It is thus the sufferings of Christ are daily perpetuated in some member of his body in various parts of the world. We should all have a share in this great sacrifice of atonement, according to the measure of our calling, if not by personal labors, at least by our prayers and contributions. England is taking up the foreign missionary work. America, too, should have her part in it. Such a work would react on our own hearts, and develop a self-denial and generosity that would constrain us more powerfully in promoting every good work at home. As Archbishop Manning says: “It is because we have need of men and means at home that I am convinced we ought to send both men and means abroad—in exact proportion as we freely give what we have freely received will our works at home prosper, and the zeal and number of our priests be multiplied.”
[The Money God]; or, The Empire and the Papacy. A Tale of the Third Century. By M. A. Quinton. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. 1873.
The Empire and the Papacy—a title of fresh significance in these days. It is remarkable how soon the Roman emperors realized that their authority could not exist in Rome with that of the pope, the importance of whose office became more and more apparent. The influence of the papacy gradually widened, and so asserted itself as to overshadow the very authority of the emperor himself. It excited alarm. Decius declared he would rather hear of a rival springing up to contest for the empire than of the election of a new bishop of Rome. How notoriously eminent must have been the dignity of that office to excite such jealousy! Was it the dread of this new mysterious power that led so many of the emperors to exile themselves, as it were, from their capital? Though pope after pope lived in Rome, and died there, even if by martyrdom, not one emperor from the time of Heliogabalus till Constantine ended his days in that city. One was killed in Germany, another strangled in Carthage, a third slain in Thrace, a fourth killed by lightning beyond the Tigris; not one died in Rome. And for more than a century and a half they resided elsewhere, hardly daring to show themselves in the capital, because they felt more and more their moral isolation in the midst of the Roman people. Diocletian went to Rome to be recognized as emperor, but returned to Nicomedia. When Maximian was made his colleague and assumed the government of Italy, he did not establish himself at Rome, but chose Milan as his residence. Constantine’s great object, after triumphing over his enemies, was to leave Rome and found a new capital. “The same girdle could not enclose both the emperor and the pontiff,” says M. de Maistre; “Constantine gave up Rome to the pope.” It was a moral necessity that the papacy—a power “far above king, law, or popular right,” should be free, and this has never been contested with impunity since.
In the work before us, the contrasting influence of the empire and the papacy is exemplified in the history of two boys who were stolen from their mother in Thrace and sold at Rome as slaves. Separated in their childhood, one providentially fell into the hands of Agatho, a Christian hermit; the other gave himself to the service of Plutus, the “Money God.” We wish, for the sake of the young into whose hands this book may fall, that the early history of Eva, their mother, had been somewhat veiled. It affords, however, a strong contrast between the violent, passionate courtesan and the subdued and humble Christian which she finally becomes. A confessor of the faith, she fully redeems her early career by a life of penitence. Her sad form gives relief to that of Plautia, a noble Christian matron. Tertullian tells us how much Christianity improved the condition of woman. No sage of antiquity ever thought of developing her spiritual nature and thereby giving her greater moral elevation, but the humblest Christian priest made this a duty. We have only to read the writings of the Fathers, particularly S. Jerome, to realize the great renovation that took place in woman’s nature when her soul was awakened to higher aims and became conscious of a holier destiny. The Acts of the early martyrs set before us some of the noblest types of womanhood. There is a grandeur in their unalterable serenity of soul under persecution, examples of which are given in the book before us. Indebted so greatly to the Christian religion, woman became its efficient supporter. We learn from Ammianus Marcellinus that the first popes were chiefly supported by the offerings of the Roman matrons. Their devotion to the service of the church is manifest from the jealous exclamation of Diocletian: “I hate, as a usurpation of my powers, the influence of these Christian priests over the matrons.”
This tale of the IIId century evinces great familiarity on the part of the author with classical and antiquarian lore as well as the early Christian writers.
[The Nesbits]; or, A Mother’s Last Request, and other Tales. By Uncle Paul. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.
The first of these stories and the principal one, The Nesbits, is a rapid sketch of the life and fortunes of a young American, none the less interesting and, it may be hoped, true to nature because the figure of the hero, Ned Nesbit, is exactly the reverse of the “Young America” of the popular imagination. He is honest, manly, truthful, and religious; and it may be a surprise to some readers to find that those unusual characteristics of “Young America” neither make him insipid nor offer an insurmountable barrier to his success in life. The scenes of the story shift from the backwoods to New Orleans, from New Orleans to Mexico. There is plenty of fresh air, of sea and sky, pleasant bits of Mexican scenery and vistas of Mexican life; there are camping out and long rides and “brushes” with the Indians, hit off rapidly, and though in an unpretentious style, one admirably adapted to its purpose. There is a pleasant and harmless little love-plot that Uncle Paul’s chief readers—the young folk—are likely to vote “slow,” but they will find plenty of other things more congenial to their sanguinary tastes scattered throughout the book, while the tone is thoroughly Catholic from beginning to end. The second story of the volume—“The Little Sister of the Poor”—is a sketch, condensed from the French, of a little hunchback, who, finding her deformity rather an obstacle to her walking pleasantly in the ways of this world, and that even a dower of 10,000 francs did not serve to smooth it down, finally hides it away in religion, and becomes “a little sister.” The story would be very entertaining only that it may tend to strengthen the stupid idea so prevalent among non-Catholics, that the nun’s habit is a good covering for personal deformity, and that a convent is a sort of receptacle for ladies who can “do no better”: whereas, God culls his flowers where he wills, and women in convents are just the same as women anywhere else, with the exception that they have devoted their lives entirely to God’s service. In his last story—“The Orphan”—Uncle Paul has struck upon a vein which might be worked with as much profit as interest. It is a short, indeed too short, sketch of a thing that a few years back was of very common occurrence in this country. An Irish emigrant girl finds herself suddenly bereft of her parents, and placed in the keeping of a Protestant family. The author has made her position superior to that of the generality of her sisters under similar circumstances; she is a ward rather than a servant, and among friends rather than enemies to her race and faith. But even so, she finds herself, young and friendless, placed amid the thousand difficulties of Protestant surroundings. Her triumph over them is very touchingly told. The idea contained in this story might be worked to much greater advantage; and the tracing up some of those poor children who were snatched away and buried among heretical families, which, even if acting with the very best intentions, might consider the religion of these orphans something they were bound to abolish, would form a sadly interesting story, and one which would take in much of our recent Catholic history in this country.
[Wild Times.] A Tale of the Days of Queen Elizabeth. By Cecilia M. Caddell. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
This is a new and handsome edition of a story which, though it came out some years back in London, is probably unknown to very many of our readers. It is just one of those books which Catholics sadly stand in need of to adorn and grace their, to a certain extent, cumbersome literature. Miss Caddell has been fortunate in her choice of Wild Times, and Wild Times have been fortunate in Miss Caddell. The period of the Reformation forms for the Catholic of to-day the most interesting one of English history; and recent researches, such as are exhibited in F. Morris’ late books (Our Catholic Forefathers, and The Condition of Catholics under James I.) and others similar, are bringing that particular period home to us with a clearness and fulness of knowledge which tend to make us acquainted with all the intricacies and common details of life, particularly Catholic life in those wild times, as we are with the humdrum life of to-day. Miss Caddell’s story is really the history of one of the very few noble English Catholic families who stood firm to their faith in that dark hour, and who, for the simple reason of being true to their God, were, according to law, false to their sovereign and country. The chief characters are two young brothers, Sir Hugh and Amadée Glenthorne, the latter a Jesuit educated on the Continent, and returning by stealth to the work of the ministry, which at that time meant martyrdom; the former a fiery, high-spirited English gentleman, whose hot blood and lofty aspirations cannot run tamely in the dismal groove set him by the “law,” because he happens to be a Catholic, but who, when the hour of trial comes, and he is weighed in the balance, is not found wanting. Around these two, with their charming sister Amy, the plot gathers; and the tracing of their fortunes and misfortunes makes a most beautiful and moving tale. There are plenty of other characters in the book: Blanche Monteman, Hugh’s betrothed, and Guy, the lover of Amy, both Protestants, give occasion for some very skilfully constructed complications; and the proud nature of the girl, and the terrible fall of that pride, are given with what the lady author may allow to be called a masterhand. There is also a weird gipsy queen, Ulrique, who turns out eventually to be something quite different, powerfully drawn, whilst the premature death of the mischievous little imp, Tom Tit, is as touchingly told, if not more so, as that of Little Paul Dombey. To enter into the plot of the story further than has been done would be to deprive the reader of Wild Times of half the pleasure of a story so skilfully woven that the interest is sustained to the very last line, and its development hidden until the author chooses to disclose it. The style is of the purest, occasionally rising to the strongest, English. Miss Caddell has mastered the old forms, without making them as wearisome as some of Scott’s Northern dialects cannot fail to be to the unhappy uninitiated. The love in the story is by no means of the namby-pamby order, but good, and honest, and true; in a word, manly and womanly in the true sense of those words; and though mainly carried on between Catholic and Protestant, it serves for that very reason to heighten the interest of the story, and as here depicted seems a very natural thing in those wild times; whilst one has the hope all through that earthly love will blend with a higher. The gradual change effected in the blunt, fiery character of Hugh by the chastening hand of affliction, under which at first he chafes till you fear for him, but finally rises with all his strength of character to the heroism of a Sebastian, is as ably, though naturally and unconsciously, developed as anything the writer remembers seeing in this style of book. The only thing he quarrels with is the preface. Without being dogmatic on the point, it is very doubtful whether, “when the queen—Elizabeth—ascended the throne, Catholicity was still the religion of the great masses of the people, and was either secretly followed or openly professed by a large half of the noblest families in the land.” English history scarcely bears this out; and had only one-half the noblest families in the land been even secretly Catholics, still less such Catholics as Hugh Glenthorne and his brother, England would never have sworn by a goddess in petticoats, and Mr. Froude would never have felt compelled to write his history. Again, when the author speaks of “the brightest and bravest of the band who form a halo of glory round the throne of Queen Elizabeth,” the reader involuntarily asks himself, What band? And the very question is its own answer. Still, a notice is not for a preface; and however one may quarrel with that, with the story itself no fault can be found. It is a beautiful, high-toned, moving picture of noble Catholic struggle, suffering, and death, drawn evidently with infinite pains and after historic study, and with that highest art which is nearest nature.
[Peter’s Journey, and other Tales.] By the author of Marion Howard and Maggie’s Rosary. Wilfulness and its Consequences. By Lady Herbert. New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1873.