“As to a certain malicious book which unhappily signalizes the age in which we live, we have been obliged to refer to it two or three times. We could have wished not to touch on it. The first sentiments of Catholics on this deplorable book have become much modified since they have been enabled to perceive more exactly the malicious industry of the author. While we see him assume the task of ignoring, we are convinced he is yet far from having lost the faith. He dare not look upon the crucifix face to face—he would fear to see the blood trickling down. In his conscience he declares himself a traitor. This is the confession which we read in his book, turned resolutely away from the light of day. We blame this miserable man, and we detest and abhor his crime; but he is to be pitied, and every Christian will be happy to say to him what Ananias said to Saul: ‘My brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road whence you are coming, has sent me to meet you, so that you may receive your sight.’”
A Discourse Commemorative of Hon. Samuel Williston. By W. S. Tyler, Williston Professor of Greek in Amherst College. Springfield, Mass.: Clark W. Bryan & Co. 1874.
The venerable gentleman commemorated in this discourse died on the 18th of July, 1874, at an advanced age, after a life which is in many respects remarkable and worthy of lasting remembrance. His history is interesting, as presenting the most distinctive and admirable traits of the genuine old-fashioned New England type of character. It is remarkable on account of the great works which he performed during his lifetime. It is honorable and worthy of remembrance on account of the great example it presents to wealthy men, of a man who realized the proper position which men of large fortunes ought to take in the community, as public benefactors, as founders, as stewards of wealth for the common good. Mr. Williston was the son of a poor country clergyman whose salary was $300 a year. Disappointed in his early efforts to obtain a liberal education by an affection of the eyes which debarred him from the pleasure of reading all his lifetime, he set himself to the task of making a fortune that he might have the means of promoting education and in other ways benefiting his fellow-men, especially those of his own neighborhood and commonwealth. He was successful in this undertaking, and, besides the large fortune which he left at death to his heirs, he is said to have bestowed a million of dollars in public beneficent works during his lifetime, and to have bequeathed more than half that sum by testament for similar purposes. He was the second founder of Amherst College, the founder of the Williston Seminary at Easthampton, and of the beautiful town of that name, which Prof. Tyler says “he found a mere hamlet, and left one of the richest and most beautiful towns in Hampshire County, a great educational and manufacturing centre, with beautiful farmhouses (villas they might almost be called) and several model villages clustered about elegant churches, and a model seminary of learning.” Mr. Williston gained during life, and left after him, the reputation of a man of integrity, probity, and high moral principle. His religious belief, which was that of the old-fashioned Congregationalists of Massachusetts, was his guiding and dominating idea, and he followed it up in practice consistently and conscientiously. The portrait prefixed to Prof. Tyler’s discourse is one very pleasant to look upon, and shows the face of an honest, sensible, good man, surmounted by an expansive, intellectual forehead, and set firmly upon a manly bust. One excellent feature in Mr. Williston’s character was his adherence to the principle that good education and healthy civilization must rest on a religious and Christian basis. In this respect, he contrasts favorably with a large and increasing class of Protestants, who are taking sides openly with infidels in the accursed work of secularizing education, and crying up merely material or intellectual progress. His panegyrist, Prof. Tyler, writes admirably upon this theme. This discourse, apart from the interest given to it by the truly noble life which it describes, is in itself remarkably full of fine thoughts, showing the effect of the deep study of the classics to which the learned author has devoted his life. We are pleased to notice the calm and just manner in which he touches incidentally upon some topics connected with the Catholic Church. Speaking of the honor which is due to those men who are founders of institutions useful to mankind, in a truly philosophical strain, and with illustrations drawn from both pagan and Christian history, he proceeds to say: “There are no names more hallowed in the Catholic Church than the founders of those monasteries which, with all their sins, have the merit of keeping religion and learning alive through the darkness and confusion of the Middle Ages. The founders, too, of those religious orders whose influence has been felt to the remotest bounds of Christendom, what veneration is felt for them by all good Catholics, from age to age! The names of S. Benedict, S. Dominic, S. Francis, and Ignatius Loyola have been canonized and embalmed in the religious societies which they established.” The fact that these words were pronounced in the pulpit of the chapel of Amherst College gives them a peculiar significance. We do not consider them as denoting any Catholic tendencies in Prof. Tyler or his associates, but merely a diminution of power in the old Protestant and Puritan tradition, and the existence of a more philosophical and eclectic spirit. The rationalizing movement which is disintegrating Protestant societies carries away a great deal of prejudice and error on its tide. It threatens also to sweep away the remnants and fragments of truth. Amherst, seated on the remote hills of Hampshire, has been safer from the flood, hitherto, than Cambridge and New Haven. Nevertheless, it must be invaded by the rising waters in its turn. There is nothing but the Catholic Church which can stand, when knowledge and reason take the place of the ignorance and credulity necessary to a blind following of the Reformation. The remnant of orthodox Protestants must therefore follow the inexorable logic of Luther’s principle into its consequences of sheer rationalism, or make their way back to Catholic faith. Individuals may remain stationary, but the mass has to move, and even the works of men who are both great and good rest on a sandy foundation, which will be undermined in a short time unless they are built on the rock of Catholic stability. Mr. Williston, we have no doubt, did his best, not only to create temporal well-being and prosperity, but also that which is higher, more lasting, and directed toward the eternal good, which is the chief end of man. Numbers of generous and noble hearts, like himself, have endeavored and are now striving toward the same objects, from the same motives. They are the pillars of the commonwealth, the real peers of the realm, the chief bulwark of our political and social state amid the horde of base, corrupt intriguers and demagogues, mammon worshippers and spendthrifts, crowding our legislative halls and marts of business, and flaunting in vulgar show through our streets. It is impossible, however, that the work which they strive singly to accomplish, whether for education, philanthropy, political reform and progress, or the promotion of the Christian religion, should be successfully performed except through Catholic unity and organization in the communion of the one true Church. If all the enlightened and virtuous men and women in the United States who believe that Jesus Christ is the Saviour, and Christianity the salvation of mankind were united in faith and directed by one authority, there is nothing which they could not accomplish on this vast field which God has given us, and which at present is to a great extent mere wild land. In conclusion, we express our thanks to Mrs. Emily G. Williston and the other executors of the Hon. Mr. Williston for their courtesy in sending us a copy of this discourse, which is printed in a most beautiful and tasteful manner.
The Child. By Mgr. Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans. Translated, with the author’s permission, by Kate Anderson. Boston: Patrick Donahoe. 1875.
Mgr. Dupanloup is one of the most eloquent orators and writers of France. The theme of the present book, which might have been handled in an able and complete and yet dull manner by another, is treated in a spirited, glowing, fascinating style by the illustrious Bishop of Orleans. It is a charming, attractive, and most important theme, handled by one who was a most enthusiastic and successful teacher of boys and youths before he became a bishop. Every parent, and especially every mother, should read this book; so also should those who have the charge of children and young people in schools or elsewhere. It is more specifically and precisely suitable to the case and condition of boys, as is natural, considering that the author has been more immediately engaged in the care of colleges than of convents. Yet, in general, its principles and instructions are appropriate for girls also, children being very nearly alike in most respects, whether they are boys or girls. In respect to the moral training of boys, there are some instructions very plainly and yet delicately given in the fourteenth and fifteenth chapters, which are specially necessary for a very large class at the present day and in our very corrupt state of society. In the wealthy and fashionable circle of American society, the children are very generally spoiled. Who is not familiar with the fast boy of fourteen, whose outward and visible sign is a blue ribbon on his straw hat, and with his sister of twelve, in short clothes, sparkling with jewelry, but dim-eyed, pale-faced, and thin, from keeping late hours and other precocious dissipations? The end of these fast young people is usually tragical. If not so, they are at the best wilted and spoiled, like bouquets of flowers which have remained for a whole day among lighted candles.
We regret to say that many of our wealthy Catholics, especially those who have suddenly acquired riches, strive to emulate in the race of extravagance and luxury the most utterly worldly class of people, who live professedly for mere earthly enjoyment. Their children are therefore trained in a way which is morally the very opposite of the Christian and Catholic method. In a lesser degree, the same loose, indulgent, soft, and effeminate style of bringing up children prevails in families where the spirit of the parents is less worldly and more religious. Boys and girls do not remain children long enough, and are not treated as children ought to be treated. They are too precociously developed into young ladies and gentlemen. So far as our observation extends, the education at home and at school which our Catholic boys of the more affluent class are receiving is much more defective in respect to religion and morality than that of the girls. They are more spoiled at home, and are less amenable to wholesome discipline and intellectual training at school than their sisters. They are also exposed to much greater danger of becoming essentially irreligious and vicious, and going utterly to ruin, before or soon after they attain their majority, and therefore great errors in their early training are more deplorable. All parents, and especially mothers, who are not wholly careless and frivolous, must perceive clearly and feel deeply the vital importance of this subject of the early training of boys. Let them read carefully and frequently this choice book of Bishop Dupanloup, and they will understand better how to reverence that wonderful and beautiful being—a regenerate child; how to train the child for the duty and the solid happiness of its earthly life, how to educate it for heaven.
Spain and the Spaniards. By N. L. Thiéblin. Boston: Lee & Shepard; New York: Lee, Shepard & Dillingham. 1875.
The corps of professional writers for the great newspapers of Europe and America is remarkable in many ways for talent, enterprise, courage, sagacity, and skill in that style of composition which is the most effective for the purposes of the secular press. Its esprit de corps is not very high as regards truth, the eternal principles of right and devotion to just and noble causes. It is to a great extent mercenary, unscrupulous, time-serving, skeptical, and superficial. Incidentally it often serves the cause of right and truth with great efficacy, and no doubt wages a very successful war on many evils and abuses in favor of certain temporal interests, diffuses a vast amount of information, and contributes its full quantity of force to the wheels that make the world spin round with an ever-increasing velocity. Certain of its members have made themselves truly famous in this present age by their explorations and their chronicles of wars or other great contemporary events, that almost rival Livy and Cæsar. It is only necessary to mention the names of Russell and Stanley as illustrations of this statement.
Mr. Thiéblin has won a high place among these brilliant writers for the press, by his extraordinary courage and enterprise in following up, first the military movements of the Franco-Prussian war, and more recently those of the Carlist campaigns, and his very great talent in describing what he has seen and learned with so much perseverance and effort. He is a good specimen of the corps to which he belongs. Apparently a mere free-thinker in respect to all the higher order of truth, solicitous only to see and narrate what is transpiring on the earth, an intellectual knight-errant and free lance, without any kind of allegiance to any power higher than the Pall Mall Gazette or the New York Herald, he is brave, good-humored, witty, and graphic; a keen observer, a charming narrator, with a great deal of justice and impartiality, and evidently telling the truth about those things which can be apprehended through the senses, and which his mind is capable of understanding. There are a few offensive remarks about Catholic matters, a few jeering allusions to things beyond his rather limited sphere of vision, and a moderate quantity of the usual newspaper political wisdom, upon which we place, of course, a very low estimate. The real substance of the book, however, which is the testimony of the writer respecting what he learned by personal observation respecting the army of Don Carlos and the state of things in Spain, is of the highest value and interest. We have not read a book with so much pleasure for a long time. The author takes us right into the Carlist camp and the romantic Vasco Navarrese country where Don Carlos is king, into the company of his generals and soldiers, into the houses of the parish priests, and among the loyal, religious peasantry. He has no sympathy with the religion of the Spaniards or the cause of Don Carlos, and his favorable testimony to the piety, morality, bravery, and good discipline of the faithful soldiers and subjects of the gallant prince are beyond cavil. The history of the eccentric and famous Curé of Santa Cruz is most curious. The authentic narrative of facts concerning the Carlist movement makes it evident to our mind that the prospects of ultimate and complete success in the effort of Don Carlos to gain possession of the kingdom are very encouraging. Mr. Thiéblin does not confine himself to an account of his experience in the Carlist camps. He gives a great deal of information gathered from the visits he made to the quarters of the Republicans, personal observation of the state of things in Madrid and other places, and conversations with prominent personages. He can appreciate what is admirable in Spain and the Spaniards much better than most non-Catholics; and being wholly free from Protestant sympathies, perceives clearly and ridicules freely the sham of Evangelical missions with their invariable concomitant of boastful and calumnious lying. As a very good sort of heathen, and an extremely clever man, with a fine taste for what is beautiful, and an eclectic habit of mind, he gives just and charming descriptions of many things in that Catholic country and people—in short, understanding the principles and causes which have produced that which he partially approves, but cannot estimate at its full worth, as he would do if he were a thorough and intelligent Catholic, in respect to the state of Catholic religion and piety in Spain, his account of the lapse from ancient faith is partly correct, but one-sided and imperfect, as that of a foreign and anti-Catholic observer must be. In respect to morality and general well-being and happiness, he is a competent witness, and his testimony shows how much better, happier, and more refined, in the true sense, the Spanish people, even in their present disorganized state are, than the mass of the population in England or the United States. In regard to Spanish politics, he sympathizes, of course, most perfectly with Castelar and the orderly, moderate Republicans, and next to these with the party of Don Alfonso. He makes an elaborate argument in favor of the claim of this young prince to be the inheritor of all the rights of Ferdinand VII. In our opinion, Don Carlos has the most valid title to this inheritance. But as we have no time to prove this, we must waive the question of legitimacy.
There is another right which has precedence of any right to inherit the throne: This is the right of the Church and nation to have restored and preserved the ancient heritage of the Spanish nation, those laws and institutions, and that government which are necessary to the religious and political well being of the whole people. The régime of the Christinos was destructive to both, and almost the whole nation acquiesced in the expulsion of Isabella. We do not think that the majority of even that portion of the Spaniards who are at present subject to Don Alfonso really consent to his rule, or that there is any guarantee that it will be better than that of the late queen. He has been taken up by the Liberals as a pis aller, and is only tolerated by the greater part of those who are loyal to the religion and constitution of the Spanish monarchy. Don Carlos, as his own published statements, particularly his recent letter to Louis Veuillot, prove, is the champion of religious and political regeneration. It is, therefore, desirable that his claim to the crown should be lawfully ratified, and receive whatever may be requisite to make it a perfect right in actual possession, by the act of the Spanish nation. We may say the same of the Comte de Chambord in respect to the throne of France. This is a sufficient reason why Catholics, even American Catholics, who are faithful to the Republic here, because it is an established and legitimate order, should be hostile to the Republican party in Spain and France, and to any kind of patched-up liberalistic monarchy in either country, and wish for the success of Don Carlos and Henri de Bourbon. There are some very good Catholics who think differently, even such staunch champions of the Catholic cause as our illustrious friend the Bishop of Salford, the editor of the London Tablet, and Dr. Ward. They seem to us to be mistaken and inconsistent, and we agree personally with the Civiltà Cattolica and the Univers that the cause of Charles VII. and Henry V. is the same with that of Pius IX. considered as a temporal sovereign, and closely connected with the triumph of his rights as Sovereign Pontiff. We have, moreover, the confident hope that the one will yet reign over regenerated Spain and the other over regenerated France, after the infamous Prussian tyranny shall have been trampled in the dust, and the usurper of the Quirinal shall have met the fate of all foregoing oppressors of the Holy See.