fire I see
Upon each page the record of a soul
Which soared above the clouds, serenely free,
Which read with eagle eye the mystic scroll;
To whose ecstatic love th’ Eternal Three
Sublime and hidden mysteries did unroll.
A heart, a living heart, is throbbing here!
A heart whose every fibre[[41]] thrilled to One
Unknown to human wisdom, yet most clear
To him, whose spirit, as a luminous sun,
Caught from the splendors of high heaven’s sphere,
A light for centuries set in shadows dun.
O shadows dark and sad! with prophet-gaze
Did he foresee your baneful, blinding cloud
Enwrap man’s reason, soul, and heart? the ways
Of God enveloped in a death-like shroud
Of folly, prejudice, and pride? Amaze
Had seized that noble soul! Yet he had bowed
’Neath persecution’s fury; toiled with heart
Undaunted, while upraised were savage hands
To strike, as Jews of old, the deadly dart.
Through sufferings borne with joy he won those bands,
Through burning zeal and (his own heavenly art)
Divinest meekness, which all power commands.
What secret charm had he so early learned
Which made a joy of pain? of sacrifice
His life-long pleasure? Soul and heart had burned
Within love’s fiery crucible where dies
Nature and self and sense; for God he yearned;
For God and souls were poured his nightly sighs.
Thou sacred volume, fruit of years of prayer,
Of holy contemplation, seraph love,
Dost unto me this hidden charm declare;
With his own life each word is interwove.
His holy pen would oft, methinks, repair
To Calvary’s shade or to the olive grove,
And, deep within the Wounded Side, would seek
The living flame, as strong as death, which breathes
In each dear line. Methinks he still doth speak,
And with celestial sweetness still bequeathes
His dying legacy of love; his meek
And gentle lessons in the soul inwreathes
Like flowers, the garden of the Spouse to grace.
O zeal inflamed and generous! No rest
While heart and hand the path to heaven may trace
For souls brought back on Calvary’s bleeding crest;
No rest while he one tender lamb may place,
All bruised, for healing on the Saviour’s breast.
No sweet repose of prayer and love while pure
And virgin hearts, aspiring heavenward, pine
For light and guidance in the way obscure
And thorny leading to the mystic shrine—
The “inner temple,” where God, throned secure,
Binds fast the soul in his embrace divine.
No rest for him while still on earth the fire
His Master brought remains unkindled; while
One human heart, Grief’s trembling, deep-toned lyre,
Vibrates not to his Master’s touch with smile
Of peace, ev’n while the chords are breaking; higher,
And higher still! the sacrificial pile
Awaits a host of generous souls who mount
With ardor at his word; new strength endows,
And, like the phœnix,[[42]] they from Light’s own Fount
Draw odorous flames of love; while sacred vows
Bind them, like Isaac, hand and foot, who count
The sword and fire but pleasure with their Spouse.
O priceless heritage of poet-saint!
What wisdom born of Heaven adorns each page!
To fancy seems some master-hand to paint;
To intellect speaks philosophic sage;
Passion impulsive yields to sweet constraint,
And heart and will bow down in every age.
Strange spell which o’er the soul it casts! the strong,
Clear message more like ancient prophet’s tone;
Again, to his full gaze as mysteries throng,
Its breathings are the loved disciple’s own;
And now it rises like th’ ecstatic song
Of some grand seraph veiled before the throne!
CONRAD AND WALBURGA.
CHAPTER I.
Among the many beautiful paintings by world-known artists which adorn the old Pinakothek in Munich is one symbolizing Innocence, by Carlo Dolce. It represents a lovely, rosy-cheeked girl gazing frankly at you; down her shoulders floats a stream of golden hair, and clasped to her bosom is a lamb.
Before this picture, one spring day in the year 1855, stood a gentleman admiring it with all the rapture of one who knows how difficult it is to achieve such a miracle of art—to place upon canvas a face so instinct with life, so full of that divine something which only genius can impart.
“It is indeed beautiful, most beautiful,” thought Conrad Seinsheim. “And yet,” after an inward pause, during which his eyes rested on a young lady who was copying it—“and yet real flesh and blood, when cast in the mould of beauty, infinitely surpass aught that was ever accomplished by brush or chisel.”
It was only a profile view he had of her face—for the painting hung in a corner, and she was in the corner too, with her left side next to the wall—but this view sufficed to send a thrill through every fibre of his body.
Conrad was no longer a very young man; his age was five-and-thirty, and he had already seen a good deal of the world. His father, a wealthy merchant of Cologne, had died, leaving him a handsome fortune, and with his last breath almost had urged him to marry. And Conrad had travelled and visited well-nigh every capital in Europe, enjoying to the utmost the pleasures which choice society affords, but had not yet found the woman whom he could really love. The fair women whom he had met had been mere butterflies of fashion, idlers basking in the smiles of men as vain and idle as themselves. But here, at last, was one who came up to his high ideal of female loveliness, and who withal was not a drone. But it was Walburga’s expression, rather than the exquisite classic outline of her countenance, that made his heart throb as it did; it imaged a soul nourished upon the visions of genius. The girl was evidently enjoying, with delight too deep for words, this Carlo Dolce; and, guided by the light of sympathy, its ethereal life, which other copyists might have missed, she was catching and retaining, and you might almost have fancied, from her mien of rapture, that she knew the spirit of the old master was hovering over her and guiding her delicate white hand.
“The sunshine of her soul is inspiring, and fills me with gladness too,” exclaimed Conrad inwardly. “She does not turn to look at me; she goes right on, filled with the joy of her work. Oh! have I not found here the being whom I have been so vainly seeking?”
After admiring the young artist a few minutes he continued his way along the gallery. But his mind was too occupied with the living picture which he had just seen to care a jot for anything else, and all the rest of the day this vision of beauty haunted him.
At three o’clock the Pinakothek is closed; and at this hour Walburga betook herself to her humble but cosey home in Fingergasse,[[43]] where, summoning her friend, Moida Hofer, who lodged with her, and who kept an old curiosity shop in the same street, the two sallied forth for a stroll in the English Garden.[[44]] They were fast friends, these girls, having been many years together, and never were they so happy as in each other’s company. And now, while they wandered through this delightful park, they talked about their school-days, and rejoiced that not yet a day of parting had come.
“Well, as for me, I shall never marry, you know,” spoke Walburga.
“Oh! yes, you will,” the other smilingly answered. Yet in her heart Moida believed that what Walburga said might be true. Her dearest friend was born with an affliction, a weighty cross—one which likely enough would prove a barrier to marriage. Moida, however, had no such cross, and already she had a devoted lover, whose name was Ulrich, and who, moreover, was the brother of Walburga.
Ulrich was uncommonly handsome and the last representative of the ancient and noble family of Von Loewenstein. But he was poor, and far off seemed the day when he should make Moida his bride. The latter, however, was patient. She built for herself no castles in the air; she was one of those practical souls, full of common sense, which is the genius of everyday life, and nobody had ever heard her utter a sigh. “Sometime or other our honeymoon will come,” she would tell her betrothed; “therefore, much as I love you, my Ulrich, I’ll not die of impatience.”
It would have been hard to find two young women more unlike in temperament as well as looks than Moida and Walburga; and perhaps ’tis why they dwelt in such harmony together. Miss Hofer, instead of being tall like her friend, was short and plump, with a little sprightly nose turning upward toward the sky, and she had a somewhat broad mouth. But there was a pretty dimple in her chin—a very pretty dimple; just the place for a kiss to hide itself—and she had lovely blue eyes, and such a fund of mirth and humor that it was impossible ever to be sad in her company. Of painting Moida knew absolutely nothing. But she was glad that she was not an artist; “for if I were,” she would say, “how could I find time to attend to my curiosity-shop and keep our little household in order? Ulrich is an artist, and so are you, Walburga; and we must not all three be making mountains and heads.”
“No, indeed. And I don’t know what I should do without you,” spoke Walburga, as they sauntered along the gravelled path by the lake. “You can’t tell how much I lean upon you. I really believe I am better since I took your advice about the skull.”
Walburga, who was of a nature inclined to melancholy, had for more than a year kept a skull in her bed-room, and before it she was wont to meditate sometimes for hours, until the ugly thing stole away the bloom from her cheek and drew a black mark under each of her eyes. Her appetite, too, began to fail; and ’twere not easy to say what might have happened if she had been living alone. But one morning, while she was plunged in one of her reveries before this death’s head, Moida approached, and, after kneeling beside her and saying a prayer—for Moida was a good girl, and quite as pious as Walburga, only in a different way—she reverently took the skull in her hands and said: “Now, dear friend, I think ’tis time to put this aside. ’Tis making a ghost of you. It has honeycombed you with scruples, and I am sure that your father-confessor would approve of the reformation which I am going to inaugurate. Therefore take one more good look at this eyeless, grinning object ere it disappears from your sight for ever.”
These bold words so astonished Walburga that for about a minute she could not reply, and she turned to Moida with an expression which might have deterred anybody with less spirit and determination from proceeding further. But Moida—who, let us here remark, was a descendant of Andreas Hofer, the Tyrolese patriot—was not in the least frightened by the other’s flashing eyes.
“I will use this skull with reverence,” she continued. “I promise you it shall be laid in consecrated ground; if necessary, with my own hands I’ll bury it in God’s-acre. But here in this room it shall be no more.”
“Well, I declare!” exclaimed Walburga, presently bursting into a laugh, “you are the dearest, sauciest girl I ever met.”
“Then say I may do it,” went on Moida. “For, although I am very determined, yet I prefer not to be too great a despot and carry the skull off absolutely against your will.”
“Well, let me bury it myself,” answered Walburga.
“Agreed! But I’ll accompany you to God’s-acre; for I know one of the grave-diggers, and before another hour this poor old head shall be resting in peace underground.”
So the skull was buried, after which Walburga’s cheeks recovered a good deal of their bloom. And now, while she and her friend are enjoying themselves in the open air this mild spring day, she looks more sprightly than we have ever seen her before.
“Pray tell me, Moida,” said Walburga, after they had gone round the lake and were on their way home, “what is Ulrich doing at present? You had a letter from him this morning, had you not?”
“Oh! yes,” answered the other, her ever-bright countenance growing brighter. “The dear fellow is in the Innthal,[[45]] where he means to make a sketch of the home of his ancestors.”
“Dear, sweet spot!” murmured Walburga.
“Ay, and dear Tyrol!” added Moida. “And he tells me Loewenstein Castle has been sold by the state to a rich gentleman from Cologne, who has engaged Ulrich to restore its faded frescos, and he is beside himself with delight. The least thing raises his spirits ever so high, and now he imagines that this undertaking will be the beginning of his fortune. I must caution the dear boy, in my answer, not to indulge in dreams.”
“Ah! true; he is given to dreaming, like myself,” said Walburga, shaking her head. “But this is a hard world, as you have often told me, and dreams will not feed us. I must sell my paintings—sell them—and not work for pure love of the beautiful.”
“Yes, indeed. Murillo, Raphael, and all of them had to eat, and bread costs money,” said Moida.
“Well, I hope this new-comer is a good man, and may he know how to keep his castle. Alas! if our family had known how to manage things, instead of letting everything go at loose ends. If there had been heads among us like yours, Moida, I should not have been living to-day in narrow, dingy Fingergasse, trying hard to make the two ends meet, and not always succeeding.”
“But then I should never have known you; a grand lady dwelling in a castle would not stoop to look at me.”
“Oh! true; and ’twas worth coming down in the world—down to a humble abode—in order to know you.” Then, after a pause: “But what else does my brother say about this gentleman?”
“Well, he says he is not a bit handsome, and that he looks stern. Ulrich says, too, he is passionately fond of art, is a believer in the aristocracy of nature, and declares he doesn’t know who his great-grandfather was. The only thing that is really not good about him is that he has no faith.”
“No faith!” sighed Walburga. “Well, at any rate, Moida, he’ll not suffer for want of company; for it cannot be denied that very few of those learned men are ever seen inside a church. Oh! how comes this?”
Moida shrugged her shoulders, but made no response. The truth is, although a very good girl, she did not think deeply on religious subjects. Walburga, on the contrary, was often much distressed by the infidelity which she saw spreading around her, and trembled for her dear brother, who had once declared that out of every hundred students who frequented the university with him seventy lost their belief in a God after being there six months; and nothing is so dead as a dead faith. And now she was not certain that Ulrich himself went to church; for of late he had been away from her a good deal. Walburga called to mind, too, a grave conversation which she once had with him about religion, when he told her something that had left a deep impression upon her.
“Believe me, sister,” said Ulrich, “a boy may be very good at home and have the best religious instruction from his parents, yet their advice and teaching will prove but a slender safeguard against the perils of the university. This is the age of science; ’tis impossible to prevent young men from studying chemistry and geology. They will flock to our halls of learning and crowd round our great professors, who are atheists, like moths about a lamp, heedless of the risk they run. Now, sister, I verily believe one true Christian university would be worth a thousand Sunday-schools. The great need of the day is to Christianize science—ay, Christianize it; make it a beacon-light and not a consuming fire.”
“Moida,” spoke Walburga, after dwelling a moment on these words of her brother—“Moida, do you think Ulrich says his prayers and goes to church as he used?”
“Oh! yes, I am quite sure he does,” replied her friend. “He declares that for love of me he will always be good.”
“Well, although ’tis not the best reason he might have for keeping his faith, yet some fish are held by a very slender line,” added the other, smiling. “So, thank God! he loves you.”
Thus conversing about Ulrich and Tyrol, and listening to the merry songs of the birds, the girls continued their walk. It was dusk when they got home. And what a snug little home it is!
But before we enter let us call the reader’s attention to three letters, “C M B,” chalked upon the door. They stand for Caspar, Melchior, Balthasar, the names which tradition gives to the wise men who came with gifts for the infant Saviour; and beneath the letters, and likewise marked in chalk, are three crosses and the year of our Lord.[[46]]
But now open the door and see how clean and neat everything is within. Yonder quaint-looking closet, standing between the two bed-rooms, albeit a century old and more, shows no sign of age; not a particle of dust rests upon it, not a spider’s web. The floor, too, is well scrubbed and polished, and looks all the better for having no carpet. In one of the windows are a couple of flower-pots, wherein are blooming two magnificent roses; while in the other window is a cage containing a nightingale. The bird at this moment begins to warble a sweet melody to greet Walburga, who is its mistress; while Moida, who also has a pet, finds it no easy matter to prevent Caro—a black, shaggy poodle—from tearing her in pieces for joy.
“Poor, dear Caro!” she said, holding him at arm’s length, “the horrid police would kill you, if they knew you were alive, and so I must keep you shut up within doors. Poor, dear Caro!” And this was true. In Munich aged dogs are not allowed to live; and Caro is toothless and nearly blind. But his heart is as young as ever; and his tail—oh! how much expression there is in a dog’s tail. How it wags to and fro! How it whisks up and down! How it thumps on the floor! Moida sometimes, for fun, would try to hold fast Caro’s tail while she spoke endearing words to him. But in vain. No sooner would she open her lips than away it went, ten times quicker than the pendulum of a clock, and as impossible to clench as if ’twere a bit of machinery driven back and forth by steam-power.
Nothing could better show the difference between Walburga and her friend than a glance at the different books which each of them reads. In Walburga’s sleeping-chamber, on a table close by her bed, lie two well-fingered volumes: one is Master Eckhart, the Father of German Mystics; the other is Blessed Henry Suso’s Little Book of Eternal Wisdom. For a number of years these have been well-nigh her constant companions, and she knows them almost by heart. More than once have they inspired her to renewed effort when she felt disheartened, as well as lightened the cross which afflicted her. “The swiftest steed to carry us to perfection is suffering,” says Eckhart; and these words Walburga often repeats to herself.
But in Moida’s apartment, instead of the mystics we find a song-book, an arithmetic, and the Regensburg book of cookery.
While Caro was frisking about and yelping, the nightingale, as we have already observed, was warbling a song for its mistress, who stood listening with a pensive air.
“You shall never die in a cage,” she murmured presently. “’Tis a shame to keep you even one day a prisoner.”
“How so?” exclaimed Moida, who had quick ears, and was a mortal foe to anything like mere sentimentality. “Are not birds created for our pleasure? And you take such care of yours! Why, I’m sure he is quite as happy as if he were flying about in the groves, hunting here and there for food, chased by other birds, and journeying hundreds of miles to find a warm climate in winter; whereas you give your pet plenty to eat—I sometimes think too much (Moida was economical)—and whenever it is cold your room is turned into a hot-house to please him.”
“Ah! but, Moida dear,” answered Walburga, “he has no playmate, no other little bird to love; and what is life without love?”
“Well, he loves you, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, and very much. But that is not the kind of love I mean. He has no mate to sing to. I am sure, in the song he is giving us now, he is sighing and pining for some other pretty bird whom he might kiss and caress and woo.”
“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Moida, bursting into a laugh. Then, suddenly becoming grave: “But, no, no, I mustn’t laugh. I agree with you: love is everything, and Ulrich is my nightingale. Why, every letter he writes to me is a sweet song of love.”
For several minutes after Moida uttered these words Walburga remained silent. They had awakened in her breast longings which had better have slept for ever. But we cannot escape from ourselves; and she was born with a nature full of tenderness and sympathy. It made her yearn for something which she might call all her own, something to serve and cherish and suffer for. Home! home!—this was the secret craving of Walburga’s soul. But, alas! she had barely the glimmer of a hope that this happiness would ever be hers; and even good Eckhart’s words, which she now repeated to herself, did not bring her the usual comfort.
The poor girl, too, was an orphan; her brother was away from her, and a day would come when Moida would fly off into Ulrich’s arms. “And, oh! then I’ll be lonely indeed,” she sighed.
While Walburga was thus musing on her fate Moida took up her zither,[[47]] and, seating herself by the open window, sang in a rich contralto voice one of the old Volkslied, beginning:
“Ach. wie ist’s möglich dann,
Das ich dich lassen kann!
Hab dich von Herzen lieb,
Das Glaube mir!”
which may be rendered:
“Ah! how can I from thee depart?
Believe me, my heart’s love thou art!”
When the song was finished Walburga, in whose eyes tears were glistening, said: “Nobody can beat my nightingale singing except you. Oh! who will sing for me when you are gone?”
“Gone! Why, I never mean to leave you, dear Walburga; no, never!” cried Moida.
“Ah! Ulrich will carry you away; and then—”
“Yes, yes, so he will, the dear boy! and then I’ll take you in my arms, and carry you away too, and thus we’ll all three fly off together,” interrupted the sunny-hearted girl.
Then Moida sang another song, and another, and another, until one by one all the stars came out of their hiding-places in the sky; and never did they shine down upon two warmer friends than these.
In the fairest valley of Tyrol, and perched on a spur of the mountain, a thousand feet above the swift-flowing river which gives the Innthal its name, stands Loewenstein Castle. How admirably placed it is! From afar the enemy might be espied approaching; and when he came near it needed stout lungs as well as a bold heart to climb the steep ascent which led to its walls, for ’tis like an eagle’s eyrie to get at. When the castle was built many an eagle used to soar above its battlements, and the dense pine forest which covered the land was the haunt of wolves and bears.
Tyrol is wild enough to-day. What must it have been in the ninth century? The Roman legions had once marched through the valley on their way to conquer Germany. But Rome had fallen, and only here and there an earthwork, or a paved road, or a sentinel-tower was left to tell how far her soldiers had penetrated into the wilderness. Afterwards barbarians and wild beasts had it all to themselves as before—had it all to themselves, until by and by, in the course of time, afoot, or perchance mounted on an ass which had carried him across the snowy Brenner—poor ass! how it must have longed for sunny Italy again—came a monk. St. Benedict bade him go forth and preach the Gospel; and lo! here he was, quite at home amid these shaggy-looking men, very Esaus for hairiness, and in manners a shade removed from cannibals. And this monk’s track had been followed ere long by other monks, until finally what Roman power could not do they did.
Round about the monastery the trees were felled and the land made to bloom; no farmers better than those old monks. And they cultivated the barbarians, too, as well as the soil.
Then, when times were ripe for him to appear, when there was something to plunder, on the mountain-side the robber-knight built his fastness; and Loewenstein did its share of plundering in those good old times.
But there was a chapel attached to the castle, and the baron’s lady was devout, if he was not. Gently, little by little, she persuaded her consort to take part in her devotions, and in the end made a pretty fair Christian of him. But the Von Loewensteins loved dearly to fight; the dust of the battle-field was sweeter than incense to their nostrils; and so to the Holy Land they went, nor missed a single Crusade. The knight’s bride with her own hands would buckle on his armor, then go take her post on the topmost turret, waving adieu as long as her swimming eyes could see the gleaming helmet that sometimes never gleamed again for her.
Many a century has rolled by since those brave days of battle-axes and healthy men; and now Loewenstein is only a ruin. But the monastery still stands, the grayness of its old age hidden by the greenness of its ivy, and St. Benedict would not find things much changed if he were to make his brethren a visit.
It is sunset, and the new owner of Loewenstein has just returned from Munich, whither he went to enjoy himself awhile in the Pinakothek.
“What a pleasure ’twill be,” Conrad Seinsheim is saying to himself, “to restore this ancient castle! Happily, one tower is left, and in it I can make shift to dwell until the rest of the edifice is completed.” Then, speaking aloud: “And I will embellish my home with beautiful paintings and statuary; and the first statue shall be a woman.” Here he turned his deep-set, heavy-browed eyes upon a young man who was seated beside him sketching the ruin. The latter looked up and smiled.
“And a living woman it is to be,” added Conrad.
“Have you found your dream, then, sir?” inquired Ulrich, tossing back the long, unkempt hair which he persisted in wearing, albeit it troubled him not a little, for ’twas constantly falling in his eyes.
“I believe I have,” replied Conrad. Whereupon he went on to tell of the young lady whom he had seen copying Carlo Dolce’s picture of Innocence. While he was speaking a faint tinge of red spread over Ulrich’s cheek; for Moida had written that his sister was making a copy of this very painting. Suddenly he laid his pencil aside and rose to his feet. Conrad observed him in silence, but without any air of contempt; if he did not pray himself, he respected none the less those who did, and the monastery bell was ringing the Angelus. As Ulrich murmured the prayer he could not help thinking that likely at this very moment Moida was saying it also.
When the sound of the bell died away Conrad passed with him into the tower, where they began examining its faded frescos.
“These must have a strange effect on you,” remarked the former. “Doubtless yonder barely perceptible figure of a lady stretching forth her hand and clasping another hand—her lover or husband, perhaps—was one of your ancestresses!”
“Well, it is indeed sad for me to view such ruin and decay in the place where myself and so many of my name were born,” answered Ulrich. “I feel all the while as if I were moving about among ghosts. But then ’tis many, many years since Loewenstein was anything better than what it is to-day. The wind, I have heard my dear mother say, used to blow in through the chinks in the wall and rock my cradle.” Here the poor fellow gave a rueful smile. “You see,” he continued, “old families die hard. It often takes them more than one generation to get down to the bottom of the hill. Why, my parents were little better off than the owls when they inhabited this ruin; and ’twas high time to quit it when they did. But we are out at last on the broad world, and I can truly say I thank God that a man like yourself has bought my ancestral home. Again let me thank you, sir, thank you from the bottom of my heart, for your kindness in giving me employment.”
These words, uttered in a frank, manly tone, pleased Conrad, who, when he first met the young artist, had taken him for a silly fellow that was clinging to the shadow of a great name while too proud to do any work. Ulrich certainly had rather a haughty mien; but, thanks to the girl to whom he was betrothed, he had acquired a good deal of common sense, and, moreover, he had a warm heart. So that Conrad, who pitied his threadbare appearance, soon grew to like him, and during the past week had made the youth take up his quarters with him in the tower.
“Well, I deem it a great piece of good-fortune to have fallen in with you,” said Conrad. “For, although I don’t believe in spirits coming back to molest those who occupy their former abodes, yet, really, to have passed a night here alone might have made my flesh creep. How old is Loewenstein, do you know?”
Ulrich, who knew pretty well the whole history of his house, now proceeded to relate it, briefly of course; yet he told enough to make the other long to hear more. And when he had finished Conrad said:
“Although I am an ardent believer in the aristocracy of nature, nevertheless I feel all the more drawn to you for being a Von Loewenstein.” After a pause he added: “I wonder who my Dream will turn out to be? Will she appreciate dwelling in a castle? Oh! yes, I am sure she will.”
And Conrad went on to tell again of Walburga’s look of rapture as she stood at her easel, and of her tall, graceful figure:
“I am sure, too, her hair is all her own; in fact, every part of her is as classic as her face.”
While he thus gave utterance to his admiration for Ulrich’s sister Ulrich’s heart was in a flutter, and he could not help thinking what happiness ’twould be if Walburga were one day to become mistress of Loewenstein. Yet at the same time he thought it not a little strange that Conrad should express such unbounded admiration for one who did not expect, any more than he did himself, that ever a man would wish her for his bride.
“But tell me,” pursued Conrad, twitching his sleeve, “is there no dear girl whom you have fallen in love with? Artists, of all men, you know, are the most prone to the tender passion.”
“Oh! indeed there is,” answered Ulrich—“as sweet a girl as ever breathed. Once a week she writes to me and I to her.”
“Well, who is she? Where does she live?”
“In Munich, sir. Her name is Moida Hofer; and, although of peasant descent, I call her noble, for many of our mountaineers have owned their rough acres for generations, and, moreover, Moida’s grandfather was Hofer the Patriot.”
“Really! Oh! then, don’t let her slip; marry her by all means, for she belongs to my nobility,” exclaimed Conrad with enthusiasm. “And of course she is beautiful?”
“Every girl, sir, is beautiful when a man loves her; and I detest Greek noses and Roman noses since I have known Moida, for she hasn’t one.”
Here the other burst into a loud laugh, which frightened away a couple of bats that had been circling about their heads; for bats and swallows, as well as owls and hawks, found their way into this ancient chamber, which had not been occupied till now since Ulrich and his sister left it as children.
“And you should hear Moida sing,” continued Ulrich; “and hear her talk, too. Oh! she is so wise. She knows how to preach to me and tell me of my faults without ever making me angry. I was living in Cloudland before I met her. She said: ‘Ulrich, come down out of the clouds and earn your bread’; and ’tis owing to her that I persevered in my art-studies and am able to paint a little.”
“You certainly have talent,” said Conrad, “judging by the sketches in your portfolio. But let me ask why you do not marry?”
At this question Ulrich heaved a sigh.
“Is it want of money?”
“Well, our honeymoon will come some day or other,” said the youth, evading a response. “She is patient—more patient than I. She cheers me up; knits stockings for me; makes me shirts; in fact, she does as much for me almost as if she were my wife. Dear, dear, dear Moida!”
“May I inquire how Miss Hofer earns a livelihood?”
“She keeps a small store, an old-curiosity shop, where one may buy for a mere trifle chairs and mirrors, and clocks and engravings, together with many other articles that at some time or another adorned noble houses. You may find there a number of things that used to belong to Loewenstein.”
“Indeed! Then I’ll buy out her whole stock—upon my word I will—and back to this spot shall come every chair and mirror and clock. O Ulrich, Ulrich! why didn’t you tell me this before?”
After thus conversing awhile within the tower, and it being settled that the young man was to begin on the morrow his labor of restoring the frescos, they passed out by what must once have been a stately passage-way, but was now so encumbered with fragments of stone and mortar that Conrad and Ulrich were obliged to stoop very low, at one place almost to creep, in order to emerge into the open air. As we have already observed, the tower was the only portion of the castle not entirely in ruin; the rest of the building was so shattered by time that it was difficult even for imagination to picture it as it had been in the days of its glory.
“Here,” said Ulrich, “used to be the chapel. On this spot the first Mass was offered up in Loewenstein.”
“Well, I will rebuild this, too, unbeliever though I am,” said Conrad. “And oh! would that my dead faith might be quickened as easily as these crumbled stones can be put into shape again. But, happily, women are still prayerful, and the young lady whom I hope to win shall have her chapel to pray in. But, alas! what desolation has come to this hallowed spot—what desolation! Everything gone except one tomb. I must not tread upon it, for doubtless one of your race lies buried underneath.”
“Only a few words on the monument are legible,” said Ulrich, stooping and brushing off the dust with his hands:
‘Hic jacet Walburga;
Requiescat in pace!’
The rest I cannot make out; but I remember hearing my father say that this Walburga was a Hungarian princess, who married Hugo von Loewenstein toward the close of the fourteenth century.”
“How sad is the fall of old families!” observed Conrad after a moment’s silence, during which his eyes remained fixed on the blurred slab at his feet. “But I sometimes believe there is a law which governs the strange and solemn procession of generations: as the wheel of time goes round and round, the king takes his turn at beggary, and the beggar shuffles off his rags and mounts up to the throne.”
“Therefore at some future day, if your notion be correct, I, or one of my descendants, will get this castle back again,” said Ulrich, smiling.
“Nowadays,” pursued Conrad, as if in soliloquy, “people affect to be democratic; we win our spurs by speculating in cotton, or grain, or some other stuff, instead of by brave deeds on the battle-field. Well, well, I for one prefer the helmet and the battle-axe to the chinking of the money-changers.” Then, turning to Ulrich: “It surprises you to hear me say this, eh?”
To tell the truth, it did surprise him; but Ulrich did not show it.
“Well, a fortnight ago I would not have spoken thus,” he continued. “But the truth is, the veriest democrat loves in his secret heart a pedigree; and if he hasn’t one, he’ll pay somebody to make him a family-tree; and then he’ll buy a ruin, as I have done, and get to feel as I feel, perhaps. Why, Ulrich, I do believe somebody has thrown a spell over me; ay, this fair lady sleeping under the old stone here has touched me with her spirit wand. Why, I feel as if I were a Loewenstein—I do! I do!” Here Conrad brandished his cane and repeated aloud the Loewenstein motto: Intaminatis fulget honoribus.
“How it would please Walburga to hear him talking thus!” said Ulrich inwardly. “Proud as she is, I think her heart might incline towards him.”
It should perhaps be observed that hardship had wrought little effect upon Walburga. It had scarcely bent her spirit at all; and not once since she quitted the home of her forefathers had she returned to visit the dearly-loved spot. “It would be too bitter a sight to see vulgar people wandering amid its ruins,” she would tell her brother. “I’d rather have Loewenstein disappear entirely, be covered up by the mountain, than that some rich upstart should buy it, then pull down the mite that is left of its glorious walls, and erect a modern villa in their stead.”
Nor had she for several years entered Moida Hofer’s store, where so many curious objects were exposed for sale; and once, when her friend had disposed of a Loewenstein clock, one of the primitive kind, with pendulum swinging in front—ay, and disposed of it, too, for a pretty good price—Moida did not dare mention the fact. Indeed, the old-curiosity shop was now a banished theme of conversation between them.
By and by, after telling Ulrich for the twentieth time how finely the castle was to be renovated, Conrad said: “Now let us go in and take some repose; for to-morrow, you know, we are to be up early—you to do a good day’s work, while I must be off by the first train to Munich, where I am determined to have another look at my Dream.”
With this they went back into the tower, and after trying, but without success, to drive the bats out of their dormitory, Conrad and Ulrich lay down to rest. The former was soon fast asleep; but the youth, who had a more vivid imagination, stayed awake a whole hour thinking of the many who had occupied this chamber in days gone by. The moon shimmering in through the iron-barred window over his head flung a weird halo round about the lady painted on the wall; and he could not but think what a very, very ghostly chamber it was.
A month had gone by since Ulrich had laid eyes on Moida Hofer—only a month, yet it seemed as long as six months. So next morning, when Conrad was making ready to descend the hill on his way to Munich, the youth thrust his hand into his pocket, and, drawing forth some small pieces of silver, counted them over carefully. With anxious heart he counted them, and to his great delight found that there was just enough money to carry him to his betrothed and back. The other, who had a quick eye, was not slow to read what was passing in Ulrich’s mind, and said: “Is there any message you wish delivered to Miss Hofer? Or perhaps you will accompany me? Do; and we may visit her curiosity-shop together. To-morrow will be time enough to begin work on the frescos.”
“Well, I own, sir,” replied Ulrich, “’twould give me great happiness to see my lady-love; and I’ll labor all the harder for making her a visit.”
Accordingly they both set out for Munich, which was reached in four hours—eight it seemed to the impatient travellers, who as soon as they arrived went straight to Fingergasse.
Never was street better named, for it is little broader than a finger, and consequently only at high noon does the sun cheer it with its rays.
But this morning Fingergasse looked anything but dismal to the young artist, who knew that a pair of bright eyes were about to greet him, and already were shooting floods of light into his heart.
“Why, Ulrich! Ulrich!” These were Moida’s first words as she flew towards him. Perhaps in presence of a stranger she may have expected only a warm shake of the hand in response or a pat on the cheek. But in an instant the arms of her lover were twined about her neck. Then, when the greeting was over, Conrad Seinsheim was introduced, and we need not say that the girl surveyed him carefully. Moida found him not handsome like her Ulrich; rather the opposite. But she admired his broad forehead and the energy which flashed through his eyes; even his air of sternness did not displease her, for she recognized in him a man with opinions of his own, a man of power and decision.
And now, reader, blame her not for telling Conrad frankly and in her most winning way that her store was the best place in town to find old curiosities. “Why, sir,” said Moida, “I have even some fourteenth-century chairs from Loewenstein Castle, of which doubtless you have heard. ’Tis the oldest castle in Tyrol, and——”
“Moida,” interrupted Ulrich, “did I not write to you that——”
“Oh, hush! hush!” said Moida, blushing and putting her plump hand over his mouth.
“Well, I am here,” observed Conrad, trying hard not to smile—“I am here purposely to buy everything your store contains; for I am now owner of Loewenstein, and mean to fit it up as far as possible in true mediæval style.”
“Really!” exclaimed Moida. “Really!”
Whereupon Conrad did smile outright at her look of surprise and joy. Then presently she turned towards Ulrich, and her lips moved as if she were trying to speak. But he could only guess what she wanted to say. Yes, Moida, if Conrad purchases all that your little store holds, then indeed you may name your wedding-day. And if a radiant expression can make a homely face beautiful, it would have been difficult to find a more beautiful girl than Moida at this moment.
After speaking volumes to Ulrich through her blue eyes, she turned again to Conrad and said in an earnest tone: “O, sir! how kind you are. I cannot find words to express my thanks.”
The latter waved his hand, as if to say, “Pray do not thank me,” then set about examining the curiosities. These consisted of nine chairs ranged side by side along the wall, half a dozen breast-plates and helmets, a stack of arquebuses and pikes, three crossbows, some silver plates and goblets, a ewer, a couple of clocks which had not ticked in a century, an earthenware stove quaintly embossed with scenes from Holy Writ, and apparently a countless number of smaller objects, such as seals, rings, miniatures, and coins.
Picking up one of the miniatures, Conrad exclaimed: “Why, I declare, this is very like a young lady whom I saw lately in the Pinakothek, only here is a full view of her face, whereas I saw but the profile of my Dream.”
At this remark Moida stepped up and whispered: “’Tis the portrait of Walburga, the spouse of Hugo von Loewenstein; and ’tis the only thing I am not willing to part with.” The other turned towards her a moment with an air of disappointment; then, perceiving that she was in earnest, he let the subject drop.
A few minutes later Conrad was on his way to the picture-gallery, while Ulrich remained to enjoy the company of his betrothed. The first thing Moida did was to run out and fetch him a mug of beer. This may seem too trivial a fact to relate; nevertheless, truth may as well be told. She knew that in Tyrol he had had only water or wine to drink; and what can equal Munich beer? As Ulrich quietly sipped the delicious beverage, her quick eye ran over his buttons. She took them all in at a glance, and in another moment Moida’s needle was busy mending a rent in his sleeve. But while the girl sewed, she ever and anon peeped up at his face, and thought to herself: “In the whole kingdom of Bavaria there is nobody can compare with my Ulrich.” And, moreover, full of common sense as Moida was, there was nothing she admired more than the two sword-cuts on her dear boy’s cheek, in shape like a cross; and well did she remember the day when he received them, now five years ago. For, like most German students, Ulrich had belonged to a corps (his was the Teutonia), and occasionally engaged in a duel. It was on that memorable day that he addressed her the first tender word, after having had his wounds sewed up; while Moida, as she listened with fluttering heart and drooping eyes, thought to herself: “I am the third one to whom he has said this. Oh! I wonder which of us will win?”
Then she pretended that she did not care a straw for him; whereupon Ulrich presented her with a beautiful nosegay—four florins it cost him—and the rest we need not narrate.
“By the way, how is Caro?” inquired Ulrich, after holding the glass to her lips and making Moida take a sip of the beer.
“As frisky as if he were a puppy,” answered the latter, highly pleased at the question. Ulrich knew it would please her.
“Well, wouldn’t it be nice to have the old dog settled at Loewenstein, where he might get plenty of fresh air and be outdoors as much as he chose?” added the youth.
“Ay; but what chance is there of that?—unless you were to take him; and he’d be rather troublesome.”
“No pet of yours would ever trouble me,” rejoined Ulrich. “And let me tell you, Moida, strange things happen in the world.”
With this he proceeded to reveal how much Conrad Seinsheim admired a certain young lady whom he had seen in the Pinakothek.
“’Tis the very one you heard him say that miniature is so like; and I know he is gone there now purposely to see her again. And it must be Walburga, for isn’t she copying Carlo Dolce’s picture of Innocence?”
Leaving Ulrich and his betrothed to discuss the possibility of a union between a Von Loewenstein and a Seinsheim, let us follow the footsteps of Conrad.
He found the one of whom he was in quest seated at her easel, perhaps a trifle nearer the wall than before, and with the same expression on her face which had so ravished his heart the first time he lighted upon her. She seemed not to notice his approach, and when at length Conrad ventured to ask if the copy she was making were for sale, Walburga replied, apparently with indifference, and without taking her eyes off the canvas: “Yes, sir, it is.” Yet how his question set her heart a-throbbing! For the sale of the picture would enable the girl to pay several bills that were due, as well as take a trip to Nuremberg, which for years she had been longing to visit; for Nuremberg was the birthplace of Albert Dürer.
“How differently Miss Hofer would have answered me!” thought Conrad, observing Walburga with close attention. “She would have looked me full in the face and completed a bargain forthwith; ay, and persuaded me, too, to offer a high price for the picture.” Then aloud, and addressing Walburga in courtly German style: “Well, if the gracious lady will allow me to possess her beautiful copy, I shall be delighted. For I have just bought an old castle in the Tyrol, which I mean to restore, as far as money may, to its former state of grandeur, and I promise you your painting shall adorn the fairest chamber in it.”
“An old castle, indeed!” murmured Walburga, still without glancing at him. She wondered whether it might be Loewenstein. Then presently, unable to contain her eager desire to know if it was or not, she said: “May I ask, sir, in what part of the Tyrol your castle is?”
“In the Innthal, not far from Innspruck; and it once belonged to the noble house of Von Loewenstein.”
At these words a flush crimsoned the girl’s cheek for a moment, then disappeared, leaving her paler than before; while her brush, always so steady, now tremblingly touched the canvas. At length, after vainly endeavoring to master her feelings, she let the brush drop and buried her face in her hands.
Conrad’s curiosity was here raised to a high pitch; for although Ulrich had not told him that he had a sister an artist, yet he was quick-witted, and since he had seen the miniature in the old curiosity-shop—and Moida, we remember, had informed him that it came from Loewenstein—Conrad had been hoping that the young lady whom he called his Dream might prove to be one of the Loewenstein family, a near relative of Ulrich’s—his sister, perhaps.
“And why not?” he asked himself. “A likeness may be handed down through many generations; it may vanish for a space, like a lost stream, then reappear in the person of a far-off descendant. And verily, this charming girl is the living image of Walburga, the bride of Hugo von Loewenstein. And, oh! if I am right, what a treasure she will be. True, I am not highborn, and she may not view me at first with favor. But I’ll go through fire to win her!”
Presently Walburga uncovered her face, and for the first time stole a furtive glance at the one who stood beside her. Then quick her eyes were fastened on the canvas again; and while Conrad was wondering at her shyness a tear rolled down her cheek. His curiosity to know who she was now increased tenfold, and he said, in a voice the tenderness of which he did not care to conceal:
“Gracious lady, pray be not offended if I ask whether you have ever been to Loewenstein?”
“I was there once; I never wish to lay eyes on it again,” answered Walburga, trying to conceal her emotion.
“Would it offend you if I were to inquire the reason why?” pursued Conrad, now scarcely doubting who she was.
For more than a minute Walburga did not trust herself to speak. Finally she said:
“What spot, sir, can be so sad as an abandoned home? Parting with our birthplace to strangers does not tear up the deep roots whereby our heart clings to it. We feel towards it as towards a dear friend whom we have deserted. O sir! for many, many years—for centuries”—here Walburga drew herself proudly up—“my race held the castle which now is yours; and I love it so much that I cannot speak of it with calmness. A friend dies and we hide him in the earth; a dead home remains, mournfully gazing on us whenever we pass by. ’Tis why I will not go near dear, dear Loewenstein: nothing so ghostlike as an abandoned home!”
By this time tears were glistening in the dark, cavernous eyes of her listener; and when Walburga finished speaking Conrad said:
“Gracious lady, you cannot imagine how precious to me the old ruin has become. I love it, too.”
Here for the second time Walburga looked at him, but, as before, only by a swift side-glance. Then she said: “I must return you thanks, sir, for your kindness to my brother. He wrote to a young lady, his betrothed, all about it, and she told me; and I sincerely rejoice that Loewenstein has fallen into the hands of a gentleman like yourself.”
“Then you are Ulrich’s sister?” exclaimed Conrad.
“His only sister, and he my only brother. You cannot tell how I miss him.”
“Well, he accompanied me today, and is now with Miss Hofer.”
“Indeed! How delighted I am!”
“And I am much pleased with his lady-love,” added Conrad.
“Well you may be, sir. She is the salt of the earth. Ulrich needs a shrewd, practical woman for his wife; for the dear fellow is somewhat of a dreamer like myself. We both of us live in the past. But now do let me know how you came to meet Moida Hofer.”
“It happened in this wise: Your brother told me there were in her curiosity-shop many relics from Loewenstein, which I determined to possess. And really, I was charmed with the few words she addressed to me; her ways are so sprightly and winning. And I, for my part, am curious to know how you fell in with the granddaughter of Hofer the Patriot.”
“Well, I’ll tell you all about it,” answered Walburga, as she went on finishing the golden hair of her picture. “You must know, sir, that Ulrich and I were left orphans at an early age, and immediately after the death of our parents the castle fell into the hands of the state; for there were many taxes unpaid, as well as heavy debts owing here and there. So away went Loewenstein. But, although quite penniless, God sent us in our uttermost need a generous lady, who had no children of her own, and who adopted us and gave us a home in Munich. This lady had a small fortune, enough to live comfortably on and to educate us. Ah! what should we have done without her? Well, ’twas during this happy period that Ulrich made Moida’s acquaintance. She was then an orphan, too, and clad in the picturesque costume of Tyrol; a real mountain daisy she was, and brother fell in love with her. Shortly thereafter our adopted mother died, bequeathing to us her fortune, and we little thought we should ever suffer want. But, alas! the bank where our money was placed failed, and all, or nearly all, was lost. Then poor Ulrich, who had already become engaged to Moida, feared that he could not be married—at least not so soon as he had hoped. ’Twas a bitter disappointment to them both. But Moida said: ‘Let us be patient and hope. I will never give you up.’ Brother and I were now fortunately well advanced in our art studies—Ulrich, moreover, had passed through the university—and we resolved to try and earn our bread by painting.
“But ’tis easier to paint a picture than to sell one”—here Walburga’s cheek reddened—“and so for Ulrich and I ’twas Lent all the year round; and we grew very thin, for we did not even eat fish. Until one day dear Moida discovered our miserable plight: we had done our best to conceal it. Then she insisted on doing her utmost to help us. She made me share her lodging; she even clothed me. And this was most noble in her, for Moida knew that our high-born acquaintances had told Ulrich he would be marrying infinitely beneath him if he married her. Yet not one of those proud families extended to us a helping hand. About this time Moida had set up a little store—the one she keeps to-day. But she would not let me help her to dispose of anything; she treated me as if she knew I was not born for such drudgery—sometimes archly saying I could not make a good bargain, which perhaps was true.
“But when the furniture of dear Loewenstein was sold at auction, and when Moida bought it all, oh! from that day I have not set foot in her curiosity-shop; for I know every clock and cup and pike and helmet, and ’twould break my heart to see this man and that coming in and cheapening those precious heirlooms. But Moida is not displeased with me for holding aloof; she respects my feelings, although not at all a sentimental girl herself. Unhappily during the past year business has been very dull, and she sells but few things, while the rent of the store keeps high; and only that my friend has great spirit she might almost fall into despair. Yet even now, in what I may call her darkest hour, she tells Ulrich to be cheerful, that their wedding-day will come sooner or later.”
“Yes, yes; very soon,” murmured Conrad, who felt tempted to lay bare at once his whole heart to Walburga. But a moment’s reflection deterred him: it might appear too abrupt, for the young lady had never seen or spoken to him before. So, while admiring her more and more, he resolved to wait a little.
But Walburga’s voice sounded so sweetly to his ears that Conrad urged her to go on and tell him something more about herself and Moida.
Whereupon Walburga smiled and hesitated; for although she had scarcely paused an instant with her brush, yet his presence was felt to be a distraction. If she interested him, it was no less certain that he interested her. She could not feel towards Conrad as towards a stranger; she knew that he had befriended Ulrich; that he was now the owner of the place where she was born; and that the many precious things which debt and the auction-sale had scattered to the winds he was bent on recovering and taking back to Loewenstein. What wrought most potently upon Walburga was the evident interest which he showed in herself. Instead of buying her picture and then retiring, Conrad had dallied half an hour by her side, and prevailed on her to talk about her affairs with an openness at which she inwardly blushed.
Nor was he at all like the other sight-seers who were wont to visit the gallery. The two shy glances she had given him had convinced her that Conrad was no ordinary man; that whatever his origin—even if he did not know who his great-grandfather was, as Ulrich had written to Moida—yet his was not a grovelling, low-born soul.
Accordingly, after remaining silent well-nigh a minute, Walburga yielded to his request and proceeded to tell him more about herself. “Moida and I and two others, sir,” she resumed, “have a home together—which makes four of us in one small lodging.”
“Four!” repeated Conrad, just a little disturbed and wondering who the other two might be.
“Yes, four. There is myself, Moida, Caro, and a nightingale.”
“Oh! indeed—Caro and a nightingale,” ejaculated her admirer, with a sense of relief he was hardly able to conceal.
“And never was a more peaceful home. Up under the roof it is; but that gives us fresh air, and into our dormer windows the sunshine comes sooner than into any other windows on the street.”
“And you have the sweetest of all birds to sing for you,” observed Conrad.
“Yes, indeed. But I sometimes think of giving my pet his freedom. Moida laughs at me for it. Moida is——”
“Not in the least sentimental,” interrupted the other, with a smile.
“Well, true, she is not. But my bird is now a prisoner, and I am sure he must feel lonesome where he is.”
“Oh! believe me, he is far happier as your prisoner than if he were enjoying the freedom of all the woods in Bavaria,” said Conrad, with a faint tremor in his voice.
“Indeed!” exclaimed Walburga, answering his emotion by a crimson spot on her cheek.
“Well, you may be right,” he added presently. “Your kind heart may tell you that your nightingale sighs for some other little bird to love.”
At these words the sweet, pink blush spread itself with the quickness of light over Walburga’s whole cheek, and she answered:
“I declare, ’tis just what I told Moida.”
“And what did she say?”
“Moida said—and no harm in repeating it—she said Ulrich was her nightingale.”
“Her nightingale! Well, really, your friend is sentimental; and I envy your brother. It must be the greatest of earthly joys to be happily wedded, as they soon will be.”
Here Walburga’s countenance grew suddenly pensive, and she murmured to herself: “Ay, the greatest of earthly joys.”
Conrad noticed the change in her expression and wondered at it. Then he thought to himself: “’Tis time for me to withdraw; I may be wearying her.”
But ere he retired he said: “May I come again, gracious lady, tomorrow or the day after? I sometimes have melancholy moods, but these lovely pictures bring the sunshine back to my heart; and the loveliest picture of all is in this part of the gallery.”
“You may, sir, if it pleases you,” was the answer he received. Then, making an obeisance, Conrad went away, leaving Walburga hardly in a fit state to continue her work; and she inwardly repeated the words which he had uttered about her nightingale: “Far happier as your prisoner than enjoying the freedom of all the woods in Bavaria.”
“What did he mean?” she asked herself. “What did he mean?”
A few minutes later the girl rose and went away too, still murmuring the question: “What did he mean?”
TO BE CONTINUED.
ROSARY STANZAS.
SORROWFUL MYSTERIES.
I.
Luke xxii. 44.
No impious hand, no torture-instrument
The Son of Mary yet has touched. Alone
His prostrate form upon the ground is rent
With cruel agony of blood to atone
For thy too easy life. A heart of stone
Could but dissolve before the piteous sight.
All through the Holy Hour he made his moan,
Beneath the olives, on the sacred height;
Wrongs of the ages saw in vision that dread night!
II.
John xix. 1.
An act, a little word, of God made man
Bears in itself his own immensity;
To him the universe is but a span,
A world’s full ransom his one tear might be.
Not as we reckon outlay reckons he,
Until his boundless love has lavished all.
The knotted scourge precedes the fatal tree.
Couldst thou return him less, if he should call?
Or would the martyr’s palm thy coward soul appall?
III.
John xix. 5.
A crown of thorns for him, a crown of bays
For such as I! A fool might surely deem
The servant greater than his Master. Praise
Might to the sinner merest irony seem,
The while the Sinless One is made a theme
Of ribaldry. Before his crown of thorn
Honor and earthly glory are a dream,
A phantom flimsier than of vapor born:
By that pierced brow the crown of all the worlds is worn.
IV.
Matt. xi. 30.
Simon to bear thy cross they would compel;
Yet for the deed, though done against his will,
On him and on his sons rich blessing fell,
As old traditions say. How richer still
The graces that the heart’s long thirst will fill
For him who runs that sacred load to meet,
And bear it upward to the holy hill!
To share His burden be my footstep fleet:
True love will make his yoke unfelt, his burden sweet.
V.
John i. 29.
Behold, the Lamb of God is crucified!
His head is bowed, to impart the kiss of peace;
Stretched are his arms, to draw thee to his side;
Opened his heart, thy heart’s love to increase.
His all is spent to purchase thy release.
Canst thou, my soul, love great as this refuse?
Henceforth in thee let sin’s dominion cease,
And with the Mother of the martyrs choose,
Rather than him in death, a whole world’s wealth to lose.