This is the style of lying (for what he says of the Jesuits is, we hardly need say, wholly untrue) that disgraces the religious writings of our opponents almost without exception. What does it mean? Simply this: "I fear, my dear, reluctant sceptic, that you are hungering after ritualism, which the Catholic Church possesses in beautiful harmony with all her dogmas. But don't look that way, or examine her claims upon your mind or religious sentiment, for the Catholic Church herself is becoming atheistic, as is shown by the atheistical tendencies of the Jesuits in Rome, and (aside—to make the lie more plausible I will say) this tendency has been noticed by devout Catholics, and is regarded by them with grief and anxiety." We can do nothing but cry shame upon such wretched and base subterfuges to withdraw the attention of sincere minds from an honest examination of the Catholic faith.
We blush for their unscrupulous and persistent system of misrepresentation, which quietly ignores alike our indignant denials and appeals to be heard; but we do not fear for the final result. All blows aimed at the Rock of Truth will only recoil with deadly force upon the aggressor. Her beauty will come out untarnished after every attempt at defilement; her purity and sanctity no defamation can long obscure; her divine truth is proof against the machinations and deceit of the father of lies and his children. Not in vain has the inspired prophet said of her: "No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that resisteth thee in judgment thou shall condemn." She is the divinely appointed exponent of God's word to man, whether written or not. "He that heareth you, heareth me," and her exposition has been uniform, harmonious, and consistent throughout; while the sects, left to their own fanciful interpretation of the only word which they have acknowledged as authoritative, present a lamentable picture of dissension and disbelief—"As children tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine."
From the French of Augustin Chevalier.
Decimated.
I.
It was seven in the evening when we arose from the table, where the conversation had for an hour or more run on the civil war which had just desolated Germany. General Bourdelaine, a tall, wiry specimen of the ancien officier, whom no one would imagine to be verging upon his eighty-fourth year, and who very probably will in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight celebrate the eighty-second anniversary of his leaving the military school in 1806, invited us for coffee into the study where ordinarily none but his most intimate friends are admitted; for the general, although on the retired list since 1845, has not yet begun to seek the repose of inactivity, and I have seen in that study of his an entire series of strategical plans (afterward published by the minister of war) of the principal battles of Napoleon in Champagne against the allied forces.
The study is large, although it seems small, so filled is every piece of furniture, shelf, and hook with coins, arms, plans, papers, portraits, busts, statuettes in marble and in bronze, books, globes, and drawing instruments, and all these not in absolute disorder, but in an apparent confusion which the general finds very convenient, inasmuch as everything is within reach.
It was not the first time I had been there. For the first time, however, on this particular evening, my eyes fell upon a plain boxwood frame hung on the wall opposite the chimney-piece, in a recess formed by two large book-cases. A brilliant point in the centre, which reflected the light of the lamp, attracted my attention. It was the enamel of a cross of the Legion of Honor, to which was attached, under the glass, a large band of crape which stretched to the four corners of the frame. On the left of the frame, on the outside, hung a huge silver watch, and on the right the golden acorn of a sword-knot.
The daughter of the general entered at this moment, followed by a servant bearing coffee and all the accessories upon a tray. There were now five of us in the room: the general, his daughter and his son-in law, a government clerk, and myself. Each one began in silence to discuss the smoking coffee; when the general, whose glance had unconsciously taken the same direction as mine, suddenly exclaimed: