FOOTNOTES:
[1] Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by Rev. I. T. Hecker, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C.
[2] New Departure of the Republican Party. By Henry Wilson. The Atlantic Monthly, Boston, January, 1871.
[3] If any one should feel astonished at our insisting not only upon the exact day, but the very hour, when certain things occurred, let him or her remember that the calculation of eclipses, passing backward from one to another (as though ascending the steps of a staircase), reaches and fixes the date—yes, the precise minute of day—when incidents took place between which and us the broad haze of twice a thousand years is interposed.
[4] For the rest, in support of the matters we have too briefly to recount, we could burden these pages with voluminous, and some of them most interesting and beautiful, extracts from both heathen and Christian works of classic fame and standard authority; with passages of direct and indirect evidence from Josephus, Phlegon, Plutarch, Saint Dionysius (our own true hero, the Areopagite of Greece, the St. Denis of France) [ad Apollophanem, epis. xi., and ad Polycarpum Antistidem, vii.]; Tertullian (Cont. Jud., c. 8); St. Augustine (Civ. Dei, lib. 14); St. Chrysostom (Hom. de Joanne Baptista); the Bollandists, Baronius, Eusebius, Tillemont, Huet, and a host of others.... But our statements will not need such detailed "stabilitation," because the facts, being notorious among scholars, will be impugned by no really educated man or thoroughly competent critic.
[5] The Roman Breviary thus speaks of St. Dionysius:
"Dionysius of Athens, one of the judges of the Areopagus, was versed in every kind of learning. It is said that, while yet in the errors of paganism, having noticed on the day on which Christ the Lord was crucified that the sun was eclipsed out of the regular course, he exclaimed: 'Either the God of nature is suffering, or the universe is on the point of dissolution.' When afterward the Apostle Paul came to Athens, and, being led to the Areopagus, explained the doctrine which he preached, teaching that Christ the Lord had risen, and that the dead would all return to life, Dionysius believed with many others. He was then baptized by the apostle and placed over the church in Athens. He afterward came to Rome, whence he was sent to Gaul by Pope Clement to preach the Gospel. Rusticus, a priest, and Eleutherius, a deacon, followed him to Paris. Here he was scourged, together with his companions, by the Prefect Fescennius, because he had converted many to Christianity; and, as he continued with the greatest constancy to preach the faith, he was afterward stretched upon a gridiron over a fire, and tortured in many other ways; as were likewise his companions. After bearing all these sufferings courageously and gladly, on the ninth of October, Dionysius, now more than a hundred years of age, together with the others, was beheaded. There is a tradition that he took up his head after it had been cut off, and walked with it in his hands a distance of two Roman miles. He wrote admirable and most beautiful books on the divine names, on the heavenly and ecclesiastical hierarchy, on mystical theology; and a number of others."
The Abbé Darras has published a work on the question of the identity of Dionysius of Athens with Dionysius, first Bishop of Paris, sustaining, with great strength and cogency of argument, the affirmative side. The authenticity of the works which pass under his name, although denied by nearly all modern critics, has been defended by Mgr. Darboy, Archbishop of Paris.—Ed. C. W.
[6] "The art of governing men does not consist in giving them license to do evil."—Père Lacordaire.
[7] The Life and Times of the Right Rev. John Timon, D.D., First Roman Catholic Bishop of Buffalo. By Charles G. Deuther. Buffalo: published by the Author.