Transcriber's Note

This volume included the entire text of the [Dogmatic Decree on Catholic Faith] with its English translation. The Decree was not in the original contents list, but appeared—out of normal pagination—after the New Publications section at the end of the June 1870 issue.

Remaining notes are at the end of the text.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.

A
MONTHLY MAGAZINE
OF
General Literature and Science.

VOL. XI.
APRIL, 1870, TO SEPTEMBER, 1870.

NEW YORK:
THE CATHOLIC PUBLICATION HOUSE,
9 Warren Street.
1870.

S. W. GREEN,
Printer,
16 and 18 Jacob St., N. Y.

CONTENTS.

POETRY.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XI., No. 61.—APRIL, 1870.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY.[1]
LAST ARTICLE.

In our third article on the Abbé Martin's exhaustive work on the future of Protestantism and Catholicity, we disposed of the pretension of Protestants that the Reformation created and has sustained civil and political liberty in modern society. We proceed in the present and concluding article to dispose, as far as we can, of the pretension that it has founded and sustained religious liberty, or the freedom of conscience.

No fact is more certain than that the Reformation has the credit with non-Catholics, if not even with some half-instructed Catholics themselves, of having originated religious liberty and vindicated the freedom of the mind. Here as elsewhere the formula of the age, or what claims to be enlightened in it, is, Protestantism and freedom, or Catholicity and slavery; and it is to its prestige of having founded and sustained religious liberty that Protestantism owes its chief ability in our times to carry on its war against the church. Protestantism, like all false religions or systems, having no foundation in truth and no vital energy of its own, lives and prospers only by availing itself of the so-called spirit of the age, or by appealing to the dominant public opinion of the time and the place. In the sixteenth century, the age tended to the revival of imperialism or cæsarism, and Protestantism favored monarchical absolutism, and drew from it its life, its force, and its sustenance.

The spirit or dominant tendency of our age, dating from the middle of the last century, has been and is the revival of the pagan republic, or, as we call it, democratic cæsarism, which asserts for the people as the state the supremacy which under imperialism is asserted for the emperor. Protestantism lives and sustains itself now only by appealing to and representing this tendency, as we may see in the contemporary objections to the church, that she is "behind the age," "does not conform to the age," "is hostile to the spirit of the age," "opposed to the spirit of the nineteenth century."

Every age, nation, or community understands by liberty, freedom to follow unrestrained its own dominant tendency; we might say, its own dominant passion. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, liberty meant the freedom of temporal sovereigns to govern according to their own good pleasure, unrestrained by the church, on the one hand, and estates, diets, or parliaments, on the other. Liberty means now the freedom of the people, unrestrained either by the rights of God or the rights of princes, to govern as they or the demagogues, their masters, judge proper. Hence, liberty, as the world understands it, varies in its meaning from age to age, and from nation to nation, and, indeed, from individual to individual. Whatever favors or is in accordance with the dominant tendency or passion of an age, nation, community, or individual, favors or is in accordance with liberty; and whatever opposes or impedes it is opposed to liberty—is civil, political, or spiritual despotism. Protestantism never resists, but always follows, and encourages and echoes the dominant tendency of the age or nation. The church, having a life and force derived from a source independent of the age or nation, seeks not support in that dominant passion or tendency, does not yield or conform to it, but labors unceasingly and with all her energy to conform it to herself. Hence, in the estimation of the world, Protestantism is always on the side of liberty, and the church on the side of despotism and slavery.

The attempt to deny this, and to prove that the church favors liberty in this sense, is perfectly idle; and to seek to modify her position and action, so as to force her to accept and conform to the dominant or popular tendency or passion of the age or nation, is to mistake her essential character and office, and to forget that her precise mission is to govern all men and nations, kings and peoples, sovereigns and subjects, and to conform them to the invariable and inflexible law of God, which she is appointed by God himself to declare and apply, and therefore to resist with all her might every passion or tendency of every age, nation, community, or individual, whenever and wherever it deviates from that law of which she is the guardian and judge. The church is instituted, as every Catholic who understands his religion believes, to guard and defend the rights of God on earth against any and every enemy, at all times and in all places. She therefore does not and cannot accept, or in any degree favor, liberty in the Protestant sense of liberty, and if liberty in that sense be the true sense, the Protestant pretension cannot be successfully denied.

But we have already seen that liberty in the Protestant sense is no liberty at all, or a liberty that in the civil and political order is identified with cæsarism—the absolutism of the prince in a monarchy, the absolutism of the people or of the ruling majority for the time in a democracy. This last might be inferred from the ostracism practised in democratic Athens, and is asserted and defended, or rather taken for granted, by almost the entire secular press in democratic America. The most conservative politicians among us recognize the justice of no restrictions on the will of the people but such as are imposed by written constitutions, and which a majority or three fourths of the voters may alter at will and as they will. It is the boast of our popular orators and writers that there are with us no restrictions on the absolute will of the people but such as the people voluntarily impose on themselves, which, as self-imposed, are simply no restrictions at all. It is evident, then, if liberty means any thing, if there is any difference between liberty and despotism, freedom and slavery, the Protestant understanding of liberty is not the true one.

Nor is the Protestant understanding of religious liberty a whit more true. We have found that the basis or principle of all civil and political liberty is religious liberty, or the freedom and independence of religion—that is to say, the spiritual order; but from the point of view of Protestantism there is no religion, no spiritual order, to be free and independent. According to Protestantism, religion is a function, not a substantive existence or an objective reality. It is, as we have seen, on Protestant principles, a function of the state, of the community, or of the individual, and whatever liberty there may be in the case, must be predicated of one or another of these, not of religion, or the spiritual order. With Protestants the freedom and independence of religion or the spiritual order would be an absurdity, for it is precisely that which they began by protesting against. It is of the very essence of Protestantism to deny and make unrelenting war on the freedom and independence of religion, and the only liberty in the case it can assert is the freedom of the state, the community, or the individual from religion as law, and the right of one or another of them to adopt or reject any religion or none at all as they choose, which is irreligious or infidel, not religious liberty.

Protestantism, under its most favorable aspect, is not, even in the estimation of Protestants themselves, religion, or a religion; but the view of religion which the reformers took, or which men take or may take of religion. At best it is not the objective truth or reality, but a human doctrine or theory of it, which has no existence out of the mind that forms or entertains it. Hence, Protestants assert, as their cardinal doctrine, justification by faith alone; and which faith is not the truth, but the mind's view of it. Hence, too, they deny that the sacraments are efficacious ex opere operato, and maintain that, if efficacious at all, they are so ex opere suscipientis. They reject the Real Presence as a "fond imagination," and make every thing in religion depend on the subjective faith, conviction, or persuasion of the recipient. The church they recognize or assert is no living organism, no kingdom of God on earth, founded to teach and govern all men and nations in all things pertaining to eternal life or the spiritual end of man, but a simple association of individuals, with no life or authority except what it derives from the individuals associated, and which is not hers, but theirs.

Some Protestants go so far as to doubt or deny that there is any truth or reality independent of the mind, and hold that man is himself his own teacher and his own law-giver; but all concede, nay, maintain, that what is known or is present to the mind is never the reality, the truth, or the divine law itself, but the mind's own representation of it. Hence their Protestantism is not something fixed and invariable, the same in all times and places, but varies as the mind of Protestants itself varies, or as their views, convictions, or feelings change, and they change ever with the spirit of the age or country. One of their gravest objections to the church was, in the sixteenth century, that she had altered the faith; and in the nineteenth century is, that she does not alter it, that she remains inflexibly the same, and absolutely refuses to change her faith to suit the times. They hold their own faith and doctrine alterable at will, and are continually changing it. Evidently, then, they do not hold it to be the truth; for truth never changes: nor to be the law of God, which they are bound to obey; for if the law of God is alterable at all, it can be so only by God himself, never by man, any body of men, or any creature of God. There is no Protestant ignorant or conceited enough to maintain the contrary.

This fact that Protestantism is a theory, a doctrine, or a view of religion, not the objective reality itself, not the recognition and assertion of the rights of God, but a human view or theory of them, proves sufficiently that it is incompatible with the assertion of religious liberty. All it can do is to assert the right or liberty of the state to adopt and ordain any view of religion it may take; of the community to form and enforce its own views, convictions, or opinions; or of the individual to make a religion to suit himself, or to go without any religion at all, as he pleases. In none of these cases is there any religious liberty; and in them all religion is subjected to a purely human authority—the authority of the state, of the community, or of the individual, one as human as another. Protestantism is really in its very nature and essence an earnest and solemn protest against religious liberty, and for it to assert the freedom and independence of religion, or the spiritual order—that is, of religion as law to which all men are bound to conform—would be to commit suicide. Even the supremacy of the spiritual order, which our old Puritans asserted, was only the assertion of the authority of their interpretation of the written word against the divine authority to interpret it claimed by the church, and against the human authority of the civil magistrate claimed by Anglicanism, from which they separated, while it subjected it to the congregation, the brotherhood, or to the ministers and elders, no more spiritual than the civil magistrate himself.

In the beginning Protestantism made religion in nearly all Protestant nations a function of the state, as it is still in Great Britain, Prussia, the several Protestant German states, in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Holland, and the Protestant cantons of Switzerland. The progress of events, and the changes of opinion, have produced a revolt among Protestant nations against this order, and Protestants now make, or are struggling to make, it a function of the community or the sect, and the more advanced party of them demand that it be made a function of the individual. This advanced party do not demand the freedom of religion, but the freedom of the individual from all religious restraints, from all obligations of obedience to any religious law, and indeed of any law at all, except the law he imposes on himself. Dr. Bellows, of this city, a champion of this party, proves that it is not the freedom of religion, nor the freedom of the individual to be of any religion he chooses; for he denies that he is free to be a Catholic, though he is free to be any thing else. He tells Catholics they are only tolerated; and threatens them with extermination by the sword, if they dare claim equal rights with Protestants, and insist on having their proportion of the public schools under their own control, or on not being taxed to support schools to which they cannot with a good conscience send their children.

Evidently, then, the pretension that the Reformation has founded or favored religious liberty is as worthless as we have seen is the pretension that it has founded or favored civil and political liberty. It has, on the contrary, uniformly opposed it, and asserted only the liberty of its contradiction. To assert the liberty of the state, the people, or the individual to control religion, or to assert the liberty of infidelity or no-religion, surely is not to assert the liberty of religion. Protestantism yields always to the spirit of the age, and asserts the right of that spirit to modify, alter, or subject religion to itself. There can be no religious liberty where religion must follow the spirit of the times, and change as it changes. Religion, if any thing, is the supreme law of conscience, and conscience is a mere name if obliged to obey as its supreme law the dominant passion or tendency of the age or nation. The freedom of conscience is not in the emancipation of conscience from all law, for that were its destruction; but in its being subjected to no law but the law of God, promulgated by divine authority, and declared to the understanding by God himself, or a court appointed, enlightened, and assisted by the Holy Spirit. Under Protestantism there is and can be no freedom of conscience; for under it conscience is either destroyed by being subjected to no law, or enslaved by being subjected to another law than the law of God.

This conclusion, which we obtain by a simple analysis of Protestantism, is confirmed by all the facts in the case. Every student of the history of Protestantism knows that the reformers never made the pretension now put forth in their name. No man was ever farther from proposing the emancipation of the mind from what is called spiritual thraldom than Martin Luther, and no man ever showed less respect for human reason. His aim was to emancipate the church from the authority of the pope; and in this laudable work he engaged the princes of the empire, who were ready to assist him, because in doing so they could also emancipate themselves, make themselves pontiffs as well as princes, and enrich themselves with the spoils of the church. But Luther substituted for the authority of the pope and councils that of the written word, as amended and interpreted by himself. He never recognized the so-called right of private judgement, and never asserted the right of every man to interpret the written word for himself. The Bible as interpreted by himself, Martin Luther, was to be taken in all cases as the supreme and only authority, and he would tolerate no dissent from his interpretation. He assumed for himself more than papal authority; for he confessedly assumed authority to alter the written word, which assuredly no pope ever did. He never admitted any right of dissent from his dicta, and wherever he could, he suppressed it by the strong arm of power.

John Calvin was not more tolerant, as the burning of Michael Servetus over a slow fire made of green wood, and his pamphlet justifying the burning of heretics, amply prove. Henry VIII. of England put to death Catholics and Lollards, beheaded Cardinal Fisher and Sir Thomas More, because they refused to take the oath of the royal supremacy, except with the qualification, "as far as the law of Christ permits." In Sweden, the peasants were entrapped into the support of the Reformation by the infamous Gustavus Vasa, under pretence of recovering and reëstablishing the national independence; and after the prince had regained by their aid his throne and been crowned king, were massacred by thousands because they wished still to adhere to the Catholic Church, and resisted its abolition. In Geneva, Protestantism gained a footing in much the same way. Protestants came from Berne and other places to assist the citizens in a political rebellion against their prince, who was also their bishop, and afterward drove out the Catholics who could not be forced to accept the Reformation.

We need not pursue the history of the establishment of Protestantism, which is written in blood. Suffice it to say, that in no country was the Reformation introduced but by the aid of the civil power, and in no state in which it gained the mastery did it fail to be established as the religion of the state, and to obtain the suppression by force or civil pains and penalties of the old religion, and of all forms even of Protestant dissent. The state religion was bound hand and foot, and could move only by permission of the temporal sovereign, and no other religion was tolerated. We all know the penal laws against Catholics in England, Ireland, and Scotland, reënacted with additional severity under William and Mary, almost in the eighteenth century. James II., it is equally well known, lost the crown of his three kingdoms by an edict of toleration, which, as it tolerated Catholics, was denounced as an act of outrageous tyranny. The penal laws against Catholics were adopted by the Episcopalian colony of Virginia, and the Puritan colony of Massachusetts made it an offence punishable with banishment from the colony for a citizen to harbor a Catholic priest for a single night, or to give him a single meal of victuals. It was only in 1788 that the Presbyterian Assembly of the United States expunged from their confession of faith the article which declares it the duty of the civil magistrate to extirpate heretics and idolaters—an article still retained by their brethren in Scotland, and by the United Presbyterians in this country.

Indeed, toleration is quite a recent discovery. Old John Cotton, the first minister of Boston, took care to warn his hearers or readers that he did not defend "that devil's doctrine, toleration." Toleration to a limited extent first began to be practised among Protestants on the acquisition of provinces whose religion was different from that of the state making the acquisition. The example was followed of the pagan Romans, who tolerated the national religion of every conquered, tributary, or allied nation, though they tolerated no religion which was not national, and for three hundred years martyred Christians because their religion was not national, but Catholic. It is only since Voltaire and the Encyclopædists preached toleration as the most effective weapon in their arsenal, as they supposed, against Christianity, or the beginnings of the French Revolution of 1789, that Protestants have taken up the strain, professed toleration, and claimed to be, and, in the face and eyes of all history, always to have been, the champions of religious liberty and the freedom of conscience. It was not till 1829 that the very imperfect Catholic Relief Bill passed in the British parliament, and the complete disestablishment of Congregationalism as the state religion in Massachusetts did not take place till 1835, though dissenters had for some time previous been tolerated.

Yet in no Protestant state has complete liberty been extended to Catholics. The French Revolution, with its high-flown phrases of liberty, equality, brotherhood, and religious freedom, suppressed the Catholic religion, and imprisoned, deported, or massacred the bishops and priests who would not abandon it for the civil church it ordained. We ourselves, though very young at the time, remember the exultation of our Protestant neighbors when the first Napoleon dragged the venerable and saintly Pius VII. from his throne and held him a prisoner, first at Savona, and afterward at Fontainebleau. "Babylon is fallen," they cried; "the man-child has slain the beast with seven heads and ten horns." The revolutions, ostensibly social and political, which have been going on in the Catholic nations of Europe, and are still in process, and which everywhere are hostile to the church, have the warm sympathy of Protestants of every nation, and in Italy and Spain have been aided and abetted by Protestant associations and contributions, as part and parcel of the Protestant programme for the abolition of the papacy and the destruction of our holy religion.

Protestants now tolerate Protestant dissenters, and allow Jews and infidels equal rights with themselves; but they find great difficulty in regarding any outrage on the freedom of the church as an outrage on religious liberty. She is Catholic, not national, over all nations, and subject to none; therefore no nation should tolerate her. Even in this country Protestants very reluctantly suffer her presence, and the liberal Dr. Bellows, a Protestant of Protestants, warns, as we have seen, Catholics not to attempt to act as if they stood on an equality with Protestants. It is only a few years since the whole country was agitated by the Know-Nothing movement, got up in secret lodges, for the purpose, if not of outlawing or banishing Catholics, at least of depriving them of civil and political citizenship. The movement professed to be a movement in part against naturalizing persons of foreign birth, but really for the exclusion of such persons only in so far as they were Catholics. The controversy now raging on the school question proves that Protestants are very far from feeling that Catholics have equal rights with themselves, or that the Catholic conscience is entitled to any respect or consideration from the state. Public opinion proscribes us, and no Catholic could be chosen to represent a purely Protestant constituency in any legislative body, if known to be such and to be devoted to his religion. Our only protection, under God, is the fact that we have votes which the leaders of all parties want; yet there is a movement now going on for female suffrage, which, if successful, will, it is hoped, swamp our votes by bringing to the polls swarms of fanatical women, the creatures of fanatical preachers, together with other swarms of infidel, lewd, or shameless women, who detest Catholic marriage and wish to be relieved of its restraints, as well as of their duties as mothers. This may turn the scale against us; for Catholic women have too much delicacy, and too much of that retiring modesty that becomes the sex, to be seen at the polls.

But the imperfect toleration practised by Protestants is by no means due to their Protestantism, but to their growing indifference to religion, and to the conviction of Protestant and non-Catholic governments, that their supremacy over the spiritual order is so well established, their victory so complete, that all danger of its renewing the struggle to bring them again under its law is past. Let come what may, the spiritual order can never regain its former supremacy, or Cæsar tremble again at the bar of Peter. Cæsar fancies that he has shorn the church so completely of her Catholicity, except as an empty name, and so fully subjected her to his own or the national authority, that he has no longer any need to be intolerant. Why not, indeed, amnesty the poor Catholics, who can no longer be dangerous to the national sovereign, or interfere with the policy of the state?

For ourselves, we do not pretend that the church is or ever has been tolerant. She is undeniably intolerant in her own order, as the law, as truth is intolerant, though she does not necessarily require the state to be intolerant. She certainly is opposed to what the nineteenth century calls religious liberty, which, we have seen, is simply the liberty of infidelity or irreligion. She does not teach views or opinions, but presents the independent truth, the reality itself; proclaims, declares, and applies the law of God, always and everywhere one and the same. She cannot, then, while faithful to her trust, allow the truth to be denied without censuring those who knowingly deny it, or the law to be disobeyed without condemning those who disobey it. But always and everywhere does the church assert, and, as far as she can, maintain the full and perfect liberty of religion, the entire freedom and independence of the spiritual order, to be itself and to act according to its own laws—that is, religious liberty in her sense, and, if the words mean any thing, religious liberty in its only true and legitimate sense.

The nineteenth century may not be able to understand it, or, if understanding it, to accept it; yet it is true that the spiritual is the superior, and the law of the temporal. The supremacy belongs in all things of right to God, represented on earth by the church or the spiritual order. The temporal has no rights, no legitimacy save as subordinated to the spiritual—that is, to the end for which man is created and exists. The end for which all creatures are made and exist is not temporal, but spiritual and eternal; for it is God himself who is the final cause as well as the first cause of creation. The end, or God as final cause, prescribes the law which all men must obey, or fail of attaining their end, which is their supreme good. This law all men and nations, kings and peoples, sovereigns and subjects, are alike bound to obey; it is for all men, for states and empires, no less than for individuals, the supreme law, the law and the only law that binds the conscience.

Now, religion is this law, and includes all that it commands to be done, all that it forbids to be done, and all the means and conditions of its fulfilment. The church, as all Catholics hold, is the embodiment of this law, and is therefore in her very nature and constitution teleological. She speaks always and everywhere with the authority of God, as the final cause of creation, and therefore her words are law, her commands are the commands of God. Christ, who is God as well as man, is her personality, and therefore she lives, teaches, and governs in him, and he in her. This being so, it is clear that religious liberty must consist in the unrestrained freedom and independence of the church to teach and govern all men and nations, princes and people, rulers and ruled, in all things enjoined by the teleological law of man's existence, and therefore in the recognition and maintenance for the church of that very supreme authority which the popes have always claimed, and against which the Reformation protested, and which secular princes are generally disposed to resist when it crosses their pride, their policy, their ambition, or their love of power. Manifestly, then, religious liberty and Protestantism are mutually antagonistic, each warring against the other.

The church asserts and vindicates the rights of God in the government of men, and hence is she called the kingdom of God on earth. The rights of God are the foundation of all human rights; for man cannot create or originate rights, since he is a creature, not his own, and belongs, all he is and all he has, to his Creator. God's rights being perfect and absolute, extend to all his creatures; and he has therefore the right that no one of his creatures oppress or wrong another, and that justice be done alike by all men to all men. We can wrong no man, deprive no man of life, liberty, or the pursuit of happiness, without violating the rights of God and offending our Maker. "Inasmuch as ye did it to the least of my brethren, ye did it unto me." Hence, the church in asserting and vindicating the rights of God, asserts and protects in the fullest manner possible the so-called inalienable rights of man, opposes with divine authority all tyranny, all despotism, all arbitrary power, all wrong, all oppression, every species of slavery, and asserts the fullest liberty, political, civil, social, and individual, that is possible without confounding liberty with license. The liberty she sustains is true liberty; for it is that of which our Lord speaks when he says, "If the Son makes you free, ye shall be free indeed." The church keeps, guards, declares, and applies the divine law, of which human laws must be transcripts in order to have the force or vigor of laws. Man has in his own right no power to legislate for man, and the state can rightfully govern only by virtue of authority from God. Hence, St. Paul says, Non est potestas nisi a Deo. "There is no power except from God."

The church in asserting the supremacy of the law of God or of the spiritual order, asserts not only religious liberty, but all true liberty, civil, political, social, and individual; and we have seen that liberty, the basis and condition of civilization, was steadily advancing in all these respects during the middle ages till interrupted by the revival of paganism in the fifteenth century and the outbreak of Protestantism in the sixteenth. The Reformation did not emancipate society from spiritual thraldom, but raised it up in revolt against legitimate authority, and deprived it of all protection, on the one hand, against arbitrary power, and, on the other, against anarchy and unbounded lawlessness, as the experience of more than three centuries has proved. There is not a government in Europe that is not daily conspired against, and it requires five millions of armed soldiers even in time of peace to maintain internal order, and give some little security to property and life. To pretend that the authority of the church, as the organ of the spiritual order, is despotic, is to use words without understanding their meaning. Her authority is only that of the law of God, and she uses it only to maintain the rights of God, the basis and condition of the rights of individuals and of society. Man's rights, whether social or individual, civil or political, are the rights of God in and over man, and they can be maintained only by maintaining the rights of God, or, what is the same thing, the authority of the church of God in the government of human affairs. Atheism is the denial of liberty, as also is pantheism, which denies God as creator.

There is no liberty where there is no authority competent to assert and maintain it, or where there is no authority derived from God, who only hath dominion. The men who seek to get rid of authority as the condition of asserting liberty are bereft of reason, and more in need of physic and good regimen than of argument. Liberty is not in being exempt from obedience, but in being held to obey only the rightful or legitimate authority. God's right to govern his creatures is full and perfect, and any authority he delegates or authorizes to be exercised in his name, is legitimate, and in no sense abridges or interferes with liberty—unless by liberty you mean license—but is the sole condition of its maintenance. God's dominion over man is absolute, but is not despotic or tyrannical, since it is only his absolute right. The authority of the church, however extended it may be, and she is the judge of its extent and its limitations, as the court is the judge of its own jurisdiction, is not despotic, tyrannical, or oppressive, because it is the authority of God exercised through her.

The pretension of Protestants that Protestantism favors liberty, and the church despotism, is based on the supposition that authority negatives liberty and liberty negatives authority, that whatever is given to the one is taken from the other; a supposition refuted some time since, in the magazine for October last, in an article entitled An Imaginary Contradiction, and need detain us no longer at present. Just or legitimate authority, founded on the rights of God, and instituted to assert and maintain them in human affairs, confirms and protects liberty instead of impairing it.

Yet there is no doubt that the church condemns liberty in the sense of the Reformation, and especially in that of the nineteenth century. Protestantism denies infallibility to the church and assumes it for the age, for the state, for public opinion—that is, for the world. The most shocking blasphemy in its eyes is to assert that the age is fallible and cannot be relied on as a safe or sure guide. We differ from the Protestant; we attribute infallibility to the church, and deny it to the age, even though the age be this enlightened nineteenth century. We do not believe it is always wise or prudent to suffer one's self to be carried away by the dominant tendency or passion of this or any other age. It is characteristic of every age to fix upon one special object or class of objects, and to pursue them with an exclusiveness and a concentrated passion and energy that render them practically evil, even though good when taken in their place and wisely pursued. Even maternal affection becomes evil and destructive, if not guided or restrained by wisdom and prudence. Philanthropy is a noble sentiment; yet men and women in our own age, carried away, dazzled, and blinded by it, only produce evils they would avoid, defeat the very good they would effect. The spirit of our age is that of the production, accumulation, and possession of material goods. Material goods in their proper measure and place are needed; but when their production and accumulation become with an individual or an age an engrossing passion that excludes the spiritual and the eternal, they are evil, and lead only to ruin, both spiritual and material, as daily experience proves.

The church, then, instituted to teach the truth and to secure obedience to the law of God, directed always by her divine ideal, is forced to resist always and everywhere the age, that is, the world, instead of following its spirit, and to labor for its correction, not for its encouragement. Hence always is there more or less opposition between the church and what is called the spirit of the age, and their mutual concordance is never to be looked for so long as the world stands. Hence the church in this world is the church militant, and her normal life one of never-ending struggle with the world—spirit of the age, der Welt-Geist—the flesh, and the devil. It is only by this struggle that she makes conquests for heaven, and prevents civil governments from degenerating into intolerable tyrannies, and society from lapsing into pagan darkness and superstition.

We have, we think, sufficiently disposed of the Protestant pretension, and if any of our readers think we have not fully done it, we refer them to the work before us. There is no doubt that the boldness, not to say impudence, with which the Protestant pretension is urged, and the support it receives from the rationalistic journalism and literature which form contemporary public opinion in Catholic nations, coupled with the general ignorance of history and the shortness of men's memories, accounts for the chief success of Protestant missions in unmaking Catholics, which, though very limited, is yet much greater than it is pleasant to think. Yet gradually the truth will find its way to the public; even Protestants themselves will by and by tell it, piece by piece, as they are now doing. They have already refuted many of the falsehoods and calumnies they began by inventing and publishing against the church, and in due time they will refute the rest.

The abbé shows very clearly that the toleration now accepted and to some extent practised, and the liberty now allowed to the various sects, will most likely have a disastrous effect on the future of Protestantism. It must sooner or later, he thinks, lead to the demolition of the Protestant national establishments. National churches cannot coexist with unlimited freedom of dissent. The English Church must soon follow the fate of the Anglican Church in Ireland. Its disestablishment is only a question of time. So it will be before long in all Protestant nations that have a national church. The doctrine of toleration and freedom for all sects and opinions not only tends to produce indifference to dogmatic theology, but is itself a result of that indifference; and indifference to dogmatic truth is a more formidable enemy to deal with than out-and-out disbelief or positive infidelity. A soul breathing forth threatenings, and filled with rage against Christians, can be converted, and became Paul the apostle and doctor of the Gentiles; but the conversion of a Gallio, who cares for none of these things, is a rare event.

With the several sects, doctrinal differences are daily becoming matters of less and less importance. Who hears now of controversies between Calvinists and Arminians? Even the New School and the Old School Presbyterians, though separated by grave dogmatic differences, unite and form one and the same ecclesiastical body; Presbyterians and Methodists work together in harmony; Orthodox Congregationalists show signs of fraternizing with Unitarians, and Unitarians fraternize with Radicals who reject the very name of Christian, and can hardly be said to believe even in God. One need not any longer believe any thing, except that Catholicity is a gross superstition, and the church a spiritual despotism, the grand enemy of the human race, in order to be a good and acceptable Protestant. A certain inward sentiment, emotion, or affection, which even a pantheist or an atheist may experience, suffices. The dread presence of the church, hatred of Catholicity, the zeal inspired by party attachment, and the hope of finally arriving at some solid footing, may keep up appearances for some time to come; the eloquence, the polished manners, the personal influence, and the demagogic arts and address of the preacher may continue for a while to fill a few fashionable meeting-houses; but when success depends on the personal character and address of the minister, as is rapidly becoming the fact in all Protestant sects, we may take it for granted that Protestantism has seen its best days, is going the way of all the earth, and soon the place that has known it shall know it no more for ever.

Protestantism, with all deference to our author, who pronounces it imperishable, we venture to say, has well-nigh run its course. It began by divorcing the church from the papacy and subjecting religion to the national authority, subordinating the spiritual to the temporal, the priest to the magistrate, the representative of heaven to the representative of earth. It constituted the national sovereign the supreme head and governor, the pontifex maximus, after the manner of the Gentiles, of the national religion, or the national church, and punished dissent as treason against the prince. It was at first, and for over two centuries, bitterly intolerant, especially against Catholics, whom it persecuted with a refined cruelty which recalled, if it did not surpass, that practised by paganism on Christians in the martyr ages.

Tired of persecution, or finding it impotent to prevent dissent, Protestantism tried after a while its hand at civil toleration. The state tolerated, to a greater or less extent, at first only Protestant dissenters from the established church; but at last, though with many restrictions, and with the sword ever suspended over their heads, even Catholics themselves. From civil toleration, from ceasing to cut the throats and confiscate the goods of Catholics, and of Protestant recusants, it is passing now to theological tolerance, or what it calls complete religious liberty, though as yet only its advanced-guard have reached it.

The state, unless in the American republic, does not, indeed, disclaim its supremacy over the church; but it leaves religion to take care of itself, as a thing beneath the notice of the civil magistrate, so long as it abstains from interfering with state policy, or meddling with politics. To-day Protestantism divorces, or is seeking to divorce, the church from the state, as it began by divorcing both her and the state from the papacy; it divorces religion from the church and from morality, Christianity from Christ, faith from dogma, piety from reason, and it resolves into an affection of man's emotional or sentimental nature. We find persons calling themselves Christians who do not believe in Christ, or regard him as a myth, and godly, who do not even believe in God. We have men, and women too, who demand the disruption of the marriage tie in the name of morality, and free love in the name of purity. Words lose their meaning. The churl is called liberal, things bitter are called sweet, and things profane are called holy. Not many years since, there was published in England, and republished here, an earnest and ingenious poem, designed to rehabilitate Satan, and chanting his merits as man's noblest, best, and truest friend. In the mean time, every thing regarded as religion loses its hold on the new generations; moral corruption of all sorts in public, domestic, and private life is making fearful progress throughout the Anglo-Saxon world, the mainstay of Protestantism; and society seems tottering on the verge of dissolution. Such is the career Protestantism has run, is running, or, by the merciless logic to which it is subjected, will be forced to run. What hope, then, can Protestants have for its future?

As to the future of Catholicity, we are under no apprehensions. We know that never can the church be in this world the church triumphant, and that she and the world will always be in a state of mutual hostility; but the hostility can never harm her, though it may cause the spiritual ruin of the individuals and nations that war against her. The Protestant world have for over three hundred years been trying to get on without her, and have succeeded but indifferently. Sensible and earnest-minded men among Protestants themselves boldly pronounce that the experiment has failed, which most Protestants inwardly feel, and sadly deplore; but like the poor man in Balzac's novel, who has spent his own patrimony, his wife's dower, the portion of his daughter, with all he could borrow, beg, or steal, and reduced his wife, his children, and himself to utter destitution, in the recherche d'absolu, they are buoyed up by the feeling that they are just a-going to succeed. But even this feeling cannot last always. Hope too long "deferred maketh the heart sick." It may be long yet, and many souls for whom Christ has died be lost, before the nations that have apostatized learn wisdom enough to abandon the delusive hope, and turn again to Him whom they have rejected, or look again, weeping, on the face of Him whom they have crucified. But the church will stand, whether they return or not; for she is founded on a rock that cannot be shaken, on the eternal truth of God, that cannot fail.

The Protestant experiment has demonstrated beyond question that the very things in the Catholic Church which are most offensive to this age, and for which it wages unrelenting war against her, are precisely those things it most needs for its own protection and safety. It needs, first of all, the Catholic Church—nay, the papacy itself—to declare and apply the law of God to states and empires, to sovereigns and subjects, kings and peoples, that politics may no longer be divorced from religion, but be rendered subsidiary to the spiritual, the eternal end of man, for which both individuals and society exist and civil governments are instituted. It needs the church to declare and enforce the law, by such means as she judges proper, that should govern the relation of the sexes; to hallow and protect marriage, the basis of the family, as the family is of society, that great sacrament or mysterious union, typical of the union of Christ with the church, which is indissoluble; to take charge of education, and to train up, or cause to be trained up, the young in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, or in the way they should go, that when old they shall not depart from it; to teach maidens modesty and reserve, and wives and mothers due submission to their husbands and proper care of their children; to assert and protect the rights of women; to train them to be contented to be women, and not to aspire to be men, or to usurp the functions of men, and to bid them stay at home, and not be gadding abroad, running over the country and spouting nonsense, free love, infidelity, impiety, and blasphemy, at suffrage conventions and other gatherings, at which it is a shame for a woman to open her mouth, or even to be present; and, most of all, to exercise a vigilant censorship over ideas, whether vented in books, journals, or lectures, and to keep from the public those which tend to mislead the mind or corrupt the heart, as a prudent father strives to keep them from his children.

The age needs for this the Catholic Church. A national church cannot do it; far less can the sects do it. These all depend on the public opinion of the age, the nation, or the sect, and have no power to withstand that opinion. This is perhaps better understood here than elsewhere. The sects, being creatures of opinion, have no power to control it, and their tendency is invariably to seize upon every opinion, excitement, or movement that is, or is likely to be, popular, and help it on as the means of swelling, when it is at flood-tide, their own respective numbers. A national church has undoubtedly more stability, and is not so easily wrested from its moorings. But it has only the stability of the government that ordains it, and the most absolute government must sooner or later yield to the force of opinion. Opinion has disestablished and disendowed the state church in Ireland, and will, as is most likely, do it ere long in both England and Scotland. The Protestant sects have no alternative; they must either yield to the dominant opinion, tendency, or passion of the times and move on with it, or be swept away by it.

It is only a church truly catholic, that depends on no nation, that extends to all, and is over all, that derives not its being or its strength from the opinion of courts or of peoples, but rests on God for her being, her law, and her support, that can maintain her integrity, or have the courage to stand before an age or a nation, denounce its errors, and condemn its dominant passion or tendency, or that would be heeded, if she did. It was only the visible head of the Catholic Church, the vicar of Christ, that could perform the heroic act of publishing in this century the Syllabus; and if, as we are confident they have, the prelates assembled in the Council of the Vatican have some share of the courage of their chief, their decrees will not only draw the attention of the world anew to the church, but go far to prove to apostate nations and truculent governments that she takes counsel of God, not of the weakness and timidity of men.

A few more such acts as the publication of the Syllabus and the convocation of the council now sitting at Rome, joined to the manifest failure of Protestantism, will serve to open the eyes of the people, disabuse non-Catholics of the delusions under which they are led away to their own destruction. The very freedom, though false in principle, which is suffered in Protestant nations, while it removes all restraints from infidelity, immorality, and blasphemy, aids the victory of the church over her enemies. It ruins them by suffering them to run into all manner of excesses; but she can use it without danger and with advantage where there are minds to be convinced or hearts to be won; for she can abide the freest examination, the most rigid investigation and scrutiny, while the indwelling Holy Ghost cannot fail to protect her from all error on either side. The present delusions of the loud-boasting nineteenth century must give way before her as she once more stands forth in her true light, and her present enemies be vanquished.

DION AND THE SIBYLS.
A CLASSIC, CHRISTIAN NOVEL.

BY MILES GERALD KEON, COLONIAL SECRETARY, BERMUDA, AUTHOR OF "HARDING, THE MONEY-SPINNER," ETC.

DEDICATION.

I dedicate the following work to Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton, not only in appreciation of one of the most searching, comprehensive, independent, and indefatigable thinkers, and one of the truest and highest men of genius, of whom it has ever been the lot of his own country and of the English-speaking races to be proud, and the fate of contemporary nations to feel honorably jealous; not only in admiration of a mind which nature made great, and which study has to the last degree cultivated, whose influence and authority have been steadily rising since he first began to labor in literary fields more varied than almost any into which ONE person had previously dared to carry the efforts of the intellect; but still more as an humble token of the grateful love which I feel in return for the faithful and consistent friendship and the innumerable services with which a great genius and a great man has honored me during twenty years.

Paris, Jan. 18, 1870.

Miles Gerald Keon.

INTRODUCTION.

The historical romance of Mr. Keon, now republished with the author's most cordial permission and his latest corrections, was first printed in London, in 1866, by Mr. Bentley, publisher in ordinary to the Queen. The edition was brought out in a very handsome style, and sold at the high price of a guinea. Notwithstanding the heavy price at which the work was furnished to our transpontine kinsfolk, (or at least to the "upper ten thousand" of them,) it is at this moment out of print, and an effort made about two years ago to procure copies for sale in this country was unsuccessful. The copy kindly sent us by the author was accidentally mislaid for several months, and this circumstance, together with the desire to give our readers the opportunity of perusing the work as soon as their attention should be directed to it by a notice such as its high merit demands, caused us to delay the proper public acknowledgment to the author until the present moment. Its success in England, in spite of the nationality and religion of the writer, is no slight proof of its intrinsic excellence, especially when we consider that he ventured into a field which the subject-matter of the book would turn into the very home and headquarters of English prejudice.

To every effect adequate cause; and, in this instance, to those who take up the story of Dion, one cause of its success will, before they have gone half way through its events and adventures, speak for itself. Yet, however light to read, the work has, we feel convinced, been in the last degree laborious both to plan and to execute. "Easy writing," said Thomas Moore, "very often makes fearfully hard reading." We believe the converse has often proved equally true.

We are glad to learn that Mr. Keon has recently received a far more gratifying recognition of his distinguished merit than any other to which a Catholic author can aspire. At a private audience granted him by Pius IX., His Holiness complimented him on his services to literature and religion, and gave him a beautiful rosary of pearl as a token of his august favor.

One word more, and we shall let the story itself begin to be heard. The epoch of Dion was the turning-point of all human history—the hinge of the fateful gates, the moment of the mightiest and most stupendous transition our world has ever known, the transition of transitions; the moment on this earth of a superplanetary, supercosmic drama. There were two suns in the heavens; one rising, never to set; the other going down to rise no more. At no epoch had human genius blazed so luminous, or human pride poised itself on wings so wide, in a sphere so sublime; but this genius was for the first time confronted in its own sphere by divine inspiration and a supernatural authority. The setting of a classic though pagan day saw the dawning day of Christianity. There were two suns in one sky at the same moment. The doubtful cross-lights of two civilizations over-arched the world with a vault of shifting, contending, contrary, and awful splendors—those of one order in the utmost intensity of their radiance, those of the other in their first, glimmering beginnings; a seeming confusion; an internecine war; a hazy mingling of embattled glories as full of meaning as it was of mystery.

Ed. Cath. World.

CHAPTER I.

It was a fair evening in autumn, toward the end of the year eleven of our Lord. Augustus Cæsar was a white-haired, olive-complexioned, and somewhat frail-featured, though stately man of more than seventy-three. At the beginning of the century in which this was written, the face of the first Napoleon recalled to the minds of antiquaries and students of numismatic remains the lineaments, engraved upon the extant coins of Augustus. Indeed, at this moment there is in the Vatican a beautiful marble bust in excellent preservation, representing one of these two emperors as he was while yet young; and this bust almost invariably produces a curious effect upon the stranger who contemplates it for the first time. "That is certainly a beautiful artistic work," he says, "but the likeness is hardly perfect."

"Likeness of whom?" replies some Italian friend. "Of the emperor," says the stranger. "Sicuro! But which emperor?" asks the Italian, smiling. "Of course, the first," says the visitor; "not this one." "But that represents Augustus Cæsar, not Napoleon Bonaparte," is the answer. Whereupon the stranger, who, a moment before had very justly pronounced the resemblance to Bonaparte to be hardly perfect, exclaims, not less justly, What an amazing likeness to Napoleon! That sort of admiring surprise is intelligible. Had the bust been designed as an image of the great modern conqueror, there had been something to censure. But the work which, at one and the same time, delineates the second Cæsar, and yet now after 1800 years recalls to mind the first Napoleon, has become a curious monument indeed.

The second Roman emperor, however, had not a forehead so broad and commanding nor so marble smooth as Napoleon's, and the whole countenance, at the time when our narrative begins, offered a more decisively aquiline curve, with more numerous and much thinner lines about the mouth. Still, even at the age which he had then reached—in the year eleven of our Lord—he showed traces of that amazing beauty which had enchanted the whole classic world in the days of his youth. Three years more, and his reign and life were to go down in a great, broad, calm, treacherous sunset together.

After the senate had rewarded the histrionic and purely make-believe moderation of its master—and in truth its destroyer—by giving to one who had named himself Princeps the greater name of Augustus, the former title, like a left-off robe, too good to be thrown away, was carefully picked up, brushed into all its gloss, and appropriated by a second performer. We allude, of course, to Drusus Tiberius Claudius Nero, the future emperor, best known by his second name of Tiberius. The first and third names had belonged to his brother also. Tiberius was then "Prince and Cæsar," as the new slang of flattery termed him; he was stepson of Augustus and already adopted heir, solemnly designatus. He was verging upon the close of his fifty-third year of cautious profligacy, clandestine vindictiveness, and strictly-regulated vices. History has not accused him of murdering Agrippa Vespasianus; but had Agrippa survived, he would have held all Tiberius's present offices. Ælius Sejanus, commander of the prætorian guards, was occupied in watching the monthly, watching even the daily, decay of strength in the living emperor, and was pandering to the passions of his probable successor. Up to this time Sejanus had been, and still was, thus employed. More dangerous hopes had not arisen in his bosom; he had not yet indulged in the vision of becoming master of the known world—a dream which, some twenty years afterward, consigned him to cruel and sudden destruction. No conspirator, perhaps, ever exercised more craft and patience in preparing, or betrayed more stupidity at last in executing, an attempt at treason on so great a scale. It was forty-six years since Sallust had expired amid the luxuries which cruelty and rapine accumulated, after profligacy had first brought him acquainted with want.

Ovid had just been sent into exile at Temesvar in Turkey—then called Tomos in Scythia. Cornelius Nepos was ending his days in the personal privacy and literary notoriety in which he had lived. Virgil had been dead a whole generation; so had Tibullus; Catullus, half a century; Propertius, some twenty years; Horace and Mæcenas, about as long. The grateful master of the curiosa felicitas verborum had followed in three weeks to—not the grave, indeed, but—the urn, the patron whom he had immortalized in the first of his odes, the first of his epodes, the first of his satires, and the first of his epistles; and the mighty sovereign upon whose youthful court those three characters—a wise, mild, clement, yet firm minister, a glorious epic poet, and an unsurpassed lyrist—have reflected so much and such enduring lustre, had faithfully and unceasingly lamented their irreparable loss. Lucius Varius was the fashionable poet, the laureate of the day; and Mæcenas being removed, Tiberius sought to govern indirectly, as minister, all those matters which he did not control directly and immediately, as one of the two Cæsars whom Augustus had appointed. Velleius Paterculus, the cavalry colonel, or military tribune, (chiliarch,) a prosperous and accomplished patrician, was beginning to shine at once in letters and at the court. The grandson of Livia, grandson also of Augustus by his marriage with her, but really grand-nephew of that emperor—we mean the son of Antonia, the celebrated Germanicus, second and more worthy bearer of that surname—a youth full of fire and genius, and tingling with noble blood—was preparing to atone for the disgraces and to repair the disasters which Quintilius Varus, one year before, amidst the uncleared forests of Germany, had brought upon the imperial arms and the Roman name. Germanicus, indeed, was about to fulfil the more important part of a celebrated classic injunction; he was going to do things worthy to be written, "while the supple courtier of all Cæsars, Paterculus, was endeavoring to write something worthy to be read." Strabo had not long before commenced his system of geography, which, for about thirty years yet to come, was to engage his attention and dictate his travels. Livy, of the "pictured page," who doubtless may be called, next to Tacitus, the most eloquent without being set down as quite the most credulous of classic historians—I venture to say so, pace Niebuhr—was over sixty-eight years of age, but scarcely looked sixty. He was even then thoroughly and universally appreciated. No man living had received more genuine marks of honor—not even the emperor. His hundred and forty-two books of Roman history had filled the known world with his praises, a glory which length of days allowed him fully to enjoy. Modern readers appreciate and admire the thirty-five books which alone are left, and linger over the beauties, quasi stellis, with which they shine. Yet who knows but these may be among the poorest productions of Livy's genius? A very simple sum in arithmetic would satisfy an actuary that we must have lost the most valuable emanations of the Paduan's great mind. Given a salvage of five-and-thirty out of a hundred and forty-two, and yet the whole of this wreck so marvellous in beauty! surely that which is gone for ever must have included much that is equal, probably something far superior to what time has spared.

There is a curious fact recorded by Pliny the younger, which speaks for itself. A Spaniard of Cadiz had, only some five months before the date of our story, journeyed from the ends of the earth to Rome merely to obtain a sight of Livy. There were imperial shows in the forum and hippodrome and circus at the time; there were races on foot, and on horseback, and in chariots; fights there were of all kinds—men against wild animals, men against each other; with the sword, with the deadly cestus; wrestling matches, and the dreadful battles of gladiators, five hundred a side; in short, all the glitter and the glories and the horrors of the old classic arena in its culminating days. There was also a strange new Greek fence, since inherited by Naples, and preserved all through the middle ages down to this hour, with the straight, pliant, three-edged rapier, to witness which even ladies thronged with interest and partisanship. But the Spaniard from Gades (Cervantes might surely have had such an ancestor) asked only to be shown Titus Livius. Which in yonder group is Livy? The wayfarer cared for nothing else that Roman civilization or Roman vanity could show him. The great writer was pointed out, and then the traveller, having satisfied the motive which had brought him to Rome, went back to Ostia, where his lugger, if I may so call it, lay, (I picture it a kind of "wing-and-wing" rigged vessel;) and, refusing to profane his eyes with any meaner spectacle, set sail again for Spain, where his youth had been illumined with the visions presented to a sympathetic imagination by the most charming of classical historians. The Spaniards from an immemorial age are deemed to have been heroes and appreciators of heroes; and no doubt this literary pilgrim, once more at home, recurred many a time, long pondering, to the glorious deeds of the Fabia Gens.

How many other similar examples Livy may have recorded for him we moderns cannot say. Before his gaze arose the finished column from the fragments whereof we have gathered up some scattered bricks and marbles. Niebuhr had to deal with a ruin, and he who ought to have guessed at and reconstructed the plan of it, has contented himself with trying to demolish its form.

Long previously to the date of our tale, Augustus, trembling under the despotism of his wife Livia, had begun to repeat those lamentations (with which scholars are familiar) for the times when Mæcenas had guided his active day, and Virgil and Horace had beguiled his lettered evenings. Virgil, as is well known, had been tormented with asthma, and ought possibly to have lived much longer but for some unrecorded imprudence. Horace, as is likewise well known, had been tormented with sore eyelids—and with wine; he was "blear-eyed," (lippus.) Augustus, therefore, used to say wittily, as he placed them on each hand of him at the symposium, which had been recently borrowed in Italy from the Greeks, but had not yet degenerated into the debauchery and extravagance into which they afterward sank more and more deeply during successive reigns, "I sit between sighs and tears." In suspiriis sedeo et in lachrymis. But he had long lost these so-called sighs and tears at either hand of him. The sighs and tears were now his own.

CHAPTER II.

Our chronicle commences in Campania, with the Tyrrhenian Sea (now the southerly waters of the Gulf of Genoa) on a traveller's left hand if he looks north. It was a fair evening in autumn, as we have remarked, during that age and state of the world the broad outlines of which we have briefly given. Along the Appian, or, as it long afterward came to be also called, the Trajan Way, the queen of roads, a conveyance drawn by two horses, a carriage of the common hackney description, not unlike one species of the vettura used by the modern Italians, was rolling swiftly northward between the stage of Minturnæ and the next stage, which was a lonely post-house a few miles south of the interesting town of Formiæ—not Forum Appii, or the Three Taverns, a place more than fifty miles away in the direction of Rome, and upon the same road.

Inside the carriage were a lady in middle life, whose face, once lovely, was still sweet and charming, and a very pale, beautiful female child, each dressed in a black ricinium,[2] or mourning robe, drawn over the top of the head. The girl was about twelve years old, or a little more, and seemed to be suffering much and grievously. She faced the horses, and on her side sat the lady fanning her and watching her with a look which always spoke love, and now and again anguish. Opposite to them, with his back to the horses, wearing a sort of dark lacerna, or thin, light great-coat, of costly material, but of a fashion which was deemed in Italy at that day either foreign or vulgar, as the case might be, sat a youth of about eighteen. The child was leaning back with her eyes closed. The youth, as he watched her, sighed now and then. At last he put both hands to his face, and, leaning his head forward, suffered tears to flow silently through his fingers. The lacerna which he wore was fastened at the breast by two fibulæ, or clasps of silver, and girt round his waist with a broad, brown, sheeny leather belt, stamped and traced after some Asiatic mode. In a loop of this belt, at his left side, was secured within its black scabbard an unfamiliar, outlandish-looking, long, straight, three-edged sword, which he had pulled round so as to rest the point before his feet, bringing the blade between his knees, and the hilt, which was gay with emeralds, in front of his chest.

The Romans still very generally went bare-headed,[3] even out of doors, except that those who continued to wear the toga drew it over their heads as the weather needed, and those who wore the penula used the hood of it in the same way. But upon the hilt of the sword we have described the youth had flung a sort of petasus, or deep-rimmed hat, with a flat top, and one black feather at the side, not stuck perpendicularly into the band, but so trained half round it as to produce a reckless, rakish effect, of which the owner was unconscious.

"Agatha," said the lady, in a low, tender voice, the delicate Greek ring of which was full of persuasion, "look up, beloved child! Your brother and I, at least, are left. Think no more of the past. The gods have taken your father, after men had taken his and your inheritance. But our part in life is not yet over. Did not your parents too, in times past—did not we too, I say, lose ours? Did you not know you were probably to live longer than your poor father? Are you not to survive me also? Perhaps soon."

With a cry of dismay the young girl threw her arms round the lady's neck and sobbed. The other, while she shed tears, exclaimed:

"I thank that unknown power, of whom Dionysius the Athenian, my young countryman, so sublimely speaks, that the child weeps at last! Weep, Agatha, weep; but mourn not mute in the cowardice of despair! Mourn not for your father in a way unbecoming of his child and mine. Mourn not as though indeed you were not ours. My husband is gone for ever, but he went in honor. The courageless grief, that canker without voice or tears, which would slay his child, will not bring back to me the partner of my days, nor to you your father. We must not dishearten but cheer your brother Paulus for the battle which is before him."

"I wish to do so, my mother," said Agatha.

"When I recover my rights," broke in the youth at this point, "my father will come and sit among the lares, round the ever-burning fire in the atrium of our hereditary house, Agatha; and therefore courage! You are ill; but Charicles, the great physician of Tiberius Cæsar, is our countryman, and he will attend you. He can cure almost any thing, they say. And if you feel fatigued, no wonder, so help me! Minime mirum mehercle! Have we not travelled without intermission, by land and by sea, all the way from Thrace? But now, one more change of horses brings us to Formiæ, and then we shall be at our journey's end. Meantime, dear child, look up; see yonder woods, and the garden-like shore."

And having first tried in vain to brighten the horn window at the side of the vehicle, specular corneum, (glass was used only in the private carriages of the rich,) he stood up, and calling over the hide roof of the carriage, which was open in front—the horses being driven from behind—he ordered the rhedarius, or coachman, to open the panels. The man, evidently a former slave of the family, now their freedman, quickly obeyed, and descending from his bench, pushed back into grooves contrived to receive them the coarsely-figured and gaudily colored sides of the travelling carruca.

"Is parvula better?" he then cried, with the privileged freedom of an old and attached domestic, or of one who, in the far more endearing parlance of classic times, was a faithful familiaris—that is, a member of the family. "Is the little one better? The dust is laid now, little one; the evening comes; the light slants; the sun smiles not higher than yourself, instead of burning overhead. See, the beautiful country! See, the sweet land! Let the breeze bring a bloom to your cheeks, as it brings the perfumes to your mouth. Ah! the parvula smiles. Fate is not always angry!"

"Dear old Philip!" said the child; and then, turning to her mother, she added,

"Just now, mother, you waked me from a frightful dream. I thought that the man who has our father's estates was dead; but he came from the dead, and was trying to kill Paulus, my brother there; and for that purpose was striving to wrest the sword from Paulus's hand; and that the man, or lar, laughed in a hideous manner, and cried out, 'It is with his own sword we will slay him! Nothing but his own sword!'"

The old freedman turned pale, and muttered something to himself, as he stood by the side of the vehicle; and while he kept the horses steady, with the long reins in his left hand, glanced awfully toward Paulus.

"Brother," continued the child, "I forget that man's name. What is the name?"

"Never mind the name now," said Paulus; "a dead person cannot kill a living one; and that man is not in Italy who will kill me with my own sword, if I be not asleep. Look at the beautiful land! See, as Philip tells you, the beautiful land where you are going to be so happy."

The river Liris, now the Garigliano, flowed all gold in the western sun; some dozen of meadows behind them, between rows of linden-trees, oleanders, and pomegranates, with laurel, bay, and long bamboo-like reeds of the arundo donax, varying the rich beauty of its banks: "Daphrones, platanones, et aëriæ cyparissi." A thin and irregular forest of great contemplative trees; flowerless and sad beech, cornel, alder, ash, hornbeam, and yew towered over savannahs of scented herbs, and glades of many-tinted grasses. Some clumps of chestnut-trees, hereafter to spread into forests, but then rare, and cultivated as we cultivate oranges and citrons, stood proudly apart. A vegetation, which has partly vanished, gave its own physical aspect to an Italy the social conditions of which have vanished altogether; and were even then passing, and about to pass, through their last appearances. But much also that we in our days have seen, both there and elsewhere, was there then. The flower or blossom of the pomegranate lifted its scarlet light amidst vines and olives; miles of oleander trees waved their masses of flame under the tender green filigree of almond groves, and seemed to laugh in scorn at the mourning groups of yew, and the bowed head of the dark, widow-like, and inconsolable cypress. All over the leaves of the woods autumn had strewn its innumerable hues. In the west, the sky was hung with those glories which no painter ever reproduced and no poet ever sang; it was one of the sunsets which make all persons of sensibility who contemplate them dumb, by making all that can be said of them worse than useless. A magnificent and enormous villa, or castellum, or country mansion—palace it seemed—showed parts of its walls, glass windows, and Ionic columns, through the woods on the banks of the Liris; and upon the roof of this palace a great company of gilt, tinted, and white statues, much larger than life, in various groups and attitudes, as they conversed, lifted their arms, knelt, prayed, stooped, stood up, threatened, and acted, were glittering above the tree-tops in the many-colored lights of the setting sun.

"Ah! let us stop; let us rest a few moments," cried the child, smiling through her tears at the smiles of nature and the enchanting beauty of the scene; "only a few moments under the great trees, mother."

It was a group of chestnuts, a few yards from the side of the road; and beneath them came to join the highway through the meadows, and vineyards, and forest-land, a broad beaten track from the direction of the splendid villa that stood on the Liris.

Paulus instantly sprang from the carruca, and, having first helped his mother to alight, took his sister in his arms and placed her sitting under the green shade. A Thracian woman, a slave, descended meantime from the box, and the driver drew his vehicle to the side of the highway.

While they thus reposed, with no sound about them, as they thought, save the rustle of the leaves, the distant ripple of the waters, and the vehement shrill call of the cicala, hidden in the grass somewhere near, their destinies were coming. The freedman suddenly held up his hand, and drew their attention by that peculiar sound through the teeth, (st,) which in all nations signifies listen!

And, indeed, a distant, dull, vague noise was now heard southward, and seemed to increase and approach along the Appian road. Every eye in our little group of travellers was turned in the direction mentioned, and they could see a white cloud of dust coming swiftly northward. Soon they distinguished the tramp of many horses at the trot. Then, over the top of a hill which had intercepted the view, came the gleam of arms, filling the whole width of the way, and advancing like a torrent of light. The ground trembled; and, headed by a troop or two of Numidian riders, and then a couple of troops or turmæ of Batavian cavalry, a thousand horse, at least, of the Prætorian Guards, arrayed, as usual, magnificently, swept along in a column two hundred deep, with a rattle and ring of metal rising treble upon the ear over the continuous bass of the beating hoofs, as the foam floats above the roll of the waves.

The young girl was at once startled from the sense of sickness and grief, and gazed with big eyes at the pageant. Six hundred yards further on a trumpet-note, clear and long, gave some sudden signal, and the whole body instantly halted. From a detached group in the rear an officer now rode toward the front; a loud word or two of command was heard, a slight movement followed, and then, as if the column were some monstrous yellow-scaled serpent with an elastic neck and a black head, the swarthy troops which had led the advance wheeled slowly backward, two instead of five abreast, while the main column simultaneously stretched itself forward on a narrower face, and with a deeper file, occupying thus less than half the width of the road, which they had before nearly filled, and extending much further onward. Meantime the squadrons which had led it continued to defile to the rear; and when their last rank had passed the last of those fronting in the opposite direction, they suddenly faced to their own right, and, standing like statues, lined the way on the side opposite to that where our travellers were reposing, but some forty or fifty yards higher up the road, or more north.

In front of the line of horsemen, who, after wheeling back, had been thus faced to their own right, or the proper left of the line of march, was now collected a small group of mounted officers. One of them wore a steel corselet, a casque of the same metal, with a few short black feathers in its crest, and the chlamys, or a better sort of sagum, the scarlet mantle of a military tribune, over a black tunic, upon which two broad red stripes or ribbons were diagonally sewn. This costume denoted him one of the Laticlavii, or broad-ribboned tribunes; in other words—although, to judge by the massive gold ring which glittered on the forefinger of his bridle hand, he might have been originally and personally only a knight—he had received either from the emperor, or from one of the two Cæsars then governing with and under Augustus, the senatorial rank.

The chlamys was fastened across the top of his chest with a silver clasp, and the tunic a little lower down with another, both being open below as far as the waist, and disclosing a tight-fitting chain-mail corselet, or shirt of steel rings. The chlamys was otherwise thrown loose over his shoulders, but the tunic was belted round the corselet at his waist by a buff girdle, wherein hung the intricately-figured brass scabbard of a straight, flat, not very long cut-and-thrust sword, which he now held drawn in his right hand. In his belt were stuck a pair of manicæ or chirothecæ, as gloves were called, which seemed to be made of the same material as the girdle; buffalo-skin greaves on his legs and half-boots (the calcei, not the soleæ or sandals) completed his dress. He was a handsome man, about five-and-thirty years old, brown hair, an open but thoughtful face, and an observant eye. He it was who had ridden to the front, and given those orders the execution of which we have noticed. He had now returned, and kept his horse a neck or so behind that of an officer far more splendidly attired, who seemed to pay no attention whatever to the little operation that had occurred, but, shading his eyes with one hand from the rays of the setting sun, gazed over the fields toward the villa or mansion on the Liris.

He was clad in the paludamentum, the long scarlet cloak of a legatus or general, the borders being deeply fringed with twice-dyed Tyrian purple, (Tyria bis tincta, or dibapha, as it is called by Pliny;) the long folds of which flowed over his charger's haunches. This magnificent mantle was buckled round the wearer's neck with a jewel. His corselet, unlike that of the colonel or tribune already mentioned, was of plate-steel, (instead of rings,) and shone like a looking-glass, except where it was inlaid with broad lines of gold. He wore a chain of twisted gold round his neck, and his belt as well as the hilt of his sword, which remained undrawn by his side in a silver scabbard, glittered with sardonyx and jasper stones. He had no tunic. His gloves happening, like those of his subordinate, to be thrust into the belt round his waist, left visible a pair of hands so white and delicate as to be almost effeminate. His helmet was thin steel, and the crest was surmounted by a profuse plume of scarlet cock's feathers. But perhaps the most curious particular of his costume was a pair of shoes or half-boots of red leather, the points of the toes turned upward. These boots were encrusted with gems, which formed the patrician crescent, or letter C, on the top of each foot, and then wandered into a fanciful tracery of sparkles up the leg. The stapedæ, or stirrups, in which his feet rested, were either of gold or gilt.

The countenance of the evidently important personage whose dress has been stated was remarkable. He had regular features, a handsome straight nose, eyes half closed with what seemed at first a languid look, but yet a look which, if observed more closely, was almost startling from the extreme attention it evinced, and from the contrast between such an expression and the indolent indifference or superciliousness upon the surface, if I may so say, of the physiognomy. There was something sinister and cruel about the mouth. He wore no whiskers or beard, but a black, carefully-trimmed moustache.

After a steady gaze across the fields in the direction we have already more than once mentioned, he half turned his head toward the tribune, and at the same time, pointing to our travellers, said something. The tribune, in his turn, addressed the first centurion, (dux legionis,) an officer whose sword, like that of the legatus, was undrawn, but who carried in his right hand a thin wand made of vine-wood. In an instant this officer turned his horse's head and trotted smartly toward our travellers, upon reaching whom he addressed Paulus thus:

"Tell me, I pray you, have you been long here?"

"Not a quarter of an hour," answered Paulus, wondering why such a question was asked.

"And have any persons passed into the road by this pathway?" the centurion then inquired.

"Not since we came," said Paulus.

The officer thanked him and trotted back.

Meanwhile, Paulus and his mother and the freedman Philip had not been so absorbed in watching the occurrence and scene just described as to remove their eyes for more than a moment at a time from their dearly-loved charge, the interesting little mourner who had begged to be allowed to rest under the chestnut-trees. It was not so with Agatha herself. The child was at once astonished, bewildered, and enraptured. Had the spectacle and review before her been commanded by some monarch, or rather some magician, on purpose to snatch her from the possibility of dwelling longer amidst the gloom, the regrets, and the terrors under which she had appeared to be sinking, neither the wonder of the spectacle, nor the amenity of the evening when it occurred, nor the loveliness of the landscape which formed its theatre, could have been more opportunely combined. She had not only never beheld any thing so magnificent, but her curiosity was violently aroused.

Paulus exchanged with his mother and the old freedman a glance of intelligence and of intense satisfaction, as they both noted the parted lips and dilated eyes with which the child, half an hour ago so alarmingly ill, contemplated the drama at which she was accidentally assisting.

"That's a rare doctor," whispered Philip, pointing to the general of the Prætorian Guards.

"No doctor," replied Paulus in the same low tones, "could have prescribed for our darling better."

"Paulus," said Agatha, "what are these mighty beings? Are these the genii, and the demons of the mistress-land, the gods of Italy?"

"They are a handful of Italy's troops, dear," he said.

She looked from her brother to the lady, and then to the freedman, and this last, with a healing instinct which would have done honor to Hippocrates, began to stimulate her interest by the agency of suspense and mystery.

"Master Paulus, and Lady Aglais, and my little one too," he said, in a most impressive and solemn voice, "these be the genii and these be the demons indeed; but I tell you that you have not yet seen all the secret. Something is going to happen. Attend to me well! You behold a most singular thing! Are you aware of what you behold? Yonder, Master Paulus, is the allotted portion of horse for more than three legions: the justus equitatus, I say, for a Roman army of twenty thousand men. Yes, I attest all the gods," continued Philip in a low voice, but with great earnestness, and glancing from the brother to the sister as if his prospects in life were contingent upon his being believed in this. "I was at the battle of Philippi, and I aver that yonder is more than the right allotment of horse for three legions. Observe the squadrons, the turmæ; they do not consist of the same arm; and instead of being distributed in bodies of three or four hundred each to a legion, they are all together before you without their legions. Why is that, Master Paulus?"

"I know not," said Paulus.

"Ah!" resumed the freedman, "you know not, but you will know presently. Mark that, little Mistress Agatha, and bear in mind that Philip the freedman has said to your brother that he will know all presently."

The child gazed wonderingly at the troops as she heard these mysterious words. "Who are those?" asked she, pointing to the squadrons of those still in column. "Who are those in leather jerkins, covered with the iron scales, and riding the large, heavy horses?"

"Batavians from the mouths of the Rhine and the Scheldt," answered the freedman, with a mysterious shake of the head.

"And those," pursued she, with increasing interest; "who are those whose faces shine like dusky copper, and whose eyes glitter like the eyes of the wild animals in the arena, when the proconsul of Greece gives the shows? I mean those who ride the small, long-tailed horses without any ephippia (saddle-cloths,) and even without bridles—the soldiers in flowing dress, with rolls of linen round their heads?"

"They are the Numidians," replied Philip. "Ah! Rome dreaded those horsemen once, when Hannibal the Carthaginian and his motley hordes had their will in these fair plains."

As he spoke, a strange movement occurred. The general or legatus dismounted, and, giving the bridle of his horse to a soldier, began to walk slowly up and down the side of the road. No sooner had his foot touched the ground than the whole of the Numidian squadron seemed to rise like a covey out of a stubble field; with little clang of arms, but with one short, sharp cry, or whoop, it burst from the high road into the meadow land. There the evolutions which they performed seemed at first to be all confusion, only for the fact that, although the horsemen had the air of riding capriciously in every direction, crossing, intermingling, separating, galloping upon opposite curves, and tracing every figure which the whim and fancy of each might dictate, yet no two of them ever came into collision. Indeed, fantastic and wild as that rhapsody of manœuvres into which they had broken appeared to be, some principle which was thoroughly understood by every one of them governed their mazy gallop. It was as accurate and exact as some stately dance of slaves at the imperial court. It was, in short, itself a wild dance of the Numidian cavalry, in which their reinless horses, guided only by the flashing blades and the voices of their riders, manifested the most vehement spirit and a sort of sympathetic frenzy. These steeds, which never knew the bridle, and went thus mouth-free even into battle—these horses, which their masters turned loose at night into the fields, and which came back bounding and neighing at the first call, were now madly plunging, wheeling, racing, and charging, like gigantic dogs at sport. Presently they began to play a strange species of leap-frog. A Numidian boy, who carried a trumpet and rode a pony, or at least a horse smaller and lower than the rest of the barbs, ("Berber horses,") suddenly halted upon the outside of the mad cavalry whirlpool which had been formed, and flung himself flat at full length upon the back of the diminutive animal. Instantly the whirl, as it circled toward him, straightened itself into a column, and every horseman rode full upon the stationary pony, and cleared both steed and rider at a bound, a torrent of cavalry rushing over the obstruction with wild shouts.

"That is Numidian sport, Master Paulus," said the freedman; "but there is not a rider among them to be compared to yourself."

"Certainly I can ride," said the youth; "but I pretend not to be superior to these Centaurs."

"Be these, then, the Centaurs I have heard of?" asked Agatha; "be these the wild powers?"

The hubbub had prevented her, and all with her, from noticing something. Before an answer could be given, the Numidians had returned to the highway as suddenly as they had quitted it, and the noise of their dance was succeeded by a pause of attention. The general was again on horseback, and our travellers perceived that two litters, one of carved ivory and gold, the other of sculptured bronze, borne on the shoulders of slaves, were beside them.

Two gentlemen on foot had arrived with the litters along the broad pathway already noticed, and a group of attendants at a little distance were following.

This new party were now halting with our travellers beneath the far-spreading shade of the same trees. In the ivory litter reclined a girl of about seventeen, dressed in a long palla of blue silk, a material then only just introduced from India, through Arabia and Egypt, and so expensive as to be beyond the reach of any but the richest class. Her hair, which was of a bright gold color, was dressed in the fashionable form of a helmet, (galerus,) and was inclosed behind in a gauze net. She wore large inaures, or ear-rings, of some jewel, a gold chain, in every ring of which was set a gem, and scarlet shoes embroidered with pearls. The lady in the bronze litter was attired in the stola of a matron, with a cyclas, or circular robe, thrown back from the neck, and a tunic of dark purple which descended to her feet. Her brown hair was restrained by bands, vittæ, which had an honorable significance among the Roman ladies, ("Nil mihi cum vitta," says the profligate author of the Ars Amandi.) She seemed somewhat past thirty years of age; she had a very sweet, calm, and matronly air; her countenance was as beautiful in features and general effect as it was modest in its tone and character.

Her companion,[4] in the litter of ivory and gold, was not more than half her age, was even more beautiful, with an immense wreath of golden hair, and with large blue eyes, darkening to the likeness of black as she gazed earnestly upon any object. But she had a less gentle physiognomical expression. Frequently her look was penetrating, brief, impatient, sarcastic, disdainful. She had a bewitching smile, however, and her numerous admirers made Italy echo with their ravings.

Lucius Varius, said the fashionable world, was at that very time engaged upon a kind of sapphic ode, of which she was to be the subject.

Scarcely had these litters or palanquins arrived and halted, when the general officer dismounted once more, and walked quickly toward the spot with his helmet in his hand. At a few yards' distance he stopped, and first bowed low to the elder of the two gentlemen who had accompanied the litters on foot, and then, almost entirely disregarding the other gentleman, made an obeisance not quite so long or so deep to the ladies. The man whom so splendid a personage as the legatus, wearing his flaming paludamentum, and at the head of his troops, thus treated with so obsequious a veneration, did not return the salute except by a slight nod and a momentary, absent-minded smile. His gaze had been riveted upon our travellers, and chiefly upon the youth and his young, suffering sister, upon both of whom, after it had quickly taken in Philip the freedman, the Thracian woman, and the Athenian lady, it rested long—longest and last upon Agatha.

"Sejanus," said he finally, "who are these?"

"I never saw them until just now, my commander and Cæsar; they were here when we halted, and while we waited for our master, the favorite of the gods, these travellers seemed to be resting where you behold them."

"As those gods favor me," said the other, "this is a fine youth. Can we not edit[5] him? And yonder girl—have you ever seen, my Sejanus, such eyes? But she is deadly pale. Are you always thus pale, pretty one, or are you merely ill? If but ill, as I guess, Charicles, my Greek physician, shall cure you."

Before this man had even spoken, the moment, indeed, when first his eyes fell upon her, Agatha had sidled close to her mother; and while he was expressing himself in that way to Sejanus, she returned his gaze with panic-stricken, dilated eyes, as the South American bird returns that of the reptile; but when he directly questioned her, she, reaching out her hand to Paulus, clutched his arm with a woman's grasp, and said in an affrighted voice,

"My brother, let us go."

Paulus, in a manner naturally easy, and marked by the elegance and grace which the athletic training of Athens had given to one so well endowed physically, first, merely saying to the stranger, "I crave your pardon," (veniam posco,) lifted Agatha with one arm, and placed her in the travelling carriage. Then, while the freedman and the Thracian slave mounted to their bench, he returned to where his mother stood, signed to her to follow Agatha, and, seeing her move calmly but quickly toward the vehicle, he took the broad-rimmed petasus from his head, and bowing slowly and lowly to the stranger, said,

"Powerful sir, for I observe you are a man of great authority, my sister is too ill to converse. You rightly guessed this; permit us to take her to her destination."

The man whom he had thus balked, and to whom he now thus spoke, merits a word of description. He appeared to be more than fifty years old. The mask of his face and the frame of his head were large, but not fat. His complexion was vivid brick-red all over the cheeks, with a deeper flush in one spot on each side, just below the outer corners of the eyes. The eyes were bloodshot, large, rather prominent, and were closely set together. The nose was large, long, bony, somewhat aquiline. The forehead was not high, not low; it was much developed above the eyes, and it was broad. A deep and perpetual dint just over the nose reached half-way up the forehead. His hair was grizzled and close cut. His lips were full and fleshy, and the mouth was wide; the jaws were large and massive. His face was shaven of all hair. The chin was very handsome and large, and the whole head was set upon a thick, strong throat, not stunted, however, of its proper length. In person this man was far from ungainly, nor yet was he handsome. In carriage and bearing, without much majesty, he had nevertheless something steadfast, weighty, unshrinking, and commanding. His outer garment, not a toga, was all one color and material; it was a long, thick wadded silk mantle, of that purple dye which is nearly black—the hue, indeed, of clotted gore under a strong light. He wore gloves, and instead of the usual short sword of the Romans, had a long steel stylus[6] for writing on wax thrust into a black leathern belt. This instrument seemed to show that he lived much in Rome, where it was not the custom, when otherwise in civilian dress, to go armed.

As the reader will have guessed, this man was to be the next emperor of the Roman world.

"Permit you to take her to her destination?" he repeated slowly. "My Greek physician, I tell you, shall cure her. I will give directions about your destination." A slight pause; then, "Are you a Roman citizen?"

"I am a Roman knight as well as citizen," answered Paulus proudly; "and my family is not only equestrian, but patrician."

"What is your name?"

"Paulus Æmilius Lepidus."

The man in the black or gore-colored purple glanced at Sejanus, who, still unconcerned, stood with his splendid helmet in the left hand, while he smoothed his moustache with the right; otherwise perfectly still, his handsome face, cruel mouth, and intelligent eyes all alive with the keenest attention.

"And the destination to which you allude is—?" pursued the man in black purple.

"Formiæ," said Paulus.

"What relation or kinship exists between you and Marcus Æmilius Lepidus, formerly the triumvir, who still enjoys the life which he owes to the clemency of Augustus?"

Paulus hesitated. When he had given his name, the younger of the two ladies had raised herself suddenly in the litter of ivory and gold, and fastened upon him a searching gaze, which she had not since removed. The other lady had also at that instant looked at him fixedly. We have already stated that, when Sejanus approached the group, he had not deigned in any very cordial manner to salute or notice the second of the two gentlemen who had accompanied the litters on foot. This gentleman was very sallow, had hollow eyes, and a habit of gnawing his under lip between his teeth. He had unbuckled his sword, and had given it, calling out, "Lygdus, carry this," to a man with an exceedingly sinister and repulsive countenance. The man in question had now taken a step or two forward, and was standing on the left of Paulus, fronting the Cæsar, his shoulders stooping, his neck bent forward, his eyes without any motion of the head rolling incessantly from person to person, and face to face, but at once falling before and avoiding any glance which happened to meet his. He looked askant and furtively at every object with an eager, unhappy, and malign expression. Paulus did not need to turn his head to feel that this man was now intently peering at him. Behind the two courtly palanquins, and beyond the shade of the trees, was a third litter still more costly, being covered in parts with plate gold. Here sat a woman with a face as white as alabaster, and large prominent black eyes, watching the scene, and apparently trying to catch every word that was said.

Paulus, as we have observed, hesitated. The training of youth in the days of classic antiquity soon obliterated the inferiority of unreasoning, nervous shyness. But the strange catechism which Paulus was now undergoing, with all this gaze upon him from so many eyes, began to be a nuisance, and to tell upon a spirit singularly high.

"Have you heard my question?" inquired Tiberius.

"I have heard it," replied Paulus; "and have heard and answered several others, without knowing who he is that asks them. However, the former triumvir, now living at Circæi, about forty thousand paces from here, is my father's brother." (Circæi, as the reader knows, is now called Monte Circello, a promontory just opposite Gaeta.)

When Paulus had given his last answer, the ladies glanced at each other, and the younger looked long and hard at Tiberius. Getting some momentary signal from him, she threw herself back in her palanquin and smiled meaningly at the stooping, sinister-faced man, who had stationed himself in the manner already mentioned near Paulus's left hand.

"Your father," rejoined Tiberius, after a pause, "was a very distinguished soldier, and, as I always heard when a boy, he contributed eminently to the victory of Philippi. But I knew not that he had children; and, moreover, was he not slain, pray, at Philippi, toward the end of the battle, which he certainly helped to gain?"

"I hope," said Paulus, somewhat softened by the praise of his father, "I hope that Augustus supposed him to have died of his wounds, and that it was only under this delusion he gave our estates—which were situated somewhere in this very province of Campania, with a noble mansion like the castellum upon the river yonder—to that brave and able soldier Agrippa Vespasianus."

At this name a deep red flush over-spread the brow of Tiberius, and Paulus innocently proceeded.

"Certainly, the noble Agrippa, who was to have been Cæsar, had he lived, never would have accepted so unfair a bounty had he known that my father really survived his wounds, but that—despairing of the generosity, or rather despairing of the equity of Augustus—he was living a melancholy, exheridated exile, near that very battle-field of Philippi, in Thrace, where he had fought so well and had been left for dead."

"You dare to term the act of Augustus," slowly said the man in the gore-colored purple cloak, "so unfair a bounty, and Augustus himself ungenerous, or rather unjust?"

At this terrible rejoinder from such a man, the down-looking person whom we have mentioned passed his right hand stealthily to the hilt of the sword which he was carrying for his master, and half drew it. Paulus, who for some time had had this person standing at his left, could observe the action without turning his head. He was perfectly aware, moreover, that, should the other draw his weapon upon him, the very act of drawing it would itself become a blow, on account of their respective places, whereas to escape it required more distance between them, and to parry it in a regular way would demand quite a different position, besides the needful moment or two for disengaging his own rather long blade. Yet the youth stood completely still; he never even turned his head. However, he just shifted the wide-rimmed hat from his left to his right hand (the hand for the sword) and thereby seemed to be only more encumbered, unprepared, and defenceless than before. His left hand, with the back inward, fell also meantime in an easy and natural way upon the emerald haft of the outlandish-looking three-edged rapier, which, as he played with it, became loose in the scabbard, and came and went some fraction of an inch.

"I never termed him so," said Paulus. "I said not this of Augustus. I am at this moment on my way to Augustus himself, who is, I am told, to be at Formiæ with his court for a week or two. I must, therefore, again ask your leave, mighty office-bearer, to continue my journey. I know not so much as who you are."

"I am Tiberius Cæsar," said the other, bending upon him those closely-set, prominent, bloodshot eyes with no very assuring expression. "I am Tiberius Cæsar, and you will be pleased to wait one moment before you continue the journey in question. The accusation against your father was this: that, after Philippi, he labored for the interests first of Sextus, the son of Pompey, and afterward of Mark Antony, in their respective impious and parricidal struggles; and the answer to this charge (a charge to which witnesses neither were nor are wanting) has always been, that it was simply impossible, seeing that Paulus Lepidus, your father, perished at Philippi before the alleged treasons had occurred. Wherefore, as your father had done good service, especially in the great battle where he was thus supposed to have fallen, not only was his innocence declared certain, but, for his memory's sake, Marcus Lepidus, the triumvir, your uncle, was forgiven. Yet now we learn from you, the son of the accused, that the only defence ever made for him is positively false; that your father, were he still living, would probably merit to be put to death; and that your uncle, at the same time, is stripped of the one protecting circumstance which has preserved his head. I must order your arrest, and that of all your party, in order that these things may be at least fully investigated."

As this was said, the lady in the litter of ivory and gold contemplated Paulus with that bewitching smile which she was accustomed to bestow upon dying gladiators in the hippodrome; while the other lady gazed at him with a compassionate, forecasting and muse-like look.

"I mean no disrespect whatever to so great a man as you, sir; but I will," said Paulus, "appeal from Tiberius Cæsar to Cæsar Augustus; to whom, I again remind you, I am on my way."

No sooner had he uttered the words, "I appeal from Tiberius," than, before he could finish the sentence, the malign-faced man on his left with great suddenness drew the sword hew as carrying for Cneius Piso, and, availing himself of the first natural sweep of the weapon as it left the scabbard, sought to bring the edge of it backward across the face of Paulus, exclaiming, while he did so, "Speak you thus to Cæsar?"

Had this man, who was the future assassin of Drusus, and slave to Cneius Piso, who was the future assassin of Germanicus, succeeded in delivering that well-meant stroke, the sentence which our hero was addressing to Tiberius could never have been said out; but said out, as we see, it was, and said, too, with due propriety of emphasis, although with a singular accompanying delivery. In fact, though not deigning to look round toward this man, Paulus had been vividly aware of his movements, and, swift as was the attack, the defence was truly electrical. Paulus's rapier, the hilt of which, as we have remarked, had been for some time in his left hand, leapt from its sheath, and being first held almost perpendicularly for one moment, the point down and the hilt a little higher than his forehead, met the murderous blow at right angles; after which the delicate long blade flashed upward, with graceful ease but irresistible violence, bearing the assassin's weapon backward upon a small semi-circle, and remaining inside of it, or, in other words, nearer to Lygdus's body than Piso's own sword, which he carried, was. It looked like a mere continuation of this dazzling parry, but was, in truth, a vigorous deviation from it, which none but a very pliant and powerful wrist could have executed; when the emerald pommel fell like a hammer upon the forehead of Lygdus the slave, whom that disdainful blow stretched at his length upon the ground, motionless, and to all appearance dead. As Piso was standing close, the steel guard of the hilt, in passing, tore open his brow and cheek.

The whole occurrence occupied only five or seven seconds, and meanwhile the youth finished his sentence with the words already recorded, "From Tiberius Cæsar to Cæsar Augustus, to whom, I again remind you, I am on my way."

An exclamation of astonishment, and perhaps some other feeling, escaped from Tiberius. Sejanus smiled; the woman with the pale face and black eyes, who sat in the unadorned plate-of-gold palanquin, screamed; and the other ladies laughed loudly. Among the prætorian guards, who from the road were watching with attention the group where they saw their general and the Cæsar, a long, low murmur of approbation ran. At this, Tiberius turned and looked steadily and musingly toward them. Paulus, instantly sheathing his weapon, said,

"I ask Cæsar's pardon, but there was no time to obtain his permission for what I have just done. My head must have been in two pieces had I waited but one moment."

"Just half a moment for each piece," said Tiberius; "but your left hand seems well able to keep your head. Are you left-handed?"

"No, great Cæsar," said Paulus; "I am what my Greek teacher of fence used to call two-handed, dimachærus; he tried to make all his pupils so, but my right remains far better than my left."

"Then I should like to see your right thoroughly exercised," said Tiberius.

Paulus heard a sweet voice here say, "As a favor to me, do not order the arrest of this brave youth;" and, turning, he beheld the beautiful creature in the litter of ivory and gold plead for him with Tiberius. The large blue eyes, darkening as she supplicated, smote the youth, and he could hardly take away his gaze.

"Young man, go forward with your mother and sister to Formiæ, under the charge of Velleius Paterculus, the military tribune whom you see yonder upon the road. Remain in Formiæ till I give you leave to quit it. Report your place of residence to the tribune. Go!"

The last word was pronounced harshly. Tiberius made a signal with his hand to Paterculus. Then passing his arm through that of Sejanus, and speaking to him in a low tone, he led the general aside into the fields to a little distance; while—with the exception of two mounted troopers, (each leading a horse,) who remained behind, but considerably out of hearing—the prætorian guards, the three litters, and the travelling biga began to move toward Formiæ, leaving the road to silence, and the evening landscape to peace.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.[7]

There is, after all, but slight exaggeration in the old saying, that a lie travels leagues while truth is putting on boots to pursue and overtake it. And even when overtaken, caught, and choked, how hard it dies! In our daily experience, how often does truthful exposure utterly extinguish false and evil report? Certainly not always, and probably but very seldom. In the intercourse of society, one may partially crush out a calumny by going straight to those who should know the truth and compelling them to listen to it.

But the lie historical cannot be so met. People in this busy world have no time to spend in reading long documents in vindication of men or women long since dead. But they have read the calumny? Certainly. The calumny is not so long as the refutation, and is more readable. It is attractive; it is piquant. Mary Stuart as an adulteress and a murderess is an interesting character. People never tire of hearing of her. But Mary Stuart, the upright queen, the noble and true woman, the faithful spouse and affectionate mother, has but slight attractions for the mass of readers. To hear her so proven must be dull reading. Nevertheless, with time comes truth; for although

"The mills of the gods grind slowly,
They grind exceedingly fine;"

which we take to be only a modern, heathenish way of saying, as we chant every Sunday at vespers,

"Et justitia ejus manet in seculum seculi."

Look at the Galileo story. Galileo died more than two hundred years ago. Yet it is only within a lifetime that the truth concerning him began to dawn upon the English mind.

Mary Queen of Scots surrendered her soul to God and her head to Elizabeth nearly three centuries ago, and the combat over her reputation to-day rages as hot as ever. In the case of the Florentine astronomer, there has been no strongly decided hereditary transmission of the falsehood. In that of the Queen of Scotland every inch of ground is obstinately fought, because her innocence means the shame of England, the disgrace of Knox, the condemnation of the ornaments of the Anglican and Puritan churches, and the infamy of Elizabeth.

These enemies of Mary yet live in transmitted prejudices and powerful hereditary interests. The very existence of all the boasting, pride, false reputation, hypocritical piety, and national vanity represented by the familiar catchwords of "Our Noble Harry," "Glorious Queen Bess," "The Virgin Queen," "Our Sainted Reformers," has its inspiration and life-breath in the maintenance of every calumny against Mary Stuart and the Catholic Church of that day; and we must do these supporters the credit of admitting that they are instant in season and out of season, and never weary in their work.

But their case was long since made up. They have said their last word, and shot all the arrows of their quiver. With each succeeding year Elizabeth's reputation fails, and is rapidly passing into disgrace. With the same rapidity Mary's fame grows brighter.

The books and pamphlets written in attack or defence of Mary would of themselves form a library. For the attack, the key-note is to be found in Cecil's avowed principle concerning the treatment of the dethroned queen, that their purpose could not be obtained without disgracing her. Hence, the silver-casket letters, and the so-called confessions of Paris. Hence, the issue, during every year of her long imprisonment of eighteen years, of some vile pamphlet, under Cecil's instructions, calculated to blast her character. Two men in particular powerfully contributed to defame the Queen of Scots—John Knox and George Buchanan. Knox by his sermons, in which, says Russel, (History of the Reformation, vol. i. p. 292,) "lying strives with rage;" Buchanan, by his writings, which have been made by Mary's enemies one of the sources of history. Buchanan was an apostate monk, saved from the gallows by Mary, and loaded with her favors. An eye-witness of her dignity, her goodness, and her purity, he afterward described her as the vilest of women. He sold his pen to Elizabeth, and has been properly described as "unrivalled in baseness, peerless in falsehood, supreme in ingratitude." His Detection was published (1570) in Latin, and copies were immediately sent by Cecil to Elizabeth's ambassador in Paris with instructions to circulate them; "for they will come to good effect to disgrace her, which must be done before other purposes can be obtained."

This shameful work has been the inspiration of most of the portraits drawn of Mary. De Thou in France, Spotiswoode, Jebb, and many others in England, have all followed him. Holinshed too was deceived by Buchanan; but it is doubtful if he dared write otherwise than he did, between the terrors of Cecil's spies and Elizabeth's mace.

An English translation of Buchanan was first published in 1690, being called forth by the revolution of 1688. Jebb's two folio volumes appeared in 1725.

Two additional lives of Mary, by Heywood (1725) and Freebairn, were little more than translations from the French. In 1726, Edward Simmons published Mary's forged letters as genuine. Anderson's voluminous collection of papers (four large volumes) appeared in 1727 and 1728. Meantime, from the accession of a new dynasty and the rebellion of 1715, there arose in Edinburgh a sort of society having for its principal object the work of supporting Buchanan's credit and vilifying the Scottish queen. Later came the well-known and widely published histories of Scotland and of England by Robertson and Hume, which, read wherever the English language was known, may be said to have popularized the culpability of Mary. Until within comparatively few years, Hume's work was the only history of England generally read in the United States. Then came Malcolm Laing, who imagined he had closed the controversy against Mary in his bitter Dissertation. Mignet, in France, went further than Laing, while Froude, in his history of England, distancing all previous writers, portrays Mary in the blackest colors as one of the most criminal and devilish of women. For his material there is no statement so absurd, no invention so gross, no lie so palpable, no calumny so vile, provided only that it be to the prejudice of Mary Stuart, that does not find favor in his eyes. In his blind hatred of the Catholic queen, forgetting all historic dignity and even personal decency, he showers upon her such epithets as "panther," "ferocious animal," "wild-cat," "brute;" her persecutors being white-robed saints, such as "the pious Cecil," and "the noble and stainless Murray," and the virgin Queen Elizabeth appearing "as a beneficent fairy coming out of the clouds to rescue an erring sister."

But Mary's cause has not wanted defenders. Among the best known are, John Leslie, Bishop of Ross; Camden and Carte, the English historians; Herrera, the Spanish bishop; Robert Keith; Goodall, (1754,) who made the first searching analysis of the silver-casket letters, showing that the French text of the pretended Bothwell love-letters, until then supposed to be original, was a poor translation from the Latin or Scotch. William Tytler (1759) and John Whitaker (1788) proved that the letters were forged by those who produced them. Stuart, in his history of Scotland, (1762,) and Mademoiselle Keraglio, in her Life of Elizabeth, (1786,) both protested against the conclusions of Hume and Robertson. In 1818, George Chalmers took up Laing's book, and proved conclusively, with a mass of newly-discovered testimony, that the accusers of Mary were themselves the murderers of Darnley. Then followed the learned Dr. Lingard, Guthrie, and H. Glassford Bell. But all these works were either too heavy and cumbrous for popular reading, or too narrow in their scope; most of them being better prepared for reference than for reading, and of but slight effective service in the field occupied by Hume and Robertson. Miss Strickland's work is well known to all our readers, and has done much good. In 1866, Mr. McNeel Caird published Mary Stuart, her Guilt or Innocence, in which he effectively defends Mary and seriously damages Mr. Froude's veracity.

A most valuable historical contribution is the late work (1869) of M. Jules Gauthier. The first volume is out and the second will be issued in a few months. M. Gauthier says that after reading the work of M. Mignet, he had no doubt that Queen Mary had assassinated her husband in order to avenge the death of Riccio. "I was, therefore, surprised," he continues, "on arriving at Edinburgh, in 1861, to hear Mary warmly defended, and reference made to documents recently discovered that were strongly in her favor. I then formed the resolution to study for myself this historical problem and to discover the truth. I had no idea of writing a book, and no motive but that of satisfying my own curiosity. I have devoted several years solely to this object in Scotland, England, and Spain." M. Gauthier then gives a formidable list of authorities and manuscripts not usually quoted, acknowledges the aid of the librarians of the legal library at Edinburgh, the learned Mr. Robertson of the Register House, Robert Chambers, and the archivist of Simancas, Don Emanuel Gonzalez, and announces the result to be a complete change of opinion. He goes on to say that, before examining all the documents of the trial, he had no doubt of the guilt of Mary Stuart; but after having scrutinized and compared them, he remained and still remains convinced that it was solely to assure the fruit of their shameful victory that the barons, who had dethroned their queen with England's help, sought to throw upon her the crimes of which they themselves were the authors or the accomplices, and in which their auxiliaries were Elizabeth and her ministers.

But what is of far greater importance, M. Gauthier announces the discovery among the Simancas MSS. of documents that prove beyond all question that the silver-casket letters were forgeries. This important revelation he promises for the second volume. Preceding M. Gauthier in time, M. Wiesener, another French writer, had, in an admirable critique, demolished the foundations on which rest most of the calumnies against Mary Stuart.

And now we have Mr. Hosack's work. There is a beautiful poetic justice in the fact that the most effective defences of Mary Stuart, in the English language, come from Protestant pens, and that in Scotland among the sons of the Puritans are found her most enthusiastic advocates. Mr. Hosack is an Edinburgh lawyer, and a Protestant.

His book, written in a tone of legal calmness and dignity, stands in refreshing contrast with Mr. Froude's savage bitterness and repulsive violence, and seriously damages any credit that may be claimed for the latter as a historian. Entirely at home in the customs, localities, laws, and history of Scotland, he throws unexpected light on a hundred interesting points heretofore left in obscurity by foreign, and even English historians. Mr. Hosack also produces many valuable documents never before published. Among these are the specific charges preferred against Mary at the conference at Westminster in 1568. The "Articles" produced by Mary's accusers before they exhibited their proofs to the commissioners of Queen Elizabeth, although constantly referred to by historians, are nowhere to be found among all the voluminous collections heretofore published on the subject. Mr. Hosack discovered this valuable paper in the collection known as the Hopetoun Manuscripts, which are now in the custody of the lord clerk register. Another most interesting document presented by Mr. Hosack is one long supposed to be lost, namely, the journal of the proceedings at Westminster on the day upon which the silver casket containing the alleged letters of Queen Mary to Bothwell was produced. Then comes the inventory of the jewels of the Queen of Scots, attached to her last will and testament, made in 1566, when Mary was supposed to be dying. This paper has been but recently discovered in the Register House, Edinburgh. It is of high importance, as throwing light on a disputed point concerning Darnley. Finally, with the aid of Professor Schiern, of Copenhagen, Mr. Hosack has succeeded in ascertaining the date of the capture of Nicholas Hubert, commonly called "French Paris." This point is also weighty in connection with the question of the authenticity of the deposition ascribed to him. The English critics of Mr. Hosack's book—many of them partisans of Froude, and armed in the triple steel of their national prejudice—are unanimous in praise of his research, and the able presentation of his argument. Mr. Hosack distinctly charges Mr. Froude with "inventing fictions," and, moreover, sustains the charge. The aim of Mr. Hosack's work is not so much to write the life of Mary Stuart as to demonstrate that her accusers were guilty of the very crime (the murder of Darnley) of which they charge her, and that she was innocent, not only of that, but of any intrigue with Bothwell. Passing over in silence the period of Mary's residence in France, our author rapidly glances at the salient points in the administration of Mary of Lorraine, the mother of Mary Stuart, an admirable character, whose energy, integrity, resolution, and fortitude would have adorned the character of the greatest sovereign that ever reigned. Mr. Hosack thus speaks of her death:

"The words of the dying princess, at once so magnanimous and gentle, were listened to with deep emotion by the Protestant chiefs, who, though in arms against her authority, all acknowledged and admired her private virtues. Amidst the tears of her enemies, thus died the best and wisest woman of the age."

Knox alone, adds Mr. Hosack, sought by means of the most loathsome slanders to vilify the character of this excellent princess; and it was no doubt at his instigation that the rites of Christian burial were denied to her remains in Scotland. Mr. Hosack then takes up the history of Mary from the period of her arrival in Scotland, and ends with the commencement of her imprisonment in England.

Mary came to reign over a country virtually in the power of a band of violent and rapacious lords, long in rebellion against their king. Of the five royal Jameses, three had perished, victims of their aristocratic anarchy. The personal piety of these rebellious lords was infinitesimal; but they had an enormous appreciation of Henry VIII.'s plunder of the monasteries and division of the church lands among the nobles, and desired to see Scotland submitted to the same regimen—they, of course, becoming ardent reformers. The young queen soon won the hearts of the people of Edinburgh by her sweetness and grace. One of her first experiences was the remarkable interview with Knox, in which he bore himself as properly became "the ruffian of the Reformation," while Mary, a girl of nineteen, utterly overcame him in self-possession, logic, and command of citation from the Old Testament. The man was brimful of vanity. The wound rankled, and from that moment he was Mary Stuart's personal enemy.

Long before Mary's arrival, Knox and his friends had obtained full sway. The reformers had destroyed the monastic establishments in the central counties, and, under the influence of Knox, had an "act" passed for the total destruction of what they called "monuments of superstition;" the monuments of superstition in question being all that Scotland possessed of what was most valuable in art and venerable in architecture.

"The registers of the church, and the libraries," says Spotiswoode, "were cast into the fire. In a word, all was ruined; and what had escaped in the time of the first tumult, did now undergo the common calamity." In his sermons, Knox openly denounced Mary, not only as an incorrigible idolatress, but as an enemy whose death would be a public boon. In equally savage style he fulminated against the amusements of the court, and dwelt especially on the deadly sin of dancing. And yet Knox—we must in candor admit it—was not totally indifferent to some social amenities, for he was then paying his addresses to a young girl of sixteen, whom he afterward married. Mary had freely accorded to her Protestant subjects the privilege of worshipping God according to their own creed; but it did not enter into the views of Knox and his co-religionists that the same privilege should be accorded to Mary in the land of which she was sovereign, and with great difficulty could she obtain the right to a private chapel at Holyrood—even this being interfered with, and the officiating priest afterward insulted, beaten, and driven away. And these Christian gentlemen did not stop here. They had the insolence and inhumanity to present to the queen what they called a "supplication," in which they declared that the practice of idolatry could not be tolerated in the sovereign any more than in the subject, and that the "papistical and blasphemous mass" should be wholly abolished. To this, Mary's reply was that, answering for herself, she was noways persuaded that there was any impiety in the mass, and trusted her subjects would not press her to act against her conscience; for, not to dissemble, but to deal plainly with them, she neither might nor would forsake the religion wherein she had been educated and brought up, believing the same to be the true religion, and grounded on the word of God. She further advised her "loving subjects" that she, "neither in times past nor yet in time coming, did intend to force the conscience of any person; but to permit every one to serve God in such a manner as they are persuaded to be the best." On this, Mr. Hosack remarks, "Nothing could exceed the savage rudeness of the language of the assembly. Nothing could exceed the dignity and moderation of the queen's reply."

The enemies of Mary Stuart always seek to find excuse for the rebellious outrages of the lords and the kirk in the design attributed to Mary Stuart of introducing Catholicity to the exclusion of Protestantism. Mr. Hosack handles this portion of his subject with great ease and success, showing conclusively the admirable spirit of toleration that animated Mary throughout. Then follow the marriage of Mary with Darnley; the rebellion of Murray, Argyll, and others to deprive the queen of her crown; the energy, ability, and admirable judgment of Mary in dealing with them, and the consummate hypocrisy and falsehood of Elizabeth in feigning good-will to Mary while furnishing the rebels money and assistance. The French ambassador in London had discovered that six thousand crowns had been sent from the English treasury to the Scotch rebels. The fact was positive. He mentioned it to Elizabeth in person; but she solemnly assured him, with an oath, (elle nia avec serment,) that he was misinformed. There were strong reasons why Elizabeth would not have it believed that she had lent the rebel lords any countenance, and she therefore got up a remarkable scene for the purpose. The French and Spanish ambassadors had charged her in plain terms with stirring up dissensions in Scotland, and she desired to reply to the imputation in the most public and emphatic manner. Murray and Hamilton were summoned to appear, and in presence of the ambassadors and her own ministers she asked them whether she had ever encouraged them in their rebellion. Murray began to reply in Scotch, when Elizabeth stopped him, bidding him speak in French, which she better understood. The scene was arranged beforehand. Murray fell on his knees and declared "that her majesty had never moved them to any opposition or resistance against the queen's marriage." "Now," exclaimed Elizabeth in her most triumphant tone, "you have told the truth; for neither did I, nor any one in my name, stir you up against your queen; for your abominable treason may serve for example to my own subjects to rebel against me. Therefore get you out of my presence; ye are but unworthy traitors." This astounding exhibition of meanness, and falsehood, and folly, which it is certain, says Mr. Hosack, imposed upon no one who witnessed it, is without a parallel in history.

Mary's energy and prudence in suppressing this dangerous rebellion sufficiently refute a prevalent notion that she was indebted to the counsels of Murray for the previous success of her administration. Even Robertson admits that at no period of her career were her abilities and address more conspicuous. And more remarkable than her ability in gaining success was the moderation with which she used it. Not one of the rebels suffered death, and her speedy pardon of the Duke of Chatelherault, a conspirator against her crown, of which he was the presumptive heir, was an instance of generosity unexampled in the history of princes.

The accusation against Mary of having signed the Catholic League, put forward by so many historians—Froude, of course, among them—is clearly shown by Mr. Hosack to be utterly untrue. She never joined it. By this refusal she maintained her solemn promises to her Protestant subjects—the chief of whom remained her staunchest friend in the days of her misfortune. She averted religious discord from her dominions, and posterity will applaud the wisdom as well as the magnitude of the sacrifice which she made at this momentous crisis.

Then comes the murder of Riccio, which is generally attributed to the jealousy of Darnley and the personal hatred of the nobles. These motives, if they ever existed at all, were but secondary with the conspirators who contrived Riccio's death.

Their main objects were the restoration of the rebel lords, the deposition of the queen, and the elevation of Darnley to the vacant throne, on which he would have been their puppet.

Mr. Hosack traces, step by step, the progress of the conspiracy, and the bargaining and traffic among the conspirators for their several rewards. There was a bond of the conspirators among themselves, a bond with Darnley, and one with the rebel leaders who waited events at Newcastle. Elizabeth's ministers in Scotland were taken into their confidence and counsels, as was also John Knox, while Elizabeth was advised of and approved it. Many years ago, a Catholic convent was burned in Boston—with what circumstances of atrocity we do not now desire to recall. On the Sunday preceding the outrage, exciting sermons were delivered on the horrors of popery from more than one Protestant pulpit. So, also, on the Sunday preceding the murder of Riccio, the denunciations of idolatry from the pulpits of Edinburgh were more than usually violent, and the texts were chosen from those portions of Scripture which describe the vengeance incurred by the persecutors of God's people. The 12th of March was the day fixed for the parliament before which the rebel lords were cited to appear, under pain of the forfeiture of their titles and estates. This forfeiture the conspirators were resolved to prevent, and chose the 9th of March to kill Riccio. They could have assassinated him at any time on the street, in the grounds, in his own room; but the lords selected the hour just after supper when Riccio would be in attendance upon the queen, in order to kill him in her presence, doubtless with hope of the result of her death and that of her unborn babe from the agitation and affright that must ensue from such a scene. The contingency of Mary's death was provided for in the bond. We need not here repeat the horrible details of the scene in which, while a ruffian (Ker of Faudonside) pressed a cocked pistol to her breast until she felt the cold iron through her dress, the hapless victim of brutal prejudice and bigotry, whose only crime was fidelity to his queen, was dragged from her presence and instantly butchered. Nor need we describe the fiendish exultation and savage conduct of the assassins toward a sick, defenceless woman.

"Machiavelli," remarks Mr. Hosack, "never conceived—he has certainly not described—a plot more devilish in its designs than that which was devised ostensibly for the death of Riccio, but in reality for the destruction both of Mary Stuart and her husband."

For two days the noble assassins appeared to have been entirely successful. Riccio was killed, the parliament was dissolved, the banished lords recalled, and the queen a prisoner. But her amazing spirit and resolution scattered all their plans to the winds. The poor fool Darnley began to see the treachery of the men who had made him their tool, and Mary fully opened his eyes to his danger. At midnight on the Tuesday after the murder, the queen and Darnley crept down through a secret passage to the cemetery of the royal chapel of Holyrood and made their way "through the charnel house, among the bones and skulls of the ancient kings," to where horses and a small escort stood waiting for them. Twenty miles away Mary galloped to Dunbar, where, within three days, eight thousand border spears assembled to defend her.

The assassins, Morton, Ruthven, and their associates, fled to England, where, under Elizabeth's wing, they were of course safe. Maitland went to the Highlands, and Knox, grieving deeply over the discomfiture of his friends, took his departure for the west.

The complicity of Murray,

"The head of many a felon plot,
But never once the arm,"

was not known, and he was pardoned his rebellion, and again received by Mary into her confidence. This is the Murray constantly referred to by Mr. Froude in his History of England as "the noble Murray," "the stainless Murray"—a man who, for systematic, thorough-going villainy and treachery has not his superior in history.

Darnley, with an audacity and recklessness of consequences which seem hardly compatible with sanity, made a solemn declaration to the effect that he was wholly innocent of the late murderous plot.

The indignation of his associates in the crime knew no bounds. He alone, they said, had caused the failure of the enterprise; he had deserted them, and now sought to purchase his safety in their ruin. From that moment his fate was sealed.

Buchanan's famous lie concerning Mary's visit to the Castle of Alloa, which, to his shame, Mr. Froude substantially repeats, is disposed of effectually in a few words by Mr. Hosack.

The ride from Jedburg, too, as recounted by Buchanan in his own peculiar style, repeated by Robertson and by Froude, as far as he dares, in the teeth of the testimony on the subject, also receives its quietus at Mr. Hosack's hands.

Then follow the dangerous illness of Mary, the aggravating and fatal misconduct of Darnley, the poor queen's mental suffering and anxiety, the preliminary plotting by Murray, Maitland, Argyll, and Huntly to put Darnley out of the way, the signing of the bond among them for the murder of the "young fool and tyrant," and the insidious attempt by these scoundrels to entrap the poor heart-broken Mary into some such expression of impatience or violence against Darnley as would enable them to set up the charge of guilty knowledge against her. The conspirators themselves have put on record the noble and Christian reply of Mary Stuart, "I will that ye do nothing through which any spot may be laid on my honor or conscience; and therefore, I pray you, rather let the matter be in the state that it is, abiding till God of his goodness put remedy thereto."

Following upon the baptism of the infant prince, who afterward became James VI. of Scotland, came the unfortunately too successful endeavors of Murray, Maitland, Bothwell, and Queen Elizabeth to obtain the pardon of the Riccio murderers.

Poor Mary's political success would have been assured if she had possessed but a small share of Elizabeth's hardness of heart and vindictiveness. Always generous, always noble, always forgiving, she allowed herself to be persuaded to grant a pardon to these villains—seventy-six in number—excepting only George Douglas, who stabbed Riccio in presence of the queen, and Ker of Faudonside, who held his pistol at her breast during the perpetration of the murder. This ruffian remained safely in England until Mary's downfall, when he returned to Scotland and married the widow of John Knox.

It was about this period that Buchanan was extolling to the skies, in such Latin verses as those beginning

"Virtute ingenio, regina, et munere formæ
Felicibus felicior majoribus,"

the virtues of a sovereign whom he afterward told us every one knew at the time to be a monster of lust and cruelty! His libel was written when Mary was a fugitive in England, to serve the purposes of his employers, who had driven her from her native kingdom. The most assiduous of her flatterers as long as she was on the throne, he pursued her with the malice of a demon when she became a helpless prisoner. His slanders were addressed not to his own countrymen, for whom they would have been too gross, but to Englishmen, for the great majority of whom Scotland was a terra incognita. His monstrous fictions were copied by Knox and De Thou, and later by Robertson, Laing, and Mignet, who, while using his material, carefully abstained from quoting him as authority. Mr. Froude, the author of that popular serial novel which he strangely entitles The History of England, with delicious naïveté declares his belief in the truth of Buchanan's Detection, and makes its transparent mendacity a leading feature of his work.

According to Buchanan, the Queen of Scots was, at the period above referred to, leading a life of the most notorious profligacy. Mr. Hosack, in his calm, lawyer-like manner, shows conclusively that at that very time she never stood higher in the estimation both of her own subjects and of her partisans in England. Considering the difficulties of her position, he adds, Mary had conducted the government of Scotland with remarkable prudence and success; and her moderation in matters of religion induced even the most powerful of the Protestant nobility to regard her claims with favor.

And still the plotting went on. Motives enough, for them, had Murray, Morton, Maitland, and the rest to seek the destruction of Darnley—revenge and greed of gain. These men had imposed upon the generous nature of the queen in the disposal of the crown lands, and they well knew that Darnley had made no secret of his disapproval of the improvident bounty of his wife. These grants of the crown lands, under the law of Scotland, could be revoked at any time before the queen attained the age of twenty-five. That period was now at hand, and the danger of their losing their spoils under the influence of Darnley was imminent.

He had just been taken down with the small-pox at Glasgow, and the conspirators, well knowing Mary's forgiving temper, feared, as well they might, that his illness would lead to a reconciliation between them.

Although Bothwell had shared less in the bounty of the queen than the others, his motive was no less powerful for seeking the death of Darnley. He aspired to Darnley's place as the queen's husband, and his ambition was no secret to Murray and the others. Full willingly they lent themselves to aid him, knowing that, if successful, his plans would be fatal both to the queen and to himself.

Queen Mary went from Edinburgh to Glasgow, to visit Darnley on his sick-bed. On this visit hinges a mass of accusations against Mary by her enemies. We regret that the passages of Mr. Hosack's book in which he dissects and analyzes all the evidence covering the period from the journey to Glasgow down to the explosion at Kirk-a-field are too long to be copied here. They are masterly, and more thoroughly dispose of the slanders than any statement we have seen. He moreover demonstrates that the queen's journey to Glasgow, heretofore relied on as a proof of her duplicity because she went uninvited, was undertaken at Darnley's own urgent request. It is during this visit to Glasgow that Mary is charged with having written the two casket letters, which, if genuine, certainly would prove her to be accessory to the murder of her husband. With thorough knowledge of Scotch localities, language, customs, and peculiarities, and with a perfect mastery of all the details of testimony, pro and con, in existence on the subject—a mastery which Mr. Froude is far from possessing—Mr. Hosack makes the examination of this question of the genuineness of the Glasgow letters with an application of the laws of evidence that enables him—if we may be permitted the homely phrase—to turn them inside out. Contrasted with the sweet, trusting, child-like confidence with which the letters are received by Mr. Froude, Mr. Hosack's treatment of them is shockingly cool. In commenting upon Hume's opinion that the style of the second Glasgow letter was inelegant but "natural," Mr. Hosack remarks that human depravity surely has its limits, and the most hardened wretches do not boast, and least of all in writing, of their treachery and cruelty. Even in the realm of fiction we find no such revolting picture.

Of the third letter, the historian Robertson long since remarked that, "if Mary's adversaries forged her letters, they were certainly employed very idly when they produced this." And this remark may correctly be applied to the fourth letter. The difference between the two first and the two last is the most striking. The Glasgow letters breathe only lust and murder; but these are written, to all appearance, by a wife to her husband, in very modest and becoming language. She gently reproaches him with his forgetfulness, and with the coldness of his writings, sends him a gift in testimony of her unchangeable affection, and finally describes herself as his obedient, lawful wife. This is not the language of a murderess, and these simple and tender thoughts were not traced by the same hand that composed the Glasgow letters. They are the genuine letters of Mary, not to Bothwell, but to her husband Darnley, and they are here by result of an ingenious device to mix up a few genuine letters of Mary with those intended to prove her guilty of the murder. The only letters of importance as testimony against the queen are the two first, and they were conclusively proven by Goodall, more than a century ago, to have been written originally in Scotch.

Concerning Paris, whose testimony is strongly relied on by Mary's enemies, Mr. Hosack has made a very important discovery. According to a letter of Murray to Queen Elizabeth, Paris arrived in Leith (a prisoner) about the middle of June, 1569. But Professor Schiern, of Copenhagen, in compliance with a request made by Mr. Hosack to search the Danish archives for any papers relating to Scotland, found the receipt of Clark, Murray's agent, acknowledging the delivery to him of the prisoner Paris on the 30th of October, 1568. So that Paris was delivered up nearly a year before his so-called deposition was produced. The authenticity of his deposition, monstrous though it be, has been stoutly maintained by several of Mary's enemies. Even Hume remarks upon it,

"It is in vain at present to seek improbabilities in Nicolas Hubert's dying confession, and to magnify the smallest difficulty into a contradiction. It was certainly a regular judicial paper, given in regularly and judicially, and ought to have been canvassed at the time, if the persons whom it concerned had been assured of their own innocence."

Mr. Hume is an attractive writer, but as a historian it is long since people ceased to rely upon him for facts. The passage here quoted is a characteristic exemplification of his extraordinary carelessness. According to Mr. Hosack, the short sentence cited contains three distinct and palpable mistakes. In the first place, the paper containing the depositions of Paris was authenticated by no judicial authority. Secondly, it was not given in regularly and judicially; for it was secretly sent to London in October, 1569, many months after the termination of the Westminster conferences. Lastly, it was impossible that it could have been canvassed at the time by those whom it concerned; for it was not only kept a profound secret from the queen and her friends during her life, but it was not made public for nearly a century and a half after her death. The depositions of Paris were first given to the world in the collections of Anderson in 1725.

It did not at all suit Murray's purpose to produce Paris in open court. So, after being tortured, he was executed, and in place of a witness who might have told what he saw and heard, was produced a so-called deposition professedly written by a servant of Murray, and attested by two of his creatures, Buchanan and Wood, both pensioners of Cecil, and both enemies of the Queen of Scotland. Buchanan, of course, had full cognizance of the Paris deposition, for he subscribed it as a witness; and yet we have the singular fact that, although he appended to his Detectio the depositions of Hay, Hepburn, and Dalgleish, that of Paris is omitted. Again, in his History of Scotland, published subsequently, although he refers to Paris in several passages, he is still silent as to his deposition. The solution of this seeming singularity is simple. He rejected it for its manifest extravagance and absurdity, which, he wisely concluded, could not impose on the worst enemies of the queen.

Fable and fiction answering Mr. Froude's purpose just as well as authentic history, he of course accepts the "Paris" paper as perfectly true. A successful writer of the romance of history, Mr. Froude deserves great credit for his industry in gathering every variety of material for his novel without any absurd sentimental squeamishness as to its origin.

And now, little by little, the truth begins to come out. For full two years after the murder of Darnley, no one was publicly charged with the crime but Bothwell and the queen. And this because it was the interest of the ruling faction in Scotland, (themselves the murderers,) to confine the accusation to these two persons. But as in time events develop, we find the leaders of this faction, quarrelling among themselves, begin to accuse each other of the crime, until the principal nobility of Scotland are implicated in it. Mr. Hosack's conclusion, from a searching analysis of all the evidence on record, is, that the mysterious assassination of Darnley was not a domestic but a political crime; and it was one which for many a day secured political power to that faction which from the first had opposed his marriage, and had never ceased from the time of his arrival in Scotland to lay plots for his destruction.

As might be expected, Mary's enemies accuse her of a criminal degree of inactivity after the death of her husband. But what could she do? Who were the murderers? No one could tell. The whole affair was then involved in impenetrable mystery. Her chief officers of justice, Huntly the chancellor, and Argyll the lord-justice, were both in the plot; Bothwell, the sheriff of the county, on whom should devolve the pursuit and arrest of the criminal, had taken an active share in the perpetration of the murder, and Maitland, the secretary, who had first proposed to get rid of Darnley, was probably the most guilty of all. In a memorial afterward addressed by Mary to the different European courts, she thus describes the situation: "Her majesty could not but marvel at the little diligence they used, and that they looked at one another as men who wist not what they say or do."

And now calumny ran riot. Slanderous tongues and pens were busy. Since Mary had dismissed the insolent Randolph from her court, Elizabeth had maintained no ambassador there, so that the usual official espionage could not be carried on. Instead thereof, Sir William Drury, stationed on the Scotch border, transmitted day by day a current of scandalous stories. Mary was a woman, and her enemies might effect by slander what they could not accomplish by force. Then, too, a bigoted religious prejudice made the work easy. No matter, says our author, what was the nature of the accusation against a Catholic queen; so long as it was boldly made and frequently repeated, it was sure to gain a certain amount of credit in the end. Here follows, in Mr. Hosack's pages, an able presentation of contemporary testimony going to show the falsehood of the accusations that the queen was at this time on a footing of intimate understanding with Bothwell. Under the circumstances his trial was, of course, a farce.

The most powerful men in Scotland were his associates in guilt. One of his noble accomplices in the murder rode by his side to the Talbooth. Another accomplice, the Earl of Argyll, hereditary lord-justice, presided at the trial; and the Earl of Caithness, a near connection of Bothwell by marriage, was foreman of the jury. The parliament which met soon after did little, besides passing the Act of Toleration, but enact statutes confirming Maitland, Huntly, Morton, and Murray in their titles and estates. As we have seen, this was precisely the main object sought by these men in the murder of Darnley, an object passed over in silence by most historians, and not understood by others. Their common interest in his death was the strongest bond of union among the noble assassins. If Darnley had lived, he would have prevented the confirmation of these grants; for he had made significant threats on that subject, especially as to the gifts to Murray. Murray and the others wanted the lands and titles. They obtained them. Bothwell had his own designs, and these were insolent in their ambition. He wanted the queen's hand in marriage as a step to the throne. It was but just that his companions should help him as he had aided them. On the evening of the day on which parliament rose, (April 19th,) Both well gave an entertainment at a tavern in Edinburgh to a large party of the nobility. After wine had circulated freely, he laid before his guests a bond for their signatures. This document recited that it was prejudicial to the realm that the queen should remain a widow; and it recommended him, (Bothwell,) a married man, as the fittest husband she could obtain among her subjects. With a solitary exception—the Earl of Eglinton—all the lords present signed this infamous bond, and thereby bound themselves to "further advance and set forward the said marriage," and to risk their lives and goods against all who should seek to hinder or oppose it. It is claimed by Mr. Froude that his special saint, "the noble and stainless Murray," did not sign this bond; but it is now made plain that he did. Meantime calumny had free scope, and no invention was too gross for belief by many, if it but carried with it some injury to Mary's reputation. Thus, she is accused of journeying to Stirling for the express purpose of poisoning her infant son. Poor Marie Antoinette in after years, as we know, was accused of something worse than taking the life of her child. The answer of these two Catholic queens, great in their sufferings, and grand in their resignation, was, in each case, an eloquent burst of nature and queenly dignity. "The natural love," said Mary Stuart, "which the mother bears to her only bairn is sufficient to confound them, and needs no other answer." She afterward added, that all the world knew that the very men who now charged her with this atrocious crime had wronged her son even before his birth; for they would have slain him in her womb, although they now pretended in his name to exercise their usurped authority.

On the 23d of April, while travelling from Linlithgow to Edinburgh, with a few attendants, the queen was stopped by Bothwell, at the head of one thousand horse. Bothwell rode up, caught her bridle-rein, and assured her that "she was in the greatest possible danger," and forthwith escorted her to one of her own castles, Dunbar. Here she was kept a prisoner. Melville, who accompanied her, was sent away, having heard Bothwell boast that he would marry the queen, even "whether she would herself or not." No woman was allowed near her but Bothwell's sister.

Although our readers are familiar with the horrible story, the best account of it is, after all, Mary's own simple and modest narrative of the abominable outrage. It is found in Keith, vol. ii. p. 599, and in Hosack, p. 313. After referring to the great services and unshaken loyalty of Bothwell, she says that, previous to her visit to Stirling, he had made certain advances, "to which her answer was in no degree correspondent to his desire;" but that, having previously obtained the consent of the nobility to the marriage, he did not hesitate to carry her off to the castle of Dunbar; that when she reproached him for his audacity, he implored her to attribute his conduct to the ardor of his affection, and to condescend to accept him as her husband, in accordance with the wishes of his brother nobles; that he then, to her amazement, laid before her the bond of the nobility, declaring that it was essential to the peace and welfare of the kingdom that she should choose another husband, and that, of all her subjects, Bothwell was best deserving of that honor; that she still, notwithstanding, refused to listen to his proposals, believing that, as on her former visit to Dunbar, an army of loyal subjects would speedily appear for her deliverance; but that, as day after day passed without a sword being drawn in her defence, she was forced to conclude that the bond was genuine, and that her chief nobility were all in league with Bothwell; and finally, that, finding her a helpless captive, he assumed a bolder tone, and "so ceased he never till, by persuasion and importunate suit, accompanied not the less by force, he has finally driven us to end the work begun." Forced to marry Bothwell Mary was, to all who saw her, an utterly wretched woman, and longed only for death. The testimony on this point is very ample, and her behavior at this crisis of her history, concludes Mr. Hosack, can only be explained by her rooted aversion to a marriage which was forced upon her by the daring ambition of Bothwell and the matchless perfidy of his brother nobles.

But already a fresh plot was on foot. Melville wrote to Cecil concerning it, on the 7th of May; and on the following day, Kirkaldy of Grange sent to the Earl of Bedford a letter intended for Elizabeth's eye. Kirkaldy, the Laird of Grange, an ardent Protestant, who, at the age of nineteen, was one of the men who murdered Cardinal Beaton, enjoyed among his fellow-nobles the reputation of being a man of honor, and the best and bravest soldier in Scotland. He advised Bedford of the signing of a "bond" by "the most part of the nobility," one head of which was, "to seek the liberty of the queen, who is ravished and detained by the Earl of Bothwell;" another, "to pursue them that murdered the king." The letter concludes by asking Elizabeth's aid and support for "suppressing of the cruel murtherer Bothwell." But Elizabeth had lost not only much money, but all credit for veracity, by her last interference in Scottish affairs, and refused to have any thing to do with this plot.

For three weeks after her marriage the queen remained at Holyrood; the prisoner, to all appearance, rather than the wife of Bothwell. She was continually surrounded with guards; and the description of her situation given by Melville, who was at court at the time, agrees entirely with that of the French ambassador. Not a day passed, he says, in which she did not shed tears; and he adds that many, even of Bothwell's followers, "believed that her majesty would fain have been quit of him." The insurgent leaders—Morton, Maitland, and Hume—were busy, and soon in the field with their forces. Bothwell raised a small levy to oppose them, and the two armies met at Carberry Hill on the 15th of June, 1567, exactly one month after the marriage. There was no fighting. Dangerous as it was, Mary preferred to trust herself to the rebel lords than to remain with Bothwell. She received their pledge—that, in case she would separate herself from Bothwell, they were ready "to serve her upon their knees, as her most humble and obedient subjects and servants"—through Kirkaldy of Grange, the only man among them whose word she would take. They kept their pledge as they usually observed such obligations. What followed is too horrible to dwell upon. It is wonderful that any human being could have lived through the physical exhaustion, the insults, and the brutal treatment this poor woman was subjected to during the next two days. The people of Edinburgh grew indignant; and Kirkaldy of Grange swore the lords should not violate their promises. But they quieted him by showing a forged letter of the queen to Bothwell. It was not the first time some among them had forged Mary's signature. With every circumstance of force and brutality, Mary was then imprisoned in Lochleven, whose guardian was the mother of the bastard Murray.

And now, while the friends of Mary, numerous as they were, remained irresolute and inactive, the dominant faction made the most strenuous efforts to strengthen itself. In the towns, where its strength chiefly lay, and especially in Edinburgh, says Mr. Hosack, the Protestant preachers rendered the most valuable aid. By indulging in furious invectives against the queen, and charging her directly with the murder, they prepared their hearers for the prospect of her speedy deposition, and the establishment of a regency in the name of the infant prince. It is clear that Murray was not forgotten by his friends the preachers.

Strange as it may appear, there can be but little doubt that Elizabeth was sincerely indignant on hearing of the outrageous treatment of Mary by the lords. In her whole history, she never appeared to so much advantage as a woman and a queen. She would not stand tamely by, she said, and see her cousin murdered; and if remonstrances proved ineffectual, she would send an army to chastise and reduce them to obedience. Such conduct, and her messages to Mary while a prisoner at Lochleven, no doubt inspired the Scottish queen with the fatal confidence which induced her, a few months afterward, to seek refuge in England. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, and perhaps more unfortunately for Mary, the Queen of England's reputation for duplicity was now so well established that no one but her own ministers believed she was now sincere. Maitland, for the Scotch nobles, plainly told Elizabeth's ambassador that, after what had occurred in times past, "they could place no reliance on his mistress;" and the King of France said to Sir Henry Norris, "I do not greatly trust her." Meantime, the ministers daily denounced Mary as a murderess in their sermons, and demanded that she should be brought to justice like an ordinary criminal. Elizabeth's ambassador tried to induce the confederate lords to restrain the savage license of the preachers; but we cannot doubt, says Mr. Hosack, that they were secretly encouraged by their noble patrons to prepare the minds of the people for the deposition, if not for the murder, of the queen. Throgmorton's opinion was that, but for his presence in Scotland, she would have been sacrificed to the ambition and the bigotry of her subjects.

Still a prisoner at Lochleven, Mary had to suffer the brutality of the ruffian Lindsay, and the infamous hypocrisy of Mr. Froude's "stainless Murray," who, with money in both pockets from France and England, now came, with characteristic deceit, to defraud his sister of her crown. Mr. Hosack thus estimates his performance:

"First, to terrify his sister with the prospect of immediate death, then to soothe her with false promises of safety, and finally, with well-feigned reluctance, to accept the dignity he was longing to grasp, displayed a mixture of brutality and cunning of which he alone was capable."

Murray was proclaimed regent on the 22d of August. Soon afterward began the machinations for accusing Mary of Darnley's murder; and Murray's first care was to put out of the way every witness whose testimony could be of any importance. Hay, Hepburn, and Powrie and Dalgleish, on whom the queen's letters were said to have been found, were all tried, convicted, and executed on the same day. It was remarked that the proceedings were conducted with extraordinary and indecent haste. Hay and Hepburn, from the scaffold, denounced the nobles who had "made a bond for the king's murder." Public confidence was shaken in the regent, and the discontent of the people was expressed in plain speech and satirical ballads. Murray began to feel the need of Elizabeth's assistance. Mary, in her trusting confidence, had voluntarily placed all her valuable jewels in Murray's hands, for safe keeping. From among them he selected a set of rare pearls, the most valuable in Europe, which he sent by an agent to Elizabeth, who agreed to purchase what she well knew he had no right to sell. Under such circumstances, as is the custom among thieves and receivers, she expected a bargain, and got it. It was a very pretty transaction. In May, 1568, Mary escaped from Lochleven castle, and in a few days found herself at the head of an army of six thousand men. Of the ten earls and lords who flew to her support, nine were Protestants; and our Puritan historian finds it remarkable that, in spite of all the efforts of Murray and his faction, and in spite of all the violence of the preachers, she—the Catholic Queen of Scotland, the daughter of the hated house of Guise, the reputed mortal enemy of their religion—should now, after being maligned as the most abandoned of her sex, find her best friends among her own Protestant subjects, appears at first sight inexplicable. A phenomenon so strange, he adds, admits of only one explanation. If, throughout her reign, she had not loyally kept her promises of security and toleration to her Protestant subjects, they assuredly would not, in her hour of need, have risked their lives and fortunes in her defence.

Against her better judgment, Mary was induced to fight the battle of Langside, and lost the field. And now the queen made the great mistake of her life. Instead of trusting to the loyalty of the Scotch borderers, she determined to throw herself on the hospitality of the Queen of England. In vain did her trusty counsellors and strongest supporters seek to dissuade her. The warm professions of friendship and attachment made to her by Elizabeth, when she was a prisoner at Lochleven, had completely captivated her; and, insisting on her project, she crossed the Solway, in an open boat, to the English shore. She was received by Mr. Lowther, deputy warden, with all the respect due to her rank and misfortunes. Although she did not yet know it, Mary was from this moment a prisoner. Here Mr. Hosack, in a few eloquent passages, sets forth the reasons why the forcible detention of Mary, independently of all considerations of morality and justice, was a political blunder of the first magnitude. As the inmate of an English prison, she proved a far more formidable enemy to Elizabeth than when she wore the crowns both of France and Scotland. Never did a political crime entail a heavier measure of retribution than the captivity and murder of the Queen of Scots entailed on England.

Mary was first taken to the castle of Carlisle. Here Queen Elizabeth was represented by Lord Scrope, the warden of the marches, and Sir Francis Knollys, the queen's vice-chamberlain. These noblemen appear to have been more impressed with the mental and moral qualities of the Scottish queen than with her external graces. They describe her, after their first interview, as possessing "an eloquent tongue and a discreet head, with stout courage and a liberal heart;" and, in a subsequent letter, Knollys says, "Surely, she is a rare woman; for as no flattery can abuse her, so no plain speech seems to offend her, if she thinks the speaker an honest man." All this was written to Elizabeth, to whom, of course, it was gall and wormwood. A more remarkable passage of their letter is that in which, speaking in simple candor as English gentlemen and men of honor, they ask their royal mistress whether

"it were not honorable for you, in the sight of your own subjects and of all foreign princes, to put her grace to the choice, whether she will depart freely back into her country without your highness's impeachment, or whether she will remain at your highness's devotion within your realm here, with her necessary servants only to attend her?"

To a sovereign whose policy was synonymous with fraud, the unconscious sarcasm of this honorable advice must have been biting.

Elizabeth pledged her word to Mary that she should be restored to her throne. She at the same time pledged her word to Murray that Mary should never be permitted to return to Scotland. Then began the long nineteen years' martyrdom of Mary. The conference at York and the commission at Westminster were mockeries of justice. It was pretended there were two parties present before them—Murray and his associates on one side, Mary on the other. Mary was kept a prisoner in a distant castle, while Murray, received with honor at court, held private and secret consultations with members of both these quasi-judicial bodies, showed them the testimony he intended to produce, and obtained their judgment as to the sufficiency of his proofs before he publicly produced them; these proofs being the forged letters of the silver casket. These letters were never seen by Mary Stuart, and even copies of them were repeatedly and persistently refused her. Mr. Froude makes a lame attempt to show that some one secretly furnished her copies; but even if his attempt were successful, it does not affect the fact that the copies were officially refused her. By the time the scales had fallen from Mary's eyes, Elizabeth's art and duplicity had woven a web from which she could not be extricated. Her remaining years of life were one long, heart-sickening struggle against treachery, spies, insult to her person, her reputation, and her faith; confinement, cold, sickness, neuralgic agony, want; deprivation of all luxuries, of medical attendance, and of the consolations of religion. At every fresh spasm of alarm on the part of Elizabeth, Mary's prison was changed; frequently in dead of winter, and generally without any provision for the commonest conveniences of life. More than once, taken into a naked, cold castle, Mary's jailers had to rely on the charity of the neighbors for even a bed for their royal prisoner. At Tutbury, her rooms were so dark and comfortless, and the surroundings so filthy—there is no other word for it—that the English physician refused to charge himself with her health. But enough. We all know the sad story, and we trustingly believe the poor martyred queen has her recompense in heaven.

Mr. Hosack's treatment of the question of the authenticity of the silver-casket letters is exhaustive. More than a century ago, Goodall fully exposed the forgery, and he has never been satisfactorily answered. Mr. Froude, of course, accepts them without discussion. The conferences at York and the proceedings at Westminster are presented as only a lawyer can present them. Mary's cause gains by the most rigid scrutiny. Mr. Froude does not know enough to analyze and intelligibly present serious matters like these. He prefers a series of sensational tableaux and highly-colored dissolving views, producing for authorities garbled citations and his own fictions. Mr. Hosack's testimony, independently of its great intrinsic merit, is valuable because of his nationality and of his religion, and we hope to see his work republished in the United States. His closing page concludes thus:

"In the darkest hours of her existence—even when she hailed the prospect of a scaffold as a blessed relief from her protracted sufferings—she never once expressed a doubt as to the verdict that would be finally pronounced between her and her enemies. 'The theatre of the world,' she calmly reminded her judges at Fotheringay, 'is wider than the realm of England.' She appealed from the tyranny of her persecutors to the whole human race; and she has not appealed in vain. The history of no woman that ever lived approaches in interest to that of Mary Stuart; and so long as beauty and intellect, a kindly spirit in prosperity, and matchless heroism in misfortune attract the sympathies of men, this illustrious victim of sectarian violence and barbarous statecraft will ever occupy the most prominent place in the annals of her sex."

STABAT MATER.

Stabat Mater dolorosa,
Juxta crucem lacrymosa,
Dum pendebat Filius:
Cujus animam gementem,
Contristatam et dolentem,
Pertransivit gladius.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION[8]
Broken-hearted, lo, and tearful,
Bowed before that Cross so fearful,
Stands the Mother by the Son!
Through her bosom sympathizing
In his mortal agonizing
Deep and keen the steel has gone.

GREEK TRANSLATION.[9]
Ἵστη Μήτηρ ἀλγέουσα
παρὰ σταυρῷ δακρύουσα,
ἐκρημνᾶτο ὡς Τέκνον·
ἧς τὴν ψυχὴν στενάχουσαν,
πολύστονον, πενθέουσαν
διέπειρε φάσγανον.

O quam tristis et afflicta
Fuit illa benedicta
Mater Unigeniti!
Quæ mœrebat et dolebat,
Pia Mater, dum videbat
Nati pœnas inclyti.

How afflicted, how distressed,
Stands she now, that Virgin blessed,
By that tree of woe and scorn;
Mark her tremble, droop, and languish,
Gazing on that awful anguish
Of her Child, her Only-Born!

Φεῦ τοῦ ἄχθους τῆς τε λύπης
εὐλογημένης ἐκείνης
Μήτρος τοῦ Μονογένους·
ἣ ἤλγει καὶ ἠνιᾶτο,
θεοσεβὴς, ὡς ὡρᾶτο
Υἱοῦ τ' ἄλγη εὐκλεοῦς.

Quis est homo qui non fleret,
Matrem Christi si videret
In tanto supplicio?
Quis non posset contristari,
Christi Matrem contemplari
Dolentem cum Filio?

Who may see, nor share her weeping,
Christ the Saviour's mother keeping
Grief's wild watch, so sad and lone?
Who behold her bosom sharing
Every pang his soul is bearing,
Nor receive them in his own?

Τίς ἀνθρώπων οὐκ ἂν κλαίοι,
εἰ τὴν Χριστοῦ Μήτερ' ἴδοι
τοιαῦτ' ἀνεχομένην;
τίς δύναιτ' ἂν οὐκ ἄχθεσθαι
τῷ τὴν Χριστοῦ Μήτερ' ἴδεσθαι
σὺν Υἱῷ λυπουμένην;

Pro peccatis suæ gentis,
Vidit Jesum in tormentis,
Et flagellis subditum.
Vidit suum dulcem Natum
Moriendo desolatum,
Dum emisit spiritum.

Ransom for a world's offending,
Lo, her Son and God is bending
That dear head to wounds and blows;
'Mid the body's laceration,
And the spirit's desolation,
As his life-blood darkly flows.

Πρὸ τῶν κακῶν οἵο γένους
'φαν' αὐτῇ ὑβρισθεὶς Ἰησοῦς
καὶ μάστιξιν ἔκδοτος·
εἶδεν ἕον γλυκὺν παῖδα
ἐκθνήσκοντα, μονωθέντα,
ὡς ἐξέπνει ἄθλιος.

Eia Mater, fons amoris,
Me sentire vim doloris
Fac ut tecum lugeam;
Fac ut ardeat cor meum
In amando Christum Deum,
Ut sibi complaceam.

Fount of love, in that dread hour,
Teach me all thy sorrow's power,
Bid me share its grievous load;
O'er my heart thy spirit pouring,
Bid it burn in meet adoring
Of its martyred Christ and God!

Ὦ συ Μήτερ, πήγη ἔρωτος,
τῆς λύπης με πάθειν ἄχθος
δός, σοι ἵνα συμπαθῶ·
δὸς φλέγεσθαι κῆρ τὸ ἐμόν
τῷ φιλεῖν τὸν Χριστὸν Θεόν,
ὅπως οἱ εὐδοκέω.

Sancta Mater! istud agas,
Crucifixi fige plagas
Cordi meo valide.
Tui Nati vulnerati,
Tam dignati pro me pati,
Pœnas mecum divide.

Be my prayer, O Mother! granted,
And within my heart implanted
Every gash whose crimson tide,
From that spotless victim streaming,
Deigns to flow for my redeeming,
Mother of the crucified!

Ἅγνη Μήτερ, τόδε δράσον·
Σταυρωθέντος πλήγας πήξον
μοι ἐν κῆρι κρατερῶς·
σοίο τοῦ τρωθέντος Τέκνου,
ὃς πρὸ ἐμοῦ πάσχειν ἤξιου,
μέρος ποινῶν μοι διδούς.

Fac me tecum pie flere,
Crucifixo condolere,
Donec ego vixero.
Juxta crucem tecum stare,
Et me tibi sociare
In planctu desidero.

Every sigh of thy affliction,
Every pang of crucifixion—
Teach me all their agony!
At his cross for ever bending,
In thy grief for ever blending,
Mother, let me live and die!

Δός σοί μ' εὐσεβῶς συλλυπεῖν,
Σταυρωθέντι δὸς συναλγεῖν,
ἕως μοι βιώσεται·
πρὸς σταυρῷ σοι συνίστασθαι,
σοί τε μοίρας μετέχεσθαι
τοῦ πενθεῖν ὀρέγομαι.

Virgo virginum præclara,
Mihi jam non sis amara,
Fac me tecum plangere.
Fac ut portem Christi mortem,
Passionis fac consortem,
Et plagas recolere.

Virgin of all virgins highest,
Humble prayer who ne'er deniest,
Teach me how to share thy woe!
All Christ's Passion's depth revealing,
Quicken every quivering feeling
All its bitterness to know!

Παρθένε, τῶν κόρων λαμπρά,
ἤδη μή μοι ἴσθι πικρά,
δός μέ σοι συναλγέειν·
δὸς βαστάζειν Χριστοῦ πότμον,
τοῦ πάθους ποίει με μέτοχον,
τάς τε πλήγας ἐννοεῖν.

Fac me plagis vulnerari,
Cruce hac inebriari,
Et cruore Filii.
Flammis ne urar succensus,
Per te, Virgo, sim defensus,
In die judicii.

Bid me drink that heavenly madness,
Mingled bliss of grief and gladness,
Of the Cross of thy dear Son!
With his love my soul inflaming,
Plead for it, O Virgin! claiming
Mercy at his judgment throne!

Δὸς ταῖς πλήγαις με τρωθῆναι,
τῷδε σταυρῷ μεθυσθῆναι
καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ αἵματι.
πυρὶ ἀφθέντα μὴ καυθῆναι,
ἀλλὰ διὰ σοῦ σωθῆναι
κρίσεως ἐφ' ἥματι.

Christe, cum sit hinc exire,
Da per matrem me venire
Ad palmam victoriæ.[10]
Quando corpus morietur,
Fac ut animæ donetur
Paradisi gloria.

Shelter at that Cross, oh! yield me!
By the death of Christ, oh! shield me!
Comfort with thy grace and aid!
And, O Mother! bid my spirit
Joys of Paradise inherit,
When its clay to rest is laid!

Ὁπόθ' ὥρα μ' ἀπέρχεσθαι,
διὰ Μήτρος δὸς φέρεσθαι,
Χριστὲ, νικητήρια·
τεθνέωτος χρωτὸς ἐμοῦ,
εὔχομαί μοι ψυχῇ δίδου
οὐρανοῦ τὰ χάρματα.

THE BRIGAND'S GOD-CHILD.
A LEGEND OF SPAIN.

Once upon a time, as the legends say, there lived in good old Spain a poor workman, to whom destiny had given twelve children, and nothing for them to live upon. Now his wife was expecting a thirteenth, and perhaps with it would appear a fourteenth also, to run about loved but unclothed and unfed, as the others had before them. The bread was almost gone, work not to be had, and the poor man, to hide his sighs and his misery from the patient partner of his misfortunes, wandered far from home and into the woods, calling upon paradise to assist him, until he came to the ill-reputed cavern and stronghold of the bandits.

He almost fell over their captain, and came very near receiving a sabre-thrust for his pains; but his extreme misery made him no object for a robbery, so he was simply catechised as to his condition.

He told his story, moved even the brigand heart to pity, and was invited to supper; a bag of gold and a fine horse were given him, and he was sent home with the assurance that, be the new-comer boy or girl, the robber-chief would stand as god-father. The poor man, in ecstasy at such good fortune, flew rather than rode to his well-filled dwelling, and arrived there just in time to welcome number thirteen.

A boy! He gave his wife the money and a caress, and, although the night was far advanced, mounted his charger and galloped back to the cave. The brigand was astonished at his speedy return; but true to his word, appeared with him in the neighboring church in disguise of a rich old gossip, made every requisite promise for the new-born babe, and disappeared, leaving a bag of golden crowns and another purse of gold.

The angels, however, claimed the baby, and the brigand's god-child flew to paradise on golden wings, and in the splendid swaddling-clothes that his charity had provided for it.

St. Peter, porter at the gates celestial, stirred himself to welcome the little fellow to heaven; but no! he would not enter unless accompanied by his god-father.

"And who may he be?" asked St. Peter.

"Who?" responded the god-child; "The chief of the brigands."

"My poor little innocent," said the saint, "you know not what you ask! Come in yourself; but heaven was not made for such as he."

The child sat down by the door resolved not to enter, and planning in his little head all sorts of schemes to accomplish his purpose, when the Blessed Mary passed that way.

"Why do you not enter, my angel?" she said.

"I would be ungrateful," he answered, "to partake of heavenly joys if my good god-father did not share them with me."

St. Peter interposed, and appealed to the Holy Mother, saying,

"If he had only been a wax-carrier! but this man, Satan's own emissary—impossible! An incarnate demon; a robber, healthy and robust, who has taken every opportunity to do mischief! Holy Mother! could such a thing be thought of?"

But the god-child insisted, bent his pretty blonde head, joined his little hands, fell on his knees, prayed and wept. The Virgin had compassion on him and bringing a golden chalice from the heavenly inclosure, said,

"Take this; go and seek your god-father; tell him that he may come with you to heaven; but he must first fill this cup with repentant tears."

Just then, by the clear moonlight, reposing on a rock, and fully armed, lay the brigand. In his dream his dagger trembled in his hands. As he awoke, he saw near his couch a beautiful winged infant. With no fear of the savage man, it approached and presented the golden chalice. He rubbed his eyes, and thought he still dreamed; but the infant angel reassured him, saying,

"No; it is not a fancy. I have come to invite thee to go with me. Leave this earth. I am thy god-child, and I will conduct thy steps."

Then the little fellow related his marvellous story: his arrival at heaven's gate, St. Peter's refusal, and how the Blessed Mother, ever merciful, had come to his assistance and granted his request. The bandit listened, and breathed with difficulty, while, bewildered he gazed on the angelic figure, and held out his hand for the golden chalice.

Suddenly his heart seemed to burst, two fountains of tears gushed from his eyes. The cup was filled, and the radiant infant mounted with him to the skies.

Into heaven the little one entered, carrying the well-filled cup to St. Peter—who was astonished to see who followed him—and proceeded to offer it at the feet of the beautiful Queen.

She smiled on the sinner who through her compassion had been saved, while he threw himself in reverence at her feet. God himself had acquitted the debt of the child. Besides, we know that to the repentant there is always grace—and the infant had declared it would not enter alone.

MOLECULAR MECHANICS.

Among the theories proposed to explain the constitution of material substance, and to account for the facts relative to it disclosed by modern science, one developed in a recent work with the above title, by Rev. Joseph Bayma, of Stonyhurst, is specially worthy of notice for its ingenuity and the field which it opens to the mathematician. Whether it be true or not, it is at any rate such that its truth can be tested; and though this may be somewhat difficult, on account of the complexity of the necessary formulas and calculations, still the difficulty can probably be overcome in course of time, should the undertaking seem promising enough.

It is briefly as follows. Matter is not continuous, even in very small parts of its volume, but is composed of a definite number of ultimate elements, each of which occupies a mere point, and may be considered simply as a centre of force. This force is actually exerted by each of them following the law of gravitation as to its change of intensity with the distance; but is attractive for some elements and repulsive for others, which is obviously necessary to preserve equilibrium. These elements are arranged in regularly formed groups, in which the balance of the attractive and repulsive forces is such that each group, as well as the whole mass, is preserved from collapse or indefinite expansion; these are what are known chemically as molecules; and in the simple substances they probably have the shape of one of the five regular polyhedrons.

The simplest possible construction of a molecule would be one of the polyhedrons, with an element at each vertex, and one at the centre, whose action must be of an opposite character to that of those at the vertices; for these last must all exert the same kind of action, attractive or repulsive, for any kind of equilibrium to be maintained, and the centre must act in the opposite direction to prevent collapse or expansion of the mass. Furthermore, the absolute attractive power, or that which the molecule would have if all collected at one point, must exceed the repulsive, slightly at any rate, since the force exerted at distances compared with which its dimensions are insignificant is known to have this former character.

This system admits of two varieties, according as the centre is attractive or repulsive. In either case, for the maintenance of equilibrium the force of the centre must always be less than half that of the vertices combined, as the author shows, (giving the values for each polyhedron;) and it would seem that the first supposition would therefore be untenable, since the attractive force in each molecule, as just stated, necessarily exceeds the repulsive. Equilibrium certainly cannot be maintained in this case; but this will not involve the permanent collapse of the molecule, but merely a continual vibration of its elements back and forward through the centre.

The second hypothesis, on the other hand, requires either a centre so weak as to produce very little repulsion outside of the molecule, or else a continual tendency to expand under a central power too great for equilibrium. Both will tend to bring the molecular envelopes near to each other, and produce adhesion or mixing among them; also, it may perhaps be added, that the envelopes themselves will, on account of the mutual attraction of their elements, be unstable.

Of these two constructions, then, the first would seem most probable; but both are open to objection on account of there being no internal resistance in the individual molecules to a change of diameter proportional to a change produced by external action in that of a mass of them; and if such a change should take place, the mass would be in just the same statical conditions as before, only differing in the relative dimensions of its parts, and the resistance to pressure which is exhibited more or less by all matter would not be accounted for. But it does not seem quite certain that pressure or traction of the mass would operate upon the separate molecules in the same sense.

We are not, however, restricted to such a simple structure; for there may be several envelopes instead of only one, and of these some may be attractive and others repulsive; the centre also may be repulsive. There would have to be an absolute predominance of attractivity, of course, as in the previous more simple supposition. It seems probable that in this supposition the envelopes would be all tetrahedric, or that either the cube and octahedron, or the other two, which are similarly counterparts of each other, would alternate. Many of these forms are examined mathematically by the author, as to their internal action.

The exact discussion of their external action, however, would be exceedingly intricate, and would not be worth undertaking without a more definite idea than we yet have of the actual shapes presented by the molecules of the various known substances. The forms of crystallization may throw some light upon this, and they seem to indicate, as the author acknowledges, that the elements are not always grouped in regular polyhedrons; if they are not, they must have unequal powers, and this may be sometimes the case. But irregular crystalline forms are not impossible, or even improbable, with regular molecules. He also suggests and applies a method for obtaining the forms of the simple chemical substances by considering what combinations with others each polyhedron is capable of, and comparing these results with the actual combinations into which these various substances are known to enter, and deduces the shapes, with some plausibility, of the molecules of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, hydrogen, phosphorus, chlorine, sulphur, arsenic, and iodine. Whether we shall ever be able to obtain more positive proof of these interesting conclusions remains to be seen; but if any molecules have really the number of envelopes that would be indicated by their chemical equivalents, the perfect determination of their exact mechanical conditions of combination, and even of their separate construction, will probably, as F. Bayma remarks, be a problem always above the power of the human mind. If mathematicians are at all inclined to plume themselves on having unravelled the complications of the solar system, they can find sufficient matter for humiliation in not being able to understand the status of a material particle less than the hundred millionth of an inch in diameter; for to this extent subdivision has actually been carried.

One of the most remarkable points in this theory is that part of it which relates to the ethereal medium which seems to pervade all space, if the undulatory theory of light is true, as is now perhaps universally believed. Instead of assuming it to be extremely rare, as is usually done without hesitation, the author regards it as excessively dense; "immensely denser than atmospheric air," to use his own words. Of course this seems absurd at first sight, as such a medium apparently would exert an immense resistance to the movements of the heavenly bodies, and in fact to all movements on their surfaces or elsewhere. This would certainly be the case if it were similar to ordinary matter; and to avoid this difficulty, it is assumed to be entirely attractive. The reason for supposing a great density for this substance is its immense elasticity and power of transmitting vibrations; which seems incompatible with great distances between its particles, unless these particles are extremely energetic in their action, which comes to the same thing; and this argument has considerable force.

But it does not seem evident that an attractive medium would not also interfere with the passage of bodies through it, though not in the same way as a repulsive one; and the oscillation through its centre necessary for its preservation complicates the theory somewhat. Also, any marked accumulation of a powerfully acting medium round the various celestial bodies would cause, if varied in any way by their changes of relative position, perturbations in their movements. The very fact, however, that its own action was so energetic might make the disturbance in its arrangement produced by other masses small, especially if it penetrates those masses, as is probably generally maintained. The subject is, of course, one of great difficulty, and objections readily suggest themselves to any hypothesis regarding it; still, it would appear that on some accounts it might be better, instead of assuming the medium to be wholly or predominantly attractive or repulsive, to suppose it to have the two forces equally balanced in its constitution; and if it be, like other matter, grouped in molecules, the balance would naturally exist in each molecule, making it inert at any but very small distances, and exerting at these very small distances a force the character of which would vary according to the direction.

We have said that the discussion of the exterior action of the molecules—that is, of their action on each other, or on exterior points in general—would be exceedingly complicated. The only way in which it seems practicable is that in which the mutual actions of the planets have been investigated, namely, a development of the force in the form of a series; but this cannot be done advantageously unless the distances between the molecules are considerably greater than the molecular diameters. If, however, we make the development of the ratio of the attraction (or repulsion) exerted by the vertices of a regular polyhedron in the direction of its centre, to what it would exert if concentrated at that centre, in a series of the powers of the ratio of the molecular radius to the distance of the point acted on from the centre, it will be found that the coefficients of the first and second powers vanish in all cases; and that in all, except that of the tetrahedron, those of all the odd powers also disappear, as well as that of the fourth in the dodecahedron and icosahedron. If, then, the absolute attractive or repulsive power of any envelope is very nearly compensated by that of an opposite character prevailing in the rest of the molecule, (as seems probable,) the whole series can be reduced, at any distance which is very great compared with the molecular diameter, to two terms—one a constant with a very small value, and the other containing the third, fourth, or sixth power of the small quantity which the ratio of the diameter to the distance has now become. This should have a negative multiplier, in order that the force should become zero; and this it will have for a considerable distance around the vertices of all the polyhedrons, the negative value always covering as much as two fifths of the spherical surface about the centre of the molecule, and compensating even in this case for its less extent by a greater intensity, as the mean of this coefficient over the whole surface is always exactly zero. Within this distance of no action, for some space about the centre of the prevailing polyhedric face, attraction would prevail till the higher powers became sensible, and even (as it would seem) quite up to the centre in the case of a single envelope, the repulsive action of which, when combined with the slight force of the centre, would apparently be limited to quasi-ellipsoidal spaces extending out from each vertex, and having a longer axis equal to this outer distance of no action. But this limitation of the repulsive action will be still greater if the excess of the absolute attractive power in the molecule is more considerable, as long as the distribution of the force in the different envelopes remains unaltered; and though the molecules can approach within tolerably short distances of each other in certain directions, this is not objectionable, since such an approach may even be required for chemical union and cohesion. Introsusception would hardly be probable, unless they were very different in size. The compound molecule once formed, whether its components were of the same or of different substance, might exercise a repulsive force at a considerable distance in all or nearly all directions; nevertheless, it might still admit of further increase or of disruption by an agitation among the molecules, due to heat, light, or electricity. Of course, even on this theory, for the maintenance of physical equilibrium the mean distance of the molecules would have to be considerably less than that of no action, in order that a repulsion should be produced to balance the attraction of those beyond this distance. Still, if the excess of attractive force in each molecule, and consequently the size of each, be made small enough, their dimensions may still be small compared even with this mean distance; so that in no case, except that of chemical union, would it be necessary to take account of the higher powers. Any motion communicated from one molecule to another would then probably be by means of an actual relative movement of the centres of gravity, instead of by internal vibrations.

It may be worth noticing that a regular polyhedron—the elements of which exert a force not varying at all with the distance, and in which the absolute energy of the centre is precisely equal to that of the vertices combined—gives a resulting force following the law of gravitation, at any distance compared with which its own dimensions can be neglected; and within this distance the force will change its sign under the same conditions of direction as specified in the previous case. But, as the intensity of this force will change with the size of the molecule, it does not appear that a system of this kind would be admissible, since, besides the periodical change due to its own internal vibration, it would probably be changed in size, or even in shape, which would be worse, by compression or expansion of the mass; which would be the more likely, as the molecules could approach much nearer than in the former supposition. The law followed by gravitation also seems to be almost or quite necessary for forces radiating from a point.

The author's theory seems, on the whole, extremely plausible. That each element of matter exerts a force following the law of gravitation, is almost demonstrable à priori; that the elements are mere points, will also generally be admitted; that some of the actions should be repulsive, is obviously necessary; that each molecule is composed of a definite number of atoms, is suggested by chemical laws; and the polyhedric forms seem certainly the most reasonable, though crystalline forms would indicate that others may be occasionally found. The possibility of the construction of irregular molecules out of elements of unequal powers seems, by the way, to be worth examining.

Further developments of the theory may have recently been made; of course, the author does not claim in this work to have laid down more than its first principles. At present, it seems, to say the least, to furnish the best basis for the mathematical investigation of the internal constitution of matter that has been suggested, and such investigations would be almost certain to lead to valuable results, whether confirmatory or otherwise.

THE HOLY-WEEK OF 1869 IN HAVANA.
PALM-SUNDAY. THE TENEBRÆ. MAUNDY-THURSDAY.

So much had been told me of the antiquated observances of the Holy-Week in Havana, of the religious processions presenting to us of the nineteenth century an image of the naïf faith of the middle ages, of the rare spectacle of a whole city in mourning for the death of the Saviour, that even had my duty not called me to the church, my curiosity would have carried me thither. As it was, I resolved this Lent that, although I resided at an inconvenient distance from town, and ladies who have no carriage of their own find it sometimes unpleasant to go on foot in a country where walking is unfashionable, and considered even unfeminine, yet I would disregard disagreeables of every kind, and attend all the impressive ceremonies of this great week in the cathedral.

PALM-SUNDAY.

On Palm-Sunday, then, at six o'clock in the morning, I got into the nice, clean, well-managed cars that pass our door every few minutes all day long. The blessing of the palm branches was not to commence until a quarter after eight; but I like to "take time by the forelock," and I also feared that, as the "superior political governor of Havana" had invited "the grandees of Spain, the titled of Castile, the knights grand crosses, the gentlemen, (gentiles hombres,) and civil and military functionaries to contribute their assistance to render the religious acts more solemn," there might be somewhat of a crowd, and so I determined to arrive betimes and secure for myself a seat where I could both see and hear well.

The early morning in Cuba is always delightful, and this 21st of March was very bright and lovely, the sky intensely blue and without a cloud, and a cool breeze gently waving the tall tops of the cocoa-nut trees, and rustling the light, feathery sprays of the graceful bamboos. The white colonnaded houses of the Cerro looked very pleasant among their palms and laurels. La Carolina was in full bloom in some of the gardens, its spreading, leafless branches covered with great plumy tufts of rose-colored filaments; honeysuckle vines and the yellow jasmine climbed about the railings, and the large, brilliant flowers of the mar pacifico completed the floral landscape with that bright "bit" of scarlet so agreeable to the artistic eye.

As we approached the city, however, the pretty houses became fewer, and the mean suburban shops and fondas appeared more grimy than ever in the bright sunlight; their dirty awnings hanging in rags over the badly-paved, broken sidewalk. The houses, all of one or two stories, their exteriors washed with blue, yellow, lilac, or apple-green, wore a general look of never being repaired, and their gay coloring was faded, spotted, stained, and smeared by the exceeding dampness of the climate. I had glimpses, too, as we passed, into narrow streets so frightfully gullied and filthy that they made me shudder. The population of this part of extra-mural Havana was not more prepossessing in appearance than its haunt.

In about half an hour we reached the Campo de Marte, (Field of Mars,) a fine square which would be handsomer if it were bordered with shade-trees. Now it is an arid plain, with a few straggling blades of grass in patches here and there. On one of the sides of this place stands the magnificent mansion of the Aldamas, one of the richest families in the island; on another side, the principal railway station. A great number of volunteers, fine, stout, strong-looking men generally, dressed in a blue and white striped drill uniform, and armed with short swords and bayoneted muskets, were mustering in the middle of the Campo, and a great rabble of little blackies surrounded them, gaping with admiration. At the eastern extremity of the square we cut across the commencement of what used to be called the Parque de Ysabel Segunda; but her statue has been pulled down from its pedestal, and the promenade has now no name. Here again, around the pretty fountain that represents Havana under the form of an Indian maiden supporting a shield that bears the arms of the city, and surrounded by tropical fruits and graceful plants, were plenty of flowers; the blue, crimson, and purple morning-glories, that had just opened their radiant petals to the sun, were the most vividly-colored I have ever seen.

Passing the Tacon Theatre, we soon reached the breach in the city walls by which the cars enter. These old fortifications, built by the Spaniards to keep out the Indians and the English, are being slowly demolished. A very fine white stone church is in progress of erection close by.

The streets within the walls are well paved and clean; the houses mostly large and very strongly built. They usually form a hollow square, the centre being an open yard, containing a few shrubs. The windows of all the rooms reach from the floor to the ceiling; they are without glass and protected by iron bars; thick inside shutters, into which two or three glazed panes are inserted to admit the light, close out any very bad weather, wind or rain. The sidewalks are usually not more than a foot and a half wide; they look like ledges running along the sides of the houses, and are exceedingly uncomfortable for pedestrians, as I found when I descended from the car at its stopping-place in front of the church San Juan de Dios, and proceeded on foot to the cathedral.

San Cristóbal de la Habana, the metropolitan cathedral, is a large and handsome edifice; it dates from 1724, and although it has at the present moment a very time-worn appearance, it was repaired and beautified only a few years since. Two towers and three doors give an imposing air to the front; the arched nave within is lofty and spacious, and separated from the aisles by massive pillars of masonry. The whole of the interior is painted in fresco, but is much deteriorated by the excessive humidity of the climate. The high altar, constructed of beautiful jasper, under a dome of porphyry, supported by columns of the same material, was built in Rome. On the gospel side of the chancel is the tomb of Christopher Columbus, whose ashes, inclosed in a leaden box, rest within the very wall of the sacred edifice.

Few persons had yet assembled in the church, and I quickly obtained a seat on one of the benches that are placed along each side of the nave. I was much pleased to find myself exactly opposite to the crimson velvet-covered arm-chair and reading-desk reserved for the captain-general, and to the less imposing but handsome seats intended for the governor, grandees, and municipality. I was also just behind a row of arm-chairs allotted to the civil and military functionaries.

In the chancel, concealing from view the honored tomb, was raised a purple velvet dais; beneath it stood the purple velvet-covered throne and reading-desk of the bishop. A great black flag with a blood-red cross in its centre leaned against the side of the altar, on which was seen the emblem of our faith swathed in violet crape. An immense white curtain, very artistically draped, was suspended across the southern transept.

As the time passed, colored servants made their appearance every now and then, bringing their mistresses' small low chairs and little carpets; for the Havana churches, like the Catholic churches of the European continent, have no pews. These servants wore the most brilliant liveries, such as orange-tinted indispensables, bright green waistcoat, and red swallow-tail coat, forcibly reminding one of the parrots of the Cuban woods. A complete canary-colored suit, surmounted by a round, woolly, black head, produced a very droll effect. The little chairs were placed and the little carpets spread wherever it was possible, so that the marble floor of the space between the official seats was soon nearly covered. The greater number of ladies, however, had no chairs, but knelt, sometimes three on the same carpet, during the whole of the ceremony; that is, from eight till twelve, only changing their posture occasionally to sitting on the ground, with their feet doubled up on one side.

A little before eight o'clock, the ladies began to arrive. Each one, after she had knelt down and arranged the folds of her voluminous train to her satisfaction, dotted herself over rapidly with a great number of little crosses, and ended by kissing her thumb. This ungraceful performance is only a hasty, careless way of making the three signs taught by the church, which ought to be done thus: The thumb of the right hand is placed across the middle of the index, to represent the cross. The first sign is then made with it on the forehead, Por la señal de la Santa Cruz—"By the sign of the holy cross;" the second on the mouth, De nuestros enemigos—"From our enemies;" the third on the heart, Libra nos, Señor, dios nuestro—"Deliver us, Lord, our God." The sign as it is made usually with us, and a kiss on the cross represented by the thumb and index, terminate this Spanish process of blessing one's self.

The toilettes of some of the fair Spanish and Cuban ladies present on this occasion were of rich black silk, with a black lace mantilla over the head, half shading the face and shoulders. There was an elegant simplicity in this costume that seemed to me to make it fit to be adopted in all countries as a dress for public worship. But the great majority were attired in showy, expensive materials, quite devoid of taste, especially in the choice and harmony of colors. Black grenadine and lace dresses, with light belts, were numerous; satin stripes of the deepest orange color were worn by tall, slender, sallow damsels; vert d'eau, that delicate water-green which demands so imperiously the contrast of lilies and roses, was donned by a stout dame, couleur de café au lait; and one lady displayed an ample, sweeping robe of that bright hue the French call Bismark content, which imparted an unearthly lustre to her natural green tinge that made my flesh creep. Lace mantillas over the head were universal. Most were black; but some young girls wore white ones, fastened to their hair with a bunch of rose-buds. There were a great many blue silk bodices, of the style affected by Swiss maidens; and I remarked that the fat ladies were very partial to low dresses and short sleeves, with handsome necklaces and bracelets. No one wore gloves, and every one carried a fan.

There was a great majority of expressive, intelligent faces among these belles, and there were plenty of large black eyes, some very beautiful; and there were pretty lips, which disclosed with every smile two even rows of pearly teeth; but there was also a total absence of that fresh, healthy look which, when united to youth, constitutes beauty, whatever be the shape of the features, and without which no woman can be truly lovely. As I contemplated, from my somewhat high bench, the colorless cheeks of the maidens, and the sallow, withered skins of the matrons kneeling on the marble floor before me, I remembered the temperate zone with heart-sick longing. "It seems," thought I, "very delightful, when one reads of it, to inhabit a clime where the trees are ever green, and the flowers in perpetual bloom; where snow and ice are unknown; but look at these pallid girls and their faded mothers—poor, enervated victims of continual heat! And oh! the many physical miseries arising from want of active exercise, and the sluggish torpor that seems to invade the soul as well as the body." And then the days long gone by came back to me; the days when "life went a-Maying with nature, hope, and poesy;" the days when I was young. "How I pity you," I murmured, "pale Cuban girls, who have never run free in the daisied meadows to gather spring violets and primroses; who have never rambled with laughing youths and maidens in the leafy woods of summer, or sported among the dried fallen leaves in the cool, bright days of autumn, or made one in a merry evening party around the sparkling, crackling, glowing winter fire!"

A startling yelp, accompanied by the whistling sound of a well-applied whip, recalled my wandering thoughts. The perrero, in the exercise of his duties, was ejecting a recalcitrant dog, which had contrived to reach the chancel unobserved. This functionary, the perrero—anglicé, dog-man—is peculiar to the cathedral. In all the other churches of Havana, the faithful are constantly grieved by the unseemly spectacle of dogs roaming at will within the sacred precincts, even on the very steps of the altar. The perrero is distinguished by a dark blue serge robe, descending to his feet, and very much resembling a gentleman's dressing-gown in form. Around his neck he wears, as a finish, a wide white frill. He carries, concealed in the folds of this unpretending and rather unbecoming costume, a serviceable cowhide, which he uses with a will upon all canine intruders; and if he can, he concludes his admonishment with a kick, it being generally believed that a dog which has received this final humiliation eschews the cathedral for the rest of his days.

In the mean time, a considerable number of persons had assembled in the church, and the preparations for the blessing of the palms were completed. The highly ornamented branches had been brought in, piled up on great trays; the bishop's pastoral crook had been placed leaning against his throne, and the wax tapers were lighted. The clergy, hastening in procession to the great central door, which was presently thrown wide open, letting in a flood of light and warm air, announced the arrival of the prelate. It was rather difficult to make a passage for him up to the altar; for some good nuns had come with a shoal of little girls, who had been arranged so as to fill up every interstice left by the occupants of the chairs and carpets; but it was done at last, and he advanced slowly and with great dignity up the nave, blessing all as he passed.

The prelate had scarcely taken his seat under the dais, when the doors, opening wide again, gave entrance to the grandees, the municipality, and a number of military and civil functionaries. They were ushered to the places assigned to them by four mace-bearers, habited in the Spanish mace-bearing costume of three hundred years ago, and much resembling in general appearance the tremendous Queen Elizabeth's beef-eaters, who seemed to my childish eyes the most wonderful sight in the Tower of London. They wore loose red velvet tunics, trimmed with gold lace and fringe; the castles of Castile were embroidered on the breast, and the lions of Leon adorned the sleeves; an immense double ruff around the throat; big, high, black boots and buckskin small-clothes, and a wide-brimmed hat turned up on one side, with a red and yellow feather, completed the costume.

The military and civil officers were in full uniform, wearing their orders and decorations; the noblemen and gentlemen in evening dress, and displaying on their breasts numerous ribbons and brilliant stars. They were nearly all venerable-looking, gray-haired men, with that pensive, dignified gravity of demeanor peculiar to the Spaniard.

The religious ceremony now began. The palm-branches blessed were all curiously plaited and lopped, until they were but little more than a yard high, only two or three small leaves being left at the top. They were ornamented with bows of bright-colored ribbons, bunches of artificial flowers, and gold and silver tinsel butterflies. That intended for the prelate was covered with elegant gold devices and arabesques. Each of the grandees in turn ascended the steps of the altar, and, kneeling, received one from the bishop, whose hand he kissed, and then retired. When all had been distributed, the procession was formed; but I must confess that it disappointed me exceedingly. I had expected to see a grove of green, waving palms moving along amidst the hosannas of the multitude; but, as it was, all devotional and picturesque effect was totally wanting. I have since been told that in the poorer churches, which cannot afford to buy the plaited, lopped, and gilded sticks that the bad taste of the people prefer, the simple branch, so exquisitely graceful, is perforce adopted, and the procession, consequently, a very pretty sight.

In the cathedral, the whole ceremony was cold and unimposing. There was no summons from the outside, with response from within. There was no triumphal burst from the organ when the Victor over sin and death made his entry; no anthem to remind us how the chosen will be welcomed to heaven. The procession descended by the southern wing, and went out into the church porch, where the psalms appointed were sung; the great central door was then opened, and it returned up the nave to the altar.

The mass followed, and the bishop delivered a short sermon. His voice was very agreeable, and his manner impressive.

As soon as the service concluded, every one hastened away. There were no loiterers—not even to see the prelate leave the cathedral, which he did on foot, his violet silk train borne by one of the priests. It is, however, but just to remark—if excuse be needed for the haste with which the church was cleared—that it was twelve o'clock, and no one had breakfasted.

I was pleased to meet a friend at the door, who insisted on my going home with her, and I gratefully accepted the invitation; for I felt tired and faint. We accordingly got into her quitrin, and in a few minutes reached the welcome door.

The quitrin, the private conveyance of Cuba, and an improvement on the well-known volante, is a carriage somewhat resembling the victoria, but with two immense wheels; it is swung, too, so easily that a person not accustomed to the vehicle finds it difficult to enter. The shafts are exceedingly long, and the horse in them trots, while a second horse, upon which the calesero rides, canters. This second horse is attached to the carriage by long traces at the left side, and a little ahead of the shaft-horse. The effect produced by the different paces of the animals is very curious.

The calesero, or driver, is always a colored man; he is usually dressed in a blue jacket, (though green, yellow, and red are not unfrequent,) white drill waistcoat and trowsers, and high black leathern leggings, hollowed out under the knee and standing up stiff above it, resembling, in fact, the great boots worn by French postilions, minus the feet. These leggings are fastened down the sides with straps and silver buckles, and ornamented with large silver plates. No stockings, but low-cut shoes, leaving visible the naked instep, heavy silver spurs and a stove-pipe hat, and the calesero is considered an elegant turn-out.

The breakfast was waiting; a Creole one, composed of soup made of the water in which beef-bones, and especially beef knee-caps, had been boiled, flavored with onions fried in lard; of vaca frita—fried cow—little pieces of beef of all shapes, fried also in lard; of ropa vieja—old clothes—slices of cold meat warmed up with sauce; of aporeado—beef torn into shreds of an inch and a half long and stewed with a little tomato, green peppers, garlic, and onions, (this dish looks very like boiled twine;) of picadillo—meat minced as fine as possible and scrambled in eggs, chopped onions and peppers; of rice cooked with little pieces of fat pork and colored with saffron; of very nice pork-chops, the best meat in Cuba, and very different and far superior to Northern pork; of boiled yucca, and ripe plantains, very delicious to the taste, resembling in flavor a well-made apple charlotte. The bread was very good, and more baked than it usually is in the United States. Claret and water was the general beverage, and the meal finished with a cup of hot coffee enriched with creamy milk, boiled without the salt and aniseed that Creoles almost invariably put into it. We were waited on at table by two admirably-trained Chinese, a people much and justly esteemed in Havana as house-servants and cooks.

It was nearly three o'clock when I at last reached home; but not until the next day did I hear of the four unfortunate men shot that afternoon in the streets, during the embarkation of the two hundred and fifty political prisoners for Fernando Po.

THE TENEBRÆ.

The following Wednesday morning, I reached the cathedral just as the gospel was commenced. At the conclusion of the mass the service of the Tenebræ was very impressively chanted. As I listened, my heart realized all the grief and desolation of that sad time. I could hear David bewailing his outraged Lord and Son; Jeremias lamenting over the ruins of Jerusalem, over the crucified Victim; dear mother church calling her children to repentance in supplicating, tender strains; and the three devoted Marys sighing and weeping as they climbed the steep of Calvary among the crowd that followed our blessed Saviour to the cross. At the termination of this mournful music, just as the confused murmur that recalled the noise of the tumultuous masses who, led on by Judas, came armed with sticks to seize Jesus, died away, a number of priests, completely enveloped in ample black silk robes with long pointed trains, their faces entirely concealed beneath high-peaked black silk hoods, advanced to the front of the altar and knelt in a row on the step before it. After a short, whispered prayer, one of them arose, and taking the black banner with the blood-red cross, which I have already mentioned, waved it for several minutes in silence over his companions, while they prostrated themselves on their faces before the altar. It is impossible to imagine a scene more lugubrious; the black-robed figures lying motionless, the mysterious hooded form that seemed to tower above them, the sinister flag, the deep silence—all contributed to inspire a sentiment of undefinable fear. Every one present knelt, and in unbroken silence the black banner was waved over us. When we raised our heads, the sombre assembly had disappeared and the chancel was empty.

This, I was told, is a ceremony that has been handed down from the time of the primitive Christians of Rome; but no one was able to explain the meaning of it to my satisfaction.

MAUNDY-THURSDAY.

Maundy-Thursday found me bright and early in the cathedral, and well placed; for I was again just opposite the seats reserved for the captain-general and the governor, and just behind those intended for the military and civil officers.

With the exception of the bishop's dais, throne, reading-desk, and cushion, which were now of white damask and gold, every thing was the same as on Palm-Sunday. But the great white curtain had been removed from before the southern transept, and there was now to be seen a magnificent golden sepulchre, under a white and gilded dome supported by columns. The statue of a kneeling angel adorned each side of this monument, to which the officiating priest ascended by six carpeted steps. Innumerable wax tapers in silver candlesticks were arranged on each side, their soft light reflected by the silver and gold drapery that lined the vault.

As on Palm-Sunday, the floor of the nave was soon covered with carpets and little chairs, all occupied an hour before the mass began by women and children, white and colored, of every social grade, from the delicate marchioness to the coarse black cook. Not even the most elegant lady present seemed in the slightest degree annoyed by being elbowed, and her satin dress rumpled, by some pushing, saucy morena, (colored woman,) who planted her chair or stool just where she could contrive to squeeze it in, with the most perfect assurance that no one would question her right to do so. I remarked, too, that in the crowd of men who stood in the aisles, the whites and blacks, the rich and the poor, were on the same terms and acting in precisely the same manner toward one another; and I felt convinced that nowhere on earth was such social equality to be met with as I witnessed in the cathedral church of Havana.

I was admiring this absence of all invidious distinctions in the house of God, and rejoicing in the thought that here, at least, the master had to confess himself weak and humble as the slave, the rich powerless as the poor, when two men forced room for themselves on my bench and by my side. One had the look of a low grog-shop keeper, the other of a whining street-beggar; both were shockingly, disgustingly filthy; both snorted and spat in the most frightful manner, and in the discomfort they caused me, I arrived at the conclusion that all men are equal—yes, except the clean and the dirty; and I fretted and fumed against the church officials who thus abandoned the faithful washed to the inroads of the faithless unwashed. Faithless unwashed!—it is written wittingly; for I cannot credit that piety will exist with filthiness of its own free will. No, sin and dirt are too often bosom friends; but cleanliness goes hand in hand with godliness.

I had, however, to bear and forbear with my unpleasant neighbors, whose propinquity induced a train of thoughts somewhat at variance with the solemnity I had come to witness. I remembered, among other discrepant subjects, the nickname given to the Spaniards by the Cubans, Patones—"Big-Feet"—which appellation has frequently been used in skirmishes between the insurgents and the Spanish troops as a battle-cry. Viva Cuba, y mueren los Patones! "Long live Cuba, and death to the Big-Feet!" the rebels would shout, and the soldiers, very naturally enraged at a personal defect being alluded to in such terms, would fight like insulted heroes. So I improved this opportunity, having a long row of Spaniards before me, to examine their lower extremities and judge for myself what truth there was in the discourteous designation. After a careful and impartial investigation, I believe that I can say with justice that, though they do not possess the exquisitely-formed, fairy-like little feet with which every Cuban, male and female, trips into this world, they yet cannot be accused of having large or clumsy ones. Most of the Spanish feet I saw were certainly much smaller than those of the English or Germans, resembling, perhaps, those of the French.

The toilettes of the ladies were even more ball-like than on Palm-Sunday; nearly every one wore low-necked dresses and short sleeves, and many white kid gloves. Rose-colored, pale blue, yellow, and white silk robes trimmed with lace and a multitude of bows, and sometimes disfigured by preposterous paniers, were general. The hair was artistically dressed and adorned with flowers, golden fillets, and bright ribbons, and the white or black lace mantilla thrown over the head was as small and transparent as possible.

At a quarter past eight, the bishop arrived with a numerous suite of clergy: as on Sunday, it was with difficulty he made his way through the sitting, kneeling, becrinolined, and betrained crowd that encumbered the centre of the church.

Very shortly after, a flourish of trumpets outside announced the coming of the captain-general. The great door was again thrown open, and he entered, preceded by the mace-bearers, and attended by Señor Don Dionisio Lopez Roberts, superior political governor of Havana, and a brilliant cortége of noblemen, gentlemen, and military and civil chiefs. When all were seated, the scene as viewed from my bench was very striking. The resplendent sepulchre; the illuminated altar, at which the mitred prelate and his assistant priests were officiating, all robed in white and gold; the long row of handsome uniforms on each side of the nave; the gay parterre of fair ladies, and the crowd of spectators of every shade of color from white to black that filled the spaces between the massive pillars and served as a background, all contributed to form a whole most picturesque and unique.

The beautiful service of Maundy-Thursday now commenced; during the celebration of it, the ceremony of blessing the holy oils was performed; and when the Gloria in excelsis was chanted, the bell was rung for the last time until Holy Saturday. At the elevation, I heard the silver staff of the pertiguero resound several times upon the pavement. The pertiguero is, like the perrero, a functionary peculiar to the cathedral; his duty is to enforce kneeling at the elevation on all strangers visiting that church at the moment. He carries a long silver staff, called a pertiga, which he strikes with a clang upon the marble floor when he perceives any one inattentive to the strict rule of the church—prostration in presence of the host.

After the mass, the blessed sacrament was carried in solemn procession to the sepulchre, the captain-general and the governor bearing the banner of the Agnus Dei, and all the grandees and municipality joining in it. The staves and cross-rods of the banner and of the magnificent dais held over the holy sacrament were all of silver, and appeared to be very heavy. The host was deposited in the sepulchre, which was then locked, and the golden key fastened to a chain suspended by the bishop around the neck of the captain-general, to be brought back to the church by him on Good-Friday. The beautiful hymn, Pange lingua, was sung very sweetly the whole time; the Latin, which seems so hard and harsh in our English pronunciation, sounding very grand and harmonious in these Spanish mouths.

The church cleared very rapidly after the mass; and when the last carriage had conveyed its last occupant home, no vehicle of any kind was permitted to pass through the streets of Havana. The soldiers now carried their arms reversed, and all Spanish flags were at half-mast. The city was in mourning.

I was taken possession of by some kind friends as I left the cathedral, and accompanied them to their house close by, where we found a welcome breakfast awaiting us. It consisted of fish and vegetables. We commenced with turtle-soup; but not of the kind so loved by Cockney aldermen, redolent of spiced force-meat balls and luscious green fat; this was an orthodox meagre soup, incapable of doing harm. Then came a nice fried fish called rabi rubio—red tail, and fried lobster, all hot, which, however, I did not like as well as boiled lobster cold with a mayonnaise sauce. To these succeeded shrimp fritters, roast turtle, and a very delicate fish, the pargo, the best in these seas, and sometimes caught as large as a large salmon, which it is not unlike in form. Our vegetables were white rice, eaten with black Mexican beans stewed; yam, yucca, and slices of green plantain fried of a fine gold color, and very delicious. Good bread, excellent claret, and native coffee with an aroma resembling that of the best Mocha, completed this agreeable repast, which had been enlivened by the pleasant conversation of an intelligent, generous-hearted Spaniard, and the smiles and jests of his pretty Cuban wife and children.

Breakfast over, my friend Pepilla and I, with the two eldest girls, Dolores and Luisita, sallied forth into the silent streets to visit some of the churches, previous to attending the ceremony of the Lavatorio—washing of feet—which was to be performed in the cathedral at three o'clock.

The quaint old church of San Juan de Dios was the first we entered. Its floor of hard-beaten earth was encumbered with kneeling worshippers, mostly colored, in earnest prayer before a figure as large as life, representing our blessed Saviour dressed in a dark purple velvet robe, embroidered with gold; his hands tied together with a rope; his head crowned with a gilded crown of thorns. Long black ringlets of shiny hair shaded his emaciated cheeks and fell far down on his shoulders behind.

The high altar, which is a curious work of bad taste, decorated with little carved wooden angels wearing black Hessian boots, was screened by hangings of gold and silver tinsel; and a gilded sepulchre, surrounded by a great number of wax tapers, to be lighted in the evening, was placed in front of it.

As we came out of the poor little church, a dirty negro boy, followed by a dozen others, ran by us in the street, making a great noise with a matraca, to the delight of his suite. This matraca is a piece of wood about eighteen inches long and ten wide; on each side of it are affixed one or two thick iron wires of the usual size and shape of those old-fashioned metal handles to drawers and trunks, which always used to slip out of their sockets when one gave a strong pull. When the instrument is shaken, these rattle against the wood, and in the hands of an adept, and all colored boys are such, made a terrible clatter. From the Gloria on Maundy-Thursday until the Gloria on Holy Saturday, matracas are employed instead of bells and clocks, and boys from the churches run through the streets with them, to announce each hour of the day.

The sepulchre at San Felipe, a church whose interior is remarkable for its air of bright cleanliness, was very tastefully arranged with flowers and tapers, and promised to look very brilliant when lighted up. There also was an image of our Saviour similar to that we had just seen.

At Santo Domingo, a large, handsome edifice, we found a magnificent sepulchre, in severer taste than the two we had visited. In one of the aisles, also, there was a group large as life, and painfully life-like. It represented our blessed Lord on the cross, the blood streaming from his nose and down his pale, thin cheeks from the wounds inflicted by the cruel thorns of his crown; a ghastly gash in his side; his hands tom by the dreadful nails; his wrists bruised and cut by the cords with which he had been bound; his knees so horribly scarified by being dragged over the rough ground that the bones of the joints were visible; his feet mangled, his whole body cut and scratched and discolored by stones and blows. At the foot of the cross stood the holy Virgin, tearless, but with so heart-broken an expression that to look at her was to weep. St. Mary Magdalen, her face pale, her eyes swollen and red, was kneeling near her. I could not bear the sight of this agony, and turned away, saying to myself, "Yes, it must have been like this!"

In each of these three churches a nun was sitting at a small table with a tray before her, to collect the charitable, voluntary offerings of visitors. This was the first time I had seen the slightest approach to money-asking in the Cuban churches. During the rest of the year there never are collections of any kind made in them. Nevertheless, the ladies of Havana are very ready to contribute, and do contribute liberally toward all religious and charitable purposes; but privately, not publicly. Indeed, both Spaniards and Cubans are remarkably compassionate and generous to the begging poor, whom they gently style Pordioseros—"For-God-sakers;" and whom they never send harshly away when unpleasantly importuned or unable to give, as we Anglo-Saxons so often do; but refuse with a soft Perdone, por Dios, hermano—"Pardon me, for God's sake, brother;" or, Perdone, por Dios, hermanita—"Pardon me, for God's sake, little sister."

It was now time to return to the cathedral to secure places to see the Lavatorio. We found but few persons there yet, and consequently had a choice of seats. Some colored men were busy placing an image of our Saviour, similar to that we had seen in the church of San Juan de Dios, on one of the altars in the southern aisle, and it was touching to see the veneration and love with which one or other of them would raise from time to time a ringlet of the shiny black hair and kiss it.

Just before three o'clock two long benches were set on the epistle side of the altar, and presently a large number of youths, attired in dark red robes, entered the chancel—students from the Seminario de San Carlos, the theological college attached to the cathedral.

The beautiful anthem that is chanted during the ceremony of the washing of feet, Mandatum novum do vobis, "A new command I give unto you," contains the distinctive precept of our pure and holy religion, "Love one another;" and I could not help thinking, when the Bishop of Havana girded himself with a linen napkin and knelt humbly to do his lowly task, that he looked as if it were to him a real labor of love, so charitable an expression was there in his eyes, such venerable grace in his manner. He was assisted by several priests, one of whom carried a large silver basin, another a silver ewer full of water. The water was poured over one foot only; the prelate knelt as he wiped it, and then kissing it, rose and passed to the foot of the next boy, and so on. When all were washed and wiped, the bishop, looking heated and tired, resumed the white and gold chasuble he had laid aside, and, crowned with his mitre, took his seat in front of the high altar, surrounded by his clergy.

The sermon then commenced; the subject was, as always on this day, the institution of the holy eucharist. The preacher was a rather young man, of agreeable aspect, earnest in gesture and manner. His voice was loud and clear, and the magnificent Spanish language resounded in harmonious and eloquent periods through the vaulted nave. I remembered, as I listened admiringly, the old Spanish boast that theirs is the tongue in which the Almighty can be least unworthily addressed, and it did not seem to me so vain and unmeaning as I once deemed it.

With the conclusion of the sermon, all the joy and love that had marked the first part of the services of Holy Thursday disappeared, and grief and mourning now began again. Vespers and the Tenebræ were chanted, and then the faithful withdrew.

In the evening all the inhabitants of Havana poured into the streets: the captain-general, attended by his staff; the bishop, followed by his clergy; the governor and the municipality; the various corporations; large family parties, and bands of young men and boys; all went from one illuminated church to another, seven being the prescribed number, to kneel before the splendid sepulchres, and pray with more or less devotion. And having accomplished this duty, all adjourned to the Plaza de Armas, a handsome square, on one side of which is the palace of the captain-general, for the retreta; that is, to promenade while they listened to the military band, which played some sacred music very finely, and to eat ices, the pious taking care that theirs were water-ices.

The brilliant moon of the tropics lighted up the scene, making all visible as in the day, but with softer tones; beneath her beams the beautiful eyes of the ladies seemed of a more velvety black, and their white teeth glistened whiter between their smiling lips. A gentle breeze, laden with the sweet odors peculiar to night in Cuba, sighed in the leafy boughs of the Laurel de India, and all seemed to me peace and good-will among men, until I overheard one Creole lady say to another, "Your husband was a Spaniard, I believe?"

"I have been the wife of two Spaniards," replied the Cubana; "but I am happy to say that I have buried them both!"

So I returned to my home deeply meditating on the loveliness of nature and the perversity of mankind.

GOULD'S ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF.[11]

In this book the author considers what are the natural religious wants of man's soul; he shows how these cravings have given birth to various religious systems; he considers to what extent these systems are capable of satisfying man's moral nature, including in this survey every ancient and modern belief except Christianity; and proves that they have all failed in a greater or less degree. In a second volume he intends "to show how that Christianity by its fundamental postulate—the Incarnation—assumes to meet all these instincts; how it actually does so meet them; and how failure is due to counteracting political or social causes." (P. 6.)

In other words, we have here a treatise on religion from the à priori, rationalistic or philosophic stand-point. The work is done as well as we could expect from a non-Catholic author. But like most other books of the same stamp, written by those outside of the church, it contains many errors and false statements of facts. As it has attracted no little attention, and may be considered as a type of a large class, we will give some quotations from it, to show how cautiously these books are to be read, and how little confidence can be placed in their assertions.

In his preface, the author says that, besides the historical revelation, "We have a revelation in our own nature.... On this revelation the church of the future must establish its claims to acceptance." (P. 6.) If Christ was God, as we firmly believe, or even an inspired teacher sent by God, the first and only thing necessary is to know what he taught. We must examine extrinsic evidence which bears on the inspiration, authenticity, and genuineness of the historical documents in which his teaching is contained. Intrinsic evidence derived from the examination of that teaching, and the consideration of its complete harmony with man's spiritual nature, must be assigned a second, not a first place.

In the following passages, which are certainly not a little ridiculous, we have naturalism and materialism:

"Mysticism is produced by the combustion of the gray vascular matter in the sensorium—the thalami optici and the corpora striata." (P. 355.)

"Prayer is a liberation of force. When the emotions are excited, rapid combustion of nervous tissue ensues, and the desire that inevitably follows to do something is the signal that an amount of power has been generated, and equilibrium is disturbed." (P. 387.)

"Pantheism," we are told, p. 292, "is the philosophy of reason—of reason, it may be, in its impotence," (most assuredly!) "but of such reason as man is gifted with here."

On page 319, speaking of Kant, he says, "All the arguments advanced by metaphysicians to prove the existence of God crumbled into dust beneath his touch." The truth is precisely the opposite. Kant has "crumbled into dust," and "all the arguments adduced by metaphysicians to prove the existence of God" remain as unshaken as before he was born.

We are told, on page 79, that the chief reason why all men have believed in the immortality of the soul, is because they could not form even a conception of its annihilation. On the contrary, any one who has ever slept soundly can conceive its annihilation without any difficulty, though he might experience a good deal in endeavoring to picture to himself an existence without end. The doctrine of the immortality of the soul, however, even in philosophy, does not rest on any such weak arguments.

That most wonderful fact of history, in which the finger of God evidently appears, namely, the preservation of the Jewish people and their belief for the past eighteen hundred years, in the face of causes which, according to every natural law, ought long ago to have destroyed both creed and nation, is accounted for (p. 205) simply by their possession of "the Talmud, which is a minute rule of life," etc. Credat Judæus Apella.

"A man of thought will not steal, because he knows he is violating a law of sciology." (P. 278.) Were all the men in the world "sciologists," and "men of thought," we would not be in the least inclined to trust our property to the slender protection afforded by a law of "sciology."

Every native of the "Gem of the Ocean" will be delighted to learn that "The suffering Celt has his Brian Boroimhe, ... who will come again ... to inaugurate a Fenian millennium," (p. 407;) and students of history will be surprised to know that

"Marie Antoinette was informed of the execution of Robespierre by a woman in the street below the prison putting stones in her apron, and then, with her hand falling on them, scattering them on the ground." (P. 187.)

Marie Antoinette was not alive when Robespierre was executed. The above incident occurred in the life of Josephine Beauharnais.

On pages 133-134, we are told substantially that for the first three or four centuries after Christ, God governed the Christian world directly! Then, for a time, through the priests alone! Afterward, for several centuries, through kings alone! Now the whole Christian world is ruled solely by "the open Bible!" This is a good example of how most non-Catholic writers, when speaking of religion, are always ready to sacrifice historical truth for the sake of a generalization or a rhetorical flourish.

"Its primitive organization (that is, of the church) was purely democratic. It recognized the right of the governed to choose their governor." (P. 201.) We never knew before that the people of Ephesus elected Timothy to be their ruler, or the people of Crete, Titus. We thought St. Paul appointed both of them, and that he told Timothy, "The things which thou hast heard from me before many witnesses, the same commend to faithful men who shall be fit to teach others also," (Epis. to Timothy ii. 2;) and that he wrote to Titus, "... ordain priests in every city, as I also appointed thee." (Epis. to Titus i. 5.)

"When Hildebrand gathered up the reins of government in his powerful hand to transmit them to his successors, the ecclesiastical elective primacy became an absolute supremacy." (P. 201.)

In the Arabian Nights, if any difficulty occurs to interfere with the plot of a story, genii or fairies are straightway introduced, perform very coolly some astounding act, and presto! all goes smoothly again. So, when Protestant authors, in writing history, come across any fact that stands in the way of their preconceived anti-Catholic theories, and logic cannot remove it, they introduce "priestcraft," "Hildebrand," "the cunning Jesuits," etc.; these prodigies shoulder the difficulty, walk off with it, and then "it is all perfectly clear." "Priestcraft," for instance, invented the whole sacramental system and foisted it on the church, no one knows when, where, or how. "Hildebrand" created the papal power. It did not exist before his time. "The cunning Jesuits"—ah! it would require more than a Thousand and One Arabian Nights to recount all the wondrous achievements of these mythological characters. Their latest act has been the convocation of the present œcumenical council, which they rule with an iron hand. In fact, the editor of this magazine, who is a member of the council, has written to us privately that now their power and tyranny have become so great that when the council is in full session you have to ask a special permission of "the cunning Jesuits" if you desire to sneeze or even wink! (Isn't it awful, reader? But this, you know, is strictly entre nous. You mustn't mention it to any body on any consideration, unless, of course—as is not at all impossible—you should hereafter learn the same thing from the Atlantic Cable!)

The saints of the Catholic Church in modern times, we read, (p. 362,) "are ecstatics, crazy nuns, and sentimental boys." Such, therefore, were Sts. Alphonsus Liguori, Ignatius, Francis Xavier, Vincent de Paul, Charles Borromeo, Francis of Sales, Theresa, Jane de Chantal, and the two Catherines! Well, we live to learn!

Mr. Gould, in order, it would appear, to give an air of originality—or, more correctly, aboriginality—to his book, chooses to employ the term idol as signifying any representation of the Deity, (whether it receive divine worship or not,) even the intellectual conception or purely philosophic idea! "Idolatry, then, is the outward expression of the belief in a personal God." (P. 176.) According to this new nomenclature, we must style all Christians idolaters!

"A fetish is a concentration of spirit or deity upon one point." (P. 177.) So with sticks, stones, and snakes, he ranks the Sacred Host—the Catholic fetish!

"The attribution to the Deity of wisdom and goodness is every whit as much anthropomorphosis as the attribution of limbs and passions." (P. 175.) So all worshippers of the Deity (for the impersonal "God" of pantheism is simply no God at all) are anthropomorphists as well as "idolaters"!

The last remark we have quoted from the author is not true. The soul alone is not the man; neither is the body alone; but soul and body together. Whoever, therefore, attributes to God only the spiritual attributes of man, cannot be properly termed an anthropomorphist. In any case, however, we most decidedly object to any one's applying to sacred things terms rendered opprobrious by long and correct usage. The effect of such an act is to confuse the reader, and its tendency is to bring what is holy into contempt. Perhaps this was the author's intention.

As might easily be supposed from the foregoing examples, the writer of this book is one of the nineteenth century illuminati, and in favor of "unrestrained freedom of thought," etc., (the chief enemies of which are historical facts, sound logic, and common-sense.) We will now listen for a moment while, in good orthodox Protestant fashion, he is "shouting the battle-cry of freedom."

"Sacerdotal despotism succeeded in the middle ages in concentrating all power over consciences and intelligences in the hands of an order whose centre was in Rome." (P. 138.)

"The Reformation was a revolt against that oppressive despotism of the Roman theocracy which crushed the human intellect and paralyzed freedom of action." (P. 139.)

"Under an infallible guide, regulating every moral and theological item of his (man's) spiritual being, his mental faculties are given him that they may be atrophied, like the eyes of the oyster, which, being useless in the sludge of its bed, are reabsorbed." (P. 140.)

"Theocratic legislation hampers every man's action from the cradle to the grave.... The Israelites are a case in point. They were tied down ... lest they should desert monotheism for idolatry." (P. 204.)

"In a theocracy there is neither individuality, personality, nor originality.... It has restrained independence, shackled commerce, conventionalized art, mummified science, cramped literature, and stifled thought," etc. (Pp. 207, 208.)

What a pity that we poor "Romanists" are so "benighted," etc., etc., that we don't in the least appreciate these modern Solons, who seem to think that every one should be "progressive;" that is, spend his life in dragging himself out of one humbug only to fall into another; or, as the wise critic of The Nation put it a short time ago, in speaking of a story in The Catholic World, a young man ought to be like a ship, and devote his existence to sailing about—on the boundless ocean, we suppose, of infidel nonsense![12]

Finally, we read, (pp. 138, 139.)

"'Strange destiny, that of theology, to be condemned to be for ever attaching itself to those systems which are crumbling away,' writes M. Maury; 'to be essentially hostile to all science that is novel, and to all progress!'"

We shall only remark that, were religion to spend her time in pinning her faith to all the "novel," "scientific," "progressive" systems that spring up every day and straightway begin to crumble, even while these learned "sciologists" are tossing high their caps in air and shouting out in impressive chorus, "Where now is theology?"—it would, we think, be even stranger still.

We have devoted this much space to showing up some of the falsehoods in this book because it is not all false nor all stupid; it is a philosophic and, to some extent, a learned work; it is written in a brilliant and attractive style. This class of works dazzle; but when written by non-Catholics, they are not to be trusted. The only deep, and, at the same time, sound scholarship in the world is in the Catholic Church. Those who protest against her protest against the truth; even the most learned among them, on many most essential matters, are surprisingly ignorant; but what they want in knowledge they make up generally in flash rhetoric and humbug novelty, and that suits this enlightened age just as well.

Too many persons, however, when they see much that is true in a book, are inclined to believe it all true; and so with a considerable amount of food they will swallow a great deal of poison. This is a mistake. No author is ever wholly wrong. The falsest say many things that are true.

To show how error and truth may be found side by side in the same work, we will give some quotations from our author in which his ideas are sufficiently, or even strikingly, correct.

He thus speaks of asceticism:

"From whatever motive an ascetic life is undertaken, the result is accumulation of force. The ascetic cuts himself off, as much as possible, from all means of liberating force. His voluntary celibacy and abstinence from active work place at his disposal all that force which would be discharged by a man in the world in muscular action and in domestic affection.... Withdrawal from society intensifies his individuality, and, unless the ideas formed in his brain be such as can excite his emotion, he becomes completely self-centred. But if the object of his contemplation be one which is calculated to draw out his affections, the result is a coördinate accumulation of mental and affectional power." (P. 348.)

"Luther, a man of coarse and vigorous animalism, was no ascetic." (P. 350.)

The doctrine of Zwinglius, he tells us, was simply pantheism, and that of Calvin he considers undeserving the name of Christianity.

"Alongside of Mohammedanism must be placed a parallel development in Europe, which, though nominally Christian, is intrinsically deistic. Consciously it was not so, but logically it was; and in its evolution it proved a striking counterpart to Islamism.

"Zwinglius had taught that God was infinite essence, absolute being, (τὸ Esse.) The being of creatures, he said, was not opposed to the being of God, but was in and by him. Not man only, but all creation, was of divine race. Nature was the force of God in action, and every thing is one. Sin he held to be the necessary consequence of the development of man, and to be, not a disturbance of moral order, but the necessary process in the development of man, who has no free-will.

"Calvin's idea of God was quite as absolute as that formed by Zwinglius, but it was not so pantheistic, though he did not shrink from calling nature God. The Deity was to him the great autocrat, whose absolute will allotted to man his place in time and in eternity. Beyond the pale of the church, he taught, there was no remission to be hoped for, nor any chance of salvation; for the church was the number of the predestined, and God could not alter his decision without abrogating his divinity." (P. 266.)

"He swept away the sacramental system; if he held to Christianity, it was in name, not in theory, for his doctrine excluded it as a necessary article. He deprived the atonement of its efficacy and significance, and he left the Incarnation unaccounted for, save by the absolute decree of the divine and arbitrary will which he worshipped as God." (P. 267.)

He thus speaks of the Reformation and of its cardinal principle:

"But what was the result of the Reformation? The establishment of a royal along side of a biblical theocracy. The crown became the supreme head to order what religion is to consist of, how worship is to be conducted, and what articles of faith are to be believed." (P. 139.)

"The Scriptures were then assumed to be the ultimate authority on doctrine and ethics; they were supposed to contain 'all things necessary to salvation, so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation.'

"This mode of arresting modification is not, however, final, and cannot in the nature of things be final; for, firstly, the significance of the terms in which the revelation is couched must be subject to the most conflicting interpretations; and secondly, the authority of the revelation will be constantly exposed to be questioned, and the genuineness of the documents to be disputed." (P. 134.)

Buddhism he calls the Protestantism of the East.

"Its cold philosophy and thin abstractions, however they might exercise the faculties of anchorites, have proved insufficient of themselves to arrest man in his career of passion and pursuit; and the bold experiment of influencing the heart and regulating the conduct of mankind by the external decencies and the mutual dependencies of morality, unsustained by higher hopes, has proved in this instance an unredeemed and hopeless failure." (P. 353.)

"In confiding all to the mere strength of the human intellect, and the enthusiastic self-reliance and determination of the human heart, it makes no provision for defence against those powerful temptations before which ordinary resolution must give way." (P. 354.)

"The mass of the population are profoundly ignorant of, and utterly indifferent to, the tenets of their creed.... 'The same results appear in the phases of Buddhism beyond India,' says M. Maupied; 'in the north of Asia and in China it has arrived at a sort of speculative atheism, which has not only arrested proselytism, but which is self-destructive, and which in the end will completely ruin it.' It is not a religion but a philosophy. (P. 355.)

"This close resemblance seems to have been felt on first contact of Calvinism and Buddhism; for we find in 1684 the Dutch government importing at its own expense Buddhist missionaries from Arracan to Ceylon to oppose the progress of Catholicism." (P. 353.)

He is not in line with those, so numerous in this age and country, who hold to the Chinese notion that intellectual and material progress is every thing.

"On the whole, it will be found that the amount of happiness in a race not highly civilized is far more general, and its sum total far higher, than that of an over-civilized race. The rude and simple Swiss peasantry are thoroughly happy, while in a large city like London, the upper stratum of society is engaged in nervous quest of pleasure which ever eludes them, while the lower is plunged in misery. Besides, what is really meant by the progress of the species? The only tangible superiority of a generation over that which has preceded it, appears to consist in its having within its reach a larger accumulation of scientific or literary materials for thought, or a greater mastery over the forces of inanimate nature; advantages not without their drawbacks, and at any rate of a somewhat superficial kind. Genius is not progressive from age to age; nor yet the practice, however it may be with the science, of moral excellence. And, as this progress of the species is only supposed, after all, to be an improvement of its condition during men's first lifetime, the belief—call it, if you will, but a dream—of a prolonged existence after death reduces the whole progress to insignificance. There is more, even as regards quantity of sensation, in the spiritual well-being of one single soul, with an existence thus continuous, than in the increased physical or intellectual prosperity, during one lifetime, of the entire human race." (P. 59-60.)

Nor does he appear to believe in the Protestant method of converting people, and causing them to "experience religion." We read on page 358 that, while Wesley was preaching at Bristol,

"'one, and another, and another,' we are told, 'sank to the earth. They dropped on every side as thunderstruck.' Men and women by 'scores were sometimes strewed on the ground at once, insensible as dead men.' During a Methodist revival in Cornwall, four thousand people, it is computed, fell into convulsions. 'They remained during this condition so abstracted from every earthly thought, that they staid two, and sometimes three days and nights together in the chapels, agitated all the time by spasmodic movements, and taking neither repose nor refreshment. The symptoms followed each other usually as follows: A sense of faintness and oppression, shrieks as if in the agony of death or the pains of labor, convulsions of the muscles of the eyelids—the eyes being fixed and staring—and of the muscles of the neck, trunk, and arms; sobbing respiration, tremors, and general agitation, and all sorts of strange gestures. When exhaustion came on, patients usually fainted, and remained stiff and motionless until their recovery.'" (P. 358.)

Finally, in speaking of the "diverse forms of ceremonial expression," he says,

"Jacob leans on his staff to pray, Moses falls flat on his face, the Catholic bows his knee, and the Protestant settles himself into a seat." (P. 114.)

We don't know whether to prefer Protestant taste, or Feejee, or Hindoo.

"Thus, out of love to a mother, the Feejee eats her, and the European erects a mausoleum. The sentiment is the same, but the mode of exhibition is different." (P. 115.)

"The Hindoo represents Brahm, the Great Absolute, absorbed in self-contemplation, as a man wrapped in a mantle, with his foot in his mouth, to symbolize his eternity and his self-satisfaction." (P. 188.)

We remarked before that the author of this book displays considerable learning. Here is a specimen which gives some pleasant information about the old Saxon laws:

"Three shillings were deemed sufficient compensation for a broken rib, while a fine of twenty shillings was inflicted for a dislocation of the shoulder. If a man cut off the foot or struck out the eye of another, he was compelled to make satisfaction with fifty shillings. Each tooth had its fixed price: for a front tooth, six shillings were demanded; for a canine tooth, four; and for a molar, only one shilling; the pain incurred by a loss of a double tooth, however, led King Alfred to alter this portion of the law, as unjust, and he raised the price of a molar to fifteen shillings." (P. 364.)

He thinks that the idea of compensation, which is here certainly clearly set forth, gave rise to the religious idea of sacrifice.

We will close with a favorable specimen of his style. He thus describes Greece:

"Under a blue sky, in which the clouds lie tranquil like lodged avalanches, in the midst of a twinkling sea, strewed with fairy groups of islands, is a little mulberry-leaf of land attached to a continental bough, a little land ribbed with mountain-chains of rough-hewn marble, veined with purple gorges, pierced with winding gulfs; a land of vineyards and olive-groves, where roses bloom all the year, and where the pomegranate holds its glowing cheek to a sun that is never shorn of its rays." (P. 148.)

We have given these quotations at length, partly because they are a little remarkable as coming from such a source, but chiefly to show that a book may be excellent in some respects, and nevertheless contain very many most false things. Our end will have been attained if we have shown that whatever comes from non-Catholic pens, even the best, is not to be trusted, whenever, directly or indirectly, matters pertaining to philosophy, theology, or ecclesiastical history are treated of. These books at best are half-blind guides; and such are never desirable, and generally dangerous.

PLANGE FILIA SION.

Lone in the dreary wilderness,
Meek, by the Spirit led,
For forty days and forty nights,
Our Saviour hungerèd.

O night winds! did ye fold your wings
Ere, on that brow so pure,
Ye roughly smote the uncovered head
That all things did endure?

O rude winds! did ye on those eves
Only the flowers fill;
Or, with the drops of night, his locks
And sacred body chill?

He, the most lovely, most divine,
So lost in love for us!
Our evil-starred, sin-stricken race,
By him redeemèd thus!

We hear the audacious tempter's words—
Amazed, we hold our breath;
We follow him, the Holy One,
Sorrowful unto death!

Thus, may we to the wilderness
Close follow thee, dear Lord,
These forty days and forty nights,
Obedient to thy word:

Renounce the world, and Satan's wiles,
In blest retreat of prayer,
Self-abnegation, vigilance,
And find our Saviour there.

For vain the sackcloth, ashes, fast,
In vain retreat in prayer,
Unless the sackcloth gird the heart,
True penitence be there;

Sorrow for sins that helped to point
The spear, the thorn, the nail.
O Lord! have mercy upon us,
While we those sins bewail.

And in the lonely wilderness,
From world and sin withdrawn,
Our hearts shall cloistered be in thine
Till glows glad Easter's dawn!

Sophia May Eckley.

UNTYING GORDIAN KNOTS.

X.

LADY SACKVIL'S JOURNAL.

"I have been playing the part of a peri at the gates of paradise. I have been watching Mary Vane with her child. My life looks to me unbearable. I am a blunder on the part of nature. I have the passions of a man and the follies of a woman. This is the last entry I shall make in this book. Once for all I will put my agony into words, and then throw this wretched record of three months into the canal, to rot with the other impurities thrown daily into the sluggish flood.

When first I allowed myself to exercise my power over Vane, it was from mere coquetry and love of excitement. I wished to reassert my sway and punish his former cruelty. Later I dreamed of a Platonic love, à la Récamier and Chateaubriand. True, one pities Mesdames de Chateaubriand, viewing them as a class; but they must suffer for their bad management. I did not recognize, I do not recognize the claims of so-called duty; I lack motive. Virtue as virtue does not attract me; neither does sin as sin attract me. I want to have my own way. Gratified self-will has afforded me the only permanent enjoyment of my life; but it has this disadvantage. While you rule your will and indulge it for fancy's sake, the pleasure is unquestionable. When your will begins to rule you, there is no slavery so galling. I had not thought of this; I know it now.

Once for all, I put my torture into words. I love him. Ten years ago I buried my heart—in sand or sawdust, or something else, where grass and flowers cannot grow. It has risen now in an awful resurrection, and taken possession of me. He might have been all mine. I wish to hate his wife, and am forced to honor her profoundly. I cannot leave this place. My will refuses to let me go. Oh! if I stay here and do not say one word, where is the harm? And if he should utter the word I dare not say—"

Amelia paused shuddering. "O subtle—O inexorable horror!" she said. Then, enveloping the book in paper, she carried it out onto the balcony, and dropped it into the canal, and heard the splash, and marked with satisfaction its disappearance beneath the dull green water.

"There—that's gone!" she said, and reëntered the room. Her face, which reflected every change of mood, grew very white.

"It is not gone!" she cried; and pressing her hands to her breast exclaimed, "It is here; it is my double—my bosom serpent! O God! how it gnaws!"

She went to a press, and pulling open drawers and slides, sought something eagerly. Then, as if forgetting the object of her search, paused in deep thought, and finally rang the bell violently.

Josephine came promptly, but unsurprised, being used to vehemence on the part of her mistress.

"You may pack my trunks. I shall leave Venice to-morrow."

The maid proceeded to take out dress after dress and fold them. When one trunk was packed, Lady Sackvil who had been standing on the balcony in the blazing sun, looking down into the water, glanced over her shoulder.

"You may pack the other boxes another day," she remarked calmly; "I shall not go to-morrow. Your dinner-bell is ringing; you can go."

She locked the door behind Josephine, and then returned to her researches in the press. At last she produced a small vial of laudanum, and, sitting down before the toilette-table, poured a little into a glass and paused. "I wish I knew how much to take," she said ponderingly; "it would be so tiresome to take too little or too much." Then she fell to considering herself in the mirror—looked anxiously at the faint commencement of a wrinkle between her eyebrows; and pushing back her hair, revealed a gray hair or two hidden beneath the dark locks so full of sunny gleams. "I will do it," she said, and then took a few drops; then paused again. "I can't—I won't!" she said violently. "I'm afraid; I'm afraid of hell—I'm afraid of that horrid, clammy thing they call death! I'm afraid of making poor, good little Flora miserable! Oh! I'm afraid of myself, dead or alive," she moaned, rocking herself to and fro, in a passion of regret and pain.

At last the paroxysm passed. She poured back the laudanum, washed the glass, replaced every thing accurately, and threw herself on the couch. There, overcome by the drug, to which her healthy frame was wholly unaccustomed, she fell into a heavy sleep.

The plea of weariness afforded an excuse for going early to bed. When she awoke the second time, the Campanile clock was striking two. A rain was falling, pattering on the canal, dripping and trickling from the eaves and from the pointed traceries above the windows. She got up, put on a white wrapper, and went out onto the balcony. The rain felt cool on her burning head. It drenched her to the skin, and dripped from her hair. Yet still she stood there, crying bitter tears that brought no relief, shaken with sobs that she with difficulty prevented from becoming cries. She wrung her hands with grief, and passion, and pain. Night added nothing to the darkness in her soul; dawn brought neither light nor hope of change; and when at last she went in from the cold, gray morning light, to change her wet clothes and creep into bed, it was to a second dose of laudanum that she owed the temporary bliss of oblivion.

XI.

"If you're looking for Mr. Nicholas, Miss Vane, he's gone down to the first floor," said Deborah, the morning after Lady Sackvil's visit.

Mary went to Mr. Holston's writing-room; no one was there; passed on through drawing-rooms, dining-room, and ante-chambers, without meeting a soul, and at last found herself standing outside Lady Sackvil's music-room. Knocking and receiving no answer, she opened the door, which moved noiselessly on its hinges, and lifted the heavy crimson curtain. Her husband was standing with his back to the door, leaning against the mantel-piece. Lady Sackvil stood before him, her face buried in her hands. He spoke, but in a voice so hoarse and dissonant that Mary fancied for an instant there was a third person with them.

"Be satisfied with your success, Amelia," he said. "You have lighted the fire of hell in my heart. You have turned my affections away from my wife, who is too pure for things like you and me to love. It may add to your satisfaction to know that there is one person on earth I despise more than Lady Sackvil, and that person is myself."

He turned, and saw his wife standing in the doorway.

"How much have you heard?" he asked calmly, without showing either surprise or annoyance.

"Enough to make me say, 'God help us both,'" she replied.

"Amen," he said, and left the room. Mary was about to follow him, when a look of entreaty from Lady Sackvil checked her. In another instant Amelia was crouching on the ground, her face buried in the folds of Mary's gown. There was dead silence in the room. The ticking of the Louis Quatorze clock on the mantel and the flap of a window-curtain were the only sounds to be heard. Charity pleaded for the wretched woman kneeling at her feet. Nature cried, "Follow him; tear from him some consolation; make him wake you from this nightmare, and say he loves you!" Charity conquered. Mary bent over Lady Sackvil to raise her from the ground; but at the first touch, Amelia lifted her head, exclaiming, "I will never rise; I will die here unless you say you forgive me!"

"How can you ask pardon," replied Mary "for an injury you have only just completed?"

Amelia crouched still nearer to the ground.

"So help me heaven!" she said in a voice of agony, "I never meant to speak. He came to-day—oh! you who possess him, can't you see how it happened; how I forgot every thing—resolutions, dignity, decency—and spoke?"

"Why do you say I possess him?" asked Mary bitterly. "You heard him say that you had turned away his heart from me."

"I have not turned it toward myself. He repulsed me like a dog. Oh! if there were a hole underground where I could hide, I would crawl into it." And she flung herself on her face with a despairing groan.

Mary knelt down beside her. "We are both in the presence of God," she said; "and I forgive you now even as I hope to be forgiven."

Amelia rose with difficulty, made an effort to reach the bedroom door, tottered, and would have fallen but for Mary's assistance, who unlocked the door and helped her to a sofa. Then, looking round the room for some restorative, her eye rested on a little vial standing in a crimson wine-glass. She took it up and saw that it was labelled "laudanum."

"Have you taken any of this?" she asked, carrying it to the sofa.

"Only yesterday—never before," Lady Sackvil answered feebly. "It would make me sleep now and do me good. You might give me a few drops; or rather, no, leave it with me," she said, holding out her trembling hand. "I can take it, if necessary, myself."

"Wait a moment," said Mary, and going to the window, she threw the bottle over the railing. Then sitting down beside Amelia, she took the feverish hand in both her own. "Promise me, swear to me, that you will not take that or any other narcotic or stimulant."

"You have prevented me from doing you the only kindness in my power," said Amelia, sitting up and pushing the hair back from her crimson temples. "You have forgiven me; you have treated me like the Christian you profess to be. I meant to repay you by taking myself out of this loathsome world."

"Repay me by living and repenting," answered Mary earnestly. "Promise me not to make an eternity of this passing anguish. There is work for you to do; there is heaven for you to win. Promise me to live, and to live for God."

Lady Sackvil looked at her silently for several minutes. Then she said, "I acknowledge one thing—I acknowledge that you are good, in spite of circumstances." She lay down and turned her face to the wall. "I will live," she said wearily, "if you will help me to live; otherwise I shall die."

"I will help you," Mary said. "Now I must go. Shall I ring for your maid?"

"No. If Flora can come, I will have her; otherwise, I would rather be alone. I feel wretched and heavy, and shall fall asleep presently."

Mary found Mrs. Holston in her sitting-room. "Lady Sackvil is ill, and wants you," she said breathlessly; for, now that her duty was done, every minute seemed an age until she could see Nicholas. "Don't stop me, please; I must go." As she put her hand on the hall door, Mr. Holston opened it from outside. She brushed by him without a word; but he saw her blanched face, and followed her with his eyes as she ran up-stairs. "The blow has fallen," he said to himself, as he hung his hat in the hall. "Poor, poor child!"

She went to the study door and turned the handle. It was locked. She paused a moment, thinking her husband would admit her; then walked on through the gallery to her own room, shut the door, and sat down in her little sewing-chair. She was stunned; mercifully stunned. It all seemed a dream, from which there would soon be an awakening. Of course, it could not be true that her husband had shut her out from his confidence. She felt too dull to understand all this. "God knows what it means," she said half-aloud; "I don't." How far from her eyes seemed the tears, crowded back, as it were, to make the weight on her heart more unbearable. "Some women faint or cry out when they are hurt," she thought idly; "I wonder why I don't? I feel so dumb, so gray, so smothered."

A knock came at the nursery door. Dragging one foot after the other, she went and opened it. Deborah started at sight of her face, but made no comment. "It is time to take baby," she said cheerfully. "The cap'n's asking for you. He can't think what's become of you." Mary darted past her and ran out into the gallery.

XII.

Nicholas was sitting at the study table, looking over papers. He rose and drew forward a chair for her, and then sat down again.

"The best thing that could happen, under the circumstances," he said, "has come to pass. I am appointed to join the French army in the Crimea, for purposes of study. Here is the appointment. These are letters from General Scott and from the Secretary of War. Just glance at them, if you please."

She read them, almost without comprehending their meaning. "When do you go?"

"To-morrow morning. It is the best thing to do, under the circumstances."

"Yes, the best under the circumstances," she repeated after him. He looked at her anxiously, but said nothing.

"What are you to take with you?" she asked, rising from her chair. "I must go and look over your clothes."

"All the military traps I have here, of course; not much besides, for I would rather buy what I want. Don't trouble yourself, my—" He paused. "I will see to every thing."

"No, I want to do it myself," she said.

"I must go and speak to Holston about your money matters while I am gone. He will do every thing a brother could do."

"Every thing," she said. He looked at her again uneasily, and seemed about to speak; then left the room. "I've killed her," he thought; "but words are mere insults now."

He was gone, and without one word of explanation. It was, then, no nightmare, to be dispelled by a change of posture. There was no awakening for her. It was all true!

XIII.

Mary was alone with the baby. Georgina's tiny hand was clasped around her mother's finger; rosy cheek and dewy lip invited many a loving maternal caress. At least here was love, without anxiety or heart-ache. "My love for this child, to whom I have given life, is faint in comparison to God's love for his creatures," she thought. "My soul shall rest on him, as Georgie rests in my arms. He knows the way out of this blackness. I will follow him trustfully."

The day was hard to bear; wife's work without wife's consolation. Sewing, sorting, packing, filled the hours too closely to leave much time for active grief. They were services that could easily have been performed by a servant; but Mary, amid the perplexity which clouded her life, kept one purpose clearly before her—to fulfil her duties thoroughly toward her husband, and even toward the unhappy woman who had poisoned her happiness, and thus prevent further entanglement.

The dinner hour, whose claims prevail over every other external circumstance in life, was lived through, thanks to the presence of Italian servants, who do not expect friends to look happy on the eve of separation, and are ready to melt into tears of sympathy at a moment's warning. Vane passed the evening in his study, transacting business with Mr. Holston and a lawyer; Mary in his dressing-room, attending to "last things."

At intervals through the weary night she heard him moving about in the library. About five o'clock, the peculiar click of the hall door told her that he had gone out. Then came two hours of sleep, and memory's dreadful reckoning when she awoke.

Breakfast was served at nine o'clock. After going through the dismal form which represents eating on such occasions, Nicholas went to the window to watch for the gondola. "Will you come here, Mary?" he said.

She went to him, and measured despairingly, as he talked to her, the gulf which separated them spiritually while they stood side by side.

After giving various directions as to material arrangements during his absence, he said, "I went to confession this morning, and to your Padre Giulio." She looked up eagerly into his sad face, stern with the rigidity of repressed emotion. "After confession, I saw him in his own room, and told him all the circumstances of the last three months, out of the confessional, in order that you may feel free to seek from him the advice and consolation I have shown myself unfit to give you."

"I don't want to speak of these things to any one," Mary answered.

"I have no right to urge you," he said; "but you will oblige me very much by speaking to him once, at least, upon the subject. I cannot tell you the weight it added to my self-reproach to find him ignorant of the wrongs you have suffered, knowing as I do the entire confidence you repose in him personally. You have been very loyal to me, Mary; I shall never forget it."

"Of course, I told him nothing concerning any one but myself."

"I have another favor to ask, which I should not ask if you were like other women."

"What is it?"

He took a note from his desk, and gave it to her unfolded. "After reading that, I beg you to give it to Lady Sackvil."

She flushed, and a slight trembling passed over her. Then she folded the note and put it into her pocket. "I will give it to her without reading it. I trust you."

Nicholas looked at her with an expression of reverence in his face. "I will earn the right to tell you how deeply I honor you," he said. "Any thing I could say now would appear like a new phase of moral weakness; but I will earn the right to speak."

As Mary met his eyes, fixed upon her with a look of reverential tenderness, her heart cried out for him. She longed to throw herself upon his breast; to urge him to put off this dreadful parting, and treat the wretched delusion he had yielded to as a dream. But something unanswerable within her soul warned her to let him leave her, that his resolutions might grow strong in solitude; that he might learn by aching experience the worth of the love and sympathy he had slighted. Therefore, she only said, "All will be well; I know it, I feel it." And he answered, "I accept your words as a prophecy, and thank God for them. One favor still I must ask. Mary, you will write to me?"

"Constantly."

"God bless you. Holston will find out when the mails go. It will be the one happiness of my life to look forward to your letters, which must give me every detail about yourself and about our child. Mary, it will be my one earthly hope to look forward to the time which shall end my exile."

The gondola was at the door, and George Holston had already taken his place in it. Vane clasped his wife's hands in his, kissed them passionately, and rushed from the room.

XIV.

"I never knew her to faint before," Deborah's voice was saying, as Mary emerged from an abyss of peaceful oblivion, to find herself deluged with eau de Cologne, and lying on the bed in her own room.

"Poor little soul!" answered Mrs. Holston's gentle voice. "It was a terrible shock, his going so suddenly. But, hush now, she is coming to herself."

No, not to herself; to a consciousness of nameless agony; to a sense of restlessness, without physical strength for action; to a crushing weight of misery which she must ask no living soul to share.

After some minutes, which seemed like hours of struggling to recover breath, and voice, and senses, she succeeded in thanking her kind nurses, and asking them to leave her alone for a little while.

An hour's solitude had restored her to complete consciousness, when a servant knocked on the door and asked whether she had any further occasion for the gondola, which had returned from carrying Captain Vane to the steamer. Her husband's request that she would see Padre Giulio occurred to her. Life must be taken up somewhere; why not in the performance of that duty, which would become harder with every day it should be deferred?

If she called upon Deborah for assistance, she would be prevented from leaving the house; so her preparations must be made alone. Giving orders for the gondola to wait, she put on hat and shawl with trembling hands, and walked down the long flights of marble stairs, holding on to the balustrade for support. It was useless to attempt her mission in that condition; perhaps an hour's row that soft, gray, overshadowed morning might restore her nerves to equilibrium. "Put up the awning and row on the lagoon for an hour," she said to the gondoliers. "Then take me to the Piazza San Marco without my giving you any further directions."

Through the open windows of the ducal palace she could see tourists wandering about, Murray in hand. Soldiers were lolling under the arcades; sight-seers were hurrying through to and fro, taking advantage of the cool day to get through a double amount of work. A sacristan was cleaning down the steps of Santa Maria della Salute, flinging away the broom, and sitting down to rest after the labor of sweeping each step.

Then came a long period of quiet, broken only by the steady dip of oars, and an occasional remark in gondolier slang made by the two boatmen. Pearly sky and pearly sea, a soft breeze and monotonous motion exercised a soothing influence over poor Mary, who never resisted comfort, no matter in how homely a form it might come. On the steps behind the Armenian convent sat a monk, looking over the lagoon. He was a commonplace old man enough in appearance, some insignificant lay brother resting from his labors in the garden. He saw the boat approach, and noticed probably the expression of suffering on Mary's face; for as she passed, a look of kindness, that was in itself a benediction, came into his wrinkled, brown face, and sank into her poor wounded heart, never to be forgotten. From that day she remembered the old Armenian in her prayers as one who had helped her in the sorest trial of her life.

XV.

In the afternoon came Mrs. Holston, for once in her life in a hurry. "I am ashamed to disturb you," she said to Mary. "I am ashamed to say why I have come. Amelia is behaving in the most extraordinary manner. She refuses to get up, and refuses to see the doctor. She says no one can do her any good except you. I told her she was very selfish, and she said she didn't care; so now I can only ask you, for charity's sake, to come down and speak to her."

"Certainly," said Mary, by a stupendous effort speaking in a natural tone; "I will come in a few minutes. I have a little note for your sister from my husband that she may be glad to get. Did he find time to come and bid you good by?"

"Yes, indeed, but he looked dreadfully worried and unhappy, of course. I think it extremely ill-natured of the War Department to make him leave home so suddenly. That must have been what made you look so frightfully ill yesterday morning. I was very much alarmed about you."

"I will follow you directly," said Mary, escaping to her own room for a moment of preparation before facing the enemy of her peace.

But that her peace was hopelessly shaken, she no longer feared. The interview with Padre Giulio had been full of consolation; for to this impartial listener Vane had said many things that the fear of seeming insincere had prevented him from expressing to his wife. It was plain that delicacy toward herself and compassion for Lady Sackvil had made him leave Venice. She now felt that it would show a lack of faith to doubt that the future would bring happiness to them both; that their reunion would be one such as death itself confirms instead of severing.

She found Lady Sackvil looking enchantingly lovely. Her hair, dark brown, with golden red lights in it, was plaited in two great braids; her cheeks were flushed; her eyes were closed, showing their long lashes and large, full lids to advantage. By the quivering of her lips, Mary knew that she felt who was with her; but it was some minutes before she opened her eyes.

"It was kind in you to come," she said at last, looking up into Mary's face. "I am very grateful. Flora says I'm horribly selfish to send for you, and no doubt I am; but it is better than going crazy, I suppose."

Mary laid her hand on the throbbing forehead, and felt the quick pulses. "Do you feel really ill?" she asked; "or is this merely a state of nervous excitement?"

"I'm not ill. I was never seriously ill in my life. I am only going distracted. I had an idea you might do something for me."

"The first thing to be done is to quiet your nerves and reduce the fever. Then we will think of other remedies. I will get Flora's little medicine-chest, and see what its resources are."

The morning passed quietly in tending Lady Sackvil, varied by occasional visits to the nursery. It was hard to bear, "but no harder than any thing else would be now," thought Mary. "If I can save this poor soul, it will be worth suffering great as this."

By two o'clock, Amelia was physically more tranquil. Her health had always been excellent, and her temperament, though utterly undisciplined, by no means inclined to morbid excitability.

"I have a note for you," said Mary; "will you read it?"

"From whom?"

"From my husband."

Lady Sackvil shuddered, and turned away.

"Don't give it to me," she said. "Read it, and tell me what it says."

Mary read it through to herself; then, mastering her voice, read aloud the following words:

"I was unjust to you yesterday. I treated you with cruelty. For what has happened, I am more responsible than you, because I have been under better influences. We shall never meet again. God bless you, and grant us both genuine repentance!"

Amelia made no comment or reply. A quarter of an hour later, she said, "You go to confession very often, I suppose?"

"Once a week."

"Who is your confessor?"

"Padre Giulio, at St. Mark's."

"Is he old?"

"Yes."

"Wise?"

"Yes."

"Kind?"

"Very kind."

"I should like to see him. I don't suppose that I intend going to confession, but I want to talk with such a man. Has he had much to do with making you what you are?"

"He has given me good advice, and I have tried to follow it, if that is what you mean."

Lady Sackvil looked at Mary fixedly for some time.

"I made up my mind, a short time ago," she said, "that the thing most likely to convince me of the direct influence of God would be to see a Christian whose character would bear scrutiny under the severest test. I have seen such a Christian in you. Most women would have spurned me away in disdain; you have treated me like a sister. I thank you for it, and I should like to believe what you believe."

Mary smiled at the reasoning, but thanked God for the conclusion. "You would find Padre Giulio very sympathizing," she said; "I think it would soothe you to see him. Shall I send for him to come here?"

"On no account. I will go to him if you will come with me. Do come with me; I will bless you all my life," she added pleadingly.

"Of course I will go, but not to-day. If you were to take cold now, it might be the death of you. To-morrow morning we will go to St. Mark's, and I will send him word, that we may be sure of finding him at home."

Lady Sackvil looked disappointed. "I would rather go to-day. I want to have it over."

"There's no occasion to wish to have it over," said Mary soothingly. "An experienced confessor is too well used to dealing with mental suffering to wonder at it, no matter in what shape it comes."

Lady Sackvil lay with her eyes shut a long time. At last she said, "I've not been much of a Bible reader, but I remember well that it required only the sight of one miracle to convert sinners in those days. I suppose sinners are very much the same in the nineteenth century that they were in the first."

"No doubt," said Mary, and waited to hear more.

"Your conduct toward me is, in my opinion, a greater miracle than the raising of the dead. Nothing but supernatural strength could have sustained you."

"If I have done any thing remarkable, it has certainly been God's doing, not mine."

Lady Sackvil lay still some time longer. Then she said abruptly, "I am clever, I know, but I am not intellectual; and intellectual satisfaction is not what I demand in order to become a Christian. If you were to lay before me all the tomes of all the theologians, they would not convey to my mind one single definite idea."

"You were educated a Catholic, weren't you?"

"Yes, after a fashion. I was carefully prepared for confirmation in a convent school, where I spent six months, while my aunt was in Europe."

"Then you feel more inclined toward Catholicity than to any other form of religion?"

"Certainly. If I am going to be good, I mean to be decidedly so. The church demands more than any sect, and I respect her for that reason. Like St. Christopher, I wish to serve the strongest master. Then, too, the teaching at the convent made a deeper impression on me than I supposed; and now that I need support, it all comes back to me. Last, and not least, I wish to believe as you do. You are the best Christian I have ever seen."

"Your experience in Christians must have been limited, I think," said Mary, smiling.

"Perhaps so; but I am quite satisfied to have you for my standard. Why, are you going? Oh! please don't leave me. I can't bear to be alone."

"I must go now. I will come to-morrow at eleven o'clock, and if you feel equal to the effort, we will go to San Marco."

"I shall feel equal to it physically," said Lady Sackvil. "It's very provoking. I meant to have a brain-fever and die, and I feel better every minute. I wish you had not come to take care of me."

"This is the beginning of your heroic virtue, I suppose," said Mary; "these are the first fruits of conversion. Good-by, neophyte! Disturb yourself about nothing; remember only that God loves us with a love too deep to be fathomed."

And then she went home, and sat down by the ashes that Lady Sackvil had left on her domestic hearth.

XVI.

In the morning, she found Lady Sackvil taking breakfast in her own room, looking pale and worn from the effects of reaction from fever and excitement. "How do you feel?" she asked.

"Horribly cross. I think all other sensations are merged in ill-temper."

"A certain sign of convalescence. I am glad to see it."

Amelia laid down her egg-spoon, and sank back in her chair. "I wish," she remarked, "that it had pleased Heaven to make some variety in the shape of hen's eggs. I am so tired of seeing them always oval."

"You don't want any of these things, do you?" asked Mary, surveying the rather solid repast on the table.

"No—I can't bear the sight of it," said Amelia wearily.

"Rest on the couch until I come back." And Mary arranged the cushions with a skilful hand, and left the room noiselessly.

Presently she returned, bearing on a pretty little tray a glass filled with some frothy preparation, and two transparent wafers. Amelia revived at the sight. "I have dreamed of such things," she said. "This is the very apotheosis of breakfast!"

XVII.

Mary left Lady Sackvil with Padre Giulio, and went into the church to pray for the happy result of the interview. She had passed some time at the Lady chapel, with its brazen gates and oriental lamps, and before the jewel-incrusted high altar, and was kneeling in the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, when she heard the door of the confessional behind her open. She looked round. Padre Giulio had entered the confessional; Lady Sackvil was kneeling at the grating.

She was sitting within the railing of the chapel when Amelia joined her. Mary looked at the beautiful creature; there was a peaceful smile on her lips, a holy light in her eyes; the pride, the caprice, the egotism were not there; she looked like a penitent child.

As they passed through one of the sombre side aisles, Amelia paused before the crucifix hanging on the wall. "I have confessed my sins and received absolution," she said; "are you willing to kiss me?"

And so the sign of peace was exchanged before the image of the great reconciler; and they passed out from the shadows of those grand old arches into the sunshine of the Piazza.

THE IRON MASK.

Through an oversight, the article on the Iron Mask in our March number, which had been lying on hand several months, was sent to the printer without its necessary complement, which we now publish.

In January, 1869, it was announced in the Moniteur Universel that M. Marius Topin, a young author who had already distinguished himself by a work of remarkable historical research, had succeeded, by dint of laborious examination and the intelligent study of a mass of old official documents, in unearthing the secret of that sphinx of history—the Man with the Iron Mask.

M. Topin did not at once make known the result of what he claimed to be his entirely triumphant solution of the enigma, and publish his work in book form. He doubtless reflected that, as the world had waited in patient expectation more than a hundred and fifty years for the revelation of the mystery, it might readily summon up sufficient resignation to wait a few months longer. He accordingly announced that the successive chapters of his work would appear from time to time in Le Correspondant, a highly respectable Paris semi-monthly. The first number of his series was published on the 25th of February, 1869, and the last, making seven in all, on the 11th of November. We have received, as they appeared, all the numbers of the Correspondant, and are therefore enabled to present from the author's own articles the following statement of the result of what he has written.

M. Topin could not deny himself that universal enjoyment of the story-teller—to hold his auditors in suspense and on tiptoe of expectation by proposing a varied succession of solutions of the mystery in hand, and dismissing them in turn with a—"Well, that's not it." He takes up, one after the other, the various prétendants to the honor of the Iron Mask's living martyrdom, discusses all the claims in their favor, presents the objections, demonstrates that their position is untenable, orders them off the stage, and passes on to the next; thus successively eliminating them until he reaches his objective point.

M. Topin's first article is preceded by a sort of device, or motto, in the shape of a short extract from an order of Louis XIV.: Il faudra que personne ne sache ce que cet homme sera devenu, (no one must know what has become of this man.) It was noticed that the date of the order is not given. The article opens with a statement of the arrival of M. Saint Mars at the Bastille (Paris) at three P.M., on the 18th of September, 1698. St. Mars was the newly-appointed governor of that prison, and came accompanied by a prisoner whose face was concealed by a mask of black velvet. This prisoner died, and was buried on the 20th of November, 1703, under the name of Marchialy. The extraordinary precautions taken after the death of Marchialy are narrated in our previous number. The dates above given are important in determining the claims of other candidates, inasmuch as the facts and dates connected with the arrival, death, and burial of a masked prisoner at the Bastille are established beyond controversy by official documents, and must be considered in any case presented.

Our author then dilates upon the difficulties of the question, the fact that it has been unsuccessfully treated by fifty-two authors, and finally abandoned as hopeless by historians like Michelet, with the conclusion that the problem of the Man with the Iron Mask will never be solved. Betraying no anxiety whatever to make haste, M. Topin then discusses the merits of several of the most prominent theories and the manner in which they have been presented. The claim that longest held its ground, and enlisted in its advocacy the greatest number of writers, was that made for a supposed and, as has been shown, entirely imaginary twin-brother of Louis XIV., the son of Anne of Austria, wife of Louis XIII. It is easy to understand why, in France, such a version as this should be the favorite one. It possessed every possible element of popularity, intrigue, mystery, illegitimacy, crime, a rightful heir defrauded of his throne, and the association of illustrious names. All these lent their fascinations; and from Voltaire to Alexander Dumas, from the Dictionnaire Philosophique to the Vicomte de Bragelonne, all the resources of writers of their tendency and calibre were called into play to give it currency.

M. Topin devotes nearly the whole of his first article to the demonstration of the fact that the prisoner of the Iron Mask was not and could not have been a son of Anne of Austria. The discussion is thorough, and the demonstration complete. Outside of the question of the Mask one good result is thus obtained. The innocence of Anne of Austria is fully established.

Time brings roses—and justice. Marie Antoinette was first vindicated from the foul aspersions of the "progeny of Voltaire." Now, Anne of Austria is acquitted; and going further back in time—the most distant case being, of course, the most difficult—next comes the turn of Mary Stuart, and her day, we believe, is not far distant.

The claim made for the Count of Vermandois, a son of Louis XIV. and Louise de la Vallière, is next taken up. As all the details of the last illness, death, and burial of the Count of Vermandois are matters of profuse official record, M. Topin has very little trouble in disposing of this case. Then we have the Duke of Monmouth, a natural son of Charles II. of England. Defeated at the battle of Sedgemoor, where the forces under his command were arrayed in armed rebellion against James II., and afterward taken prisoner, he was beheaded in the Tower of London July 15th, 1685. The dispatches of various foreign ministers in London at the time fully establish the fact of his death.

To Monmouth succeeds Francis of Vendôme, Duke of Beaufort. As grand admiral of France, Beaufort commanded the naval expedition sent out to aid the Venetians in their defence of Candia against the Turks in 1669. As in the cases of the two sons of Louis XIV., and Monmouth, the surrounding circumstances give M. Topin the fullest opportunity of indulging in court anecdotes, intrigues, and festivities, mingled with biographical sketches of distinguished personages, so in the case of Beaufort, his history warrants our author in going into all the details of the siege and military and naval operations against the army of the sultan. Beaufort is believed to have been killed in an attack upon the enemy's works, and was last seen in the thickest of a hand-to-hand struggle in the intrenchments. As his body was never recovered, this fact gave the mystery-mongers an advantageous margin. But Beaufort was born in 1616, and the Iron Mask was buried in 1703. Supposing him to be the "Mask," this would make him eighty-seven years old at his death, which, of itself, puts him out of the question.

In his third number, M. Topin introduces the so-called Armenian Patriarch, Avedick. Why he did so is best known to himself; for the case of Avedick has never been presented as one that would give him any right to rank among the claimants for the distinction of the Iron Mask. Taules, and the German historian Hammer, are referred to as authorities for Avedick's claim; but on being examined, they are found totally insufficient as warrants for such a theory. The essential pivot of the question of identity of the Iron Mask is the death and burial of its wearer in 1703. Now, Avedick was still in Turkey in 1706, and that settles his claim beyond question. Avedick was seized by order of the Marquis of Ferriol in the Grecian Archipelago, May, 1706, carried forcibly to France, retained in confinement in various places until September, 1710, when he was liberated. He died in Paris in July, 1711. This was most certainly a case of shameful violation of the law of nations, of power, and of humanity. A case of abominable personal cruelty it also certainly was—but it was not a case of "Iron Mask." Two such outrages as those on the persons of Marchialy and Avedick are quite enough of themselves; to say nothing of certain diplomatic arrangements with the Grand Turk which endangered Christianity and the public peace in Europe—to settle one's opinion as to the genuineness of the glories of the reign of Louis XIV., a Grand Monarque who was not great.

But to return, M. Topin's chapter on the Avedick case, appearing in Le Correspondant of the 10th June, 1869, was followed by an article from the pen of Rev. Father Turquand, S.J., in the September (10th) number of the same periodical, severely attacking the statements of Avedick's case by M. Topin, and vindicating his (Turquand's) society from certain imputations cast upon it in connection with the seizure of Avedick.

In his fourth number, (Oct. 10th,) M. Topin takes up the claim made for Fouquet, whose case differs from all the others in the fact that he was a prisoner of state by sentence of a judicial tribunal. Fouquet's claims were warmly pressed by a very able literary advocate, Paul Lacroix, (Bibliophile Jacob,) in a work published in 1830. But here again the difficulty of dates is insurmountable. Fouquet died in 1680, and there is no proof of the appearance of the Man with the Iron Mask until after that period.

We pass on to another. In the year 1677, the Duke of Mantua was Charles IV. of the illustrious house of Gonzaga. He was young, careless, dissipated, and extravagant. Spending most of his time in Venice, he seldom visited his duchy, except for the purpose of raising money. He gradually fell into the hands of usurious lenders, and continued to obtain the sums he wanted by anticipating, through them, the receipt of the taxes and imposts of his duchy by several years. The Marquisate of Montferrat was among his dependencies. Its little capital, Casal, a fortified place on the Po, fifteen leagues east of Turin, was a point of great strategic importance, and essential to the safety of Piedmont. The court of Turin would not, of course, consent to its possession by France. But to France it was of the highest value, as with Pignerol and Casal it would be master of the situation. This place Louis XIV. wanted to buy, and Charles IV. was perfectly willing to sell it. Ercolo (Hercules) Antonio Mattioli, a young nobleman of the court of Mantua, at this time thirty-seven years of age, was high in favor with the reigning duke. Through Giuliani, an Italian journalist, D'Estrades, Louis XIV.'s ambassador at Venice, sounded Mattioli, and finally, through him, succeeded in opening a negotiation with the duke for the sale of Casal to France.

All three met at Venice in March, 1678, discussed terms, and agreed upon one hundred thousand crowns as the price of the cession. Mattioli then went to Paris to sign the treaty in the name of his master the duke. The treaty was completed in December, 1678, and after its signature, Mattioli was received by Louis XIV. in secret audience, presented by the king with a rich diamond ring and four hundred double Louis d'or, with the promise of a far greater amount of money, the appointment of his son among the royal pages, and a valuable endowment for his mother. The intrigue and negotiation had been admirably managed and crowned with perfect success. Of all who had any interest opposed to the French possession of Casal, not one had the slightest suspicion, and it would have been difficult to imagine the existence of the smallest element of failure in the enterprise.

But the best-laid schemes of men, mice, and monarchs here below oft come to naught. Two months after Mattioli's visit to Paris, the courts of Turin, of Madrid, and of Vienna, the Spanish governor of the Milanese provinces, and the state inquisitors of the Venetian republic—that is to say, all and every one most interested against the execution of the treaty—not only knew of its existence, but were fully advised of every detail concerning it, the names of the negotiators, the date of the instruments, the price of cession, when it was to be made, etc. In short, they knew every thing concerning it. Well they might. Mattioli himself had told them! His motive is a subject of dispute. One theory is, interested motive; another, patriotism. Certain it is he had more to gain—as a mere question of interest—by keeping than by betraying the secret. On this point, though, we do not undertake to judge him. In February, 1679, the Duchess of Savoy advised Louis XIV. that she was in possession of Mattioli's information. The disappointment, the mortification, and the anger of the French king can easily be imagined. He was placed in a position not only dangerous; but what was almost worse, ludicrous. Mattioli had the king's signature to the treaty in his possession, and it was all-important to recover it. The king in Paris, and his minister D'Estrades, both conceived the same idea for remedy in the matter. On the 28th of April, 1679, Louis sent the order to have Mattioli arrested, and on arrival of the order, Mattioli had already (May 2d) been carried off a prisoner. D'Estrades had managed to decoy him across the frontier, at a point where he had a detachment of dragoons waiting, and in a few hours the Italian was a prisoner at Pignerol, the commencement of a captivity that was to endure four and twenty long years. M. Topin then continues the discussion of Mattioli's case, and closes the article, leaving the reader under the impression that he decides against the claim of Mattioli.

Indeed he goes further; for he more than intimates that there is very little probability of ever penetrating the mystery surrounding the Man with the Iron Mask.

The case made for Mattioli has always been the strongest, even before the publication of the work of Mr. J. Delort, which was mostly appropriated by Ellis in his True History of the State Prisoner. Mr. Loiseleur has also discussed the Mattioli claim with great force; so successfully, indeed, that a very large number of critical scholars were satisfied with his adverse demonstration.

M. Topin discusses at great length the facts and the reasoning of Mr. Loiseleur, and, as we have just stated, concludes his sixth article by a decision against Mattioli. But in his concluding chapter (Correspondant, Nov. 10th) he comes to a right-about face, takes up some of Mr. Loiseleur's proofs, adds some new dispatches, and decides that—Mattioli is the French prisoner of state known as the Man with the Iron Mask.

We fear that after all the solution of M. Topin is no solution, and that the only result of his labor is to narrow the discussion down to the claims of Mattioli and another prisoner of unknown name.

THE SCHOOL QUESTION.[13]

The number of The Christian World, the organ of the American and Foreign Christian Union, for February last is entirely taken up with the school question, and professes to give "a carefully digested summary of the views and reasonings of all parties to the controversy." The views and reasonings of the Catholic party are not misstated, but are very inadequately presented; those of the other parties are given more fully, and, we presume, as correctly and as authoritatively as possible. The number does not dispose of the subject; but furnishes us a fitting occasion to make some observations which will at least set forth correctly our views of the school question as Catholics and American citizens.

It is to the credit of the American people that they have, at least the Calvinistic portion of them, from the earliest colonial times, taken a deep interest in the education of the young, and made considerable sacrifices to secure it. The American Congregationalists and Presbyterians, who were the only original settlers of the eastern and middle colonies, have from the first taken the lead in education, and founded, sustained, and conducted most of our institutions of learning. The Episcopalians, following the Anglican Church, have never taken much interest in the education of the people, having been chiefly solicitous about the higher class of schools and seminaries. The Baptists and Methodists have, until recently, been quite indifferent to education. They have now some respectable schools; but the writer of this was accustomed in his youth to hear both Baptists and Methodists preach against college-bred parsons, and a larned ministry. In those States which had as colonies proprietary governments, and in which the Episcopalians, Baptists, and Methodists have predominated, universal education has been, and still is, more or less neglected. Even the Presbyterians, while they have insisted on a learned ministry and the education of the easy classes, have not insisted so earnestly on the education of the children of all classes as have the Congregationalists; and, indeed, it is hardly too much to say that our present system of common schools at the public expense owes its origin to Congregationalists and the influence they have exerted. The system, whatever may be thought of it, has undeniably had a religious, not a secular origin.

The system originated in New England; strictly speaking, in Massachusetts. As originally established in Massachusetts, it was simply a system of parochial schools. The parish and the town were coincident, and the schools of the several school-districts into which the parish was divided were supported by a tax on the population and property of the town, levied according to the grand list or state assessment roll. The parish, at its annual town meeting, voted the amount of money it would raise for schools during the ensuing year, which was collected by the town collector, and expended under the direction of a school committee chosen at the same meeting. Substantially the same system was adopted and followed in New Hampshire and Connecticut. In Vermont, the towns were divided or divisible, under a general law, into school-districts, and each school-district decided for itself the amount of money it would raise for its school, and the mode of raising it. It might raise it by tax levied on the property of the district, or, as it was said, on "the grand list," or per capita on the scholars attending and according to the length of their attendance. In this latter method, which was generally followed, only those who used the schools were taxed to support them. This latter method was, in its essential features, adopted in all, or nearly all, the other States that had a common school system established by law. In Rhode Island and most of the Southern States, the inhabitants were left to their own discretion, to have schools or not as they saw proper, and those who wanted them founded and supported them at their own expense. In none of the States, however, was there developed at first a system of free public schools supported either by a school fund or by a general tax on property levied by the State, though Massachusetts contained such a system in germ.

Gradually, from the proceeds of public lands, from lots of land reserved in each township, especially in the new States, for common schools, and from various other sources, several of the States accumulated a school fund, the income of which, in some instances, sufficed, or nearly sufficed, for the support of free public schools for all the children in the State. This gave a new impulse to the movement for free schools and universal education, or schools founded and supported for all the children of the State at the public expense in whole or in part, either from the income of the school fund or by a public tax. This is not yet carried out universally, but is that to which public sentiment in all the States is tending; and now that slavery is abolished, and the necessity of educating the freedmen is deeply felt, there can be little doubt that it will soon become the policy of every State in the Union.

The schools were originally founded by a religious people for a religious end, not by seculars for a purely secular end. The people at so early a day had not advanced so far as they have now, and did not dream of divorcing secular education from religion. The schools were intended to give both religious and secular education in their natural union, and there was no thought of the feasibility of separating what God had joined together. The Bible was read as a class-book, the catechism was taught as a regular school exercise, and the pastor of the parish visited the schools and instructed them in religion as often as he saw proper. Indeed, he was, it might be said, ex officio the superintendent of the parish schools; and whether he was chosen as committee-man or not, his voice was all potent in the management of the school, in the selection of studies, and in the appointment and dismissal of teachers. The superiority in a religious and moral point of view to the schools as now developed may be seen by contrasting the present moral and religious state of New England with what it was then.

The religion, as we Catholics hold, was defective, and even false; but the principle on which the schools were founded was sound, and worked well in the beginning, did no injustice to any one, and violated no conscience; for Congregationalism was the established religion, and the people were all Congregationalists. Even where there was no established religion and different denominations obtained, conscience was respected; for the character of the school, as well as the religion taught in it, was determined by the inhabitants of the school district, and nobody was obliged to send his children to it, and those only who did send were taxed for its support.

But in none of the States is there now an established religion, and in all there are a great variety of denominations, all invested with equal rights before the state. It is obvious, then, the Massachusetts system cannot in any of them be adopted or continued, and the other system of taxing only those who use the schools cannot be maintained, if the schools are to be supported from the income of public funds, or by a public tax levied alike on the whole population of the district, town, municipality, or State. Here commences the difficulty—and a grave one it is, too—which has as yet received no practical solution, and which the legislatures of the several States are now called upon to solve.

Hitherto the attempt has been made to meet the difficulty by excluding from the public schools what the state calls sectarianism—that is, whatever is distinctive of any particular denomination or peculiar to it—and allowing to be introduced only what is common to all, or, as it is called, "our common Christianity." This would, perhaps, meet the difficulty, if the several denominations were only different varieties of Protestantism. The several Protestant denominations differ from one another only in details or particulars, which can easily be supplied at home in the family, or in the Sunday-school. But this solution is impracticable where the division is not one between Protestant sects only, but between Catholics and Protestants. The difference between Catholics and Protestants is not a difference in details or particulars only, but a difference in principle. Catholicity must be taught as a whole, in its unity and its integrity, or it is not taught at all. It must everywhere be all or nothing. It is not a simple theory of truth or a collection of doctrines; it is an organism, a living body, living and operating from its own central life, and is necessarily one and indivisible, and cannot have any thing in common with any other body. To exclude from the schools all that is distinctive or peculiar in Catholicity, is simply to exclude Catholicity itself, and to make the schools either purely Protestant or purely secular, and therefore hostile to our religion, and such as we cannot in conscience support.

Yet this is the system adopted, and while the law enables non-Catholics to use the public schools with the approbation of their consciences, it excludes the children of Catholics, unless their parents are willing to violate their Catholic conscience, to neglect their duty as fathers and mothers, and expose their children to the danger of losing their faith, and with it the chance of salvation. We are not free to expose our children to so great a danger, and are bound in conscience to do all in our power to guard them against it, and to bring them up in the faith of the church, to be good and exemplary Catholics.

Evidently, then, the rule of allowing only our supposed "common Christianity" to be taught in schools does not solve the difficulty, or secure to the Catholic his freedom of conscience.

The exclusion of the Bible would not help the matter. This would only make the schools purely secular, which were worse than making them purely Protestant; for, as it regards the state, society, morality, all the interests of this world, Protestantism we hold to be far better than no religion—unless you include under its name free-lovism, free-religion, woman's-rightsism, and the various other similar isms struggling to get themselves recognized and adopted, and to which the more respectable Protestants, we presume, are hardly less opposed than we are. If some Catholics in particular localities have supposed that the exclusion of the Protestant Bible from the public schools would remove the objection to them as schools for Catholic children, they have, in our opinion, fallen into a very great mistake. The question lies deeper than reading or not reading the Bible in the schools, in one version or another. Of course, our church disapproves the Protestant version of the Bible, as a faulty translation of a mutilated text; but its exclusion from the public schools would by no means remove our objections to them. We object to them not merely because they teach more or less of the Protestant religion, but also on the ground that we cannot freely and fully teach our religion and train up our children in them to be true and unwavering Catholics; and we deny the right of the State, the city, the town, or the school district, to tax us for schools in which we are not free to do so.

We value education, and even universal education—which overlooks no class or child, however rich or however poor, however honored or however despised—as highly as any of our countrymen do or can; but we value no education that is divorced from religion and religious culture. Religion is the supreme law, the one thing to be lived for; and all in life, individual or social, civil or political, should be subordinated to it, and esteemed only as means to the eternal end for which man was created and exists. Religious education is the chief thing, and we wish our children to be accustomed, from the first dawning of reason, so to regard it, and to regard whatever they learn or do as having a bearing on their religious character or their duty to God. Mr. Bulwer—now Lord Lytton—as well as many other literary men of eminence, have written much on the danger of a purely intellectual culture, or of the education of the intellect divorced from that of the heart, or sentiments and affections. We hold that education, either of the intellect or of the heart, or of both combined, divorced from faith and religious discipline, is dangerous alike to the individual and to society. All education should be religious, and intended to train the child for a religious end; not for this life only, but for eternal life; for this life is nothing if severed from that which is to come.

Even for this world, for civilization itself, the religious education which the church gives is far better than any so-called secular education without it. The church has not always been able to secure universal secular education for all her children; but there can be no question that the illiterate classes of Catholic nations are far more civilized and better trained than are the corresponding classes of Protestant nations. There is no comparison in personal dignity, manliness, self-respect, courtesy of manner, refined feeling, and delicate sentiment, between an unlettered Italian, French, Spanish, or Irish peasant, and an unlettered Protestant German, English, or American. The one is a cultivated, a civilized man; the other is a boor, a clown, coarse and brutal, who perpetually mistakes impudence for independence, and proves his self-respect by his indifference or insults to others. The difference is due to the difference of religion and religious culture; not, as is sometimes pretended, to difference of race. The church civilizes the whole nation that accepts her; only the upper classes in Protestant nations are civilized.

Of course, we do not and can not expect, in a state where Protestants have equal rights with Catholics before the state, to carry our religion into public schools designed equally for all. We have no right to do it. But Protestants have no more right to carry their religion into them than we have to carry ours; and carry theirs they do, when ours is excluded. Their rights are equal to ours, and ours are equal to theirs; and neither does nor can, in the eyes of the state, override the other. As the question is a matter of conscience, and therefore of the rights of God, there can be no compromise, no splitting of differences, or yielding of the one party to the other. Here comes up the precise difficulty. The state is bound equally to recognize and respect the conscience of Protestants and of Catholics, and has no right to restrain the conscience of either. There must, then, be a dead-lock, unless some method can be discovered or devised by which the public schools can be saved without lesion either to the Protestant or the Catholic.

Three solutions have been suggested: 1. The first is to exclude the Bible and all religious teaching, or recognition, in any way, shape, or manner, of religion, from the public schools. This is the infidel or secular solution, and, so far as Catholics are concerned, is no solution at all. It is simple mockery. What we demand is, not that religion be excluded from the schools, but schools in which we can teach freely and fully our own religion to our own children. It is precisely these purely secular schools, in which all education is divorced from religion—from the faith, precepts, services, and discipline of the church, as well as education combined with a false religion—that we oppose. Nor will this solution satisfy the more respectable Protestant denominations, as is evident from the tenacity with which they insist on reading the Bible in the schools. They do not believe any more than we do in the utility, or even practicability, of divorcing what is called secular learning from religion. All education, they hold, as well as we, that is not religious, is necessarily anti-religious. This is a case in which there is and can be no neutrality. We find this conclusively shown by some remarks in The Christian World before us, credited to Professor Tayler Lewis, the most learned and able thinker we are acquainted with among our Protestant contemporaries. The professor's remarks are so true, so sensible, and so much to our purpose, that, though not so brief as we could wish, our readers will hardly fail to thank us for transcribing them:

"Let us test this specious plea of neutrality. What does it imply? If carried strictly out to the exclusion of every thing religious, or having a religious tendency, it must consistently demand a like exclusion of every thing that in the least manifests the opposite tendency, under whatever specious disguises it may be veiled. It does not alter the case in the least that opinions, regarded as irreligious, or as undermining or in any way weakening the grounds of belief, take to themselves the specious names of literature, or politics, or political economy, or phrenology, or the philosophy of history. No such sham pass-words should give to Buckle and Combe admittance where Butler and Chalmers are shut out. Every thing that makes it less easy for the child to believe his catechism, 'taught at home,' as they say, is a break of the supposed concordat. The mere objection is to be heeded. It is enough that things seem so to serious men, as capable of correct reasoning as any on the other side; or that it is the opinion, the prejudice, if any choose so to call it, of a devout ignorance. The thoughtful religious man might be willing to forego his objection if there were or could be real impartiality. He might trust a true moral and religious training as fully able to counteract any thing of an opposite tendency. But to let in the enemy, and then take away the weapon of defence—this is a neutrality hard to be understood.

"Now, there can be no doubt of the fact that there is admitted into our schools, our colleges, our educational libraries, into the reading-rooms connected with them, much that is thus deemed irreligious in its tendency—at least, by the holders of our stricter creeds. There is much that is silently alienating the minds of their children from the doctrines held sacred by their fathers. We might go further: there is much that tends to undermine all religious belief, even of the freest cast. What young man can have his mind filled with the atheistical speculations of Mill and Spencer, or be exposed to the uncounteracted theories of Darwin and Huxley, and yet retain unimpaired his belief in a providence as taught by Christ—a providence that 'numbers the very hairs of our heads'—or listen as before to the prayer that ascends from the family altar? These writers profess a kind of theism, it is said; but wherein, as far as any moral power is concerned, does it differ from a belief in quadratic equations, or the dogmas of heat and magnetism?

"The matter, as we have stated it, would be too plain for argument were it not for those magical words, secular and sectarian, that some are so fond of using. 'The state knows no religion,' they say; it is wholly 'a private concern' between the individual and his Maker. 'The state knows no God.' They wonder the zealous bigot cannot see how clear this makes every thing. If he would only assent to propositions so easy, so self-evident, we should have peace. But set these confident logicians to define what they mean by terms so fluently employed, or ask them to show us how the state can keep clear of all action, direct or indirect, for or against an interest so vital as religion, so all-pervading, so intimately affecting every other, and how soon they begin to stammer! What is secular? The one who attempts to define it would perhaps begin with a negative. It is that which has no connection with religion; no aspects, no relations, no tendencies, no suggestions, beyond this world, or, the narrowest view of it, this age or seculum. Now, let him apply it to particular branches of education. There is the learning of the alphabet, spelling, reading. But what shall the child read? It would be very difficult to find a mere reading-book—unless its contents were an empty gabble, like the nonsense Latin verses of some schools—that would not somewhere, and in some way, betray moral or immoral, religious or irreligious ideas, according to the judgment of some minds. But let us waive this, and go on. Arithmetic is secular. Geography is secular; though we have seen things under the head of physical geography that some classes of religionists might object to as betraying a spirit hostile to the idea of the earth's creation in any form. But go on. Including the pure mathematics, as being pure mathematics and nothing else, we have about got to the end of our definition. No thinking man would pretend that the departments of life and motion, chemistry, dynamics, physiology, could be studied apart from a higher class of ideas. But secularity would interfere here in a very strange way. When these roads of knowledge thus tend upward toward the eternal light, it would shut down the gate and eject the book. Natural philosophy, as taught by Newton and Kepler, gets beyond secularity. When, on the other hand, after the manner of Humboldt, Lamarck, and Darwin, its progress is in the direction of the eternal darkness, the study of it becomes entirely unsectarian; it violates no rights of conscience!

"In other departments, it is still more difficult to set the secular bound. History, the philosophy of history, political philosophy, psychology, ethics, however strong the effort to dereligionize them, do all, when left to their proper expansion, spurn any such bounds. Art, too, when wholly secularized; poetry stripped of its religious ideality; how long would they resist such a narrowing, suffocating process? A lower dogma was never maintained than this of a wholly secular education, or one more utterly impracticable. The subject must inevitably die under the operation, and religion must come back again into our schools and colleges, to save them from inanity and extinction.

"There may be stated here some reasons why this plea of neutrality, though so false, is yet so specious and misleading. It arises from the fact that the statement of moral, religious, and theological ideas demands clear and positive language. The hostile forms, on the other hand, are disguised under vague and endlessly varying negations. They are Protean, too, in their appellations. They take to themselves the names of literature, art, philosophy, reform. This procedure shows itself in reading-books intended for our primary schools; in text-books prepared for the higher institutions; in essays and periodicals that strew the tables of reading-rooms attached to our colleges and academies; and, above all, in the public lecturing, male and female, which may be said to have become a part of our educational system. For example, should the writer of this attempt to explain before such an audience 'the doctrines of grace,' as they are called, or that unearthly system of ideas which can be traced through the whole line of the church—patristic, Roman, and Protestant—in their production of a strong unearthly character, then would be immediately heard the cry of bigotry, or the senseless yell of church and state. And now for the opposing 'dogmas,' as they really are, notwithstanding all their disguises. They make their entrance under endlessly varied forms. Pantheism has free admittance; but that is not dogmatic—it calls itself philosophy. In some lecture on progress, or history, the most essential of these old 'doctrines of grace' may be sneeringly ignored or covertly assailed; but that is literature. Darwinism is expounded, with its virtual denial of any thing like creation; or Huxleyism, which brings man out of the monkey, and the monkey out of the fungus; that is science. Or it may be the whining nonsense which glorifies the nineteenth century at the expense of the far honester eighteenth, and talks so undogmatically of the deep 'yearning' for something better—that is, the 'coming faith.' And so goes on this exhibition of impartiality, with its exclusion of every thing dogmatic and theological."

Neither Catholics nor Protestants who believe at all in religion will consent to be taxed to support infidel, pantheistic, or atheistic education; and all so-called purely secular education is really nothing else. The temporal separated from the eternal, the universe from its Creator, is nothing, and can be no object of science. The first suggested solution must then be abandoned, and not be entertained for a moment by the state, unless it is bent on suicide; for the basis of the state itself is religion, and is excluded in excluding all religious ideas and principles.

2. The second solution suggested is to adopt in education the voluntary system, as we do in religion, and leave each denomination to maintain schools for its own children at its own expense. We could accept this solution, as Catholics, without any serious objection; but we foresee some trouble in disposing of the educational funds held by several of the States in trust for common schools, academies, and colleges, and in determining to whom shall belong the school-houses, and academy and college buildings and fixtures, erected, in whole or in part, at the public expense. Besides, this would break up the whole public school system, and defeat the chief end it contemplates—that of providing a good common education for all the children of the land, especially the children of the poorer classes. Catholics, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Episcopalians would establish and support schools, each respectively for their own children; but some other denominations might not, and the infidels, and that large class called nothingarian, most certainly would not. Only they who believe in some religion see enough of dignity in man, or worth in the human soul, to make the sacrifice of a penny for education. The Darwins, the Huxleys, the Lyells, and other unbelieving scientists of the day, were never educated in schools, academies, colleges, or universities founded by infidels. They graduated from schools founded by the faith and piety of those who believed in God, in creation, in Christ, in the life and immortality brought to light in the Gospel; and if they have devoted themselves to severe studies, it has not been from love of science, but in the ignoble hope of being able to dispense, in the explanation of nature, with God the Creator, and to prove that man is only a monkey developed, a condensed gas, or, as Dr. Cabanis defined him, simply "a digestive tube open at both ends."

Moreover, though we deny the competency of the state to act as educator, we hold that its duty toward both religion and education is something more than negative. We hold that it has positive duties to perform in regard to each. It cannot decide what religion its citizens shall accept and obey; but it is bound to protect its citizens in the free and full enjoyment of the religion they adopt for themselves. We cannot, for the sake of carrying a point which we hold to be true and certain to be of great importance, ally ourselves with infidels, or lay down as a universal principle what our church has never approved, and what we may in the change of the tide be ourselves obliged to disavow. The state, with all its powers and functions, exists for religion, and is in all its action subordinated to the eternal end of man. As the church teaches, and as the New England Puritans held, this world is never the end; it is only a means to an end infinitely above itself. We will never dishonor truth so much as to concede for a moment that the state is independent of religion; that it may treat religion, as a coördinate power with itself, with indifference, or look down upon it with haughty contempt, as beneath its notice, or to be pushed aside if it comes in its way. It is as much bound to consult the spiritual end of man, and to obey the law of God, which overrides all other laws, as is the individual.

We, of course, deny the competency of the state to educate, to say what shall or shall not be taught in the public schools, as we deny its competency to say what shall or shall not be the religious belief and discipline of its citizens. We, of course, utterly repudiate the popular doctrine that so-called secular education is the function of the state. Yet, while we might accept this second solution as an expedient, we do not approve it, and cannot defend it as sound in principle. It would break up and utterly destroy the free public school system, what is good as well as what is evil in it; and we wish to save the system by simply removing what it contains repugnant to the Catholic conscience—not to destroy it or lessen its influence. We are decidedly in favor of free public schools for all the children of the land, and we hold that the property of the state should bear the burden of educating the children of the state—the two great and essential principles of the system, and which endear it to the hearts of the American people. Universal suffrage is a mischievous absurdity without universal education; and universal education is not practicable unless provided for at the public expense. While, then, we insist that the action of the state shall be subordinated to the law of conscience, we yet hold that it has an important part to perform, and that it is its duty, in view of the common weal, and of its own security as well as that of its citizens, to provide the means of a good common school education for all its children, whatever their condition, rich or poor, Catholics or Protestants. It has taken the American people over two hundred years to arrive at this conclusion, and never by our advice shall they abandon it.

3. The first and second solutions must then be dismissed as unsatisfactory. The first, because it excludes religion, and makes the public schools nurseries of infidelity and irreligion. The second, because it breaks up and destroys the whole system of free public schools, and renders the universal education demanded by our institutions impracticable, or unlikely to be given, and in so far endangers the safety, the life, and prosperity of the republic. We repeat it, what we want is not the destruction of the system, but simply its modification so far as necessary to protect the conscience of both Catholics and Protestants in its rightful freedom. The modification necessary to do this is much slighter than is supposed, and, instead of destroying or weakening the system, would really perfect it and render it alike acceptable to Protestants and to Catholics, and combine both in the efforts necessary to sustain it. It is simply to adopt the third solution that has been suggested, namely, that of dividing the schools between Catholics and Protestants, and assigning to each the number proportioned to the number of children each has to educate. This would leave Catholics free to teach their religion and apply their discipline in the Catholic schools, and Protestants free to teach their religion and apply their discipline in the Protestant schools. The system, as a system of free schools at the public expense, with its fixtures and present machinery, would remain unimpaired; and a religious education, so necessary to society as well as to the soul, could be given freely and fully to all, without the slightest lesion to any one's conscience, or interference with the full and entire religious freedom which is guaranteed by our constitution to every citizen. The Catholic will be restored to his rights, and the Protestant will retain his.

This division was not called for in New England in the beginning; for then the people were all of one and the same religion; nor when only those who used the schools were taxed for their support. It was not needed even when there were only Protestants in the country. In demanding it now, we cast no censure on the original founders of our public schools. But now, when the system is so enlarged as to include free schools for all the children of the state at the public expense, and Catholics have become and are likely to remain a notable part of the population of the country, it becomes not only practicable, but absolutely necessary, if religious liberty or freedom of conscience for all citizens is to be maintained; and it were an act of injustice to Catholics, whose conscience chiefly demands the division, and a gross abuse of power, to withhold it. It may be an annoyance to Protestants that Catholics are here; but they are here, and here they will remain; and it is never the part of wisdom to resist the inevitable. Our population is divided between Catholics and Protestants, and the only sensible course is for each division to recognize and respect the equal rights of the other before the State.

One objection of a practical character has been brought against the division by the New York Tribune. That journal says that, if the division could be made in cities and large towns, it would still be impracticable in the sparsely settled districts of the country, where the population is too small to admit, without too great an expense, of two separate schools, one Catholic and one Protestant. The objection is one that is likely to diminish in force with time. In such districts let each school receive its pro rata amount of the public money: if too little, let Catholic charity make up the deficiency for the Catholic, and Protestant charity for the Protestant school. Besides, in these sparsely settled districts there are few Catholics, and their children are far less exposed than in cities, large towns, and villages.

The more common objection urged is, that if separate schools are conceded to Catholics, they must not only be conceded to the Israelites, but also to each Protestant denomination. To the Israelites, we grant, if they demand them. To each Protestant denomination, not at all, unless each denomination can put in an honest plea of conscience for such division. All Protestant denominations, without a single exception, unless it be the Episcopalians, unite in opposing the division we ask for, and in defending the system as it is, which proves that they have no conscientious objections to the public schools as they are now constituted and conducted. The division to meet the demands of the Catholic conscience would necessitate no change at all in the schools not set apart for Catholic children; and the several denominations that are not conscientiously opposed to them now could not be conscientiously opposed to them after the division. We cannot suppose that any denomination of Protestants would consent to support a system of education that offends its own conscience for the sake of doing violence to the conscience of Catholics. Do not all American Protestants profess to be the sturdy champions of freedom of conscience, and maintain that where conscience begins there the secular authority ends? If the present schools do violence to no Protestant conscience, as we presume from their defence of them they do not, no Protestant denomination can demand a division in its favor on the plea of conscience; and to no other plea is the state or the public under any obligation to listen. If, however, there be any denomination that can in good faith demand separate schools on the plea of conscience, we say at once let it have them, for such a plea, when honest, overrides every other consideration.

But we are asked what shall be done with the large body of citizens who are neither Catholic nor Protestant? Such citizens, we reply, have no religion; and they who have no religion have no conscience that people who have religion are bound to respect. If they refuse to send their children either to the Hebrew schools or the Catholic schools, or, in fine, to the Protestant schools, let them found schools of their own, at their own expense. The constitutions of the several States guarantee to each and every citizen the right to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience; but this is not guaranteeing to any one the freedom of not worshipping God, to deny his existence, to reject his revelation, or to worship a false God. The liberty guaranteed is the liberty of religion, not the liberty of infidelity. The infidel has, under our constitution and laws, the right of protection in his civil and political equality; but none to protection in his infidelity, since that is not a religion, but the denial of all religion. He cannot plead conscience in its behalf, for conscience presupposes religion; and where there is no religious faith, there is, of course, no conscience. It would be eminently absurd to ask the state to protect infidelity, or the denial of all religion; for religion, as we have said, is the only basis of the state, and for the state to protect infidelity would be to cut its own throat.

These are, we believe, all the plausible objections that can be urged against the division of the public schools we demand; for we do not count as such the pretence of some over-zealous Protestants that it is necessary to detach the children of Catholics from the Catholic Church in order that they may grow up thorough Americans; and as the public schools are very effectual in so detaching them, and weakening their respect for the religion of their parents, and their reverence for their clergy, they ought on all patriotic grounds to be maintained in full vigor as they are. We have heard this objection from over-zealous Evangelicals, and still oftener from so-called Liberal Christians and infidels; we have long been told that the church is anti-American, and can never thrive in the United States; for she can never withstand the free and enlightened spirit of the country, and the decatholicizing influence of our common schools; and we can hardly doubt that some thought of the kind is at the bottom of much of the opposition the proposed division of the public schools has encountered. But we cannot treat it as serious; for it is evidently incompatible with the freedom of conscience which the state is bound by its constitution to recognize and protect, for Catholics as well as for Protestants. The state has no right to make itself a proselyting institution for or against Protestantism, for or against Catholicity. It is its business to protect us in the free and full enjoyment of our religion, not to engage in the work of unmaking our children of their Catholicity. The case is one of conscience, and conscience is accountable to no civil tribunal. All secular authority and all secular considerations whatever must yield to conscience. In questions of conscience the law of God governs, not a plurality of votes. The state abuses its authority if it sustains the common schools as they are with a view of detaching our children from their Catholic faith and love. If Catholics cannot retain their Catholic faith and practice and still be true, loyal, and exemplary American citizens, it must be only because Americanism is incompatible with the rights of conscience, and that would be its condemnation, not the condemnation of Catholicity. No nationality can override conscience; for conscience is catholic, not national, and is accountable to God alone, who is above and over all nations, all principalities and powers, King of kings and Lord of lords. But the assumption in the objection is not true. It mistakes the opinion of the American people individually for the constitution of the American state. The American state is as much Catholic as it is Protestant, and really harmonizes far better with Catholicity than with Protestantism. We hold that, instead of decatholicizing Catholic children, it is far more necessary, if we are to be governed by reasons of this sort, to unmake the children of Protestants of their Protestantism. We really believe that, in order to train them up to be, in the fullest sense, true, loyal, and exemplary American citizens, such as can alone arrest the present downward tendency of the republic, and realize the hopes of its heroic and noble-hearted founders, they must become good Catholics.

But this is a question of which the state can take no cognizance. We have under its constitution no right to call upon it to aid us, directly or indirectly, in unmaking Protestant children of their Protestantism. Of course, before God, or in the spiritual order, we recognize no equality between Catholicity and Protestantism. Before God, no man has any right to be of any religion but the Catholic, the only true religion, the only religion by which men can be raised to union with God in the beatific vision. But before the American state, we recognize in Protestants equal rights with our own. They have the same right to be protected by the state in the freedom of their conscience that we have to be protected by it in the freedom of ours. We should attack the very freedom of conscience the state guarantees to all her citizens, were we to call upon it to found or to continue a system of public schools, at the public expense, intended or fitted to detach Protestant children from the religion of their parents, and turn them over to be brought up in the Catholic religion. We should prove ourselves decidedly un-American in so doing. Yet, we regret to say, this is precisely what the non-catholic majority, inconsiderately we trust, are doing; and, if the popular ministers of the several sects, like Dr. R. W. Clark, Dr. Sheldon, Dr. Bellows, Henry Ward Beecher, and the sectarian and secular press have their way, they will continue to do to the end of the chapter to us Catholics. They probably are not aware that they belie the Americanism they profess, and abuse the power their superiority of numbers gives them to tyrannize over the consciences of their fellow-citizens. This strikes us as very un-American, as well as very unjust.

We place our demand for separate schools on the ground of conscience, and therefore of right—the right of God as well as of man. Our conscience forbids us to support schools at the public expense from which our religion is excluded, and in which our children are taught either what we hold to be a false or mutilated religion, or no religion at all. Such schools are perilous to the souls of our children; and we dare avow, even in this age of secularism and infidelity, that we place the salvation of the souls of our children above every other consideration. This plea of conscience, which we urge from the depth of our souls, and under a fearful sense of our accountability to our Maker, ought to suffice, especially in an appeal to a state bound by its own constitution to protect the rights of conscience for each and all of its citizens, whether Protestant or Catholic.

One thing must be evident from past experience, that our children can be brought up to be good and orderly citizens only as Catholics, and in schools under the supervision and control of their church, in which her faith is freely and fully taught, and her services, discipline, and influences are brought to bear in forming their characters, restraining them from evil, and training them to virtue. We do not say that, even if trained in Catholic schools, all will turn out to be good practical Catholics and virtuous members of society; for the church does not take away free-will, nor eradicate all the evil propensities of the flesh; but it is certain that they cannot be made such in schools in which the religion of their parents is reviled as a besotted superstition, and the very text-books of history and geography are made to protest against it; or in which they are accustomed to hear their priests spoken of without reverence, Protestant nations lauded as the only free and enlightened nations of the earth, Catholic nations sneered at as ignorant and enslaved, and the church denounced as a spiritual despotism, full of craft, and crusted all over with corruption both of faith and morals. Such schools may weaken their reverence for their parents, even detach them from their church, obscure, if not destroy their faith, render them indifferent to religion, indocile to their parents, disobedient to the laws; but they cannot inspire them with the love of virtue, restrain their vicious or criminal propensities, or prevent them from associating with the dangerous classes of our large towns and cities, and furnishing subjects for the correctional police, our jails, penitentiaries, state prisons, and the gallows.

We are pointed to the vicious and criminal population of our cities, of which we furnish more than our due proportion, as a conclusive argument against the moral tendency of our religion, and a savage howl of indignation, that rings throughout the land, is set up against the legislature or the municipality that ventures to grant us the slightest aid in our struggles to protect our children from the dangers that beset them, though bearing no proportion to the aid granted to non-Catholics. Yet it is precisely to meet cases like ours that a public provision for education is needed and supposed to be made. Protestants make the great mistake of trying to cure the evil to which we refer by detaching our children from the church, and bringing them up bad Protestants, or without any religion. The thousand and one associations and institutions formed by Protestant zeal and benevolence for the reformation or the bringing up of poor Catholic children, and some of which go so far as to kidnap little papist orphans or half orphans, lock them up in their orphan asylums, where no priest can enter, change their names so that their relatives cannot trace them, send them to a distance, and place them in Protestant families, where it is hoped they will forget their Catholic origin, all proceed from the same mistake, and all fail to arrest, or even to lessen, the growing evil. They necessarily provoke the opposition and resistance of the Catholic pastors, and of all earnest Catholics, who regard the loss of their faith as the greatest calamity that can befall Catholic children. So long as faith remains, however great the vice or the crime, there is something to build on, and room to hope for repentance, though late, for reformation and final salvation. Faith once gone, all is gone.

It is necessary to understand that the children of Catholics must be trained up in the Catholic faith, in the Catholic Church, to be good exemplary Catholics, or they will grow up bad citizens, the pests of society. Nothing can be done for them but through the approval and coöperation of the Catholic clergy and the Catholic community. The contrary rule, till quite recently, has been adopted, and public and private benevolence has sought to benefit our children by disregarding, or seeking to uproot, their Catholic faith, and rejecting the coöperation of the Catholic clergy. The results are apparent to all not absolutely blinded by their misdirected zeal.

The public has not sufficiently considered that by the law excluding our religion from the public schools, the schools as established by law are Protestant schools, at least so far as they are not pagan or godless. We do not suppose the state ever intended to establish Protestantism as the exclusive religion of the schools; but such is the necessary result of excluding, no matter under what pretext, the teaching of our religion in them. Exclude Catholicity, and what is left? Nothing of Christianity but Protestantism, which is simply Christianity minus the Catholic Church, her faith, precepts, and sacraments. At present the state makes ample provision for the children of Protestants, infidels, or pagans; but excludes the children of Catholics, unless we consent to let them be educated in Protestant schools, and brought up Protestants, so far as the schools can bring them up.

Now, we protest in the name of equal rights against this manifest injustice. There is no class of the community more in need of free public schools than Catholics, and none are more entitled to their benefit; for they constitute a large portion of the poorer and more destitute classes of the community. We can conceive nothing more unjust than for the state to provide schools for Protestants, and even infidels, and refuse to do it for Catholics. To say that Catholics have as free access to the public schools as Protestants, is bitter mockery. Protestants can send their children to them without exposing them to lose their Protestantism; but Catholics cannot send their children to them without exposing them to the loss of their Catholicity. The law protects their religion in the public schools by the simple fact of excluding ours. How then say these schools are as free to us as they are to them? Is conscience of no account?

We take it for granted that the intention of the state is that the public schools should be accessible alike to Catholics and Protestants, and on the same risks and conditions. We presume it has had no more intention of favoring Protestants at the expense of Catholics, than Catholics at the expense of Protestants. But it can no longer fail to see that its intention is not, and cannot be realized by providing schools which Protestants can use without risk to their Protestantism, and none which Catholics can use without risk to their Catholicity. As the case now stands, the law sustains Protestantism in the schools and excludes Catholicity. This is unjust to Catholics, and deprives us, in so far as Catholics, of all benefit to be derived from the public schools supported at the public expense. Were the law to admit Catholicity, it would necessarily exclude Protestantism, which would be equally unjust to Protestants. Since, then, Catholicity and Protestantism mutually exclude each other, and as the state is bound to treat both with equal respect, it is not possible for it to carry out its intention and do justice to both parties, but by dividing the schools, and setting apart for Catholics their proportion of them, in which the education shall be determined and controlled by their church, though remaining public schools supported at the public expense, under the provisions of a general law as now.

This would be doing for its Catholic citizens only what it now does for its Protestant citizens only; in fact, only what is done in France, Austria, and Prussia. The division would enable us to bring all our children into schools under the influence and management of our pastors, and to do whatever the church and a thoroughly religious education can do to train them up to be good Catholics, and therefore orderly and peaceful members of society, and loyal and virtuous American citizens. It would also remove some restraint from the Protestant schools, and allow them more freedom in insisting on whatever is doctrinal and positive in their religion than they now exercise. The two classes of schools, though operating separately, would aid each other in stemming the tide of infidelity and immorality, now setting in with such fearful rapidity, and apparently resistless force, threatening the very existence of our republic. The division would operate in favor of religion, both in a Catholic sense and in a Protestant sense, and therefore tend to purify and preserve American society. It would restore the schools to their original intention, and make them, what they should be, religious schools.

The enemy which the state, which Catholics, and which Protestants have alike to resist and vanquish by education is the irreligion, pantheism, atheism, and immorality, disguised as secularism, or under the specious names of science, humanity, free-religion, and free-love, which not only strike at all Christian faith and Christian morals, but at the family, the state, and civilized society itself. The state has no right to regard this enemy with indifference, and on this point we accept the able arguments used by the serious Protestant preachers and writers cited in the number of The Christian World before us against the exclusion of the Bible and all recognition of religion from the public schools. The American state is not infidel or godless, and is bound always to recognize and actively aid religion as far as in its power. Having no spiritual or theological competency, it has no right to undertake to say what shall or shall not be the religion of its citizens; it must accept, protect, and aid the religion its citizens see proper to adopt, and without partiality for the religion of the majority any more than the religion of the minority; for in regard to religion the rights and powers of minorities and majorities are equal. The state is under the Christian law, and it is bound to protect and enforce Christian morals and its laws, whether assailed by Mormonism, spiritism, free-lovism, pantheism, or atheism.

The modern world has strayed far from this doctrine, which in the early history of this country nobody questioned. The departure may be falsely called progress, and boasted of as a result of "the march of intellect;" but it must be arrested, and men must be recalled to the truths they have left behind, if republican government is to be maintained, and Christian society preserved. Protestants who see and deplore the departure from the old landmarks will find themselves unable to arrest the downward tendency without our aid, and little aid shall we be able to render them unless the church be free to use the public schools—that is, her portion of them—to bring up her children in her own faith, and train them to be good Catholics. There is a recrudescence of paganism, a growth of subtle and disguised infidelity, which it will require all that both they and we can do to arrest. Fight, therefore, Protestants, no longer us, but the public enemy.[14]

THE NEW ENGLANDER ON THE "MORAL RESULTS OF THE ROMISH SYSTEM."[15]

The reply of the New Englander to our articles of September and October last is bristling with the most palpable and absurd mistakes. We call them "mistakes" through the utmost stretch of Christian charity, for there is really no excuse to be made for them. We cannot excuse them by allowing either their author or the editors of the New Englander the benefit of the plea of ignorance; for they were bound to inform themselves on a grave matter which they profess to treat of; nor that of haste and carelessness. They have had at least three months for a reply, and were at liberty to take three months more, if necessary; and to plead carelessness in such a matter is equivalent to a confession of culpable negligence and want of moral principle. They were bound by the principles of the Christian religion not to exaggerate or convey in any way a worse impression of their fellow-Christians than the exact truth would warrant, according to the words of St. Paul, "Charity is kind, thinketh no evil, ... is not puffed up;" which we might paraphrase in this way: Is not pharisaically inclined to exalt one's self at the expense of one's neighbor, or at the sacrifice of the truth. The New Englander has made use of every artifice; and, trusting to the unsuspecting ignorance or uncritical spirit of the community, of a shameful perversion of the truth to effect this unworthy and unchristian object. We speak severely because it is time the public, both Catholic and Protestant, should frown upon such practices, and endeavor to approach Christian unity by the practice of the most ordinary Christian virtues. We shall now proceed to make good our allegations against the New Englander.

1st. The New Englander makes a comparison of the provinces of Catholic and Protestant countries, prefaced by the following introduction:

"The author of Evenings with the Romanists, writing in 1854, gave the names and official returns of ten principal cities of Protestant Prussia and of ten principal cities of Roman Catholic Austria.... The Catholic World admits the statements, ... and claims, with that air of injured innocence, which is so favorite a weapon in Romish polemics, that, if the returns of the provinces were brought into the account, they would more than redress the balance of the cities. We proceed to put his proposition to experiment."

Would our readers credit it, that he has done nothing of the kind? He has not compared the Protestant and Catholic provinces of Protestant Prussia and Roman Catholic Austria, between which, and which alone, the parallel comparison of cities was made; but substituted another comparison, entirely his own, introducing provinces belonging to other countries to weigh down the Catholic scale, and excluding half the Catholic provinces of Austria for the same purpose. This we will show to a demonstration. Here is the table of the New Englander:

Illegitimacy in German Provinces.

PROTESTANT.PR. CT.ROMAN CATHOLIC.PR. CT.
Brandenburg12Austria (Upper and Lower)29.3
Hanover9.6Bohemia16.3
Pomerania10Baden16.2
Prussia6.7Bavaria22.5
Saxony15.9Carinthia11.7
Würtemberg16.4Carniola45
Moravia15.1
Posen6.8
Rhineland3.4
Salzburg29.6
Styria30.6
Trieste, Gorz, etc.9.9
Tyrol and Vorarlberg6
Average11.7Average18.6

We repeat, the question as put by the New Englander itself is not about German provinces, but of the Protestant and Roman Catholic provinces of Prussia and Austria. Moreover, the table as it stands is grossly untrue. The rate of illegitimacy of the province of Prussia is 9 instead of 6.7, which materially alters the general average.

The averages of the table are falsely given as,

Protestant11.7Catholic18.6

The true averages found by balancing the populations and the rates, according to the rules of arithmetic, are:

Protestant12Catholic16.9

Besides these grave blunders, the New Englander, professing to give a statement of the German provinces by taking Germany, "province by province," has omitted many German provinces, which omission very materially affects the result. We take the liberty of putting them in to show how "economical" of truth the New Englander has been.

Provinces omitted for which returns were given.

PROTESTANT.PR. CT.CATHOLIC.PR. CT.
Saxon Prussia10Austrian Silesia13.8
Brunswick18.9
Mecklenburg-Schwerin20.7
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach15.6
Saxe Altenburg16.9
Hesse17.2
Bremen7.2

We shall now proceed to do what the New Englander professed to do, but merely shifting the question, has not done, namely, compare the Catholic and Protestant provinces of Protestant Prussia and Roman Catholic Austria, province by province, as they existed previous to the last war, to correspond to the comparison of the cities of these countries which were contained within these limits. Milan, as well as Lemburg and Zara, are put down among the Austrian cities. We shall give the corresponding provinces:

Illegitimacy in Prussian and Austrian Provinces.

PROTESTANT.POPULATION IN MILLIONS.PR. CT.
Brandenburg2.6212
Pomerania1.4410
Prussia3.019
Saxony (province)2.0410
9.1110.2
CATHOLIC.POPULATION IN MILLIONS.PR. CT.
Austria (Upper and Lower)2.4729.3
Bohemia5.1116.3
Carinthia.3445
Carniola.4711.7
Moravia1.9915.1
Posen1.526.8
Rhineland3.353.4
Austrian Silesia.4913.8
Salzburg.1529.6
Styria1.0930.6
Trieste, etc..569.9
Tyrol.886
Hungary10.686
Galicia5.108
Dalmatia.445
Croatia.955.5
Lombardy and Venice5.555.1
41.1410.3

We have thus shown, by a mathematical demonstration, that the words which the New Englander found convenient to put in our mouths, though we really said nothing of the kind, that "if the returns of the provinces were brought into the account, they would more than redress the balance of the cities," are sufficiently made good. We are glad he "proceeded to put our proposition to experiment," and we caution him when he makes any more experiments of this kind to reflect that, whatever may be the judgment of an uncritical public prepared to take his statements without examination, his artifices, misstatements, and false conclusions are sure to be detected by any well-informed reader who will take the trouble of examining them. The result of the comparison of the Protestant and Roman Catholic provinces of Austria and Prussia sums up in this fashion:

False Average of the New Englander.
Protestant11.7Catholic18.6

True Average.
Protestant10.2Catholic10.3

We have thus finished this part of our task, strictly confining ourselves to the provinces in question; but as it seems more complete to add the other German provinces on both sides, of which returns are given, we do so with the following result:

Provinces already given.

PR. CT.POPULATION IN MILLIONS.
Protestant10.29.11
Würtemberg16.41.75
Smaller German States[16]14.86.40
12.517.26
PR. CT.POPULATION IN MILLIONS.
Catholic10.341.14
Bavaria22.54.81
Baden16.21.43
11.747.38

We dismiss the New Englander from the examination of provinces with the conviction that he ought now to become a wiser if not a better man.

2dly. The New Englander gives us another division of his work, entitled thus, "3. Comparison of mixed populations," the object of which seems to be two-fold: 1st, To show the wonderful effect of a little Protestant salt in a mass of Catholic corruption; and 2dly, to push up the rate of Catholic Austria to a high figure by excluding the best half of it, and thus to come out with flying colors in the grand tabular statement of all the European countries. He commences with the following round but very novel statement: "The empire of Austria includes a population of 31,655,746; of these, 21,082,801 or two thirds, are non-Romanists, belonging to the Protestant church or Greek Church."

The population of the empire of Austria is really divided as follows:

Catholic26,728,020
All others7,703,976

by which specimen we may form a good judgment of the general accuracy of the New Englander.

He goes on, "In nine of the Austrian provinces the population is almost exclusively Roman Catholic. In seven, the Roman Catholics are, on an average, in a minority of 46 per cent." He proves these assertions by a table of

Mixed Provinces.

ROMANISTS.ILLEGITIMATE.
Hungary52per cent.6per cent.
Galicia44"8"
Bukowina9"9"
Dalmatia81"5"
Militärgrenze42"1.4"
Croatia, etc.82"5.5"
Transylvania11"7"
Average46"6"

accompanied by the following remark: "This falling of the rate of illegitimacy from twenty-one to six, when the proportion of Romanists to the population falls off from ninety-seven to forty-six, indicates the salutary effect of Protestant Christianity, not only on its own followers, but also on the working of Romanism itself." But suppose the population does not fall off from ninety-seven to forty-six per cent, and that in most of these provinces, and where the rate of illegitimacy is the lowest, there are no Protestants at all, and a small proportion in the rest; what is shown, then, unless it be the ignorance and bad faith of the New Englander, which professes to be the "recognized exponent of those views of religious life which have given character to New England, and its essays to be among the best fruits of thought and opinion which the education given at Yale is adapted to foster"? Alas! Messrs. Editors, you have unceremoniously dropped nearly 4,000,000 of Roman Catholics from your computation. Are you not aware that the United Greeks are Roman Catholics? If you are not, we beg leave to enlighten you, and correct the table you have so ostentatiously paraded before the public:

Catholics.Protestants.Jews & Schismatic Greeks.
POP. IN THOUS'DS.PR CT.POP. IN THOUS'DS.PR CT.POP. IN THOUS'DS.PR CT.
Hungary596561234924144915
Galicia4150903114499
Bukowina4310none038190
Dalmatia33881none07719
Militärgrenze4544320258755
Croatia, etc.72185none013015
Transylvania775405102763733
Total12,44665291015376020

The "salutary effect of Protestant Christianity in" Galicia, Bukowina, Dalmatia, Militärgrenze, Croatia, etc., is wonderful, and indeed little short of miraculous, considering how exceedingly small the quantity of it is. If the presence of one per cent of Protestants can so ameliorate the condition of things in Galicia, what a land of heavenly purity Connecticut must be! But we arouse ourselves to finish our task, or we shall become entirely absorbed in these sublime reflections.

The New Englander's "experiment" with mixed populations is an entire failure. We will give a much more reliable table, to show the influence of the Catholic and Protestant religion among people of the same race, and living together in the same communities, and under the same laws. The census of illegitimacy has been taken in Prussia according to the religious faith of the people.

Illegitimacy in Prussia.

AMONG PROTESTANTS.AMONG CATHOLICS.
Pop. in thous'ds.pr. ct.Pop. in thous'ds.pr. ct.
Brandenburg250912.05668.40
Silesia170412.03175610.07
Saxony190310.351306.05
Pomerania140110.35159.31
Prussia21379.678157.45
Posen5027.069506.82
Westphalia7404.189073.35
Rhineland8263.3524943.67
Total11,72210.0171236.4

We take our leave of the "comparison of mixed populations." If the New Englander is satisfied with our treatment of the subject, we are sure we are with his; for it enables us to put this matter once more before an enlightened public, leaving them to form their own opinions about it.

We now come to the New Englander's final division of the subject: "4. Comparison of nations."

Here is the grand extinguisher of all Catholic pretensions. The whole question is to be put in a nut-shell in the following table, and that according to the very criterion proposed by The Catholic World.

New-Englander's Table of Illegitimacy in European Countries.

PROTESTANT.PR. CT.CATHOLIC.PR. CT.
Denmark11Baden16.2
England, Scotland, and Wales6.7Bavaria22.5
Holland4Belgium7.2
Prussia, including Saxony & Hanover8.3France7.5
Sweden, with Norway9.6German Austria18.1
Switzerland5.5? Italy (defective)5.1
Würtemberg16.4? Spain (defective)5.5
Average8.8Average11.7
Or rejecting Italy and Spain14.5

What strikes us first of all is the richness of these averages. Dear New Englander, you will be the death of us with your averages. Not that we shall literally be killed off by them; but when we think of the "best fruits" of the scholarship of Yale College producing such averages, by adding up a lot of rates of all sorts of countries, big and little, and dividing the sum by the number of countries, the idea is absurd enough to kill any one with laughter. Exuberance of fancy has evidently exercised an unfavorable influence on the mathematical ability of the author of this article, and neutralized the effect of the excellent mathematical course given at Yale College.

We find in the table Italy and Spain marked with a note of interrogation, as much as to say, "What business have you here with such low averages? You ought to look a great deal worse than that, being such black and benighted Romanist countries as you are." And after them the word "defective" in brackets. No doubt the best of reasons will be given for this. Let us see. "The returns for Italy and Spain are utterly defective and untrustworthy. Assuming the ordinary birth-rate, the returns show that in Italy more than one fourth of the births fail to be registered." Why does not the New Englander give the figures, that we may judge for ourselves? What he has not done we will do for him:

Births in Italy.

1863881,342
1864859,663
1865878,952
Average873,319

The population of Italy is 24,231,860, and the birth-rate of Europe, according to the New Englander, is 1 to 28. Dividing the number of the population by 28, we get 865,608. The number of actual births exceeds the number expected, instead of being defective by "more than a fourth." As the reason alleged proves to be utterly false, we shall strike off the marks of interrogation from Italy, and leave out the "defective" in the brackets.

In like manner, the returns for Spain are treated. "As for Spain, its census returns, if quoted at all among statistics, are quoted at even a larger discount than its financial securities. The sum of the Spanish censuses for the last forty years has been up and down after the following zigzag fashion:

"182813,698,029
183712,222,872
184212,054,000
184612,164,000
185010,942,000
186116,000,000
186415,752,807"

Not having found our friend of the New Englander very precise heretofore in his figures, we did not exactly take them on trust this time, but looked in our "Handbuch," and found the following

Table of Censuses in Spain.

182211,661,865
183211,158,264
184612,162,872
185715,464,340
186015,673,536

which does not exhibit any great "zigzag" propensity.

The following table of births does not show any mark of being either untrustworthy or defective, but is uncommonly complete and steady:

LEGITIMATE.ILLEGITIMATE.
1858516,11830,040
1859525,24331,080
1860541,23132,222
1861577,48434,125
1862573,64633,416
1863565,14432,997
1864586,99334,458
1865581,68633,227

So much for the romancing of the New Englander, which we might appropriately designate as building "castles in Spain."

We beg our readers' pardon for these long lists of figures, but they are really necessary for the correct understanding of the matter. As to Austria, we shall take the liberty to bring down her figure from 18.1 to 11.1; not that it would make so very much difference in the general average of the nations, except in the clap-trap mode of calculation adopted by the New Englander, but because justice, as we have amply shown, demands it.

We shall now present a true table of the European countries, slightly modifying some of the rates, to correspond to later and better information, and inserting all the omitted countries of which returns are given:

Table of Illegitimacy in European Countries.

PROTESTANT.PR. CT.POPULATION IN MILLIONS.
Denmark[17]112.73
England and Wales6.520.07
Scotland10.13.06
Holland43.53
Prussia8.618.94
Sweden and Norway9.65.81
Switzerland5.52.51
Würtemberg16.41.75
Other German States[18]14.86.40
Average8.764.80
CATHOLIC.PR. CT.POPULATION IN MILLIONS.
Baden16.21.43
Bavaria22.54.81
Belgium7.24.98
France7.238.07
Austria11.134.98
Italy5.124.23
Spain5.515.67
Average8.4124.17

The New Englander has been quite hard on us for classing Holland and Switzerland, in which there are very large Catholic minorities, as mixed countries, and remanded them with an air of injured innocence forthwith into the Protestant column, where it will be observed they present an uncommonly good appearance, being the lowest on the list. We have shown by documentary evidence that in Prussia in 1864, when there was a Catholic minority of thirty-eight per cent, the rate of illegitimacy was brought down by it from 10 to 8.46, or, in other words, if all the Catholics could be removed at once out of the land, the rate of Prussia would stand 10, whereas it appears now 8.6. For this reason we thought fit to make some distinction, lest there should be any strutting around in borrowed plumes, and to form a table of mixed countries. We shall, therefore, carefully avoiding any further wounding of the delicate susceptibilities of the New Englander, append a table, making allowances for the minorities on both sides, coming just as near to the exact truth as it is possible:

[Table of Illegitimacy], including Majorities and Minorities.

PR. CT.PROT. POP. IN MILL'S.CATH. POP. IN MILL'S.
Holland4.02.011.23
Italy5.1.3323.90
Spain5.5.1215.55
Switzerland5.51.481.02
Catholics in Prussia6.5—7.20
England and Wales6.519.001.20
France7.2.7734.93
Belgium7.2.024.97
Sweden and Norway9.65.81—
Protestants in Prussia10.011.74—
Scotland10.13.00.16
Denmark112.73—
Austria11.13.4526.73
German States14.85.88.52
Würtemberg16.41.20.53
Mean Protestants8.357.54117.94
Mean Catholics7.4

To sum up, we have for our final result:

New Englander's Averages.

Protestant8.8
Catholic11.7; or, omitting Italy and Spain 14.5

True Averages.

Protestant8.3
Catholic7.4

Here we are glad to end the general investigation, and to show that, if we are not very much better than our neighbors, we are not any worse, and are not to be hounded down with the cry of vice and immorality by a set of Pharisees who are constantly lauding their own superiority, and thanking God they are so much better than we poor Catholics.

We must notice, before we conclude, some minor points of the New Englander's reply to The Catholic World. He insists that it is highly improbable that any of the foundlings received into the hospital at Rome come from the provinces, and says we have not adduced a particle of proof to the contrary. Well, as far as the readers of the New Englander are concerned, what is the use of adducing any proof?—for that very Christian journal takes no notice of any refutations of its statements, nor concedes any point, however strongly proved, but is solely occupied in showing, by fair means or foul, our "total depravity," as if the very life and breath of the Protestant religion depended on maintaining a deep and bitter hatred and contempt of Catholics. To our own readers, we do not think it worth while to adduce any particular proof of a self-evident proposition. If there be a foundling hospital, receiving infants left at its door, it requires no proof that it will serve the adjacent country as well as the city. We have documentary evidence to prove this point; but the New Englander contains so many errors which require our attention, that we have not space for so trivial a matter. We would like, however, to ask our friend of the New Englander whether he believes any of the three thousand infants received in the foundling hospital of Amsterdam come from the country.

2d. The New Englander says, "But where do the infants come from that are received in the multitudes of country nunneries that abound throughout the rural districts, and commonly have each its crèche, or cradle, in which the child of shame may be dropped in secret with a ring of the bell, and left?"

It is time enough to answer this question when any proof of its truth is brought forward; but we can assure our friend that if any infants are so received, they all find their way to the hospital in short order.

3d. We find the following unique and highly gentlemanly insinuation in the New Englander:

"'The Civilta Cattolica says, "This proportion of 28.3 of legitimate births for every one thousand of the population speaks very well for a capital city." And so it does; it shows, what we have always understood them to be, that the Romans are as virtuous and moral as any people of the world.' Thus The Catholic World; to which it might safely add, that it shows that the separation of an enormous mass of the most vigorous part of the people under vows of celibacy and continence does not necessarily check the multiplication of the population."

Weakness in arithmetic and a prurient imagination have, no doubt, given rise to the above elegant extract; but we rebut it by informing our friend of the New Englander that there is a difference between 28.3 to the thousand and 1 to 28.3. Had he noticed this difference, he would not have digged this pit for himself. The figures prove nothing more than his own ignorance, putting the most charitable construction on it.

We must give a specimen of the New Englander's idea of fairness in controversy:

"In his Evenings with the Romanists, Mr. Seymour, anticipating the tu quoque retort of the Roman Catholics, said, 'If any man will name the worst of the Protestant countries, I care not which, I will name a Roman Catholic country still worse.' In this way, he proceeded to compare, in 1854, Saxony with Carinthia and sundry other regions on either side, whereupon The Catholic World has a violent outbreak of mingled indignation and erudition at the extreme trickiness of comparing Styria, Upper and Lower Austria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Trieste, which are not countries at all, but simply the German provinces of the Austrian Empire, and Bavaria, with countries so different and wide apart as Norway, Sweden, Saxony, Hanover, and Würtemburg; the regions in question seem to have been selected for their approximate equality in population."

Well, as probably most people have not heard of the countries of Carinthia, Styria, etc., we confess we were "erudite" enough to know and to point out that they were slices of Austria carved for the occasion, and we were a little indignant at the carving operation.

"Show me a bad Protestant country where you please, and I will show you a Roman Catholic country still worse." Hence, we have, according to Mr. Seymour:

PROTESTANT COUNTRIES.ROMAN CATHOLIC COUNTRIES.
Norway,Austria,
Sweden,Austria,
Saxony,Austria,
Denmark,Austria,
Hanover,Austria,

We suppose this is all fair enough; but we cannot see it, our moral vision being so infirm.

"But these regions seem to have been selected for their approximate equality in population." So it seems, and our friend, Mr. S., has made it seem so in this fashion: "We compare Protestant Norway with 1,194,610, and Roman Catholic Styria (Austria) with 1,006,971. Again, we compare Protestant Sweden with 2,983,144, and Roman Catholic Upper and Lower (Austria) with 2,244,363." All very good; but now let us go on: "We compare Protestant Saxony with its population, and Roman Catholic Carinthia with its population. And we compare Hanover with its Protestant population, and Salzburg with its Roman Catholic population." "'Of course these countries are selected for their approximate equality in population.'" In order that our readers may see how much equality there is in the populations of these countries, we give the following

Table of Populations.

PROTESTANT.CATHOLIC.
Saxony2,343,994Carinthia342,469
Hanover1,923,492Salzburg147,191

Saxony is only seven times greater than Carinthia. Hanover only twelve times greater than Salzburg. Very excellent is Mr. Seymour in "anticipating the tu quoque of the Roman Catholics."

We now desire to call the attention of our readers to one very remarkable phenomenon of the statistics. In Protestant England the cities have a lower rate of illegitimacy than the country, while in France the case is reversed, the countries are low and the cities high. The following table will show this:

Rates of Illegitimacy in City and Country Districts of England.

CITY.PR. CT.COUNTRY.PR. CT.
London4.2Nottingham8.9
Liverpool4.9York, N. R.8.9
Birmingham4.7Salop9.8
Manchester6.7Westmoreland9.7
Sheffield5.8Norfolk10.7
Leeds6.4Cumberland11.4
The rate for all England is 6.5.

In France.

Rate in all France7.2
Rate in cities11.4
Rate in the country4.4

From this we draw the conclusion that for Protestants city life is decidedly the best, and it will be the duty of ministers to crowd as many of their flocks as possible out of the polluted air of the country into the moral atmosphere of the cities, and in England to endeavor to concentrate them particularly in the very virtuous communities of London and Liverpool. But we are sorry the gospel trumpet gives such a feeble sound in the country districts, and we hope some of the city clergy will get a call to go into these benighted districts, (abjuring the brown-stone fronts and high salaries,) and bring them back at least to the level of the city population, where there are so many and varied temptations, and such surprising purity. Our Catholic people seem to flourish better in the country, and we sincerely hope that those who come over from Europe will get farms out West, instead of settling down in New-York or other cities. We did have an idea that the influence of religion was best exerted in the country, where the pastor knows each one of his flock, and would rather have compared the country people in Protestant lands with the country people in Catholic lands, to test the influence of religion upon them; but as the New Englander seems to think the comparison is best made in the cities, we leave every reflective person to form his own judgment. If the New Englander is right, we fear our Lord was wrong in asking us to pray, "Lead us not into temptation;" but Protestants should rather pray, "Lead us into temptation," because it is precisely in temptation they are most virtuous.

We did not intend to say a single word on the subject of murders, etc., because we have not any complete statistics on the subject, and because we do not like the labor of hunting them up, just at present; but as this thing is paraded before us like a red rag before a bull, we will just make one dash at it, and, giving it a blow sufficient to dispatch it, leave the rest of the matter until we find it convenient to take it up. Mr. Seymour gave the following items in his book:

Ireland19 homicides to the million.
France31 homicides to the million.
England4 homicides to the million.

and we find the following table in the New Englander:

To the Million of Population.

ENGLAND.FRANCE.
Convictions of murder and attempts1½12
Convictions of infanticide in various degrees510

We give the latest returns on the subject from the "Handbuch" for France and from Thom's Official Directory for England and Ireland, 1869.

CONVICTIONS AND SENTENCES TO DEATH.EXECUTIONS.
1864. France95
1867. England and Wales2710
1867. Ireland30

It will not require much ingenuity to see where the truth lies. "Ex uno disce omnes."

We advise the New Englander to subject in future the articles of its unfortunate correspondent, of whom it is evidently ashamed, to the revision of a professor of mathematics.

TO THE RAINBOW.

All-glorious shape that fleet'st, wind-swept,
Athwart the empurpled, pine-girt steep,
That sinless, from thy birth hast wept,
All-gladdening, till thy death must weep;

That in eterne ablution still
Thine innocence in shame dost shroud,
And, washed where stain was none, dost fill
With light thy penitential cloud;

Illume with peace our glooming glen;
O'er-arch with hope yon distant sea,
To angels whispering, and to men,
Of her whose lowlier sanctity

In God's all-cleansing freshness shrined,
Disclaimed all pureness of her own,
And aye her lucent brow inclined,
God's handmaid meek, before his throne.

Aubrey De Vere.

THE FIRST ŒCUMENICAL COUNCIL OF THE VATICAN.
NO. THREE.

The second month of the Vatican Council has seen no interruption of its labors, nor of the intense interest which these labors seem to excite on every side. In truth, the intensity of this interest, especially among those who are not friendly to the council, would be inexplicable, did we not feel that there is in reality a struggle involved therein between the cause of religion and the cause of irreligion. The meetings of the prelates are private and quiet. The subjects under discussion are, at best, only vaguely known outside. The names of the speakers may be learned. You may ascertain, if you persist in the effort, that one bishop has a fine voice, and was well heard; that another has an exceedingly polished delivery; that a third is remarkable for the fluency, and a fourth for the classic elegance with which he spoke in Latin. But all your efforts will fail to elicit a report of the substance of the speech of any prelate. These speeches are for the council itself—for the assembled fathers to whom they are delivered—and are not for the public at large, nor for Buncombe. They are under the guard of the honor of the bishops and the oath of the officials, and are to be kept secret until the acts of the council are lawfully published. And yet "own correspondents," "occasional correspondents," "special correspondents," and "reliable correspondents" from Rome have failed not, day after day, to fill the columns of newspapers—Italian, French, English, German, Belgian, and Spanish, and doubtless others also, if we saw them—with their guesses and suspicions, their tiny grains of truth and bushels of fiction. Ponderous columns of editorial comments are often superadded, as it were, to increase the amount of mystery and the mass of errors. Even the brief telegraphic notices seem to be often controlled or made to work in this sense. The telegrams from Rome itself ought to be, and we presume are, correct. The author of a flagrant misstatement sent from this city could be identified and held responsible. But it is said that, outside of the limits of the Pontifical States, there is a news-agent who culls from letters sent him for that purpose most of those wonderful statements about the council which the telegraph wires are made to flash over Europe, and even across the Atlantic to America. The result of all this on the mind of one in Rome is ofttimes amusing. During our civil war, we once found ourselves in a railway car with an officer who had lost an arm. "Colonel," asked some one, "in what battle were you wounded?" The colonel laid down the papers he had been reading, sighed heavily, as if wearied, at least in mind, and answered, "At the time, I thought it was at the battle of Chancellorsville; but since I have been reading these newspaper accounts of that battle, I have come to the conclusion that I was not there at all." The newspaper reporters of the council labor under far greater difficulties than did the army correspondents, and are proportionately inaccurate.

Meanwhile, the council moves on in its direct course, like a majestic steamer on the ocean, undisturbed by these winds blowing alternately from every point of the compass, and unheeding the wavelets they strive to raise. Within the council, every thing is proceeding smoothly and harmoniously, some think more slowly than was anticipated. But the fathers of the council feel they have a great work to do conscientiously, and they are engaged earnestly and in the fear of God in its performance.

As yet, a third public session of the council has not been held, nor has any public announcement been made of the day when it may be looked for. But the time is busily employed. We stated in our last number that a schema or draft on some doctrinal points had been given to the prelates early in December, and had been learnedly discussed, no less than thirty-five speakers having canvassed its merits. At the conclusion of the discussion, the schema was referred to the Deputation, or Committee on Faith. All the discourses had been taken down and written out by stenographers, with an accuracy which astonished and elicited the commendation of such bishops as examined the report of their own speeches. These reports were likewise handed over to the committee, that no remark might be overlooked or forgotten. All will be taken into consideration and duly weighed, together with further remarks before the committee, by the theologians who drew up the schema in the Preparatory Committee. The committee is charged to present the matured result to the assembled congregation at the proper time, when it will again be considered, perhaps discussed, and finally voted on.

On January 14th, the fathers again assembled in a general congregation in the council-hall, altered and restricted as we have already described it. Mass was celebrated at nine A.M., as is always done, by one of the senior prelates. At its conclusion, the five presiding cardinals took their place. Cardinal De Angelis, the chief one, took his seat for the first time, and recited the usual opening prayer.

At the previous congregations, five of the deputations of the council had been filled by election. The sixth—that on oriental rites and on missions—still remained to be filled. Twenty-four members were to be elected by ballot.

The election was held in the usual form. The bishops had brought with them their ballots already written out. Several attendants passed, two and two, along the seats of the prelates, one of them bearing a small wicker-work basket. Each prelate deposited therein his ballot. In a few moments all had quietly voted. The baskets were borne to the secretary's table in the middle, in front of the presiding cardinals. The ballots were placed in boxes prepared to receive them. The boxes were closed and sealed, to be opened afterward before the regular committee for this purpose, when the votes would be counted, and the result ascertained.

The following prelates were elected:

Most Rev. Peter Bostani, Archbishop of Tyre and Sidon, Maronite, Asia.

Most Rev. Vincent Spaccapietra, Archbishop of Smyrna, Asia.

Most Rev. Charles Lavigerie, Archbishop of Algiers, Africa.

Rt. Rev. Cyril Behnam-Benni, Bishop of Moussoul, (Syrian,) Mesopotamia.

Rt. Rev. Basil Abdo, (Greek Melchite,) Bishop of Mariamne, Asia.

Rt. Rev. Joseph Papp-Szilagyi, (Roumenian,) Bishop of Gross Wardein.

Most Rev. Aloysius Ciurcia, Archbishop of Irenopolis, Egypt.

Rt. Rev. Aloysius Gabriel de la Place, Bishop of Adrianople, Bulgaria.

Rt. Rev. Stephen Louis Charbonneaux, Bishop of Mysore, India.

Rt. Rev. Thomas Grant, Bishop of Southwark, England.

Rt. Rev. Hilary Alcazar, Bishop, Vicar Apostolic of Tonking.

Rt. Rev. Daniel McGettigan, Bishop of Raphoe, Ireland.

Rt. Rev. Joseph Pluym, Bishop of Nicopolis, Bulgaria.

Most Rev. Melchior Nazarian, (Armenian,) Archbishop of Mardin, Asia.

Rt. Rev. Stephen Melchisedeckian, (Armenian,) Bishop of Erzeroum, Asia.

Rt. Rev. Augustin George Bar-Scinu, (Chaldean,) Bishop of Salmas, Asia.

Rt. Rev. John Lynch, Bishop of Toronto, Canada.

Rt. Rev. John Marangò Bishop of Tenos, Greece.

Rt. Rev. Francis John Laouenan, Bishop, V.A. of Pondicherry, India.

Rt. Rev. Anthony Charles Cousseau, Bishop of Angoulême, France.

Rt. Rev. Louis De Goesbriand, Bishop of Burlington, United States.

Most Rev. Joseph Valerga, Patriarch of Jerusalem.

Rt. Rev. James Quin, Bishop of Brisbane, Australia.

Rt. Rev. Charles Poirier, Bishop of Roseau, West Indies.

His Eminence Cardinal Alexander Barnabò, Prefect of the Propaganda, was appropriately named chairman of this committee.

No one in Rome, or elsewhere, could be found better qualified for this position than this eminent and well-known cardinal, who has for so many years, and so ably, presided over the congregation specially charged with superintending the world-wide missions of the Catholic Church. Born in the year 1798, he was in his early boyhood when Napoleon annexed Italy to his empire. When the conqueror, in order to bind the country to him, ordered that a number of the sons of the noble and most respectable families of Italy should be sent to the Ecole Polytechnique at Paris, to be educated, as it were, under his own eye, the bright-eyed Alessandro Barnabò was selected with others. He continued in that school until the fall of Napoleon restored Pius VII. to Rome. The lad could soon return home likewise, and devote himself, according to the aspirations of earlier years, to the service of God in the sanctuary. He pursued his ecclesiastical studies with distinction under De Rossi, Finotti, Graziosi, Palma, and the giant professors of those years in Rome; became priest; and naturally, with his learning, his energy, his amiability, was soon selected to give assistance in the congregations for the transaction of ecclesiastical business of the church in Rome. In due time he became secretary to the Congregation of the Propaganda, and made himself familiar with the affairs and men of the church throughout the world. Subsequently raised to the cardinalate, amid the applause of Rome, he succeeded Cardinal Fransoni in the prefectship of the same Congregation of the Propaganda where he had been secretary, and over which he, for many years, presided with an executive ability not equalled since the days of Cardinal Capellarò, afterward Gregory XV.

This election having been finished, the bishops then entered on the examination of matters of ecclesiastical discipline, several schemata, or draughts, on which had been presented to them for private study some time before. It is the ordinary usage of councils to examine matters of faith and matters of discipline as nearly pari passu as can conveniently be done. It seems this usage will be observed in the Vatican Council. There is a fundamental difference between matters of faith and matters of discipline.

The faith of the church is ever one—that originally delivered to her by the apostles. A council cannot alter it. The errors or heresies prevailing at any time, the uncertainty in some minds, or other needs of a period, may render it proper or necessary to give a fuller, clearer, and more definite expression of that faith on points controverted or misunderstood. The question always is, What has really been the faith held in the past, from the beginning, by the church on these points? The answer is sought in the words of Holy Writ, in the past declarations of the church, whether in the decrees of her councils or in the authoritative teachings of her sovereign pontiffs, and in her traditions, as shown in the liturgies and forms of prayer, in the testimony of her ancient doctors and fathers, and in the concurrent teachings of the general body of her pastors and her theologians. The whole field of evidence is searched, and the answer stands forth in noon-day light; and the council declares what really and truly has been and is the belief and teaching of the Catholic Church on the question before it. And that declaration is accepted by the Catholic world, not simply on the word of men, however great their knowledge or accurate and scrutinizing their research—nor simply on account of their holiness of life, their sincerity of heart, or the impartiality of their decision. These are, indeed, high motives, such as the world must always respect, and perhaps enough ordinarily to satisfy human minds. But, after all, they are but human motives. The Catholic is taught to base his belief on a higher motive—the divine assurance of our Saviour himself that he would always be with his church until the end of time, that he would send the spirit of truth to teach her all truth and to abide with her for ever, and that the gates of hell should never prevail against her. Our ears catch the words of the Saviour, "Whosoever heareth you, heareth me;—whosoever despiseth you, despiseth me;" and we know that the church is thus made the pillar and ground of truth, and that he that will not hear the church is like the heathen and the publican. Hence on his divine word, which must stand though the heavens and the earth pass away, we accept the declarations and teachings of the church, through her councils, as the continuation of the teaching of Christ himself.

Such was the examination made in the Council of Nice, A.D. 325; such was the spirit of faith in which its words were received when it declared the original and true belief of the church on the doctrines of the trinity and incarnation, and condemned the novelties of Arius and his followers. Such was the examination made in the councils of Ephesus, Constantinople first and second, and of Chalcedon; such the filial faith in which their decrees were received as they declared more and more fully and explicitly the true Catholic doctrine of the incarnation, and condemned successively the errors of the Nestorians, the Monophysites, and the Monothelites. Such was the course pursued in the various œcumenical councils which followed, down to and including the Council of Trent. Such was the spirit in which their declarations of the faith have ever been received. To us, the Catholic Church of Christ is a living church, possessing, by the gift of her divine Founder, authority to teach in his name all that he taught, and ever guarded by his divine power from so falling under the assaults of hell as to teach error to man in his name, instead of the divine truth which he established and commissioned her to teach. Her authority is ever the same—the same in the first and second centuries as in the fourth and fifth, in the tenth and twelfth, in the sixteenth, and in this nineteenth century; and it will continue the same until time shall be no more.

It is thus that the Vatican Council takes up matters of faith, not to add to the faith, but to declare it and to establish it, where it has been impugned or doubted or misunderstood. The question is, What are the points on which the errors and the needs of this age render it proper and necessary to give a renewed, perhaps a fuller, clearer, and more emphatic declaration of the doctrine of the church; and in what form of words shall such declarations be expressed? To all these questions the bishops are bringing their calmest and maturest judgment. There will be, as there must and should be, a free and frank interchange of views and arguments, in all sincerity and charity, even as in the council of the apostles at Jerusalem there was a great discussion before the definitive result was declared with authority: It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us. When, after such a discussion, the council shall give forth its decisions and decrees, they will be accepted by the children of the church. They will not be new doctrines. The Catholic heart and conscience will recognize them as portions of that faith which has heretofore ever been held. So true will this be, that we feel certain that one of the points which many of the enemies of the church will bring against this council, after its conclusion, will be, that it has done comparatively nothing, that all that it taught was known and believed among Catholics before it was convened. But the same thing was said at the time of former councils, even of those which proved to be the most important and influential in the history of Christianity.

But if faith is one and unchangeable, ecclesiastical discipline, at least in most of its details, is not. The church has received power to bind and to loose, and necessarily has authority to establish a discipline, not simply for the purpose of securing order within her fold, but to reach the further and higher purpose for which she herself has been established and exists. Men must not merely believe the truth speculatively and with a dead faith. They must, by practical obedience to the law of God, by avoidance of sin through the assistance of divine grace, by practice of virtue and by holiness of life, be guided to keep the word which they have heard, and so come to be saved. This practical guidance is her discipline. The general principles on which her action is based are the maxims and precepts of our divine Lord himself, the character of the holy sacraments which he established in his church to be the channels of grace, the institutions which came to her from the apostles, and which she will ever preserve, and those principles of right and morality which God has planted in the heart of man, and of which her divine commission makes her the highest and the most authoritative exponent. These principles are sacred and unchangeable. But in applying them to men there must be a large body of laws and regulations in detail. These are of her own institution, and form her ecclesiastical discipline. She can revoke some, amend or alter others, and add still others, as she judges such action to be best adapted, under the ever-varying circumstances of the world, to secure the great end for which she must ever labor—the salvation of souls.

As in all previous councils, so in this Vatican Council, these matters of discipline have naturally and unavoidably come up for consideration.

We said that, in the General Congregation, held on the 14th of January, immediately after the election of which we have spoken, the discussion of them commenced. It was continued in other congregations held on January 15th, 19th, 21st, 22d, 24th, 25th, 27th, 28th, 31st; February 3d, 4th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 14th, and 15th. It is not yet closed. So far, ninety-five prelates have addressed the council on the various points of discipline that came under examination.

If the discussion on matters of faith, of which we spoke in our last number, was worthy of admiration for the vast learning it displayed, and the intellectual powers of the speakers, this one on discipline was even more interesting for its practical bearing and the personal experience, so to speak, which it recorded. The questions came up whether this or that law of discipline, established eight hundred or five hundred or three hundred years ago, however wise and efficacious at the period of its institution, could now be looked on as sufficiently accomplishing its original purpose; or whether, on the contrary, some new law, proposed for the consideration of the prelates, might not now be wisely substituted for it. Bishops from every part of the world brought the light of their own experience to illustrate the subject. They bore, as it were, personal testimony to the good effects and to the inconveniences of those rules and laws in their respective dioceses. It was indeed most touching; and it is said that the assembly was moved to tears as an eloquent bishop, burning with zeal for the house of the Lord, told, with accents of apostolic grief, of the woes of religion, and of disorders that almost broke his heart—disorders against which he struggled, seemingly in vain, because they arose from, or were supported by, the intermeddling and abuses, and tyranny of the civil government, which claims to be "free and progressive," but is ever grasping at things ecclesiastical, ever striving to wield ecclesiastical power, and at times pretending to uphold and defend such intrusion by pretext of the laws and privileges of other times, when rulers and people alike professed to fear God and to respect his church.

Every portion of the world was heard from. The East, through Chaldeans, Maronites, and Armenians. The West, through Italian, French, German, Hungarian, Spanish, Mexican, Peruvian, Brazilian, English, Irish, and American bishops. The past was interrogated as to the reasons and motives on which the olden laws were based, and the special purposes they were intended to effect; and the present, as to their actual observance and effects in this century. Even the future was examined, so far as men may look into it, to conjecture what course the world was taking; and what, on the other hand, would be the most proper course for the church to pursue in her legislation, in order to secure the fullest observance of the laws of God, and the truest promotion of his glory.

We might well be assured that, even humanly speaking, such abundance of knowledge and experience, such careful examination of all the past and present bearings of the subjects, such a keen, calm scrutiny of the future, would secure to the church from such men an ecclesiastical legislation of the highest practical wisdom, as well in what is retained as in what is changed or added as new. But, as Catholics, we should never lose sight of that higher wisdom with which the Holy Ghost, according to the words of Christ, and in answer to the prayers of the Catholic world, will not fail to guide the fathers of the council.[19]

It will thus be seen that during this month the council has steadily pursued the even tenor of its way, without any public session. In fact, no day has as yet been assigned even as the proximate date of the third public session. No one outside the council seems able to say precisely what progress has been made in discussing and disposing of matters. Still less can we say when the council will close. There seems to be a feeling that the discussions will continue until June, when the almost tropical heat of a Roman summer must set in. This will, of course, necessitate an adjournment until the close of October, when the bishops would probably reassemble to continue their work. Time only can show whether there is any truth in this prognostication. Some of the bishops, of a more practical turn of mind, or more desirous of returning soon to their dioceses, are striving to find a mode of conciliating the most perfect freedom of discussion with a more rapid progress in the matters before the council. The most sacred right in a council is freedom to state one's views on matters in controversy, and to uphold them by all the arguments in one's power. This right has so far been most fully enjoyed and freely used. No plan that would take it away would be entertained.

Every day in Rome now convinces a sojourner more and more strongly of the unity, the catholicity, and the sanctity of the church of Christ. Faith that heretofore was almost extinct beneath the ashes of worldly thoughts, here glows again and bursts into a bright flame. Elsewhere we believed these truths; here we seem to behold with our eyes, and to touch with our hands their reality. No one can be privileged to mingle with the bishops here without being impressed with their perfect unity in all things declared and taught by the church, and with the undisguised readiness or rather firm intention of all, to accept and to hold and to teach all that, under the light of the Holy Ghost, shall be declared of faith in this Vatican Council. If, during the discussion and examination, they may take different views, this does not disturb the cordial affection among them. They can array their strongest arguments without ever descending to personalities. They are chary of indulging even in witticism calculated to relieve the solemnity of the debate by a smile. In all the discussion there is not only the highest gentlemanly courtesy, but also that true charity and union of hearts which must accompany that unity of faith which they solemnly professed to hold, and which must, if possible, be confirmed and strengthened in this Vatican Council.

To be fully impressed with this perfect unity, one must be privileged to mingle somewhat with the bishops. But even the cursory glance of a stranger sees the evidence of the catholicity of the church presented by the gathering of so many bishops from so many portions of the world around the central chair of unity. We have already spoken of this in our former articles. We will now give a summary, almost official, which has just been made out, classifying the prelates who have attended, according to their nationalities and dioceses:

EUROPE.
Austria and Tyrol,10
Bohemia and Moravia,5
Illyria and Dalmatia,13
Hungary and Gallicia,20
Belgium,6
France,84
Germany, North Confederation,10
Germany, South Confederation,9
England,14
Ireland,20
Scotland,2
Greece,5
Holland,4
Lombardy,3
Venice,8
Naples, Kingdom of,65
Sicily and Malta,13
Sardinia, Kingdom of,25
Tuscany and Modena,19
States of the Church, including cardinals, and also all the bishops from sees in those portions seized by Victor Emmanuel,143
Portugal,2
Switzerland,8
Spain,41
Turkey in Europe,12
Russia, an administrator of a diocese who has escaped,1
ASIA.
China and Japan,15
Hindostan and Cochin China, etc.,18
Persia,1
Turkey in Asia,49
AFRICA.
Algeria,3
Canary Islands and the Azores,3
Egypt and Tunis,3
Senegambia,1
Southern Africa,4
OCEANICA.
Australia and the Islands of the Pacific Ocean,14
AMERICA.
Dominion of Canada, and other British Provinces of North America,16
United States,49
Mexico,10
Guatemala,4
West Indies,5
New Granada,4
Ecuador,4
Guyana,1
Venezuela,2
Peru,3
Brazil,6
Bolivia,2
Argentine Republic,5
Chili,3
That is,Europe,541
America,114
Asia,83
Africa,14
Oceanica,14
766

Divided according to rites, they stand as follows:

Latin Rite,706
Greek Rite,3
Greek Bulgarian,1
Greek Melchite,10
Greek Roumenian,2
Greek Ruthenian,1
Armenian,21
Chaldean,10
Syrian,7
Maronite,4
Coptic,1
766

Truly, it is such a gathering as no human power could assemble. Only the Catholic Church could effect it. No wonder that strangers from every clime, especially devout Catholics, have flocked to Rome these months as they never flocked before.

The splendor of the ceremonies of our holy church, as celebrated in Rome, especially in St. Peter's, is unequalled in the whole world. A gray-haired ambassador was present some years ago in St. Peter's at the celebration of high mass by the sovereign pontiff on Easter-Sunday. He had been present at two imperial and several royal coronations, where every effort was made to give a national magnificence to the ceremony; had witnessed several royal marriages, and grand court celebrations of every character. But he declared that every thing he had ever seen sank into insignificance before the grandeur and the sublime magnificence of that high mass. Never were the religious celebrations of Rome so magnificent as they have been and are during this council, when the sanctuary is filled with more than half a thousand prelates, Latin and oriental, in their rich and varied vestments. Strangers and Romans alike crowd the grand basilica. Yet the stranger often fails to see, what the Roman feels, as it were, by instinct, that all this effort at splendor and magnificence is purely and wholly a tribute of man to honor the religion which God in his love and mercy has given, and that no part of it is for man's own honor. If the stranger would realize this truth, which is the soul of the ceremonial of the church, he has but to follow these prelates from the sanctuary to their homes, and witness the simplicity and self-denial of their private lives. Perhaps he will be shocked at the unexpected discovery of what he would term discomfort and poverty.

In such personal simplicity and self-denial the sovereign pontiff himself gives the example in the Vatican. The palace is large—very large; but the libraries, the archives, the various museums, and the galleries and halls of paintings, of statuary, and of art, occupy no small portion of it. Other portions of it are devoted to the vast workshops of the unrivalled Roman mosaics, others still to the mint. The offices of the secretary of state, and the bureaus of other departments are there. The Sixtine, and Pauline, and other chapels are found in it; and the various officers and attendants of the court have many of them their special apartments. The pontiff has his suite of rooms, as well those of state as those that are private. You enter a large, well-proportioned hall, rich with gilding and arabesque and fresco paintings. A company of soldiers might manœuvre on its marble floor. It is large enough to receive the fullest suite of a sovereign who would visit the pope. Just now, eight or ten soldiers in a rich military uniform are lounging here, as it were, for form's sake. In the next room—a smaller and less ornamented one, yet in something of the same style, and with a few benches for furniture—a servant will take your hat and cloak. In a third room, you find some ecclesiastical attendants. You pass through a fourth room of considerable size. It is now empty. At times a consistory or meeting of the cardinals for business is held here; at other times, an ascetic Capuchin father, with his tonsured head, his long beard, his coarse brown woollen cassock fastened around the waist by a cord, and with sandalled feet, preaches to the cardinals and bishops and officials of the court, and to the pope himself. With the freedom and bravery of a man who, to follow Christ, has given up the world, and hopes for nothing from man, and fears nothing save to fail in his duty, he reminds those whom men honor of their duties and obligations, and in plain, ofttimes unvarnished language, will not shrink from speaking the sternest, strongest home truths of religion. You pass through the silent hall in reverence. A fourth hall, with a better carpeting, (for it is winter,) and tolerably warmed, is the ante-chamber proper, where those are waiting who are to be admitted to an audience of the pope. In another smaller room, opening from this one, those are waiting whose turn it will be to enter next; or perhaps a group is assembled, if the pope will come out hither to receive them, as he sometimes does, when the audience is simply one not of business, but simply for the honor of being presented to him and of receiving his blessing. All these which we have enumerated are the state or ceremonial apartments. From the last one, you pass to the private office or sitting-room of the sovereign pontiff. It is a plain room, about fifteen feet by twenty, not lofty, lighted by a single window, and without a fire-place. Two or three devotional paintings hang against the walls; a stand supports a small and exquisitely chiselled statue of the Blessed Virgin. At one side of the room, on a slight platform, is the pope's arm-chair, in which he is seated, clothed in his white woollen soutane. Before him is his large writing-table, with well-filled drawers and pigeon-holes. On it you see pens, ink, sand, and paper, his breviary, perhaps, and one or two volumes, and an ivory crucifix. A small case in the corner of the room contains some other books, some objects of vertu, medals, and such articles as he designs to give as mementoes. There is a thin carpet on the floor, and a couple of plain wooden chairs are near the table. Here Pius IX. ordinarily spends many hours each day, as hard worked as any bank clerk. He is exceedingly regular in his habits. He rises before five in summer, at half-past five in winter. In half an hour he passes to his private chapel and gives an hour and a half to his devotions, and to the celebration of two masses; the first by himself, the second by one of his chaplains. A cup of chocolate and a small roll of bread suffices for his breakfast. He at once passes to his office, and works for one hour alone and undisturbed. Then commence the business audiences of the heads or secretaries of the various departments, civil and ecclesiastical; a long and tedious work, in which he gives a conscientious attention to every detail. By half-past eleven A.M., he commences to receive bishops and ecclesiastics or strangers from abroad. This usually ends by one P.M., when he retires for his midday devotions, and for his dinner, and repose. This may be followed by more work, alone in his office. At half-past three in winter, at half-past four in summer, if the weather allows it, he gives an hour and a half to a drive and a walk. Returning home, he takes a slight repast, and again the audiences for business or for strangers commence, and last until after eight. At nine punctually he retires, to commence again the same routine the next day. Such are his regular days. At other times he must be in church, or must visit one institution or establishment or another in the city, spend an hour or two in ceremony or business, and hurry home. Near this sitting-room is a smaller room where he takes his meals alone; for the pope neither gives nor accepts entertainments. His table does not cost more than thirty cents a day. Not far off is his sleeping chamber, small as the other, with a narrow bed and hard couch. Truly, his is no life of ease and pampered indulgence. There is a stern meaning in his title, Servant of the Servants of God.

The same simplicity and austereness marks the private life of the cardinals. There is now, indeed, an outward show, for they rank as princes of the blood royal. There are the richly-ornamented carriages drawn by brilliantly-harnessed horses, and attended by servants in livery. There are the decorated state ante-chambers and halls. All these things are for the public, and are prescribed by rule. If a cardinal has not himself the means to support them, he would be entitled to a state salary for the purpose of keeping them up. But back of all these may be found a plain, almost unfurnished room, in which he studies and writes, and a bed-chamber—we have seen some not ten feet by twelve, carpetless and fireless. Oftentimes, too, the cardinal lives in the religious house of some community, and then much of the state can be dispensed with. But for the red calotte which he wears on his head, you often could not distinguish him from the other clergymen in the establishment.

The same spirit seems to characterize the bishops who are now gathered together in Rome. All their splendor is in the church and for religion. In their private life they certainly do not belong to that class of strangers from whose lavish expenditures in fashionable life the Romans will reap a rich harvest. They live together in groups, mostly in religious houses or colleges, or in apartments, which several club together to take at moderate rates. Thus the Chaldean patriarch, a venerable, white-bearded prelate, near eighty years of age, with the other bishops of his rite, and their attendant priests, all live together in one monastery, not far from St. Peter's. Whatever the weather, they go on foot in their oriental dress to the council, and when the meeting is over, return on foot. Their stately, oriental walk, their calm, thoughtful countenances, the colored turbans on their heads, the mixture of purple and black and green and red, in their flowing robes, set off by the gold of their massive episcopal chains, and their rich crosses sparkling with diamonds, never fail to attract attention. But one should see them in their home, which they have made as Eastern as they could. The orientals are exceedingly temperate in their meals, and as regards wine, are almost "teetotalers." But they do love to smoke. As the visitor is ushered into a room, where the only piece of furniture is a broad cushioned seat running round along the walls, on which are seated a dozen or more of long-bearded men, their feet gathered up under them in oriental fashion, and each one smoking a pipe a yard long, and filling the atmosphere with the clouds of Latakia, he almost thinks himself in Mossoul. The pipes are gravely withdrawn on his entrance, that the right hand may go to the forehead, and the heads may bow. The welcome, schalom, "peace," is gravely spoken, with perhaps a smile. He takes a seat on the divan and is asked to take a pipe, if so minded. From time to time, the silence is interrupted by some remark in a full, sedate voice, and intensely guttural words of Chaldee or Arabic, whether on the last debate of the council or on some new phase of the Eastern question, it is probable the visitor will never learn. But he has caught a glimpse of quiet Chaldean life. Fourteen or fifteen of the Armenian prelates, with their patriarch, live in a not very dissimilar manner. But the Armenians are much more akin to Europeans in their education and character of thought. They are good linguists. All of them speak Italian fluently, many of them French, and some a little English. Their society is agreeable and instructive, and is much sought.

In like manner eighteen of the American bishops are domiciled in the American College. Some others are with the Lazarists at their mother house, others again are at St. Bridget's or St. Bartholomew's, or with the Dominicans. Those that have taken apartments have contrived with a very few exceptions to live together in groups. The English, the Irish, in fact, nearly all the bishops, have followed the same plan. Some laughingly say that their college days have come back to them, with their regularity and their accommodations. But these are not quite as agreeable at fifty or sixty as they were at the age of twenty. Yet all feel, and none more thoroughly than the bishops themselves, that this life of comparative retirement, of quiet and study, and of continued and closest intercourse with each other, must tend to prepare them, and to qualify them for the great work on which they are engaged.

Another special feature of Rome in this season, dependent on the council, is the frequency of sermons in various languages, and of various religious services in the churches. Rome as the centre of Catholicity is never without a certain number of clergymen from every nation of Europe. Each winter, too, sees thousands of visitors, Catholics, Protestants, and unbelievers, crowding her streets, drawn hither by motives of religion, of science, of curiosity, or of fashion. It was natural that visitors should be enabled to listen to the truths of our holy religion preached in their own languages. This year it could be done much more fully, and the opportunity has not been allowed to pass by unregarded. For example, "The Pious Society for Missions," an excellent community of priests, established in this city over thirty years ago by the saintly Abbate Pallotta, has the custom of celebrating the festival and octave of Epiphany each year by appropriate religious exercises, and introducing sermons in several languages. This year they selected the larger and noble church of San Andrea della Valle, and continued their exercises for eleven days. The following was the programme which they followed: At 5.30 A.M., mass; at 6 A.M., Italian sermon and benediction; at 9 A.M., high mass of the Latin rite; at 10 A.M., high mass in an oriental rite, (Armenian, Greek, Copt, Chaldean, Roumenian, Melchite, Bulgarian, Maronite, Armenian again, Syrian, Ambrosian;) at 11 A.M., a sermon in some foreign language—that is, Polish once, German twice, Spanish twice, English six times, (Archbishop Spalding, Father Hecker, and Bishop McGill, Bishop Moriarty of Kerry, Bishop Ullathorne, and Archbishop Manning were the English preachers.) At 1.30 P.M. each day, a French sermon by a bishop; at 3.30 P.M., an Italian sermon and benediction; at 6 P.M., another sermon in Italian with benediction. The sermons were all, of course, of a high order of merit. The church was crowded morning, forenoon, afternoon, and evening.

French sermons have been continued ever since, mostly by the eloquent Bishop Mermillod, of Geneva, and English sermons on Sundays and Wednesdays by F. Burke, an eloquent Dominican of St. Clement's, and by Monsignor Capel. During Lent there will be an additional series of English sermons, to be delivered by the American bishops.

On the 20th of January, the American episcopate and the American College received from the Holy Father a very signal and agreeable mark of his good will. It was meant, one might almost think, as a return visit on his part, in the only way which court etiquette allows. He chose the church of the college as the place where he would pronounce a decree in the cause of the venerable servant of God, John Juvenal Ancina, Bishop of Saluzzo, in Northern Italy. In that church he would, of course, be surrounded by the American prelates, priests, and students, and from the church would pass to the college.

John Juvenal Ancina was born in Fossano, in Piedmont, in 1545. Having finished his course of collegiate studies, he graduated in medicine, and for years practised that profession with great ability, and greater charity toward the poor, to whom he devoted himself. In course of time he lost every near relation except one brother. Both determined with common accord to enter the sanctuary, and came to Rome for that purpose, and there joined the Oratorians under St. Philip Neri. John spent years in the priesthood, honored for his learning, and still more for his piety and sweetness, and zeal in the ministry, which he exercised in Rome, in Naples, and in Turin. Much against his will, and only after repeated injunctions from the pope, he was forced to accept the charge of the diocese of Saluzzo. He had been the intimate and dear friend of St. Francis de Sales for years of his priesthood, and their friendship continued until the close of his short and fruitful episcopacy. He died in 1604, and St. Francis preached his funeral eulogy. He is the one with whom the saint had the oft-cited exchange of puns complimentary, "Tu vere Sal es." "Immo, tu Sal et Lux." The reputation of the virtues of such a man could not die with him. Not long after his death, the episcopal authority of Saluzzo allowed and directed that full testimony should be taken under oath, from those who lived with him and knew him well, as to the truth of his holy life. This was fully and searchingly done throughout the diocess of Saluzzo. Similar investigations were instituted, under similar authority, in Rome, in Naples, and in Turin, where at different times he had lived, and wherever such testimony could be found. The original depositions—and they are a large mass, and are still extant—were sent to Rome. The pontiff directed that they should be laid before the proper tribunal—the Congregation of Rites. They were found to fulfil the requirements of the canons, and to present such a primâ facie case as would authorize that congregation to proceed. This meant that, after a certain lapse of time, during which affection and human feelings might die out, and any hidden truth might work its way to the light, the congregation should go over the ground a second time, taking through other persons a second and independent mass of testimony. This was done, and its results were compared with those of the first mass of testimony. There was no contradiction; but on the contrary, full and ample confirmation. Still, the opinion and belief of the witnesses was not yet deemed of itself sufficient. Taking the facts of his life, his words and writings, and acts and habits, as they were thus proved, they were all studied out and carefully weighed in the scales of the sanctuary. There was no hurry—there never is at Rome, as this council fully shows—and the decision of the congregation was not given until the year 1767. Then came many political vicissitudes; first of northern Italy, as it passed from the domination of one power to that of another, and later, the convulsions of all Europe consequent on the French revolution. The whole matter slumbered until 1855, when it was again taken up. The examination of the life and acts was gone over again as before. Step by step matters advanced until last November, at a general meeting of the Congregation of Rites, held in the presence of his holiness, it was decided That the servant of God, John Juvenal Ancina, had in his lifetime practised the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, toward God and his neighbor, and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance, and their accessory virtues, in an heroic degree. It was to announce this decision, in a formal decree, that the pontiff came on the 29th January, the festival of St. Francis de Sales, to the church of the American College. He arrived at ten A.M., and was received at the portal of the college by the rector of the college, and all the American bishops now at Rome, and by a dozen others, Irish, English, Scotch, and Italian. He proceeded at once to the church, which, though small, is one of the handsomest in Rome for its beautiful marbles and fine statuary. The pontiff knelt, while one of his chaplains celebrated mass. The bishops, all the American priests in the city, the students of the college, and many Catholics from the United States, and some other strangers, filled the little church. After the mass, the pontiff ascended to the throne prepared for him. Cardinal Patrizi, prefect of the Congregation of Rites Cardinal Capalti, who had special charge of this case, and Cardinal Barnabò, protector of the college, stood next to him. The formal decree was read, proclaiming the decision in virtue of which we shall henceforth say, "the Venerable John Juvenal Ancina."[20] The superior general of the Oratorians, to which community, as we have said, he belonged, returned thanks in an eloquent and brief discourse in Latin. The pope then, taking his theme from the life of the VENERABLE bishop, addressed to the prelates present a short and feeling discourse, in Italian, on the character and virtues which should adorn a bishop. Though he did not mention the council, it was evident that the thought of it filled his heart. He spoke of the servant of God whom he had just declared venerable as imitating the apostles. They, from being fishermen, were called to be fishers of men; and he too, from being a physician of the body, was called to be a physician of souls. This holy man he showed to be a model of bishops, and enlarged on the text of St. Gregory the Great, that a bishop should be "in thought, pure; in deeds, eminent; in silence, discreet; in word, useful; in the contemplation of heavenly things, elevated." "Who will ascend to the mountain of the Lord? Let him be of pure hands and clean heart." Let him be single-minded, doing every thing for the glory of God, without any admixture of human motives. Let him be first in all good works, so as to be a pattern to his flock. He did not speak of that silence which means cowardice, or indifference to whatever evil goes on in the world. There is a time to speak, as well as a time to be silent. The bishop must be useful in words, speaking out boldly whenever it is for the advantage of the Christian people. He must be a man of prayer. What is the origin of the evils which we see in the world? The prophet answers, "Because there is no one who thinketh in his heart." The pontiff dwelt for a few moments on all these points, and in conclusion quoted St. Gregory again, who said, "I have given you a beautiful picture of a bishop, though the painter be bad." "What the saint says out of humility, I must say," he added, "of myself in truth. But pray for me that God may give me strength to bear the heavy weight he has laid upon me. Let us pray for each other. Do you pray for me; and I call on the Almighty to bless you, and your dioceses, and your people."

The words of the pontiff were simple, because full of devotion and truth; and the delivery was exquisitely perfect, in the earnest, heart-felt, subdued tones of his voice, and the chaste dignity of his gesture. All felt that the pontiff spoke from his paternal heart.

The Bishop of Saluzzo, the successor in this century of the VENERABLE Ancina, returned thanks; and all proceeded from the church to the grand hall of the college. The cloister of the court-yard and the broad stairways and corridors were adorned with drapery, tapestry, and evergreens. A splendid life-size portrait of his holiness, just painted by the American artist, Healy, for the exhibition about to be opened, had been sent to the college for the occasion, and was placed in a prominent position. In the hall, the pontiff again spoke a few kind and paternal words, and Archbishop Spalding, in the name of the American church, clergy and laity, made an address to the pope in Latin. The discourse was excellent in language and happy in thought. His grace referred to the fact that Pius VI. had given us our first bishop, (Dr. Carroll, of Baltimore;) Pius VII. had multiplied dioceses, and given us our first archiepiscopal see; and he, Pius IX., had established six other archiepiscopal sees. So that in a country where sixty years ago there was but one bishop, there are now sixty, three fourths of whom are here in Rome to attend the general council. Toward the end of his discourse, the good archbishop brought in a few touches of true American wit. This is what Italians would scarcely venture on, on such an occasion, and it was to them unexpected. Even the pope looked for a moment puzzled, as if he could not conjecture what was coming; but as he caught the point, a smile spread over his countenance, and the smile developed into a hearty laugh. As for the Italian prelates, at first they wondered—as who would not, at an American joke in the language of Cicero?—but at last not all their stately dignity could resist its force, and they laugh yet, as they repeat it.

The bishops, the superiors, and students of the college, the priests who were present, and the laity, approached to offer their homage to the pontiff and receive his blessing. This over, he departed, but not until he had declared that he was delighted, more than delighted, with his visit.

Rome, February 17, 1870.

FOREIGN LITERARY NOTES.

For the sake of making a point against the Catholic Church, Protestants and indifferents are frequently so poverty-stricken in authorities as to quote Voltaire. When told that they cite the authority of a man who was unprincipled, cynical, and impious, they answer that such an estimate is simply the result of a bigoted and narrow-minded prejudice, and that the great French philosopher was liberal, honorable, and conscientious.

An incident has lately occurred in France to call forth the deliberate opinion of a body of men eminently fitted from superior education, elevated position, and freedom from any possible suspicion of Catholic bias, to form an estimate which to our friends above referred to must be looked upon as authoritative and decisive, although open to the objection of being too mild and qualified.

Some fifteen years ago, a proposition was started in a Paris daily newspaper for the popular collection, in small sums, of a sufficient amount to erect a statue to Voltaire in the French capital. When the success of the subscription seemed sufficiently assured, petition was made to the government to grant a site on some public square on which to place the statue. After long delay, and some appearance of unwillingness, the petition was finally granted; but the announcement of this fact was immediately followed by the presentation of a large number of protests against the erection of the statue, which came in from all parts of the empire. One of these protests, signed by a thousand inhabitants of the departments of Le Gard and the Drôme, and the city of Nîsmes, and addressed to the senate, was referred to a committee of senators for consideration and report. The committee has made a report, which is understood to be written by M. Silvestre de Sacy, well known as former chief editor of the Journal des Débats, and a distinguished member of the French Academy. From it we learn something of the petition, but not as much as we would like to know. After a recital of the facts we have stated, the report goes on to say: Undoubtedly, the government had authority to refuse the permission asked, and still has the power to withdraw it. The right of private persons to award statues to whomsoever they please, and to meet and raise money to pay for them, is certainly lawful. But the public streets and squares are not their property. The number of these persons does not increase their right. They act, in such a matter, solely for themselves, and not for the whole country, of which they have no right to pretend to be the representatives. Among the serious considerations which might have made the government hesitate, is the very name Voltaire, which has two significations: the one glorious for the human intellect and for French literature; the other for which Voltaire himself would now blush, dragging down as it does the great historian and great poet to the miserable calling of an impious and cynical pamphleteer. But it appears that the subscribers have obtained the permission asked for. The site has been selected, and the statue will be erected in one of the squares of the new Rue de Rennes. The petition before us protests against this permission, and prays the intervention of the senate with the government to obtain the withdrawal of a permission which it characterizes in the strongest terms. These petitioners see but one Voltaire—an impious, immoral Voltaire, hostile to all religion; a Voltaire who conspired with all the enemies of France for the humiliation and ruin of his country; a Voltaire who, Prussian at Rosbach with King Frederick, Russian with Catherine II., against unfortunate Poland, the violator of our purest glory in his poem Jeanne d'Arc, the enemy of liberty, equality, and fraternity, as may be shown from a hundred passages in his correspondence and writings, an abject courtier and a servile adulator of kings. "I ask," says the first petitioner, speaking for all the others—"I ask that the image of this man shall not appear upon our public squares, to cast insult in the face of the country. I ask that this disgrace be spared France." The senatorial report then goes on to say that there are two Voltaires—the Voltaire described in the petition, and the Voltaire who wrote La Henriade, who, by various masterpieces in poetry and the drama, placed himself near Horace, Corneille, and Boileau; Voltaire the historian, to whom we are indebted for Le Siècle de Louis XIV., the essay Sur l'Esprit et sur les Mœurs des Nations, and that perfect model of rapid and lively narration, L'Histoire de Charles XII.; the Voltaire, in fine, whose name could not be covered with oblivion without obscuring some of the glories of French literature. No, continues the report, whatever may be asserted to the contrary, all of Voltaire is not in some shafts of satire which fell from the ill-humor of the partisan and the angry writer, in pamphlets against religion, as poor in good taste and good sense as in true science, in a poem in which it is most sad to see wit and talent pressed into the disreputable service of ornamenting the wretched obscenity of the argument; all of Voltaire is not in single passages selected from a correspondence of sixty years. If in these were the whole of Voltaire, his memory would long since have been accursed or dead, his works long since have been without readers or publishers, and the idea of raising a statue in his honor would have occurred to no one. Although the avowal is a painful one, it must be confessed that Voltaire has himself and the deplorable errors of his genius alone to blame for the bitterness of the recriminations which injure his brilliant fame. He has too often been unjust to others not to expect that others should be unjust to him. It is his own fault if his name recalls to pious thinkers, to timid hearts, to the faith of ardent souls, only the writer who would not respect in others the noble hopes he himself had lost. Voltaire desired to be the leader of incredulity. He was; and now he pays the penalty for it. Something equivocal remains, and will ever remain associated with his fame. Respectable people can consent to award him eulogies and statues only with distinctions and reserves. The declared enemy of disorder and demagogism, he is sometimes invoked as a seditious tribune, as a burner of churches; and one of the most elegant minds has left in his writings, along with a great many marvellous works, food for passions which, in his better days, his good taste and his good sense would energetically condemn. The report concludes against asking the revocation of the permission granted by the government, on the ground that it will be understood by all that the honor of a statue is conceded not to the Voltaire with reason petitioned against, but to the author whose works are subjects of legitimate national pride.

In the year 400, a Buddhist priest, Fah-Hian, commenced the long journey from China to India and back, and left a narrative of his travels. A century later, a similar journey was made by another Buddhist priest, Sung-Yun, who also left an account of his foreign experiences. Singularly enough, these works have survived all these centuries, and have long been objects of great interest to the oriental scholars of Europe. Remusat and Klaproth published a translation of Fah-Hian at Paris in 1836. This work, in quarto, was soon followed by an English translation by Laidley. Many serious errors, especially in geography, were pointed out in these translations by St. Julien, and Professor Neumann also gave a translation of the two Buddhist works, in the Zeitschrift für historische Theologie, vol. iii., 1833. Meantime, additional light had been thrown upon the subject by such publications as Edkin's Notice of Buddhism in China, and General Cunningham's work; and a full and amended version of the Buddhist priests' travels, together with an interesting treatise on Buddhism, is now published in London by Trübner & Co. Its title is, Travels of Fah-Hian and Sung-Yun, Buddhist Pilgrims, from China to India, (400-518 A.D.,) translated from the Chinese by Samuel Beal.

The completion of Alfred von Reumont's History of the City of Rome, (Geschichte der Stadt Rom,) which has now reached its third volume, is looked for by European scholars with great interest. It is universally praised as a work of remarkable research, learning, and unusual impartiality.

Testamenta XII Patriarcharum, ad fidem Cantabrigiensis edita; accedunt lectiones cod. Oxoniensis. The Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs; an Attempt to estimate their Historic and Dogmatic Worth. By R. Sinker, M.A., Chaplain of Trinity College. Cambridge: Deighton, Bell. London: Bell & Daldy. 1869.

An elegant edition of this apocryphal work, carefully revised and annotated from manuscripts preserved at Cambridge and Oxford, with a learned and judicious treatise. Ecclesiastical antiquity has left us but little positive information concerning these testaments. We are certain that the testaments of the twelve patriarchs were known to Tertullian and to Origen, but we do not know who wrote them. Was the author a Jew, a Christian from among the Gentiles, or a Christian of Jewish race? Was he an Ebionite or a Nazarene? Is the work all from one hand, or is it interpolated? On all these points there is a difference of opinion. Equally in doubt are the points, When was the book written? for what class of readers was it specially intended? and what was the author's object in writing it? Mr. Sinker discusses the subject with great firmness, and concludes, but without any dogmatism, that the author was a Jewish Christian of the sect of the Nazarenes, and that the work was composed at a period between the taking of Jerusalem by Titus and the revolt of the Jew Barcochba in 135. One of the most important portions of Mr. Sinker's work is on the Christology of the Testaments, (pages 88-116.) He is satisfied that the author expresses his belief in the mystery of the incarnation, and he sets forth the doctrine of the Testaments on the Messiah, king and pontiff, descendant of Juda and Levi, priest and victim, Lamb of God, Saviour of the world, etc. etc. The work really merits a longer notice, and should be in the hands of all who can profit by its perusal. Many important questions concerning the primitive history of Christianity, obscured by the fallacious conjectures of anti-Christian critics, may have much light thrown upon them.

Some of the English periodicals are not especially brilliant or profound in their appreciation of and comments upon foreign literature. Take the London Athenæum, for instance, the same periodical which last year approved with such an air of wisdom the author who undertook to revive the old exploded fable of a female pope. It informs its readers, (number of 6th November last,) "The Man with the Iron Mask continues to occupy the learned in search of problematical questions. M. Marius Topin has come to the conclusion that Lauzun was the man. We believe this theory has already been advocated." Now, from the most superficial reading of M. Topin's work, (provided the reader knows a little more French than the Athenæum,) it is perfectly clear that, although M. Topin speaks of Lauzun as a prisoner at Pignerol, he expressly says that it is impossible to think seriously of him as a candidate for the iron mask, for the simple reason that Lauzun was set at liberty some years before the death of the masked prisoner.

A Scripture Concordance, prepared and written by a lawyer, is something of a novelty in Catholic ecclesiastical literature. And the concordance is not an ordinary one of words and names. It is exclusively of texts of Scripture and words relating to our ideas and sentiments, our virtues and our vices, our duties to God and our neighbor, our obligations to ourselves, thus strikingly demonstrating the grandeur of its precepts, the beauty of its teachings, and the sublimity of its moral. Texts purely doctrinal are rigorously excluded, and but one name is retained—the divine name of the Saviour. The book is entitled, SS. Scripturæ Concordantiæ Novæ, seu Doctrina moralis et dogmatica e sacris Testamentorum Codicibus ordine alphabetico desumpta, in qua textus de qualibet materia facilius promptiusque quam in aliis concordantiis inveniri possunt, auctore Carolo Mazeran, Advocato. Paris and Brussels. 1869. 8vo.

Two distinguished Catholic artists have lately died at Rome, Overbeck the painter, and Tenerani the sculptor. Overbeck's graceful and inspired religious compositions are too well-known to need comment here. Tenerani was a pupil of Canova and of Thorwaldsen. His "Descent from the Cross," in the church of St. John Lateran, and his "Angel of the Last Judgment," sculptured on a tomb in the church of St. Mary of Rome, have been often admired by many American travellers.

S. Clement of Rome, the two Epistles to the Corinthians. A revised Text, with Introduction and Notes, by J. B. Lightfoot, D.D., Hulsean Professor of Divinity and Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. London: Macmillan. 1869. 8vo. Professor Lightfoot appears to have suspended the publication of his commentaries on the epistles of St. Paul, and to have taken up the apostolic fathers. The first epistle of St. Clement, addressed to the Corinthians, is of well-settled authenticity from the testimony of Hermas, Dionysius, Bishop of Corinth, Hegesippus, (cited by Eusebius, iv. 22,) and numerous others. Although not classed among the canonical books, this epistle has always been highly prized as what may be called a liturgical document. St. Jerome bears testimony that it was read publicly in the churches, (in nonnullis locis publice legitur.) So also does Eusebius. Dr. Lightfoot's task is well performed. In his preface he develops the statements above mentioned, enumerates the various writings ascribed to St. Clement of Rome, and in speaking of the recognitiones, relates the history of the false decretals. In this work, as in many others on very ancient manuscripts, the art of topography has been of the greatest service. The codex from which these two epistles of St. Clement are taken, is the celebrated one presented by Cyril Lucar to Charles I., and now preserved in the British Museum. The authorities of the museum had it carefully photographed, so that the author could make use of it at his own pleasure, and at his own house, as, of course, no such manuscript would be allowed to leave the museum even for an hour. A second volume of this work of Professor Lightfoot is promised, which will contain the epistles of St. Ignatius and St. Polycarp.

A Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin, by William Hugh Ferrar, Fellow and Tutor of Trinity College, Dublin. Vol. I. London: Longman. 1869. 8vo. Studies in philology and comparative grammar appear to be on the increase in Great Britain, and are now pursued with great industry. Mr. Ferrar freely uses the labors of Bopp, Schleicher, Corssen, Curtius, and Max Müller, but by no means slavishly. He criticises their various systems with great freedom and intelligence, and produces a really meritorious work.

We remark the publication in Paris of a French translation of the first volume of the History of the United Provinces, by our countryman, John Lothrop Motley, the work to be completed in eight volumes.

We see announced, and as soon to appear, the first part of a work entitled, Alexandre VI. et les Borgia. The author is the reverend Father Ollivier, of the order of Fréres Prêcheurs.

L'Histoire de la Restauration, vol. vii., is the last work of M. Alfred Nettement, a distinguished, conscientious, and talented journalist and historian, who lately died in France, regretted and honored by men of all parties. He was sixty-four years of age, and had been an industrious author for forty years. Count Montalembert called him the type of the journalist and historian, sans peur et sans reproche.

The result of the chronological researches of M. Zumpt concerning the year of the birth of our Saviour (Das Geburtsjahr Christi. Geschichtlich-chronologische Untersuchungen) is rather severely commented upon by the German critics, notwithstanding his high historical reputation. They claim that he has not solved the problems presented by himself.

Volume iii. of the series of Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury, by Dr. Hook, dean of the cathedral of Chichester, contains a biography of Cardinal Pole. It is said to contain much new material on the subject, from the MSS. collections of Simancas and the Record Office.

The readers of Sir Walter Scott are aware that he made frequent use of an old poetical history of Robert Bruce. Traces of it are frequent in his Lord of the Isles, and he gives an analysis of it in his Tales of a Grandfather. The poem was written in the fifteenth century by John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, and is lately published in Scotland, The Bruce; or, The Metrical History of Robert I., King of Scots. By Master John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen. Published from a MS. dated 1489; with notes and a memoir of the life of the author. 8vo. Glasgow, 1869.

A very remarkable work is one lately published at Milan, Della Schiavitù e del servaggio e specialmente dei servi agricoltori. Milano. Two vols. in 8vo. It is by the learned Count Cibrario, and treats of slavery from the period of the Romans down to that of the rebellion in the United States. His researches among old collections of MSS. at Venice and Genoa develop the fact that slaves were held in those cities down to a much later period than is generally supposed.

Giovanni Michiel was ambassador of Venice at the court of England from 1554 to 1557, that is to say, during the reign of Mary. His dispatches were written in cipher, and during all these years it has been impossible to copy or use them for want of a key to the cipher. M. Pasini, an employee in the Venetian archives, has long been engaged on a complete history of the different ciphers used by the Venetian ambassadors, and has succeeded in deciphering the letters of Michiel, which he has lately had published, I dispacci di Giovanni Michiel, Ambasciator Veneto in Inghilterra. Venezia, 1869.

Here is a work of remarkable erudition, and unusual interest for the classical scholar: Notices sur Rome. Les Noms Romains et les Dignités mentionnées dans les Légendes des Monnaiés Impériales Romaines. Par L'Abbé I. Marchant. Paris, 1869. Imperial 8vo. It is a learned dissertation upon the origin and signification of the titles, dignities, and offices mentioned in inscriptions on imperial Roman coins, the names, surnames, filiation, adoption, and dignities of emperor, Cæsar, Augustus, censor, pontiff, grand pontiff, princeps juventutis, proconsul, etc., etc.; the surnames taken from vanquished nations, Britannicus, Germanicus, Dacicus, Pannonicus, Parthicus, Sarmaticus; titles seldom merited, and grossly exaggerated, bestowed upon emperors by the servile flattery of senate or people, such as Pater Patriæ, Dominus Noster, Senior, Pius, Felix, Felicissimus, Beatissimus, Nobilissimus, Optimus, Maximus, Deus, Divus, Æternus, Invictus, Triumphator Gentium, Barbararum, etc. For empresses, Augusta, Diva, Felix, Nobilissima, Fœmina, Mater Castrarum, Mater Augustorum, etc., etc. Then follow the subordinate titles of Questor, Triumvir, Prefect, etc., etc. The work is by no means one of dry nomenclature, and the author, by his fulness of illustration and attractive style, has produced an admirable work.

NEW PUBLICATIONS.

Conversations on Liberalism and the Church. By O. A. Brownson, LL.D. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co.

This is the first production of the pen of Dr. Brownson which has appeared under his own name for several years. During this time he has been a constant contributor to this magazine, and has furnished a considerable number of valuable articles to other periodicals, particularly the Tablet, of which he has for some time past had the principal editorial charge. Those who are familiar with the leonine style of the great publicist cannot have failed to recognize it even in his anonymous productions, or to admit, whether with good or with ill grace, that he still remains facile princeps in that high domain which he has chosen for himself. We welcome the venerable author most heartily on his reappearance upon the field of intellectual combat with his visor up, and his own avowed recognizance upon his shield. He appears as the champion of the encyclical of Pius IX. against that conglomeration of absurd and destructive errors which its advocates have decorated with the name of liberalism, and as the defender of the true, genuine principles of liberty—that liberty which Catholic training and Christian civilization prepare the greatest possible number of men to enjoy, to the greatest possible extent, with the least possible danger to themselves and society.

The volume is small in size, but weighty and precious in matter, like a lump of gold. There is enough precious metal in it to keep an ordinary review-writer a-going for three years. The wretched, flimsy sophistries and falsehoods with which we are bored to death every day by the writers for the daily papers, screaming like macaws the few changes of their scanty vocabulary, Railroads, railroads! progress, progress! mediæval fossil! nineteenth century! are all summed up by Dr. Brownson in a few sentences much better than one of themselves can do it. These expressions of the maxims of our soi-disant liberal editors are put into the mouth of an imaginary representative of the class, who is supposed to be conversing with a Catholic priest at an unfashionable watering-place. The author, by the mouth of the priest, answers him fully, and makes an exposition of his own views and opinions. The editor has nothing to say in rejoinder, except to repeat over his tiresome, oft-refuted platitudes, ignoring all his antagonist has alleged and proved against him. Perhaps it will be said that the doctor has purposely put a weak defence into the editor's mouth. Not at all. It is no sport to such an expert swordsman to run a tilt against any but an expert and doughty antagonist. Give him his choice, and he would prefer to contend with one who would make the best possible fight for liberalism. In this case, as the doctor has been obliged to play both sides of the game, one hand against the other, he has carefully avoided the common fault of collusion between the right and left hand. He has made his imaginary editor say all that the real editors can say, and in better fashion than they can say it. Any person who has taken the trouble to read the comments of the writers for the press on the massive arguments of Dr. Brownson's articles, or their other lucubrations on the subjects treated in this book, will perceive that its author has not diluted them at all, but has rather infused some of his own strong tea into their tepid dish-water.

The errors of the liberalists have been to a certain extent already discussed in our pages, and will be probably discussed more fully and to greater advantage after the decrees of the Council of the Vatican are published.

We therefore confine ourselves at present to a particular notice of one point only in Dr. Brownson's argument, to which we desire to call special attention. We allude to his exposition of his views in regard to the relation of the Catholic religion to the principles of the American constitution. Dr. Brownson is a thorough Catholic and a thorough American. As a Catholic, he condemns all the errors condemned by the syllabus of Pius IX. As an American, he accepts all the principles of the constitution of the United States. As a philosopher, he reconciles and harmonizes the two documents of the ecclesiastical and political sovereignties to which he owes allegiance. If he were wavering or dubious in obeying the instructions of the encyclical, his exposition of the relation between Catholic and American principles would have no weight whatever; for it would be merely an exposition of his own private version of Catholicity and not of the authorized version. If he were not thoroughly American, his exposition of the Catholic's ideal conception of the relations of the church and civil society might be very perfect, but it would rather confirm than shake the common persuasion that there is a contrariety between the principles of our political order and those of the Catholic Church. If he were not a philosopher, he might present both his religious and his political doctrines, separately, in such a way as to satisfy the claims both of orthodoxy and of patriotism; but he would not be able to show how these two hemispheres can be joined together in a complete whole. It is one of his greatest merits that he is perpetually aiming at the construction of these synthetic harmonies of what we may call, for the sake of the figure, the different gospels of truth, and is perpetually approximating nearer and nearer to that success which perhaps cannot be fully achieved by any human intellect. We think he has substantially succeeded in the task undertaken in the present volume, and we commend it to the perusal of all Americans, whether Catholics or non-Catholics, in the hope that it may strengthen both in the determination to do no injustice to each other, and to remain always faithful to the allegiance we owe to the American republic. We recommend it also to Dr. Brownson's numerous admirers and friends in Europe as a valuable aid to the understanding of what are commonly called American principles.

So far as the exterior is concerned, this is one of the very finest books which the Sadliers have yet published.

The End of the World, and the Day of Judgment. Two Discourses preached to the Music Hall Society, by their minister, the Rev. William Rounseville Alger. Published by request. Boston: Roberts Brothers.

Considering what are the contents of these "discourses," for which, naturally, the preacher failed to find any text, their title seems like a dismal jest. There is nothing, however, too absurd for the Music Hall of Boston, not even the amalgamation of puritanism and pantheism. We have two palmary objections to the argument of these discourses, which is, of course, intended to disprove the Christian doctrine respecting the last judgment and the end of the world. The first is, the boundless credulity which underlies the whole series of assumptions on which it is founded; the second is, its total want of scientific method and accuracy. Mr. Alger has an extensive knowledge of certain departments of literature, a vivid imagination, a certain nobleness of sentiment, and a considerable power of graphic delineation and combination of his intellectual conceptions; but no logic or philosophy, very little discriminative or analytic skill, and nothing of the judicial faculty. Wherever his imagination leads, his intellect follows, and willingly lends itself to clothe all the visions which are met with on the aerial journey with the garb of real and rational discoveries. Therefore, we say that his argument in these discourses rests on credulity, a basis of vapor, like that which supports a castle in the clouds. We proceed to give some instances. Mr. Alger has fashioned to himself a conception of what our Lord Jesus Christ ought to have been, and ought to have said and done. Throughout these discourses, and his other works, he explains every thing recorded of the sayings and doings of our divine Lord in the New Testament according to this à priori conception of his own, without regard to common sense or sound criticism. This is credulity, and nothing more. As well might we say, Mr. Alger is a man of sense and honesty, and therefore he can never have meant any of the absurd things he seems to say against the Catholic doctrine. Another extraordinary instance of credulity is the theory of accounting for the similarity to the principal Catholic dogmas which is seen in the religious beliefs of heathen nations. It is a fanciful conjecture, and, as a philosophical theory, untenable, that the same myths had an independent origin and development among distinct races. There must have been a common cause and origin of religious traditions, as well as of languages. Another instance of credulity is found in the following passage: "It is confidently believed that within twenty years the views adopted in the present writing will be established beyond all cavil from any fair-minded critic." Here is a heavy strain indeed on our faith, worse than that which Moses makes upon poor Colenso! Worse than all is the following, which we will not credit to the author's credulity any further than he himself warrants us in doing by his own language, which we will quote entire, that the reader may judge for himself of the extent to which it shows in the author a penchant for the marvellous, provided that the marvellous is in no way connected with revelation. "A brilliant French writer has suggested that even if the natural course of evolution does of itself necessitate the final destruction of the world, yet our race, judging from the magnificent achievements of science and art already reached, may, within ten thousand centuries, which will be long before the foreseen end approaches, obtain such a knowledge and control of the forces of nature as to make collective humanity master of this planet, able to shape and guide its destinies, ward off every fatal crisis, and perfect and immortalize the system as now sustained. It is an audacious fancy. But, like many other incredible conceptions which have forerun their own still more incredible fulfilment, the very thought electrifies us with hope and courage." (P. 18.)

This is indeed brilliant! It surpasses the famous moon-hoax of Mr. Locke, and the balloon-voyages of that wild genius Edgar A. Poe, from whom we have some recent and interesting intelligence, contained in a volume which we recommend to the congregation of Music Hall; the volume being entitled Strange Visitors, by a Clairvoyant. In those days, probably, our Congress will have a committee on comets, and make appropriations for a railroad to the Dog-star.

The second objection to Mr. Alger's argument runs partly into the first. It is, we have said, totally wanting in scientific method and accuracy. This is true of the entire process by which the thesis of the discourses is sustained. This thesis is, that the present constitution of the world and the human race will endure for ever, or at least for an indefinitely long period. If there were no light to be had on this point except the light of nature, the opinion maintained by the author would be at best only a conjecture. It could not be made even solidly probable, unless some rational theory were first established concerning the ultimate destiny of the human race, and the end for which the present miserably imperfect constitution of the world had been decreed by the Creator, and the perpetuity of the existing order on the earth were shown to have a reason in this final cause of man's creation. The author has not done this, and we do not believe that it is possible to do it, even prescinding all question of revelation. Even on scientific grounds—that is, reasoning from all the analogies known to us, and from purely rational and philosophical data—it is far more probable and reasonable to suppose that the present state of the world is merely preparatory to a far higher and more perfect state, and will be swept away to make place for it. But when we consider the universality and antiquity of this latter belief, and the solid mountain of historical, miraculous, and moral evidence on which rests the demonstration that this belief proceeds from a divine revelation, it is the most unscientific method that can be conceived to ignore it, or leap over it by the aid of fanciful hypotheses, as Mr. Alger does. The manner in which the Catholic doctrine is distorted and misrepresented, in extremely bad rhetoric, is also unscientific. Nearly all the pith of this so-called argument consists in a violent invective against the notion of a partial, unjust, vindictive Divinity, who rewards and punishes like an ambitious tyrant, without regard to necessary and eternal principles of truth, right, and moral laws. So far as this invective is directed against Calvinism, considered in its logical entity, and apart from the correctives of common sense and sound moral sentiment which practically modify it, we give the author the right of the case. But it is palpably false, as the author has had ample opportunity of knowing, as respects the Catholic doctrine. He is unscientific, moreover, in confusing the substance of the doctrine that the generation of the human race will cease, all mankind be raised from the dead in their bodies immortal, the ways of God to man be openly vindicated before the universe, and each one assigned to an immutable state according to his deserts or fitness, this visible earth also undergoing a corresponding change of condition; with the scenic act of proclaiming judgment and inaugurating the new, everlasting order, which is commonly believed in, according to the literal sense of the New Testament. If Mr. Alger can show good reasons for substituting a figurative, metaphorical interpretation of the passages depicting this last grand scene in the drama of human history for the literal sense, he is welcome to do it; but he has not touched the substance of the Catholic dogma which he gratuitously denies. Mr. Alger tells us, (p. 46,) "Loyalty to truth is the first duty of every man." It is also one in which he himself signally fails, by a persistent misrepresentation of Catholic doctrines, by disregarding the evidence which has been clearly set before him of their truth, subjecting his intellect to his imagination, and preaching as "truth" opinions which he cannot possibly prove, in the teeth of arguments which he cannot possibly refute. One who wilfully sins against "the first duty of man," by rejecting the faith and law of his Sovereign Creator when sufficiently proposed to him, must surely be condemned by divine justice; and it is only such who, the Catholic Church teaches, will be condemned for infidelity or heresy at the tribunal of Christ. "The judgment of God," says the author, "is the return of the laws of being on all deeds, actual or ideal." (P. 66.) God, therefore, will judge all men by acting toward them throughout eternity in accordance with that revealed law which is the transcript of his own immutable nature, and which assures us that beatitude is gained or lost by the acts which every responsible creature performs during the time of probation, and that every merit or demerit has its appropriate retribution in another life. Perhaps the most foolish thing in these discourses is the gleeful assurance to the congregation of Music Hall that the world will not come to an end because it has gone on so long already, although many people expected the end before this. A great pope has already cautioned us against this error, in an encyclical of the first century, beginning Simon Petrus, Servus et Apostolus Jesu Christi. "In the last days there shall come scoffers with deceit, walking according to their own lusts, saying, Where is his promise, or his coming? For since the fathers slept, all things continue so from the beginning of the creation," (2 Pet. iii.)

The good people of the Boston Music Hall who requested the publication of these discourses, no doubt because they were so much delighted to think that the world may stand for ever, have been a little premature in their exultation. The publication of Mr. Alger's manifesto against St. Peter only gives another proof that the first of the popes was also a prophet. Who is more likely to be infallible, Mr. Alger or St. Peter?

Life Duties. By E. E. Marcy, A.M., M.D. New York: D. & J. Sadlier & Co. 1870.

This book contains many good things, and is written in a very pleasing, literary style. The portions of it which treat of moral and religious duties are likely to be useful to a certain class of persons who seldom or never read a book containing so much sound doctrine and wholesome advice. The author, no doubt, wrote with a good intention, and endeavored to teach what he sincerely thinks to be Catholic doctrine, and, of course, the publishers have issued the book in good faith, without any suspicion that it contains any thing erroneous. The author has, however, made a great mistake in supposing that he is sufficiently learned in theology to be able to distinguish, in all cases, sound Catholic doctrine, from his own imperfect, and frequently incorrect, opinions, or that he is authorized to teach the faithful in doctrinal and spiritual matters, without first submitting his book to revision by a competent authority. He has, in consequence, made some very grave mistakes in doctrine, or at least in his manner of expressing himself on matters of doctrine, and also said a number of things which are very rash and unsuitable in a Catholic writer. On page 13 he says, "It is doubtful whether any human being has ever passed through a life of ordinary duration without an occasional violation of them"—that is, of the commandments of God. If this refers to grievous sins, it is contrary to the universal sentiment of Catholics, that very many persons have passed through even a long life without committing any grievous sin; if it refers to venial sin, it is false, at least as respects the blessed Virgin Mary, who was wholly sinless. The phraseology employed respecting the sacraments of penance and extreme unction is altogether deficient, diverse from that which is sanctioned by ecclesiastical usage, and suggestive of errors. The sacrament of penance is called, "repentance, acknowledgment, reformation," without express mention of sacramental absolution, and extreme unction is designated as "prayer for the sick," whereas the holy oil is the matter of the sacrament which was prescribed by the command of Jesus Christ. The fathers, doctors, and scholastic theologians, and the methods of scholastic theology, are criticised with an air of superior wisdom unbefitting any Catholic writer, but especially a tyro in theological science. After saying that the disbelief of the real presence is partly due to the neglect of religious teachers "to make such clear and just explanations as the Holy Scriptures authorize them to make," (p. 250,) the author undertakes to correct the method of St. Thomas, Suarez, Bellarmine, and the other theologians who have hitherto been considered as our masters and teachers, to supply for their defects, and to explain the mystery of transubstantiation in such a clear manner as to remove all difficulty out of the way of believing it. The good doctor has unfortunately, however, proposed a theory which subverts the Catholic doctrine of the incarnation, and that of the resurrection of the body. So far as we can understand his meaning, he holds that the spiritual or glorified body is the same thing with the spirit or soul. In other words, the spirit or soul is an ethereal substance which is called spirit, inasmuch as it is intelligent; and body, inasmuch as it is visible and subsisting under a certain configuration. This is the doctrine of the spiritists, and not that of the Catholic Church. The Catholic doctrine is, that soul and body are distinct, diverse substances; that the souls of the departed are existing now in a separate state, and that they will receive again their bodies at the resurrection. The author of course explains the resurrection and present state of our Lord in harmony with this notion; but in contradiction to the Catholic doctrine that our Lord raised up, glorified, and elevated to heaven that same flesh and blood which he took of the Virgin in the incarnation. He moreover confuses the human with the divine nature of Christ, by affirming, with the Lutherans, the ubiquity of the sacred humanity of Christ, whom he calls the "spirit Christ," and affirms to be everywhere by virtue of his divine omnipresence. This again is erroneous doctrine. The way is prepared by these statements for an explanation of the presence of Christ in the eucharist, and transubstantiation. It is not difficult to believe that God annihilates the bread and wine, but still causes a miraculous appearance to make the same impression on our senses which the bread and wine made before the consecration. Christ, being everywhere present, imparts the special effects of his grace at the time of consecration and communion. The only trouble in the matter is, that the theory is not true or orthodox. The body and blood of Christ are made present under the sacred species by the force of the consecrating words, not his soul or divinity. The soul and divinity of our blessed Lord are present by concomitance; but transubstantiation is the change of the substance of the bread into the body, and of the wine into the blood of Christ, and here is the chief mystery of the dogma which the author, in endeavoring to explain, has explained away. It is possible that the author's sense is more orthodox than his language, and no doubt his intention is more orthodox than either. His language, however, bears on the face of it the appearance of a sense which is, in itself, contrary in some points to definitions of faith, and in others to the common doctrine of theologians.

It is very necessary that all Catholics should understand that they are not at liberty to interpret either the scripture, tradition, or the definitions of councils in contradiction to the Catholic sense and acceptation made known by the living voice of the pastors and teachers who are authorized by the church. Those who desire to feed on the pure milk of sound doctrine will find their best security against error in selecting for their theological or spiritual reading those books which they are well assured have the sanction and approbation of their pastors.

The Visible Unity of the Catholic Church maintained against Opposite Theories. With an explanation of certain passages in Ecclesiastical History erroneously appealed to in their support. By M. J. Rhodes, Esq., M.A. Dedicated by permission to the Right Rev. William Delany, D.D., Lord Bishop of Cork. London: Longmans, Green & Co. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

The superb exterior of this book, published in the best English style, leads the reader to expect something unusually excellent in the contents. Nor will he be disappointed. This work is no mere repetition of other books. It is learned, original, carefully prepared, well written, and has undergone an examination by competent theologians, not only in England, but also at Rome. The genuine doctrine of Catholic unity, as opposed to the pseudo-catholicity of Anglicans, is exposed in it, with a refutation of the objections of Bishop Forbes, Dr. Pusey, and others. The questions of the Easter controversy, the dispute between St. Cyprian and Pope St. Stephen, the dispute between Paulinus and St. Meletius of Antioch, the Celtic controversies, etc., are fully discussed. The only criticism we have to make is concerning the manner of treating the question of the divided obediences at the epoch between the pontificate of Urban VI. and that of Martin V. The author thinks that the adherents of Peter de Luna, called Benedict XIII., were really in schism, although most of them were innocent of any sin. We think otherwise, and our opinion has been derived from the most approved Catholic authors. Without doubt, the authors of the division were formal schismatics. Yet they were able to make out such a plausible case against Urban and in favor of Benedict, that for the time being Urban's right was doubtful in a large portion of Christendom. Those who refused to recognize him were not therefore guilty of rebellion against the Roman pontiff as such, any more than those would be who should refuse to obey a papal rescript of doubtful authenticity. After the election of Alexander V. there was much greater reason to doubt which of the three rival claimants, Gregory XII., Benedict XIII., or Alexander V., was the true pope. It is now perfectly certain that Gregory XII. was canonically elected, and we suppose it is by far the more probable opinion that he remained in possession of his right as legitimate pope until his voluntary resignation at the Council of Constance. Nevertheless, his claim, at the time, was a doubtful one, and the majority of the cardinals and bishops adhered, after the Council of Pisa, to Alexander V. and his successor John XXIII. Peter de Luna was a schismatic in the fullest extent of the word. But what shall we say of Alexander and John? Their names still appear on the lists of popes, and some maintain that they were true popes. They undoubtedly believed that a council could depose doubtful popes, and that therefore the Council of Pisa could deprive both Gregory and Benedict of whatever claim either of them might have to the papal throne. They believed themselves lawfully elected, and were not, therefore, schismatics, even though they were not lawful popes. If the author maintains that two of the three obediences which eventually concurred at Constance in the election of Martin V. were in a state of schism until that time, we cannot agree with him, and we think we have the best authorities on our side. For, if these obediences were in schism, they were no part of the true church, the jurisdiction of their bishops and priests was forfeited, and the Catholic Church was limited to the obedience of the legitimate pontiff. This theory would involve the author in considerable difficulties, and we wonder that it was allowed to escape the notice of his Roman examiners. The case is very plain, to our thinking. Neither of these three parties rebelled against the Roman see, or refused to obey the laws of any pontiff whose legitimacy was unquestionable. It was a dispute about the succession, not a revolt against the principle of authority. There was, therefore, no schism in the case; all were equally members of the Catholic Church, and jurisdiction remained in the bishops of all the contending parties. Those who wilfully promoted this dissension were grievously culpable, but the rest were free from sin, as long as they acted in good faith. The author devotes only a short space to this question, and with this exception his work is most admirable, and worthy of a most extensive circulation.

The Evidence for the Papacy. By the Hon. Colin Lindsay. London: Longmans & Co. For sale by the Catholic Publication Society, New York.

Mr. Lindsay was president of the Anglican Union when, after long study, he submitted to the authority of the holy Roman Church. His conversion made a great sensation, and called out the usual amount of foolish, ill-natured twaddle. In this volume he has given a masterly, lawyer-like, and extensive summary, richly furnished with evidences and authorities, of the scriptural and historical argument for the supremacy of St. Peter and his successors. We welcome and recommend this admirable work most cordially. The author is a convert of the old stamp of Newman, Wilberforce, Oakeley, Faber, and Manning; that is, a convert to genuine and thorough-going Catholicity; and not one of those who has been spoiled by the fatal influence of Munich. The spurious coin which dealers in counterfeit Catholicism are seeking just now to palm off on the unwary is distinguished from the genuine by its faint delineation of the pope's effigy on its surface. A primacy in the universal church similar to that of a metropolitan in a province is all they will admit the pope to possess jure divino. The true Catholicity brings out the divine supremacy of the successor of St. Peter into bold relief. This is just now the great question, the criterion of orthodox belief, the touchstone of faith, the one great fact and doctrine to be insisted on against every form of anti-Catholic error, from that of the Greeks to that of the atheists. The pope is the visible representative of Christ on the earth, of God's law, of revealed religion, of the supernatural, and of moral and political order. The one question of his supremacy in the true and full sense of the word being settled, every thing else follows as a necessary consequence, and is established. It is very important, therefore, that books should be multiplied on this topic, and that the utmost pains should be taken by the clergy to indoctrinate the people and instruct fully converts concerning that loyal allegiance and unreserved obedience which all Catholics owe to the vicar of Christ. This book will be found to be one of the best. We have received also from London a very clever critique on "Janus," by F. Keogh, of the Oratory, and are glad to see that the learned Dr. Hergenröther, of Würzburg, is preparing an elaborate refutation of that mischievous production. The second part of F. Bottalla's work on the papacy is also announced as soon to appear.

Geology and Revelation; or, The Ancient History of the Earth, considered in the Light of Geological Facts and Revealed Religion. By the Rev. Gerald Molloy, D.D., Professor of Theology in the Royal College of St. Patrick, Maynooth. London: Longmans, Green, Reader & Dyer. 1870. For sale by the Catholic Publication Society, New York.

The author discusses in this volume two interpretations of the Mosaic account of creation: 1st, that a long interval may have elapsed between the creation and the work of the six days; 2d, that the six days themselves may be long periods of time; and shows that they are both admissible, and that the last corresponds pretty well with the present state of geological science. In a subsequent work, he proposes to discuss the question of the antiquity of man.

Though he does not claim to have written a manual of geology, the first and larger part of the work is in fact an excellent compendium of the science, and is written in a remarkably interesting and readable style. A few such books would do much to remove the dislike and distrust of geology which still prevails to some extent among religious people, and perhaps also to convince scientific unbelievers.

Reports on Observations of the Total Eclipse of the Sun, Aug. 7, 1869. Conducted under the direction of Commodore B. F. Sands, U.S.N., Superintendent of the United States Naval Observatory, Washington, D.C. Washington: Government Printing Office. 1869.

This volume contains the reports of the parties sent from the Naval Observatory to Des Moines, Iowa, Plover Bay, Siberia, and Bristol, Tennessee; as well as those of Mr. W. S. Gilman, Jr., and General Albert J. Myer, at St. Paul Junction, Iowa, and Abingdon, Va., respectively, who also communicated their observations to the superintendent. The latter saw the eclipse from the top of White Top Mountain, 5530 feet high; the effect was, of course, magnificent. The papers of Professor Harkness on the spectrum, and of Dr. Curtis on the photographs which they obtained at Des Moines, are specially interesting. One hundred and twenty-two photographs were taken in all, two during the totality, fac-similes of which last are appended, together with other representations of the total phase, and copies of the spectra observed, etc. Professor Harkness observed what appears to be a very decided iron line in the spectrum of the corona, which was otherwise continuous, and he considers it quite probable that this mysterious halo is to a great extent or even perhaps principally composed of the vapor of this metal. He saw magnesium and hydrogen in the prominences, and the unknown substance which has been elsewhere observed.

Professor Hall, who went to Siberia, was unfortunate, the weather being cloudy during the eclipse, though clear before and afterward; but he made what observations were practicable under the circumstances.

A Text-Book of Practical Medicine. By Dr. Felix Von Niemeyer, Professor of Pathology and Therapeutics; Director of the Medical Clinic of the University of Tübingen. Translated from the seventh German edition, by special permission of the author, by George H. Humphreys, M.D., and Charles E. Hackley, M.D. In two volumes octavo, 1500 pp. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

These books place at once before the American practitioner the most advanced scientific knowledge on the general practice of medicine possessed by the German school, of which Professor Niemeyer is considered, and justly, one of the most erudite and brilliant ornaments.

Each subject treated shows the profound and masterly manner in which its details have been garnered by him from the only reliable source of such knowledge, the hospital clinic.

The rapidity with which it has passed through seven German editions, the last two of triple size, and the fact that it has been translated into most of the principal languages of the old continent, afford ample proof of its appreciation in Europe.

The medical student is here presented with a solid, comprehensive, and scientific foundation upon which to rear his future superstructure of learning, while the over-worked practitioner will find a never-failing source of gratification in the work for casual reference and study.

Nothing can so much advance truly Catholic science and literature as the free interchange of national ideas and opinions, expressed through the master minds of the various professions and pursuits.

Life Pictures of the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ. Translated from the German of Rev. Dr. John Emmanuel Veith, formerly Preacher of St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna. By Rev. Theodore Noethen, Pastor of the Church of the Holy Cross, Albany, N. Y. Boston: P. Donahoe.

The various personages connected with the sufferings and death of our Saviour—Judas Iscariot, Caiaphas, Malchus, Simon Peter, etc.—receive each a chapter in this book, in which their characters are portrayed with appropriate reflections and illustrations drawn from history, religious and secular.

The author is one of the most distinguished preachers in Europe. The translator is a clergyman well and favorably known for the many excellent translations of German religious books which he has given to the American public.

Life Pictures will be found very suitable reading for this season of the year.

Health by Good Living. By W. W. Hall, M.D. New York: Hurd & Houghton. 1870. Pp. 277.

This work is intended to show that good health can be maintained, and many diseases prevented, by proper care in eating. The doctor does not use the phrase "good living" in its ordinary meaning; he defines it to be a good appetite followed by good digestion. His rules for obtaining this two-fold blessing are generally sensible; but a few of his statements are somewhat exaggerated. We have no doubt that the health of the community would be improved by following the common-sense directions of Dr. Hall; but unfortunately, as the doctor himself remarks, not one person in a thousand of his readers will have sufficient control over his appetite to carry out these suggestions, which require so much self-denial. We are glad to see the doctor recommends a strict observance of Lent.

A General History of Modern Europe, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Council of the Vatican. Third edition, revised and corrected. By John G. Shea. New York: T. W. Strong, (late Edward Dunigan & Brother.)

The merit of this history as a text-book has been long and widely recognized. The correction, revision, and addenda do not call for any special notice.

The Ferryman of the Tiber. An Historical Tale. Translated from the Italian of Madame A. K. De La Grange. New York: P. O'Shea, 27 Barclay street. 1870.

This is a beautiful story of the early days of the church, when the effeminacy and luxury of the pagans made the noble virtues of the Christians shine with the greater splendor; when St. Jerome lived in Rome, and the Roman matrons and virgins, following his instructions, gave to the world such beautiful examples of virtue, and to the church so many saints. It is a book that should be read now; for though we do not live in a pagan age, we surely are not living in an age of faith; and the example of a Jerome, a Melania, and a Valeria are as necessary as when the light of Christianity had but just begun to shine upon the world.

The Grammar of Assent. By John Henry Newman, D.D.

This is a treatise on the science, not the art of logic, with application to religious belief and faith in the divine revelation. We have only had time to glance at its contents, and must, therefore, postpone any critical judgment upon them. What we have seen in looking over the leaves of the advanced sheets sent us by the kindness of the author is enough, however, to show that in this book Dr. Newman has put thought and language under a condenser which has compressed a folio of sense into a duodecimo of size.

The Catholic Publication Society will issue the work in a few weeks.

The Earthly Paradise. A Poem by William Morris. Part III. Boston: Roberts Brothers. Printed at the Cambridge University Press.

An extremely beautiful book, which it is a luxury to handle and look at. Every body knows, long before now, that Mr. Morris is a true poet, and there is no need of our saying what will be no news to any one who loves poetry. We will only say, therefore, that we like Mr. Morris, because he is antique, classical, and pure, and it is refreshing to get away from the dusty, hot highway of recent literature into his pages.

The Double Sacrifice; or, The Pontifical Zouaves. A Tale of Castelfidardo. Translated from the Flemish of the Rev. S. Daems. Baltimore: Kelly, Piet & Co. Pp. 242.

A well-deserved tribute to those gallant youths who cheerfully offered up their all, home, friends, life itself, for Peter's chair, and in defence of holy church. As a story it has no particular merit.