The Catholic World, Vol. XXV
The Catholic World.
A Monthly Magazine Of General Literature And Science
Vol. XXV.
April, 1877, To September, 1877.
New York:
The Catholic Publication Society Company,
9 Barclay Street.
1877.
CONTENTS
Alba’s Dream, [443], [621], [735]
Along the Foot of the Pyrenees, [651]
Among the Translators, [721]
Ancient Music, Prose and Poetry of, [395]
Anglicanism in 1877, [131]
Catacombs, Testimony of the, [205]
Christendom, The Iron Age of, [459]
Cluny, The Congregation of, [691]
College Education, [814]
Colonization and Future Emigration, [677]
Congregation of Cluny, The, [691]
Copernican Theory, Evolution and the, [90]
Count Frederick Leopold Stolberg, [535]
Destiny of Man, Doubts of a Contemporary on the, [494]
De Vere’s “Mary Tudor,” [261]
Divorce and Divorce Laws, [340]
Doubts of a Contemporary on the Destiny of Man, [494]
Echternach, The Dancing Procession of, [826]
Emigration, Colonization and Future, [677]
English Rule in Ireland, [103]
Eros, The Unknown, [702]
European Exodus, The, [433]
Evolution and the Copernican Theory, [90]
France, The Political Crisis in, and its Bearings, [577]
French Clergy during the late War in France, The, [247]
Gothic Revival, The Story of the, [639]
How Percy Bingham Caught his Trout, [77]
Ireland, English Rule in, [103]
Irish Revolution, The True, [551]
Iron Age of Christendom, The, [459]
Jane’s Vocation, [525]
Job and Egypt, [764]
Judaism in America, The Present State of, [365]
Juliette, [667]
Lavedan, The Seven Valleys of the, [748]
Lepers of Tracadie, The, [191]
Letters of a Young Irishwoman to her Sister, [56], [218], [377]
Madonna-and-Child, The, a Test-Symbol, [804]
Marshal MacMahon and the French Revolutionists, [558]
“Mary Tudor,” De Vere’s, [261]
Millicent, [777]
Nagualism, Voodooism, etc., in the United States, [1]
Nanette, [270]
Natalie Narischkin, [32]
Pan-Presbyterians, The, [843]
Phil Redmond of Ballymacreedy, [591]
Political Crisis in France and its Bearings, The, [577]
Pope Pius the Ninth, [291]
Pope’s Temporal Principality, The Beginning of the, [609]
Presbyterian Infidelity in Scotland, [69]
Present State of Judaism in America, The, [365]
Prose and Poetry of Ancient Music, [395]
Prussian Chancellor, The, [145]
Pyrenees, Along the Foot of the, [651]
Revolutionists, Marshal MacMahon and the French, [558]
Romance of a Portmanteau, The, [403]
Sannazzaro, [511]
Scotland, Presbyterian Infidelity in, [69]
Seven Valleys of the Lavedan, The, [748]
Shakspere, from an American Point of View, [422]
Six Sunny Months, [15], [175], [354], [478]
Stolberg, Count Frederick Leopold, [535]
Story of the Gothic Revival, The, [639]
Tennyson as a Dramatist, [118]
Testimony of the Catacombs, [205]
The Beginning of the Pope’s Temporal Principality, [609]
The Dancing Procession of Echternach, [826]
The Doom of the Bell, [324]
The European Exodus, [433]
The Romance of a Portmanteau, [403]
The True Irish Revolution, [551]
The Unknown Eros, [702]
Tracadie, The Lepers of, [191]
Veronica, [161]
Voodooism, Nagualism, etc, in the United States, [1]
POETRY.
A Thrush’s Song, [689]
A Vision of the Colosseum, [318]
A Waif from the Great Exhibition, [101]
Ashes of the Palms, The, [142]
Aubrey de Vere, To, [676]
Birthday Song, A, [523]
Brides of Christ, The, [420], [556], [701]
Cathedral Woods, [665]
Colosseum, A Vision of the, [318]
Dante’s Purgatorio, [171]
From the Hecuba of Euripides, [353], [550]
From the Medea of Euripides, [638]
Higher, [456]
Italy, [745]
Magdalen at the Tomb, [637]
May, [246]
May Carols, Two, [217]
May Flowers, [189]
Papal Jubilee, The, [289]
Pope Pius IX., To, [363]
Purgatorio, Dante’s, [171]
St. Francis of Assisi, [11]
The Ashes of the Palms, [142]
To Aubrey de Vere, [676]
Translation from Horace, [854]
Wild Roses by the Sea, [338]
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
A Question of Honor, [716]
An Old World as seen through Young Eyes, [143]
Beside the Western Sea, [718]
Bessy, [720]
Biographical Sketches, [717]
Biographical Sketches of Distinguished Marylanders, [573]
Carte Ecclésiastique des Etats-Unis de l’Amérique, [288]
Childhood of the English Nation, The, [284]
Christ, The Cradle of the, [281]
Christopher Columbus, The Life of, [572]
Classic Literature, [280]
Code Poetical Reader, The, [287]
Complete Office of Holy Week, The, [144]
Comprehensive Geography, The, [144]
Consolation of the Devout Soul, The, [286]
Cradle of the Christ, The, [281]
Discipline of Drink, The, [575]
Dora, Bessie, Silvia, [720]
Dr. Joseph Salzmann’s Leben und Wirken, [285]
Ecclesiastical Law, Elements of, [860]
Edmondo, [720]
English Nation, Childhood of the, [284]
Essays and Reviews, [429]
Geometry, Elements of, [860]
God the Teacher of Mankind, [720]
Golden Sands, [430]
Heroic Women of the Bible and the Church, [288]
Hofbauer, Ven. Clement Mary, Life of, [432], [572]
Known Too Late, [576]
Lady of Neville Court, The, [432]
Legends of the B. Sacrament, [574]
Libraries, Public, in the United States of America, [855]
Life of the Ven. Clement Mary Hofbauer, [432], [572]
Magister Choralis, [430]
Marylanders, Distinguished, Biographical Sketches of, [573]
Musica Ecclesiastica, [144]
Paradise of the Christian Soul, The, [576]
Philip Nolan’s Friends, [719]
Priesthood in the Light of the New Testament, [713]
Problem of Problems, The, [282]
Reply to the Hon. R. W. Thompson, [719]
Report of the Board of Education of the City and County of New York, [715]
Roman Legends, [718]
Salzmann’s Leben und Wirken, [285]
Sidonie, [574]
Songs of the Land and Sea, [720]
Spirit Invocations, [576]
Summa Summæ, [288]
The Catholic Keepsake, [720]
The Little Pearls, [718]
The Pearl among the Virtues, [720]
The Story of Felice, [720]
The Wonders of Prayer, [718]
Why are We Roman Catholics? [288]
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. XXV., No. 145.—APRIL, 1877.
NAGUALISM, VOODOOISM, AND OTHER FORMS OF CRYPTO-PAGANISM IN THE UNITED STATES.
When the Almighty introduced the children of Israel into the Promised Land he enjoined the utter extirpation of the heathen races, and the destruction of all belonging to them. But the tribes grew weary of war; they spared, and their subsequent history shows us the result. The Chanaanites became in time the conquerors and made the Hebrews their subjects politically and in religion. The paganism learned on the banks of the Nile had become but a faint reminiscence in the minds of the descendants of those who marched out under Moses and Aaron; but the worship of Baal and of Moloch and of Astaroth overran the land. A long series of disasters ending with the overthrow of their national existence, and a seventy years’ captivity, were required to purge the Hebrew mind of the poison imbibed from the heathen remnant. Then all the power of the Alexandrian sovereigns failed to compel them to worship the gods of Greece. Omnes dii gentium dæmonia is a statement, clear, plain, and definite, that we Catholics cannot refuse to accept. Modern indifferentism may regard all the pagan worships as expressions of truth, and the worship of their deities as something merely symbolical of the operations of nature, not the actual rendering of divine honors. But to us there can be no such theory. The worship was real and the objects were demons, blinding and misleading men through their passions and ignorance. The very vitality of paganism in regaining lost ground, and in rising against the truth, shows its satanic character.
The experience of the Jewish people is reproduced elsewhere. When Christianity, beginning the conquest of Europe with Greece and Italy, closed its victorious career by reducing to the cross the Scandinavians and the German tribes of Prussia, later even than the conversion of the Tartaric Russians, there was left in all lands a pagan element, on which the arch-enemy based his new schemes of revolt and war upon the truth. We of the Gentiles, whether from the sunny south or the colder north, bear to this day, in our terms for the divisions of the week and year, the names of the deities whom our heathen ancestors worshipped—the demons who blinded them to the truth. The Italian, Frenchman, and Spaniard thus keep alive the memory of Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Venus, and Saturn; the German and Scandinavian tribes of Tuisco, Woden, Thor, Freya, and Sator. Janus opens the year, followed by Februata, Juno, and Mars; Maia claims a month we dedicate to Mary, and which the Irish in his own language still calls the Fire of Baal—Baal-tinne.
Earth and time even seem not enough; we go, so to speak, to the very footstool of God, and name the glorious orbs that move in celestial harmony through the realms of space, from the very demons who for ages received from men the honors due to God—from Jupiter and Saturn, Venus and Mars, Juno and Ceres, Castor and Pollux, and the whole array of gods and demi-gods.
And it is a strange fact that the only attempt made to do away with these pagan relics was that of the infidel and bloodthirsty Revolutionists of France, pagan in all but this.
We bear, as it were, badges of our heathen origin—tokens, perhaps, of the general apostasy which, as some interpreters hold, will one day behold the Gentile nations renounce Christianity, when the number of the elect is to be completed from the remnant of the Jews.
In the heresies, schisms, and revolts against the church the pagan element appears as an uprising, an attempt to retrieve a defeat by causing an overthrow of the victorious church even where a restoration of the old demonic gods seems in itself hopeless. The German tribes and those of Scandinavia, receiving the faith later than the Latin and Celtic races, revolted from the church while the remembrance of pagan rites and license was still fresh. The so-called Reformation was essentially gross and sensual, and none the less so because the Christian influence made the absolute rejection of God for a time impossible, and compelled it to borrow tone, and expression, and the outer garb of Christianity. Vice, in its open and undisguised form, would have shocked communities that had tasted of Christian truth. The arch-enemy was subtle enough to meet the wants of the case, and to present what would appear to the sixteenth century as true, as shrewdly as he presented the grosser forms to earlier minds gross enough to accept them. But, it may be said, it is going too far to make all heresies diabolical; yet the church so speaks. If, in the prayer for the Jews on Good Friday, it asks that God would remove the veil from their hearts, that light might shine in upon the darkness, we cannot but observe that when the petitions arise for those misled by heresy, the church speaks of them as souls deceived by the fraud of the devil. The New Testament is full of allusions to this war of the arch-enemy: he is held up as one who will come to some as a roaring lion, terrifying and alarming; while to others he comes as an angel of light, plausible and Heaven-sent, as it were, raising up false teachers whose reasonings would, were that possible, deceive even the elect. And St. Paul tells us that our struggle is not with flesh and blood—not with the men who are but instruments—but with the spirits of darkness who are the prime movers.
The war waged took different forms. In the north sensualism and the grosser forms of self-indulgence were the revolt against the spirit of mortification, of self-conquest and control. It required and had no aid from the imagination, art, poetry, music. But at the south the old pagan classics, imbued with the religion of Greece and Rome, became the literature of the new Christian world and exercised a steadily-increasing pagan influence. In the French Revolution, and in the modern less bloody but as deadly Masonic war, we see the old pagan ideas and thoughts come as if spontaneously to the surface. From the reverence for all connected with the old pagan worship down to pagan cremation we see the revival, less gross, less sensual than in the north, idealized by the conception of beauty in form and color, with all the allurement of symmetry to win the eye, the ear, the imagination. That ancient art and the ancient classics have been a potent instrument in weakening the Christian spirit, and in paganizing the learned and the young whom they train, is admitted, and attempts are made to counteract the influence.
Our country was settled by communities more or less imbued with all the Old-World paganisms, some of which shot out into new and strange forms, generally of the northern type, hiding sensualism under a cloak of religion, as in the Oneida community and the Mormons, the latter going directly into the ancient pagan channel in their anthropomorphic conception of God.
But besides this pagan element—the more insidious because scarcely suspected by most, and which many even now would treat as absolutely null for evil—the country was, in its aboriginal inhabitants, utterly pagan; and within our limits the remnant of those nations and tribes which now represent the original occupants are to a very great extent as pagan as they were three centuries ago. Even where tribes have been converted to Christianity, and been for a long series of years under Christian teachers, a pagan element often remains, nurtured in secret, and heathen rites are practised with the utmost fidelity by many who keep up the semblance of being faithful worshippers of the true God. This crypto-paganism is termed by the Spanish writers in Mexico nagualism, and, from its secret character, formed one of the greatest afflictions of the missionaries, eating out the very heart of the apparently flourishing tree planted by the toil and watered by the blood of the earlier heralds of the Gospel.
Another pagan element came with the negro slaves—barbarous men torn from Africa, without culture, imbued with the most degrading superstitions of fetichism, and believers in the power of intercourse with the evil spirits whom they dreaded and invoked. In the utter disregard of their moral welfare which prevailed in the English colonies, no attempt was made in colonial days to eradicate their pagan ideas and to instil Christian principles; on the contrary, efforts were actually made to prevent their instruction and baptism, from an idea that Christianity was incompatible with a condition of slavery.
In time the negro slaves and their descendants imitated externally the religious manner of their white masters, but their old fetichism was maintained, with the invocation of evil spirits and attempted intercourse with them. The more Christianity in any form penetrated among these people, the more this pagan element assumed a secret character, until it became, as it is in our day in the West Indies and the South, under the name of vaudoux or voodoo worship, the secret pagan religion of the negro and mixed races.
Another pagan element—which cannot be called cryptic, because it meets the full meridian blaze of day, as though it were a thing entitled to existence and protection without limit or check—is the Buddhic worship of the Chinese, with perhaps the less debasing ancient paganism of that nation. Temples arise and pagan worship is carried on before hundreds of altars, chiefly on the Pacific slope. This, with the degraded morals of the heathenism it represents, forms a question difficult to solve, and exciting grave attention not only in California, but in other parts of the country.
The facility with which Mormonism has gained hundreds of thousands of votaries to its monstrous doctrines, and the difficulty under our system of laws of counteracting its influence, leaving its suppression simply to the general condemnation it receives from the public opinion of the country, convince all thinking men that it is a great and serious danger to the well-being of our country in the future. It lies between the unchecked, uncensured paganism of the Chinese in California and the heathenism of the wild Indian tribes, the nagualism of the New Mexican Pueblos, and, still further east, the voodooism of the negro. Who can foresee the fearful creation of evil that the Prince of Darkness may form out of this material ready to his hand? Buddhism overran nations of various origin, civilization, and mode of life—the lettered Chinese, the nobler Japanese, the wild Tartar; it has adaptability, as seen in its assuming external Christian dress and ideas, taken from early envoys of the faith. Mormonism shows a vitality and a power of extension that none who remember its origin could, at the time it arose, have believed within the limits of possibility. The voodoo mysteries permeate through a population numbered by millions. If nagualism and Indian paganism exist only among tribes rapidly hurrying to extinction, these tribes have shown in some cases recuperative power, and, fostered by the stronger heathen elements, may revive sufficiently to be a source of mischief. It may be said that, except in the case of the Mormons, this element is confined to inferior races—the Mongolian, negro, and Indian—and cannot affect the mass of the American people; but this is really not the fact, as in almost every case whites living near the inferior races do actually imbibe some of these pagan superstitions and become believers in them and in their power, while the spread of the so-called spiritualism through all classes in this country shows at once a vehicle for the propagation of any form of diabolism that may rise up with dazzling powers of attraction.
The influence of crypto-paganism on the whites can be seen in our history. The New England settlers made comparatively short work of the native tribes, who were in their eyes Chanaanites not to be spared. But though they slaughtered the men, women were saved, and not always from motives that will stand too close a scrutiny. Indian women became slaves in the houses of the New England colonists. If there was any outward conformity to Christian usage, most of them remained at heart as heathen as ever. The Indians of almost every known tribe avowedly worshipped the Spirit of Evil. North and South missionaries found the natives acknowledge and justify this practice. As a rule they admitted a Spirit of Good, but, as they argued, being inherently good, he could do only good to them, and need not be propitiated; whereas the Spirit of Evil continually sought to injure men, and must necessarily be propitiated to ward off the intended scourge. This adoration of the Evil One, and the attempt to propitiate him, win his favor, and do his will, the Indian slaves bore with them in their bondage. What New England witchcraft really was—diabolic, delusion, or imposture—has never been settled. No sound Catholic divine versed in mystic theology has ever, to our knowledge, marshalled and sifted the facts, and the evidence cited to support them, in order to come to any reasonable theory in the matter. New England of the seventeenth century firmly believed it diabolical; New England of the nineteenth century as dogmatically decides that it was delusion or imposture; but, unfortunately, neither seventeenth-century nor nineteenth-century New Englandism can be deemed a very safe guide, and each is condemned by the other and admits its liability to err, although both had the same energy for forcing their opinions for the time being on all mankind.
But, whatever the real character of New England witchcraft was, one thing is certain: Indian crypto-paganism was at the root of it. Tituba, the Indian servant of Samuel Parris, the minister of Salem, practised wild incantations and imbued the daughter and niece of her master with her whole system of diabolism. The strange actions of the children excited alarm. Tituba was arraigned as a witch and confessed her incantations; but the devil protects his own. Witchcraft trials began, and Tituba and her fellow Indian slaves, who must have quaked for the moment, saw themselves, not punished, but used as witnesses, until more than a hundred women were apprehended and most of them committed to prison. It did not end there. The gallows was to play its part. Nineteen were hanged, and one Giles Corey was pressed to death. If Tituba invoked her demon to avenge his fallen votaries in her tribe, she was gratified by beholding the victorious whites murder each other at her instance. Neither Tituba nor any other of the Indians, though they avowed their intercourse with the fallen spirits, was tried or condemned for witchcraft. What took place in the Parris household took place in hundreds of others where Indian slaves were kept, as in our time in the South. Thousands of children have there been imbued by their negro nurses with the pagan obeah and voodoo superstitions, as doubtless on the Pacific slope many a mother is horrified to find her child’s mind filled with the grossest heathenism by the Chinese servant, and fondly hopes she has disabused her little one, when, in reality, the faith and the terror then implanted in the child’s susceptible mind will last through life, burned into the very soul by the vivid impression produced.
A Catholic may say that the grace of baptism will protect many from this evil; but, alas! to how many thousands of families in this land is baptism a stranger! In them there is nothing to check the insidious progress of evil.
The Huron nation was converted to Christianity by the early Catholic missionaries, and the Iroquois were induced by them to abandon the worship of their evil spirit Tharonhyawagon, or Agreskoue, whose name even seems to be unknown to the present so-called pagan bands, who worship the God of the Christians, but with strange heathenish rites. The vices prevalent among the Hurons of Ohio, nominal Catholics in the last century, show that secret worship of evil spirits still prevailed. All know how the medicine-men have maintained their ground among the Chippewas, Ottawas, and other Algonquin tribes on the borders of the great lakes, although Catholic missionaries began their labors among them two centuries ago. Whenever for a time Catholicity has seemed to gain a tribe, any interruption of the mission for a brief period seems to revive the old diabolism. There are medicine-men now with votaries as earnest as any whom Dablon, Marquette, and Allouez tried to convert in the seventeenth century. But data are wanting for a full consideration of the subject as to these and other northern tribes.
Of the nagualism in the Texas tribes after their conversion by the Franciscan missionaries we have evidence in the life of Father Margil, a holy and illustrious laborer in that field. The tribes among whom he and his compeers labored have vanished, but the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico still remain. The succession of missionaries became irregular; no bishop visited those parts to confirm the converts; the revolutions following that which separated Mexico from Spain almost utterly destroyed the Indian missions of New Mexico. Then the nagualism which had been evidently maintained from the first by a few adepts and in great secrecy became bolder; and these tribes, whose conversion dates back nearly three centuries, revived the old paganism of their ancestry, mingled with dreams of Montezuma’s future coming, taught them by the Mexican Indians who accompanied the first Spanish settlers.
Father Margil once asked some Indians: “How is it that you are so heathenish after having been Christians so long?” The answer was: “What would you do, father, if enemies of your faith entered your land? Would you not take all your books and vestments and signs of religion, and retire to the most secret caves and mountains? This is just what our priests, and prophets, and sooth-sayers, and nagualists have done to this time and are still doing.” Experience showed, too, that this worship of the evil spirit assumed the form of various sects, some imitating the Catholic Church in having bishops, priests, and sacraments, which they secretly administered to consecrate their victims to Satan before they received the real ones from the hands of the missionaries.
All those who have studied at all the pueblos of New Mexico describe to some extent the nagual rites, some of which are indeed hidden under the veil of secrecy in their estufas, but others are more open and avowed.
Colonel Meline, after noting the execution of two men accused of witchcraft and sacrificing children, says of the Pueblos generally “that they are more than suspected of clinging to and practising many of their ancient heathen rites. The estufa is frequently spoken of as their heathen temple.”[[1]]
A report addressed to the Cortes in Spain by Don Pedro Bautista Pino in 1812 says: “All the pueblos have their estufas—so the natives call subterranean rooms with only a single door, where they assemble to perform their dances, to celebrate feasts, and hold meetings; these are impenetrable temples where they gather to discuss mysteriously their good or evil fortunes, and the doors are always closed on the Spaniards.
“All these pueblos, in spite of the sway which religion has had over them, cannot forget a part of the beliefs which have been transmitted to them, and which they are careful to transmit to their descendants. Hence come the adoration they render the sun and moon, and other heavenly bodies, the respect they entertain for fire, etc.”[[2]]
“The Pueblo chiefs seem to be at the same time priests; they perform various simple rites by which the power of the sun and of Montezuma is recognized, as well as the power (according to some accounts) of the Great Snake, to whom, by order of Montezuma, they are to look for life. They also officiate in certain ceremonies with which they pray for rain. There are painted representations of the Great Snake, together with that of a misshapen, red-haired man declared to stand for Montezuma. Of this last there was also in the year 1845, in the pueblo of Laguna, a rude effigy or idol, intended, apparently, to represent only the head of the deity.”[[3]]
Others portray their setting up of idols or mementos of their national deities, and surrounding them with circles of stones, repairing to the spot regularly to pray.
The Pueblos thus show, after nearly three centuries of Catholic instruction, almost ineradicable elements of heathenism.
Of the real interior life of other tribes we know comparatively little: but by the example of so-called prophets who arise from time to time in one part or another, giving new life to the old heathenism, borrowing some idea from Christianity, and using their new creed as a means to excite a great national feeling, we see clearly that in the Indian mind the old worship, though dormant and concealed, has still a power and mastery.
To this deep-rooted feeling the Mormons have appealed, and succeeded in drawing large numbers within the circle of their influence. Almost all the Indian wars are stimulated by some prophet promising victory and the triumph of the old Indian beliefs.
The Cherokees have embraced many usages of civilization, and the Choctaws approach them. The Chickasaws, the other great tribe in Indian Territory, retain more of their old manners. In all these tribes Protestantism has gained a hearing and has a few church members; but there are strong pagan parties, and even among the Christian part there is undoubtedly a strong old heathen element beneath an outward conformity to Christianity. It was strongly urged on Congress a few years since to erect this tract into a recognized territory of Oklahoma, with a government like that of other Territories, preparatory to its admission as a State. The outbursts of savage fury between factions in the tribes, however, made men hesitate to give autonomy to them.
Investigation will, we think, show that crypto-paganism largely controls this mass of native Indians, and is the great obstacle to their improvement. It is, however, confined to themselves, and we do not find that even in New Mexico the whites of Spanish origin have, during their long residence near the pueblos, adopted to any extent the heathenish usages of those tribes. The isolation of the nations in Indian Territory has also prevented any great external influence. Thus this Indian crypto-paganism, though wide-spread and unbroken, seems doomed, unless taken in hand by some master-spirit.
The voodoo worship of the negroes shows greater vitality and diffusiveness. The slaves taken in early times to St. Domingo came from all parts of Africa, some from the fiercest tribes addicted to human sacrifices and cannibalism. They brought over their demonic worship, and by their force of character propagated it among the negroes generally. It became the great religion of the slaves, was secretly practised, and exercised a very powerful influence. As a secret society, with terrible forms of initiation and bloody rites, it became a power in Hayti, and has caused more than one revolution. Cases of the offering up of infants in sacrifice, and devouring the victims, were exposed a few years since, and numbers were arrested. Some were put to death, but the power of the organization was unbroken, and Soulouque, if we are not mistaken, was said to have owed his power to the voudoux.
St. Domingo was part French and part Spanish, and in time voodooism spread from the French portion of the island, where it seems to have originated, to the Spanish division, and thence to Cuba.
In this latter island it exists to this day, and has found votaries among the whites. A recent French traveller—Piron—describes a fearful scene which he witnessed in the house of a lady whom he never would have suspected of any connection with so monstrous a sect. A naked white girl acted as a voodoo priestess, wrought up to frenzy by dances and incantations that followed the sacrifice of a white and a black hen. A serpent, trained to its part, and acted on by the music, coiled round the limbs of the girl, its motions studied by the votaries dancing around or standing to watch its contortions. The spectator fled at last in horror when the poor girl fell writhing in an epileptic fit.[[4]]
While France held St. Domingo and Louisiana the intercourse between the two colonies was constant, and voodooism took root on the banks of the Mississippi soon after its settlement. The early historian of Louisiana, Le Page du Pratz, says: “The negroes are very superstitious and attached to their prejudices and to charms which they call grisgris. These should not be taken from them or spoken about; for they would think themselves ruined, were they deprived of them. The old negro slaves soon disabuse them.”[[5]] These old negroes were scarcely, it will be confessed, apostles to convert idolaters. In fact, their influence extended only to inducing the new-comers to practise their rites and use the symbols in secrecy.
Le Page du Pratz himself, in defeating a negro plot to massacre the colonists at New Orleans as the Indians had done at Natchez, found that they attributed their defeat to his being a devil—that is, possessing one more powerful than their own. The voodoo rites have been kept up in Louisiana from the commencement, and the power exercised by the priests and priestesses of this horrible creed is very great. Working in secret, with all the terrors of mystery and threats of bodily harm, it is just suited to the negro mind, and has spread over much of the South. As in Cuba and St. Domingo, the white children in many cases learn of it from their negro nurses, and the weak, as they grow up, never shake off its hold on their imagination. Human sacrifices are certainly offered in their infamous rites, and the escape of an old negro doomed to the sacrificial altar drew down upon the voodoos the police of New Orleans only a few years ago.
The Abbé Domenech[[6]]—whom we should hesitate to cite, were not his accounts here in conformity with numerous others—represents voodooism as having not only spread through Texas, but into Mexico where, in a depraved border community, its horrid rites and secret poisonings are carried on. His details as to the mode of worship in New Orleans—the nudity, the use of serpents, the dances—correspond with the accounts given from Cuba. Reports from Mobile attest its existence there with similar features.
Where voodooism prevails it has not only its adepts and votaries, but a large class who, full of terror, buy at exorbitant prices from voodoo priests charms against its spells.
The late war has given the negroes opportunities for education and a future, but the new prosperity has not broken the power of voodooism. Of a thing kept secret and hidden, which many will deny and more be ashamed of, it is not easy to get precise data or details. Yet from time to time revelations are made attesting its vitality. A negro member of the Louisiana Legislature, and a minister in one of the Protestant denominations, was reported within a few years as undergoing certain rites to free himself from the spell of a voodoo priestess. We may therefore easily infer that the negroes, being not only self-governing, but governing the whites in many parts by force of numbers, are not likely to be influenced so much by whites as by the crafty and aspiring among themselves. They will concentrate, and in their concentration this voodoo power cannot but increase and all vestiges of Christianity disappear. The field upon which it can work—the vast colored population of the South—is ready for it. Some may think the whole matter a shallow imposture that will soon die out before the effulgence of newspapers; but it really shows no signs of decline, and, if no cases have been unearthed which show such frightful enormities as those in Hayti, it is certainly attended with ceremonies which, for their very indecency and pampering of the worst vices, should cause it to be rooted out, even by those who would regard the direct worship of the devil as something with which the state cannot interfere.
Open the map of the United States, and see how a band of country from the Atlantic to the Pacific is thus permeated by heathenism. In the Southern States the voodoo worship; New Mexico and Indian Territory with nagualism; Utah with Mormonism; California with Buddhism. Throughout this tract the church planted there from one to three centuries is still weak, and, except in California, is not gaining ground with any rapidity. Everywhere Catholic influence is less potent than others. The very climate, enervating and disposing to ease and indulgence, seems to lend power to systems that gratify the passions which the church teaches her children to mortify and control.
It looks as though the Prince of Evil were seeking to form a kingdom for himself, combining all the elements for his evil spirits to carry on the war of conquest. St. Jude represents Satan as endeavoring to secure the body of Moses, doubtless to lead the Jews into idolatry and make them worship him. If he tried to induce even our Lord to fall down and worship him, we cannot wonder that he should try to induce weak men to do so. St. Paul constantly represents to us our struggle in life as a war against the evil spirits. St. Ignatius, in the “Exercise of the Two Standards,” pictures Satan as arrayed against our Lord with all his hosts. The battle seems to take actual form, and we should be prepared for it. In this battle we have powerful auxiliaries placed at our command, in the persons of the angelic powers, and though the church, through her whole liturgy and offices, reminds us of their ministry and invokes their aid,[[7]] we seem to be forgetful of their existence, and go into the fight unaided by forces at our command—forces never defeated, and ready to meet our call. What wonder that we are often worsted? Our books of devotion give a single prayer to our guardian angel. Few think beyond this. The angel guardians of the country, of our city, of our church, our home, of our family, of those committed to our charge, are all fighting for us, earnestly if we seek their aid. St. Michael, the guardian angel of the Jewish nation, defeated Satan’s attempt to use the body of Moses for his wicked designs. So in our day the greater manifestation of diabolical agencies should lead us to ask God to send his angels to our aid. The parents, in training and protecting from evil the children given to them, have mighty coadjutors in the angels of these very children, the teacher in those of his scholars, the pastor in those of his flock. There may be saints to whom we have a special devotion; but in the angels we have powerful spirits directly deputed by God to aid us, and whose duty it is, as it were, to combat by our side against the enemies of salvation.
But we are not giving a devotional treatise: or attempting to propose any new form. Our country is dear to us, and, although it were too sanguine to hope that in the days of any now living the true faith will reach such a point that its influence will be marked on the public mind and heart, we cannot be insensible to the apparently formidable gathering of heathen elements in a section of country where the very climate seems to lend them new force in building up a great empire of paganism.
A new impulse has been given to our Indian missions, which, owing, doubtless, to causes easy of explanation, have never received from the Catholic body at large in the United States the moral and temporal aid they so richly deserved. In fact, the missionaries labored on, almost ignored and forgotten, so that an attempt was made through the instrumentality of the federal government to crush them out altogether. This has roused Catholics to an interest in them, and this interest should be kept up. By prayer, by alms, by direct aid, we must help the missionaries and their coadjutors, the devoted religious women in the missions, to fight the good fight, and root out, so far as lies in us, the paganism of the Indian tribes, where still avowed or cloaked under an external show of Christianity.
On another paganism, that of the Chinese, and on that of the Mormons, we cannot apparently act yet directly, but we can meet them by prayer, and in the regions infected Catholics should exercise the utmost vigilance that this pagan influence should never enter their households, lest their children, if not themselves, may at last imitate the wisest of kings, not in his wisdom, but in his idolatry.
The great and festering sore of voodooism afflicting the negroes calls for all our zeal, as Catholics, to help the bishops and clergy in the South, and the English society which has entered this field, by prayer, by material aid, by earnest and sustained efforts to preserve the purity of faith among colored Catholics. The Church in the Southern States, crippled by the disasters of the late war, is entirely unable to cope single-handed with the new duty imposed upon it by the altered condition of affairs. She appeals to us, and as Catholics we cannot remain deaf to her call.
ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI.
O love! you lay the volume by
That held you like a holy chime—
Life of St. Francis—with a sigh
Which says: “That was a pleasant time
In old Perugia’s mountain-town
On the Umbrian valley looking down—
Flushed like an Eden in sublime
Environment of mountains vast;
And do not you, as I, recall
What, morn and even, and first and last,
Attracted most of all?
“The peaks of Apennine we knew
By heart—the many-citied land
Where-through the infant Tiber drew
A thousand streams in silver band,
Filled with the murmur of the pines
That told the olives and the vines
They heard the sea on either hand.
But, kindled on its lofty cape,
A light-tower to that inland coast
O’er waves of greenwood, corn, and grape,
What object charmed us most?
“Assisi seated in the sun!
All round from Monte Sole’s height
The insistent fascination
Of its white walls enthralled our sight.
And moon and starlight on its slope
Showed but a dimmer heliotrope.
We watched it many a mellow night:
Once when a warrior comet came,
And flashed, in high heaven opposite,
A sheathless sword of pallid flame.
Drawn from out the infinite.
“To sweet St. Francis’ native town,
Alas! we made no pilgrimage;
Nor to St. Mary’s, lower down,
His Portiuncula hermitage.
We knew but by its star-like shine
The splendors of Assisi’s shrine,
In mystic triple stage on stage.
It only asked one summer’s day—
How strange it seems in you and me!—
That narrow vale of Umbria
Made severance like the sea.”
O gentle wife! I cannot tell
To wistful eyes of retrospect
What dolce far niente’s spell,
In that midsummer, caused neglect;
What imp, procrastination hight,
Seduced us when we meant no slight.
In life, all paradox and defect,
Easy is difficult—the friend
Next door to visit—duties small,
To be done any day, that end
In not being done at all.
“How can this trite philosophy
Console me in my great regret?”
Nay, love, look not so tearfully,
And we will find some comfort yet.
What figure, think you, in those streets
The gentle, loving youth repeats,
Singing his gay French canzonet?
Doth either temple’s sumptuous pride
Suit stone and crust for bed and board,
And bridegroom joyful in his bride—
The poverty of our Lord?
O brown serge holier than the cope!
Was mystery veiled in long-sleeved gown?
And awful was his girdle-rope?
Were skirts that swept his ankles brown?
Bore he, in hands and feet and side,
The five wounds of the Crucified?
Did high God send his seraph down,
On the lone mount, to imprint such sign?
His brethren wondered, overawed;
Yet not even this made more divine
That sweet-souled man of God!
O happy swallows! circling skim
And twitter o’er the gray church-towers.
He called you sisters; ye with him
Chirped sweetly when he sang the Hours.
And ye, his brothers innocent,
With whom he talked where’er he went,
Play, lamb and leveret, in the flowers!
Wise foolishness and melting ruth—
That move deep chords, O love! in you—
Born of child-instincts, or a truth
He and the angels knew!
“O Sun, my brother above all!
Stars, Sister Moon, in praise accord.
Chaste, humble, useful, precious, full,
O Sister Water, freely poured!
Robust and jocund, strong and bright,
O Brother Fire! illume the night.
Live tongues of beauty, praise the Lord!
O Brother Wind! thy wonders weave
In clouds and the blue sky above,
Wherefrom all creatures life receive,
And weave them all of love.
“Confess the Lord, O Mother Earth!
Through whom so beautiful thou art.
To herb, fruit, flower, he giveth birth
And color from Love’s eyes and heart.
Serve God!” he sang. His sermons good,
Dear to shy creatures of the wood,
Could even to bole and branch impart
Their glowing sense: a conscious soul
Kin to his own in all things moved.
His monument is grand—the whole
Creation that he loved.
O Life, that sought to imitate
The one pure type, its perfect Chief,
By its own purity separate
As is the dew-drop on a leaf,
Which yet doth from its luminous veil
A glory to the flower exhale!
Close sympathy with no touch of grief!
Let fair Assisi on its slope,
An unremote yet reachless star,
Lend to our hearts another trope,
So near and yet so far.
O Poet, who in faltering rhyme
First wove the Tuscan into song!
O poem and miracle sublime,
Thyself, in Dante sweet and strong!
To his fourth circle of Paradise,
To the King-splendor of the skies,
Dost thou, the elder seer, belong.
Thee “Sister Death” hath glorified;
And what an image we have won:
Through kindled mists of mountain-side,
Assisi in the sun!
SIX SUNNY MONTHS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE HOUSE OF YORKE,” “GRAPES AND THORNS,” ETC.
CHAPTER XI.
A MORNING WITH ST. PETER.
As the day approached for their visit to the crypt of St. Peter, Mr. Vane absented himself very much from the house, and the last day was spent entirely away, from early in the morning till late in the evening. They understood that he was to make his First Communion with them, but asked no questions, leaving him entirely free, and he gave no explanation. The Signora and the two daughters made a Triduum for him in the mornings; and so deeply did they feel the event for him that they looked forward to their own Communion almost as if it were to be their first, and lived as though in retreat for two or three days.
“I feel,” Bianca said, “as if I had been having clandestine interviews with some one outside the house, and that now papa were going to invite him home, and make a feast in his honor. Dear papa! how very good he is; how much better than his daughters!”
She would have been quite shocked and alarmed had any one told her that she entertained such a sentiment, but there was, in fact, in her heart an undercurrent of pride in her father’s piety, and a feeling that the Lord would certainly be particularly pleased with him.
At length the day dawned, the sweet bells of Santa Maria Maggiore, the slipshod bells of Sant’ Antonino, all the bells in hearing, ringing their three, four, five, and one out of the white silence of the aurora.
The Signora smiled to hear, through the open doors, Isabel start awake at the sound, and exclaim in her clear voice: “The angel of the Lord declared unto Mary.”
“I really must not have such a preference for Bianca,” she said to herself, “especially now when Bianca has a lover. Isabel is very honest and earnest.”
The Alba turned to a rosy silver, the silver deepened to gold, the north and west were Tyrian purple, and the sun was on the eastern horizon, painting the long lines of the aqueducts, and the billows of the Campagna, and the towers, high roofs, and cupolas of the city with a fiery pencil. A flock of goats pattered by in the street, to be milked at the doors; hand-carts piled with fruit were dragged slowly in from some garden near the walls; three men walked slowly past, in single file, with large baskets on their heads piled with rich flowers. The perfume of them came up to the window as the Signora leaned out. A wine-cart came slowly down from the Esquiline piazza, laden high with small barrels and half and quarter barrels, brought in by night to the Roman shops from cool grottoes in the Castelli Romani, set here or there on the beautiful mountains that were now a velvety blue under the eastern sky. At the back of this cart was perched high the little white dog, with his nose on his paws, and his eyes half shut, but all ready to start up with a sharp bark if any one but looked hard at his precious load. In front, under the side awning, slept the driver. The horse dreamed along through the morning, and the little bunch of bells slung to the cart jingled softly as they went.
“It is certainly earth, but a most beautiful earth,” the Signora thought, sighing with content, as she went out to fasten the girls’ veils on for them.
“There is no need of putting on gloves,” she said, seeing Isabel drawing hers on. “Didn’t you know, child, that one should not wear gloves when going to Communion?”
“Live and learn,” said Isabel, and took her gloves off again. “I have had a doubt on the subject, but I never knew.”
“Another little item you may not know,” the Signora said. “The canonico being a bishop, you have to kiss his ring before receiving. He will himself touch it to your lips after he has taken the Host in his finger and thumb to give you. When I first came here, I was embarrassed by many of these customs, which everybody here takes for granted, you know.”
Nothing could be pleasanter than Mr. Vane’s manner that morning—serious and quiet, but less grave, even, than usual. Seeing Isabel’s eyes fixed anxiously on him while the Signora spoke, he smiled and said: “I am glad your education is not quite finished, my dear. I am still more ignorant, and you must all teach me. I wish, Signora, that you would be so good as to stay by me this morning, so that, if I should be in doubt, I may look at you. I think you would be more correct and prompt than the children here.”
“Certainly,” she said, “I will be near you.”
The porter had sprinkled and swept the stairs just before they went down, and the place was shaded, fresh, and cool. Carlin was whistling to his baby while his wife prepared breakfast—a whistling as soft and clear as the song of a bobolink. The other birds adopted him, and answered him back from the garden, a little surprised, it may be, at the length and smoothness of his carol. The air was so richly scented with orange-flowers that one might almost have thought worth while to bottle it, and there was a rustling sound, exquisitely cool and pervading, of falling water. In a shady corner near the door of the porter’s room was a tiny brazier with a handful of glowing coals in it, and over this Augusto was making his early cup of coffee. Out doors everything shone with a golden color—the light, the houses, the streets—and in that frame the sky was set like a gem, so blue that it could be compared to nothing, and nothing could approach it.
They did not look about as they drove slowly through the city, but, leaning back silent, had a mingled sense of Rome and heaven. It was impossible for any of them to imagine anything more perfect, or to ask for any addition to their happiness. Earth and heaven had united to bless them, and every gift of earth worth the taking was theirs. To have been sovereigns would have oppressed them; to have had millions at their disposal would have been a care and annoyance. They had enough, and their cup was running over.
The narrow streets were beginning to stir as they passed, and some were dim, and all were in shade. Not a ray of sunshine touched them, except in the piazzas, till they reached the bridge of Sant’ Angelo. Then all was light, for the sun shot straight on through the Borgo, and all the piazza of St. Peter’s was in a blaze. They were almost faint with the heat as they walked up the ascent; but in a few minutes they were inside the sacred door, where, before entering, summer and winter meet to give the kiss of peace on the threshold, and the one quenches her fiery arrows, and the other warms his frosty breath.
Not a person was in sight as they went in, but they heard, faintly and far away, the mingled voices of the choir coming and going. The circle of ever-burning lamps twinkled like a constellation before them, and invited their steps. Half way up they paused before the chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, which is an exception to the cheerful grandeur of St. Peter’s. For this dim chapel gives a sense of remoteness and mystery, and the inner chamber, from which the eyes can see no outlet, seems to lead to some edifice still more vast; as though St. Peter’s were life and day, but here was the way to death and night, yet a way not gloomy and dreadful, but only solemn and mysterious. The Baptistery is merely dark, and produces no such impression.
When they reached the bronze statue, the ladies kissed the foot and passed on, but Mr. Vane stood thoughtfully there for some time before following. And even then he did not pay the accustomed homage to the venerable image. His soul had saluted it, may be; but he was of a different sort from those who have the act of reverence always ready, whether the heart move or not; who will kiss the relic between the kisses of the shameless, and touch what is holy with lips that have just lied, and which are prompt to lie again. This man’s outward devotion was ever the blossom of a plant that grew in his heart, and filled it so that the act was an overflowing.
Marion was already waiting for them at the grand altar. They recognized each other silently, and seated themselves on the steps to wait, being early. The Signora placed herself beside Mr. Vane, and, noticing that he drew a deep breath, and looked about with a glance that took in their position there in the centre of that immense cross, she pointed upward where the dome, glorious with light and color, rested on the legend that had turned the face of the world: “Thou art Peter, and on this rock I will build my church. And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.” The legend ran in a circle of gigantic letters rimmed with gold, and the circle and the dome were as the ring and mitre of the church let down from heaven, and hovering in air over the ashes of the first pontiff.
A Mass was being said at the altar directly before them, at the end of the south transept, but not a sound of it reached them. They saw indistinctly the priest, and the mosaic crucifixion of St. Peter over the altar. They heard the coro, now swelling loudly in a brave, manly chant as the whole chapter joined, now sinking in a cadence, now fine with a boy’s clear treble. The bronze canopy above them glittered in every gilded point, the twisted columns that supported it soaring like flame and smoke entwined. The wreath of lamps about the confession was as bright as the ever-burning flames within them, and the polished marble answered them back, blaze for blaze. Below—a frozen prayer—knelt the guardian statue, its face turned to the screen behind which rest the relics of St. Peter. Two or three persons, entering the church, looked small as mice down the nave, and intensified the sense of magnificent solitude about them. All this light and splendor seemed so independent of, so superior to, human presence that human beings appeared to be only permitted, not invited, to come. It was a temple for the invisible God.
“There is no outward difference,” the Signora said to Mr. Vane, “between Catholicity and Protestantism which strikes me more than our ways of going to church, and the reasons for going. Protestants go to hear a man talk, and the man goes to talk to them. The affair is a failure if either is missing; for the minister needs the people, and the people need him. On the contrary, one person alone in a Catholic church may accomplish a perfect act of worship. When the priest has offered up a Mass, though no one assist, the world is better for it; and when a worshipper has prayed all alone in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, he has performed a supreme act of piety. There is all the difference between the dwelling-house of God and the house where people go to talk about God.”
“I always felt as if there were too much wind in Protestantism,” Mr. Vane said.
Presently a little company appeared coming out of the sacristy—two boys in white cotte, the canonico’s chaplain and another priest, also in cotte, and, lastly, monsignor the canonico himself, in a purple silk soutane of a color so bright that it was almost red. They passed across the basilica toward the pier of Veronica, and paused there at the altar-rail till the Signora and her friends joined them. A pleasant salutation was exchanged, and the Signora managed to whisper to the canonico that Mr. Vane was to make his First Communion that morning. The beautiful face of the prelate brightened with a pleased surprise, and he turned again and cordially offered his hand to the new convert, who, to the delight of the ladies, bent and kissed the ring on it.
Then the boys lighted their wax tapers, and the party went in behind the altar, down the narrow stair, and through the circling corridor, and found themselves in the heart of St. Peter’s.
This chapel is a tiny place in comparison to the church above, but capable of accommodating many more than the five who are permitted to visit it at a time. Two persons could kneel abreast at each side of the central passage, and four or five ranks, may be, might find room. The end next the screen, visible in the confession from above, is open, the altar being at the upper end, and the whole has not a ray of daylight. From this chapel one can look back and see through the screen Canova’s marble pontiff, and the ring of golden lamps on the railing of the confession, and, perhaps, some worshippers kneeling outside the sanctuary which one has had the privilege of entering. Directly overhead are the grand altar and the dome.
The Signora took a prie-dieu near the altar, motioning Mr. Vane to a place beside her; the sisters knelt behind them at either side the chapel; and Marion, quite apart, and behind the rest, leaned in a chair and hid his face in his hands. He had been surprised into the situation, and, though he had tried sincerely to do his best, was still a little alarmed by it. Shaken out of his usual artistic mood, which regarded first what appeared, and then peeped inside from without, he found himself suddenly whirled into the centre, where, either from darkness or from too much light—he knew not which—he could not see. It was one of those moments of fear in persons who communicate seldom but sincerely, which presently give place to the most perfect reassurance and peace.
The Mass was over. Monsignor laid aside his vestments, and knelt at a prie-dieu reserved for him; his chaplain placed a book on the desk before him, and withdrew, and there was silence.
The church could do no more for them. She had brought them to St. Peter’s tomb, and given them the Bread of angels.
It was impossible that the mind should not shake off the present and go back to the time when the dust in the shrine before them lived, and moved, and spoke, and when the invisible Lord in their breasts was the visible Lord in the flesh, teaching, persuading, and suffering. The Lord in their hearts said to the apostle in the shrine: “Wilt thou also go away?” And the apostle answered him: “Lord, to whom shall we go?” And again Peter said: “Lord, thou shalt never wash my feet.” And Jesus answered him: “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me.” The Lord in their hearts was he who stood in the palace of the high-priest, bound and smitten upon the cheek, and Peter, standing by, denied that he knew him. The pallid lamps shone on the face of the Master turned for one reproachful look, and the red light of the coals burned up, as if the very fire blushed, in the face of the cowardly follower. They saw the seaside, where the risen Lord stood and called, and Peter, no longer a coward, but on fire with love and joy, flung himself into the sea to go to him. And yet again, in this memory which had become a presence and a voice, the Lord spoke to Peter: “Lovest thou me?” And Peter answered him once, and again, and, grieving, yet again: “Thou knowest that I love thee.” And Jesus said to him: “Feed my lambs. Feed my sheep.”
O perfection of power and of obedience; for within this hour, which memory, unrolling again her shrunken scroll, showed to be eighteen centuries distant—within this hour both the sheep and the lambs had been fed!
“I feel as though I had a garden in my heart,” Marion said to the canonico as they went up into the church again.
The two were walking slowly and last, and in speaking Marion bent and kissed the prelate’s hand.
The hand held his a moment closely, and the canonico replied: “Where the Tree of Life is, there is always a garden.”
This conversation they had listened to between the Master and Peter followed them down the church, whose splendors seemed rather like virtues made visible than like any work of the hands of man. If they should ever be so lost and ungrateful as to leave this fold, to whom, indeed, should they go? And unless the Lord washed them from their sins, surely they could have no part with him. They still saw the lessening vision of the high-priest’s dim and solemn house as they passed down the church and out through the first portal; then the second fell behind them, and an Italian summer day caught them to its glowing breast.
“It seems to me,” the Signora said, “as if we had just been ordained, and were being sent out as missionaries. Of course you go home to breakfast with us, Marion,” she added.
“I was thinking of Fra Egidio this morning,” said Bianca softly, as they drove home through the hot sunshine. “He used to say, instead of 'I believe in God,’ 'I know God.’”
“That blessed Fra Egidio!” struck in Isabel, who had lately been reading about him. “He used to go into ecstasies, papa, whenever he heard the names of God or of heaven. And when he went into the street, sometimes people would call out, 'Fra Egidio, paradiso! paradiso!’ and instantly he would be rapt into an ecstasy, and perhaps be lifted up into the air. Why doesn’t some one go into ecstasies now at the thought of heaven?”
“Nobody prevents you, my dear,” her father said. “If you will be so lost to the world and so given to God that the mere hearing his name will lift you from the earth, so much the better.”
“You are quite right, papa,” she answered gently. “I had better look to myself.”
He smiled and laid his hand tenderly on hers.
“I was particularly pleased with the account of the interview between Fra Egidio and St. Louis,” the Signora said. “The king came incognito to visit the ecstatic, and went to the convent in Perugia where he was living. Fra Egidio, knowing supernaturally that he was there, and who he was, went out to meet him. They fell on their knees on the threshold, and embraced each other, and, after remaining for some time in that silent embrace, rose and separated, without having uttered a word. That was truly a heavenly meeting.”
Their attention was here attracted to a clergyman who walked slowly along the shady side of their street, accompanied by his chaplain. This prelate, the patriarch of Antioch, was of a venerable age, and wore a long beard. He alone, perhaps, of all the prelates in Rome, appeared in the street with the distinguishing marks of his rank—the chain and cross, the red-purple stockings, sash, and buttons, and the green tassel on his hat.
A little boy on the sidewalk caught sight of him, and instantly snatched his cap off and ran to kiss the patriarch’s hand. The action was perfectly natural and simple, and performed with a charming mixture of reverence and confidence.
“How pretty it is!” exclaimed Isabel. “And there is another.”
A little girl had left her mother’s side, and run also to kiss the patriarch’s hand as he passed. No idea seemed to have entered her curly head that she was approaching too nearly a grand personage, or that he would be annoyed or interrupted by her homage, any more than a crucifix or a picture of Maria Santissima would have been.
“The Roman clergy have the sweetest manners with the poor,” the Signora said; “and the highest dignitaries, when they are in public, are approached with a facility which I found, at first, astonishing. I recollect going to St. Agatha’s, the church of the Irish College, to the Forty Hours, shortly after I came here. It is in a populous neighborhood, as you know, and the streets swarm with children. A clergyman came into the church and knelt at a prie-dieu just in front of me. There were a dozen or so children wandering about, and presently they collected at this prie-dieu, and, sitting on the step or standing at the desk, almost leaning on the priest’s shoulder, they stared at the people and whispered to each other. I expected to see him send them away or go away himself; but he only put his hands over his face and remained immovable. I had almost a mind, for a minute, to go and speak to the children, but, fortunately, did not. After a while, nervous, impatient Yankee though I am, with a passion for an orderliness which strikes the eyes, I began to see the beauty and true piety of this gentle behavior, and to find something more edifying in that priest who suffered the little ones to come near him, and near the Lord, than I should have found if he had gone into an ecstasy before the Blessed Sacrament. It was the sweetest charity. Indeed, much of that which seems to us to be cowardice in the Romans is nothing but a spirit of gentleness fostered by religion. They are non-combatants. The church found them a fiery and warlike people, constantly committing deeds of violence, fond of conquest, and impatient of control, and she has subdued them to children. If they are too submissive to usurpation, that is better than the other extreme. The lion has become the lamb, and the lamb is ever the victim. And now here we are at home.”
Annunciata and Adriano had conspired to make the breakfast as festal as possible, and had succeeded perfectly. But for the light west wind that fluttered in at the still open windows, the air of the rooms would have been too fragrant; and but for the long morning fast and drive, the breakfast would have been too profuse. It was, in fact, both breakfast and dinner, it being nearly noon when they sat down; and they sat two hours talking before they separated. Just before they rose from the table Annunciata came in, bearing a large dish covered with green leaves, a smile of triumph on her face. She placed the dish in the centre of the table, and looked at her mistress.
“Brava!” exclaimed the Signora. “Now, children, do you recognize that leaf?” lifting one from the dish, and holding it up between a thumb and finger. “Do you know what tree grows a hand for a leaf? Do you see the shape?”
“'In the name of the prophet, figs!’” quoted Isabel.
“Yes, the first figs of the season, and perfect; just soft enough to flatten on the plate and against each other, yet firm; and, withal, sweeter than honey. You should see the woman who brings them to me—a rosy, russet creature, with eyes as black as sloes, and pounds of gold on her neck and hands. That gold she wears always. It is their way. She has four gold chains, one hanging below the other, and each bearing a medallion. Through these shines a large gold brooch. Her earrings are immense hoops, and she wears gold rings on every finger, piled up to the joints. She was once so ill that they thought best to give her Extreme Unction, and, when the priest came to administer the sacrament, he found her lying, pale and speechless, but with all her rings and lockets on. These people do not value stones, but they glory in pure, solid gold.”
“Might it not be their dowry?” Mr. Vane asked.
“Very likely; sometimes it certainly is. Sometimes the dowry is in pearls, and a contadina will have strings and strings of them. I am told, however, that the common people in Rome have a saying that pearls are for butchers’ wives. I don’t know why, and one has been pointed out to me as owning half a dozen strings of them. They are not a good investment, however, for they are easy to spoil and easy to steal. A very safe and sensible way for providing a girl’s dowry exists in one of the towns near Rome. All along the river-bank is level land divided into small lots. When a girl is born, the father buys one of these, if he is able, and plants it full of a sort of tree that grows rapidly, and is much used for certain kinds of wood-work. While the girl grows her dowry grows; and when she marries, the trees are cut down and sold. I have often wished that American fathers of families would make some provision for their children when they are born, setting aside a sum, if it should be ever so small, to increase with their years, and be a help in giving them a start in the world. It seems a sin that parents should bring a family of children into the world, all dependent on one life, and, if that life be cut off, be thrown out helpless and unprovided for. How often we see, by the death of a father whose labor or salary maintained his family in comfort, the whole family plunged in distress and left homeless! How would Bianca, here, like to have her dowry in pearls?”
“She has a mouth full of them,” said Marion hastily. He could not bear that his lady should be thought in want of a dowry, when she was a fortune in herself. “And those are not her only jewels.” He reached, and, taking her hand, gathered together the little pink finger-tips like a bunch of rosebuds. “She has ten rubies fit for a crown,” he said, and touched his lips to the clustered fingers, while the girl laughed and blushed.
Mr. Vane seemed to be struck with a sudden recollection. He put his hand to his forehead and considered, then rose from his chair. “Wait a minute,” he said, and went into his own room, where they heard him opening his trunk, and searching about in it. Presently he returned with a tiny morocco case. “It is the merest chance in the world that I did not leave this in America,” he said. “I did not dream of bringing it. Bianca’s mother left a pair of ear-rings for the girl who should marry first.”
He opened the case and took them out—two large, pear-shaped pearls, of exquisite lustre, hanging from a gold leaf, on which a small, pure diamond glistened like a speck of water.
“And you could have such a treasure with you, and never say anything about it!” the Signora exclaimed. “O the insensibility of men! And these girls never saw the pearls before!”
She fastened the jewels in the pretty ears they were destined for. “These are two gems you forgot in your enumeration, Marion,” she said. “And, by the way, how fitting it is that, when the ears are shells, there should be pearls hung in them!”
“I’m glad you think them so pretty,” Mr. Vane said with compunction. “I really never did think of them before. Perhaps it was very stupid of me.”
“On the contrary, it was very wise of you, papa,” Isabel said. “They are a great pleasure to us all now; but if we had known of them, I should now feel as if they had been taken away from me.”
“When you are engaged, you shall have a pair as pretty, if they are to be found,” her father said.
They drank Bianca’s health; and, the talk still running on gems, Marion told an incident of a ring which a friend of his had lost in the snow, in some part of Germany, as he stood looking down on the town from a hill outside. Several months afterward, going to the same spot, he saw the ring at the top of a little plant. The first sprout had come up inside it as it lay on the ground, and, growing, had lifted it, till it stood almost a foot high, glistening round the green stem.
“What a disappointed little plant it must have been when its gold crown was taken off!” the Signora said regretfully.
“It no doubt grew better without it,” Mr. Vane replied. “Besides, the ring did not belong to it.”
It was the tiniest little intimation of a correction, and the Signora was highly pleased. He saw the smile with which she received it, and was content. Nothing can express more kindness than a gentle reproof, and nothing can show more affection than to take pleasure in such a reproof.
When they had separated, the Signora went into the kitchen to give a private and special commendation to Annunciata for her well-doing that morning, and to glance at that part of her domain. She never omitted this word of praise, and the faithful servant counted herself well paid for any pains she could take when she had been assured that what she had done had given pleasure.
This Roman kitchen was as little as possible like the New England kitchen. Closets and pantries there were none; the single stone walls did not admit of them. Two large cases of covered shelves took their place. Instead of the trim range with its one fire-place, was a row of five little furnaces, over each of which a dish could be set. A sheet-iron screen extended out over these, like the hood of a chaise. All the side of the chimney, where it extended into the room, shone with bright copper and tin cooking vessels, hanging in rows. Underneath were two baskets, one with charcoal, another with carbonella—the charred little twigs from the baker’s furnaces, that can be kindled at a lamp. One of the furnaces still had a glow of coals within it, and near by was the feather fan that had been used to kindle and keep it bright. The brick floor was as clean as sprinkling and sweeping could make it. They never wash a floor in Rome, and only the fine marbles and mosaics ever get anything better than that sprinkling and sweeping. The one window looked across the court to the Agostinian convent attached to Sant’ Antonino, and to the little belfry with the two bells that never could be made to strike the right number of times, and into the garden of the frati, where rows of well-kept vegetables were drinking in the sun as if it were wine.
This kitchen was quite deserted, except for the cat, who was standing, with a very mild and innocent expression of countenance, close to the closed door of a cupboard where meat was kept. She glanced calmly at the Signora, and walked away slowly and with dignity.
“Where is Annunciata, Signor Abate?” inquired the Signora.
The cat turned and mewed with great politeness, but in an interrogative tone, as who should say, “I beg your pardon?”
And then a splashing and bubbling of water from without reminded the padrona that her handmaiden was washing that day—was “at the fountain,” as they express it.
“Why should I not go down for once and see how it seems there?” she thought. “After all, this girl is dependent on me, lives with me, serves me in everything, is at my call night and day, and I do not touch her life except at certain points—the table, the cleanliness and order of the house, and the errands she does for me outside. I don’t know much about her, after all.”
She opened a door that she had never passed in the years she had lived in that apartment, and descended a narrow stone stair that wound in a steep spiral, lighted at each turn by a small hole pierced in the outer wall. Down and down—it seemed interminable, but was, in reality, two stories and a half. The landing was in a dim store-room a little below the ground level, and used as a cellar. From this a passage and door led into a small court enclosed between an angle of the house and a high wall, like a room with the ceiling taken off. Here a spout of water flowed into a double fountain-basin, where the girl stood washing and beating linen on the stone border. As she worked, steadily, and too much absorbed to see her mistress standing near her, tears rolled down her face, and dropped one by one on the clothes in her hands.
The Signora looked a moment, astonished and shocked. Was this the girl who had come and gone from early morning cheerfully at her bidding, and who had smiled as she served the table within half an hour? She stood awhile looking at her, then quietly withdrew, and, going up-stairs again, rang a hand-bell from the window. Annunciata came up immediately, quite as usual, with no sign of tears in her face, except a slight flush of the eyelids, and made her usual inquiry: “Che vuole?”—What does she wish for?
“I have several things to say,” her mistress replied. “I came out first to thank you for having given us such a beautiful breakfast. Everything was well done. I forgot you were at the fountain.”
The smile came readily, and with it the ready word: “It pleased her?”—always the ceremonious third person.
“And now I want to ask you something,” the Signora went on kindly. “Sit down. If you do not like to tell me, you need not. But I should be very sorry if you had any trouble, especially anything in which I could help you, and did not let me know. You have been crying. Are you willing to tell me what is the matter?”
The girl looked as startled as if she had been caught in a crime, and began to stammer.
“If it is something you do not want to tell me, I will not say any more about it,” her mistress went on. “You have a right to your privacy, as I have to mine. But if there is anything I can do for you, tell me freely.”
There was a momentary struggle, then the tears started again, and all the story came out. Annunciata had received, three days before, news of the death of her only brother, who had died of fever in some little town a day’s journey from Rome, and was already buried when she learned first that he was sick.
The Signora listened with astonishment and compunction. For three days this girl had gone about with a bitter grief hidden in her heart, missing no duty, submitting, perhaps, to a little fault-finding now and then, and weeping only when she believed herself unobserved, and all the time, while she suffered, ministering to and witnessing the pleasures of others.
“My poor girl, why did you not tell me at first?” she asked gently.
“Oh! why should I?” was the reply. “You were all so happy and you could not bring the dead back.”
“I could have sympathized with you, and given you a few days’ rest,” the Signora said. “I would not have allowed you to work.”
“It was better for me to work,” the girl replied, wiping her eyes. “I should only have cried and worried the more, if I had been idle.”
There seemed nothing that could be done. That class of poor do not adorn the resting-places of their dead, or the Signora would have paid the cost; they do not wear mourning, or, again, she would have paid for it; and this girl had no family to visit and mourn with. In her brother she had lost all. The only service possible—and that she accepted gratefully—was to have Masses said for the dead. That settled, the Signora dismissed her to her work again, and shut herself into her chamber, but not to sleep.
“O the unconscious, pathetic heroism of the suffering poor!” she thought. “Where in the world have I a friend who would cover such a grief with smiles rather than disturb my pleasure? Where in the world does one see such patience under pain and hardship as is shown by the poor? They sigh, but they seldom cry out in rebellion. They accept the cross as their birthright, and both they and we grow to think that it does not hurt them as it would hurt us. How clearly it comes upon me now and then, why our Lord lived and sympathized with the poor, and why he said it would be so hard for the rich to enter heaven!”
She was looking so serious and unrefreshed when the family gathered again that they at once inquired the cause, and she told them.
“I feel as though I must have been lacking in some way,” she concluded, “or a servant who has been with me so long, and who has no nearer friend in the world than I am, would have come to me at once with her troubles. If the relations between servants and employers are what they should be, the servants should go to the master or mistress with all their joys and sorrows, just as children go to their parents. I have been thinking that there is one reason why, the world over, people are complaining of their servants. They have contented themselves with simply paying their wages and exacting their labor. There has been no sympathy. The association has been simply like that of fish and fowl, instead of that of the same creatures in different circumstances.”
“I have always thought that in America,” Mr. Vane said. “There is not a country in the world, probably, where families have been, as a rule, more disagreeable toward their servants, and servants so troublesome, in consequence, to their employers. But I believe it is very seldom that a good mistress or master does not make a good servant, so far as the will goes.”
Seeing her still look downcast and troubled, he added: “You should not reproach yourself. It is rather your kindness toward this girl which has won such a devotion from her. If you had lacked in kindness and sympathy toward her, she would have been far more likely to have shown her trouble, and made it an excuse for not attending to her work as usual.”
“Do you think so?” she asked, brightening; and thought in her own mind, “How very pleasant it is to be reassured when one is distressed about things!”
And then later, when they heard Annunciata in the kitchen, the sisters went out and spoke each a kind and pitying word to her, touching her hard hand softly with their delicate ones; and when she came in later to perform some service, Mr. Vane had also a word of sympathy. But, greatest comfort of all, the Signora and Bianca went up to the Basilica and arranged that a Mass should be said the next morning for the dead, and Annunciata was told that she should go with them to hear it.
That evening the servants were instructed to deny the family to every one but Marion, and, when the sun was low, they all went out on the loggia to see the night come in, and breathe the sweet freshness that still came with it. For it is only in dog-days that the Italian nights are too warm for comfort, and not always then. The great heat comes and goes with the sun.
As they went into the loggia, there was a rustling noise in the garden underneath, and out from the trees leaning against the wall flew clouds of sparrows, and dispersed themselves in every direction. It would appear that every twig must have held a bird.
“I am sorry we have disturbed their nap,” Mr. Vane remarked. “How disgusted they must be with our curious nocturnal habits!”
They did not wish to talk, but only to think and see, and speak a word as the mood took them. The miraculous shadow of St. Peter still hovered above their spirits. They sat in silence, receiving any impression that the scene might make.
Flocks of birds flew in from the seaward, all hastening to some nest or tree-home, their bodies clear and dark, their swift wings twinkling against the topaz sky. The evening star, at first softly visible, like a diamond against another gem, began to grow splendid, while the glowing west changed by imperceptible degrees to a silvery whiteness, and took on an exquisite hint of violet, as if it thought, rather than was, the color. The flowers disappeared in masses of dark green, the gray towers and roofs deepened to black, the pure air was delicious and beaded with coolness, like a summer drift sprinkled with snow. The Ave Maria began to sound here and there, echoed from one church to another. Now and then some bell, besides the Angelus, rang out with a festal clangor for five minutes, a musical chorus coming in from the southward.
“What a grand procession of saints walk for ever through the Roman days!” the Signora exclaimed. “It would be something dazzling to the mind, if one could live on a central height, and hear the bells announce the different festas as they come, singly or in groups, and know who and what each saint is. For example, this evening we hear from the Aventine the rejoicing announcement that to-morrow is the festa of St. Alexis in his church, and from another church is called out the name of St. Leo IV., and from another St. Marcellina, the sister of St. Ambrose, and twelve martyrs will be celebrated in another church. If we should go to-morrow to either of those, we should find them adorned, sprinkled with green out into the very street, High Mass or Vespers going on, and the relics exposed on the altars. To-morrow night other bells will ring in other saints and martyrs. The night after, from a church in Monte Citorio will come the call, Ecco St. Vincent of Paul! and the secular missions and the Sisters of Charity will be doing their best in his honor, and there will be cardinals, and pontifical vespers, and a panegyric. Four or five churches will celebrate their special saints the next day, and the next will be St. Praxides, on the Esquiline here; and the day after we shall be invited to pay our respects to St. Mary Magdalen. And then on to St. James the Great, which will be a great day; and the day after comes St. Anna, the mother of the Blessed Virgin; and, a little later, St. Ignatius marches by. What it would be to set the world aside, sit aloft on some tower there, listen to the announcements rung out from belfry after belfry, meditate, and look with the eyes of faith on what comes! What faces of young maidens, delicate spouses of Christ, bent like clusters of living flowers to listen to the voices that praise them, turned again heavenward to ask for blessings on their clients! What queenly women incline their crowned heads, when the Sacrifice goes up in their name, to see who of those who offer it is worthy and sincere! What glorious men, strong and shining, gaze down into the battle-field where their triumph was won, to read in the upturned faces of the combatants how the fight goes, and who needs their aid! I sometimes think that the saints look only when they are called by name, but that the Blessed Mother looks always. It is the mother who goes after the child who forgets, and watches over it while it sleeps.”
The flocks of sparrows that had fled at their approach, weary of waiting for them to go away, after peeping and reconnoitring the situation, began to come back and flutter in under the foliage again. For a few minutes the trees stirred all through with them, as if with a breeze; then the little heads were tucked under the tired wings, and they all went to sleep, and, perhaps, dreamed.
The family smiled and hushed themselves, not to disturb their rest. Each heart was softly touched by the nearness of so many tiny sleepers. Peace seemed to float silently out from under the thronged branches and laden twigs of those motionless trees, in which no passer-by would have detected a sign of life.
“I think,” the Signora said softly after a while, “that when the priest comes next Holy Saturday to bless my house, I would like to have him bless these trees too, that no net or trap may be thrown over them by night, and no rifle be fired into them by day. The trees and their tenants belong to my household.”
“Your house is blessed every year?” Mr. Vane asked.
“Yes. On Holy Saturday the priest goes round through every parish, a little boy with him bearing holy water, and blesses all the houses, if the people desire it. The custom is, too, to have ready on a table a dish of boiled eggs, an ornamented loaf of cake, and a plate of sausages. These are blessed, to be eaten Easter Sunday. I am not sure, but I fancy that the custom is a remnant of times when the Lenten fast was, perhaps, more strictly and universally observed than now. Now, whether from a deterioration of health or of faith, very few persons consider themselves strong enough to observe the regulations perfectly. Modern civilization seems to be very weakening in every way.”
“I am inclined to think that good comes, or will come, out of all these changes and seeming failures,” Mr. Vane observed. “If the races have become weaker physically, their passions have also become weaker; and it may be that, in order to tame them, it was necessary to reduce their physical strength. We do so sometimes with wild animals. Perhaps when we shall have learned better how to live, and, after running the circle of follies, grown soberer and wiser, the increasing vitality will go more in the intellectual and spiritual ways than it did before. I am hopeful of the human race, from the very fact that it is so uneasy about itself. The audacious boldness of some nations seems to me to spring from desperation rather than confidence. There is no confidence anywhere. Fear rules the world. Everywhere strong, or even desperate, remedies are proposed, and philanthropic doctors abound.
“Malgré les tyrans,
Tout réussira,”
sing the communists; and I believe that things will come out right in spite of every difficulty, and be more secure because of the difficulties past. When we shall have looked about in vain in every other direction, we shall at last learn to look upward for the solution. But excuse me for talking so long in this beautiful silence. Your Easter eggs were not meant to hatch such a sermon, Signora.“
They rose, presently, to go into the house, and, as they loitered slowly along the passages, Mr. Vane remarked to the Signora: “I observe that the natural direction of your eyes is upward.”
“Is it?” she asked. “Come to think of it, I believe you are right. It is always cramping for me to look down. I recollect that, when I was a child, if I dropped my eyes on being a little embarrassed, it was almost an impossibility for me to raise them again.”
Going in past the kitchen, they found Adriano in chase of a cockroach that had dared to show itself there, and they stopped to learn the result, feeling that it interested them. It was not successful, and the man rose from his knees very much vexed.
“These bagarozzi don’t know what Ascension day is nowadays, or they would hide themselves,” he said.
Mr. Vane asked what connection there was between bagarozzi and Ascension day, and the servant-man, albeit a little ashamed of having committed himself to tell a story, explained:
“When I was young, it was a custom among the Roman boys, on the vigil of the Ascension, to go down into our cellars, or those of our neighbors, and catch as many bagarozzi as we could. When evening came, we fixed to the back of each one a bit of wax taper, melting the end to make it stick. Half an hour or so after Ave Maria we marshalled our bugs, lighted the tapers on their backs, and sent them off in a procession. While they went we sang a song we had. It was a pretty sight to see the little tapers scampering off through the dark.”
“Why! I should think it would have scorched them!” Bianca exclaimed with surprise.
The man laughed at her simplicity. “Who knows?” he said, with a shrug. “They never came back to tell us.”
Isabel inquired what the song was to which this novel procession marched.
The man laughed again and repeated the doggerel:
“'Corri, corri, bagarone;
Che dimane è l’Ascensione;
L’Ascension delle pagnotte:
Corri, corri, bagarozzi.’”
Which might be rendered: “Run, run, my noble roach; for to-morrow is Ascension day—Ascension day of the little loaves. Run, roach, run.”
“What demons of cruelty children can be!” remarked Isabel as the family went on.
Adriano laughed as he looked after them. “How queer these forestieri are!” he said. “They want to see everything and know the name of everything. The signorine here ask me the name of every tree and flower in the garden, and every bird and bug that moves. How should I know? My niece, Giovannina, says there’s an English-woman going about getting the poor old women to tell her fables, and ghost-stories, and all sorts of nonsense; and they say that she prints it in a book. They must be in great need of books to read. Then the padrona will stand and look at the moon as if she never saw nor heard of it before, and expected it to drop down into the garden and break into golden scudi. I saw her one day this spring, on Monte Cavallo, stand half an hour and stare at the sky, just because it was red where the sun went down. The sky is always red when the sun sets in clouds. Two or three signori thought she was stopping to be noticed, and they walked about her, and one of them leaned on the railing close to her, staring at her all the time, and by and by spoke to her. I went up behind her, but she didn’t know I was there. She hadn’t seen any one till she heard the man say good-evening to her. You should have seen the way she looked at him. Then she caught sight of me. 'Adriano,’ she said, 'I’ll give you a hundred lire to fling that fellow over the terrace head first.’ I told her that it would cost me more than a hundred lire to do it. She put out her lips—I suppose she thought I was a coward—and muttered a word in English. Then she said to me, as she turned her back on the man, loud enough for him to hear: 'How dare such rascals come up when the sun shines!’ But she wouldn’t let me walk beside her, but made me follow her all the way home. And she was so mad that, when I started to say something as we reached the door, she stopped me. 'When I want you to speak, I shall ask you a question,’ she said.”
“The Signora is very kind,” Annunciata said.
“I didn’t say she wasn’t,” the man replied dogmatically. “But it doesn’t become ladies to go into the street alone, nor to stop to look at anything, nor to glance about them.”
The girl did not reply. She had been trained in the same opinions, and did not know how to combat them. But sometimes it seemed to her that the streets and the public places were for women as well as for men to see, and that a woman should not be a prisoner because she had not a carriage or a servant to attend her. Moreover, she sympathized, in her simple way, with many of the Signora’s tastes. To her the song of the birds they fed with crumbs from the windows was a sort of thanks, and she regarded them as little Christians; and now and then, when she looked at the sky, something stirred in her for which she had not words—a pleasure and a pain, and a sense of being cramped into a place too small for her. She could not express it all, and did not quite understand it. But there was just enough consciousness to make Adriano’s pronunciamiento rankle a little. The inner ferment lasted while she polished the knives and her companion blacked carefully a pair of boots; then she burst forth with an expression of opinion which astonished even herself, for it sprang into speech before she had well seen its meaning—an involuntary assertion of nature. “I believe that women should settle their own business, and men settle theirs,” she said. “I haven’t seen the man yet that knows enough to teach the Signora how she ought to behave nor what she ought to do; and many’s the man she could teach. Men are poor creatures. Women can’t do anything with them without lying to ’em. That’s what gives them such a great opinion of themselves, because most women flatter them when they want to get anything out of them.”
“Ma, che!—well, to be sure!” exclaimed Adriano. It wasn’t worth arguing about. He merely laughed.
Meantime, gathered in the sala, the family made plans for the coming days while they waited for supper. Bianca, seated at the piano, was trying to recall a fragment of melody she had heard a soprano of the papal choir sing at a festa not long before. “The cadence was so sweet,” she said. “It was common—a slow falling from five and sharp four to four natural—but the singer put in two grace-notes that I never heard there before. He touched the four natural lightly, then sharped it, then touched the third and slid to the fourth. It was exquisite, and very gracefully done. His voice was pure and true, and the intervals quite distinct.”
“I asked his name,” Isabel said, “and was disgusted to hear a very common one, which I have forgotten. A beautiful singer ought to have a beautiful, birdy-sounding name.”
“He can make his own name sound 'birdy,’ if you give him time,” Mr. Vane said. “Take Longfellow as an example. There couldn’t be a more absurd name. Yet the poetry and fame of the man have flowed around it so that to pronounce the name, Longfellow, now is as though you should say hexameter.”
And then what were they to do, and where were they to go to-morrow, and the day after, and the day after? They ran over their life like a picture-book which was so full of beauties they knew not which to look at first. All felt that they were laying up sunny memories for the years to come—memories to be talked over by winter evening fires in their country across the sea; memories to amuse and instruct young and old, and to enrich their own minds. And not only were they furnishing for themselves and their friends this immense picture-gallery and library of interesting facts and experiences, but they were expanding and vivifying their faith. They were making the personal acquaintance, as it were, of the saints, and seeing as live human beings those of whom they had read in stories so dry as to make them seem rather skeletons than men and women. To enter the chamber where a saint had prayed, had slept, had eaten, had yielded up his last breath; to stand in some spot and think: “Here he stood, on these very stones, and saw faces of heaven lean over him, and heard mouths of heaven speak to him; or here, when such temptations came as we weakly yield to or weakly resist, he fought with prayer, and lash, and fasting”; to look at a hedge of rose-bushes, and be told: “Here, when he was tempted, a man, weak as other men, flung himself headlong among the thorns”—this was to waken faith and courage, and make their religion, not an affair of holidays and spectacles, and communions of once a year, but of every day, and of private hours as well as of public.
“Half our Roman holiday is gone,” Mr. Vane said, “and for at least four weeks of the other half the heat will allow us to do little or nothing. I recommend you girls to treasure all your little pleasures, and keep an exact account of them. The more fully you write everything out, the better. These diaries of yours will probably be the most interesting books you could have after a few years.”
“I am trying to forget all about America,” Isabel said, “to fancy that I have always lived here, and always shall live here, and to steep myself as much as possible in Italian life, so that, when I go back, I may see my own country as others see it, but more wisely. It seems to me that a country could be best judged so by one who knows it well, yet has been so long withdrawn from it, and so familiar with other modes of life, as to see its outlines and features clearly.“
“You are right,” Marion said.
“I never knew how beautiful, how more than beautiful, American nature is till I had seen the famous scenes of Europe. One-half the superiority is association, and half the other half is because attention has been called to them by voices to which people listened. Our very climate is richer. Here nobody knows how beautiful the skies can be. They like sunshine, and rainy weather is for them always brutto tempo. The grandeur of a storm, the exquisite beauty of showery summer weather and of falling and fallen snow, they know nothing about. They endure the rainy season for the sake of the crops, scolding and shivering all the time. To watch with pleasure a direct, pelting, powerful rain would never enter their minds; and if they see you gazing at the most glorious clouds imaginable, it would be to them nothing but curioso. We do not need to go abroad for natural beauty.”
It was getting late and time to say good-night. A silence fell on them, and a sense of waiting. Then Mr. Vane said: “We have made a Novena together for the communion of this morning. May we not once more say our prayers together in thanksgiving?”
No one replied in words; but the Signora brought a prayer-book and arranged the lamp beside Mr. Vane. He obeyed her mute request, and for the first time, as head of the family, led the family devotions. Then they took a silent leave of each other.
NATALIE NARISCHKIN.[[8]]
The name of Narischkin is in Russia like the name of Bourbon in France, Plantagenet or Stuart in Great Britain. The mother of Peter the Great was a Narischkin, and her baptismal name was Natalie. The family have always esteemed themselves too noble to accept even the highest titles, regarding their patronymic as a designation more honorable than that of prince. Madame Craven has just added to the list of her charming and extremely popular works a new one, which is a companion to the Sister’s Story, by writing the biography of a lady of the Narischkin family who was a Catholic and a Sister of Charity. Natalie was a friend of Alexandrine and Olga de la Ferronays. The narrative of her early life retraces the ground, familiar to so many, over which we have delightfully wandered in company with the fascinating group of elect souls, whose passage over the drear desert of our age has been like the waving of angels’ wings in a troubled atmosphere.
It seems scarcely correct to call Natalie Narischkin a convert. Her parents belonged to the Russian Church, and of course she was taught to regard herself as a member of the same. They resided, however, always in Italy, and Natalie was accustomed, in her childhood and youth, to associate freely with Catholic children and young people, and to accompany them to the churches and convents where they were wont to resort. Russian children receive infant communion, beginning with the day of their baptism, several times a year until they attain a proper age for confession, when there is a careful preparation and a solemn ceremony for the first adult communion, as with us. They are confirmed immediately after baptism. We are not told anything about Natalie’s receiving either infant or adult communion, but it is to be presumed that she was made to follow the usual practice, since there are Greek churches in Venice and other Italian cities. Her early associations were much more numerous, strong, and tender with the church of Italy and France than with the estranged church of her own nation. There was no difference in faith between herself and her Italian and French companions to make her sensible that the religion in which she was bred was different from the one in whose sacred rites she was continually taking part, at whose altars and shrines she frequently and devoutly worshipped. Even the peculiar ceremonies and forms of the Sclavonic and Greek rites were less familiar to her than those of the Latin rite. The only barrier between herself and her Catholic companions which could make Natalie sensibly feel a separation between them was her exclusion from participating in the sacraments administered by Catholic priests. This separation between priests and people professing the same faith, offering the same Sacrifice, administering and receiving the same sacraments, could only puzzle and surprise the mind of a child; but it requires a more mature understanding and complete knowledge to appreciate the obligation of renouncing all communion with a schismatical sect, however similar it may be to the true church. While Natalie was a child some of the little boys and girls with whom she played, particularly one little boy who became afterwards a martyr in China, used to assail her with controversy. Her older friends were more judicious, and waited patiently until her ripening intelligence and expanding spiritual life should prepare her for a more complete work of grace and a more perfect understanding of Catholic doctrine. In the instance of Madame Swetchine we see how much study and thought are necessary to produce in the mind of one who has grown up to maturity under the influences of the Russian Church a firm intellectual conviction that organic unity under the supremacy of the Roman See is essential to the being of the Catholic Church, and not merely the condition of its well-being and perfection. In Madame Elizabeth Gallitzin we discern how, in another way, national prejudice, and traditional hostility to what is regarded as anti-Russian, caused in her bosom a violent struggle against reason and conscience, even though the Catholic religion was that of her own mother. The case was wholly different with Natalie Narischkin. She did not think about the question of controversy at all, and was free from the national prejudices of a Russian. Her mother took no pains to instil them into her mind, or to place any obstacle in the way of the Catholic influences around her. She grew up, therefore, a Catholic, with only an external barrier between her inward sentiments and their full outward profession. The interior cravings of her spiritual life were the chief and real motive prompting her to pass over this barrier and find in the true church that which the broken, withered branch could not give. The requisite theological instruction in the grounds of the sentence of excision by which the Russian hierarchy is cut off from Catholic communion was a subsequent matter, and not at all difficult to one who was, like Natalie, intelligent, candid, and full of the spirit of the purest Catholic piety. There was really nothing in the way except the authority of her mother, whose chief motive of opposition was the fear of the emperor’s displeasure. When this obstacle was removed, Natalie easily and without an effort leaped over what was left of the external barrier.
We have anticipated, however, what belongs to a later period of her history. And going back to the time of her childhood, we will let Madame Craven herself describe the situation in which she was placed while she was growing up into womanhood. It will be noticed that Madame Craven speaks in the plural number, indicating that Natalie is not the only young Russian to whom her remarks apply. This will be understood when we explain that her sister Catharine sympathized with her in all her religious feelings, though she delayed, on account of her dread to encounter the opposition of her family, until a much later period her own formal abjuration.
“The entire childhood of these young girls had been passed at Naples, and they had been there environed by impressions which nothing in their Greek faith, no matter how lively it might have been, could counteract. The adoration of Jesus Christ, the veneration of the Holy Virgin and the saints, faith in the power of absolution and the real presence in the Blessed Sacrament, were the grand and fundamental doctrines which they had imbibed with their mother’s milk. Brought up at a distance from their own country, they might almost have believed themselves to be in the centre of their own religion, living as they were within the bounds of that great church which possesses all the gifts claimed by their own, with the added power of distributing and communicating them to all, without distinction of place, language, nation, or race. It is difficult to comprehend how any Russian whose soul is imbued with piety, on returning to his own country after having been brought up abroad, can find himself at ease in the bosom of Greek orthodoxy. In truth, it appears to us that the limits of a national church must seem very suffocating to any one who has felt, even for an instant, the pulsation of that universal life in the heart of the Catholic Church which is unconfined by mountains, rivers, or seas, which is contained within no barriers of any kind whatever, and bears the name of no particular nation, because it is the mother of all nations collectively. Therefore no one ever has been or ever will be able to fasten any denomination of this sort upon the only church who dares affirm that she alone possesses the truth in all its completeness. At the first view one would say that every church ought to make this claim under the penalty of being deprived of any reason for its existence. It is nevertheless true that only one loudly proclaims it; and those who hate as well as those who love the Catholic Church alike declare that she is a church in this respect singular among all others. Thus has she preserved through all ages a designation expressive of the idea realized in herself, and will preserve the same for all coming time! A multitude of her children have separated themselves from her, yet none of them have succeeded in despoiling her of the glorious title which suffices to make her recognized everywhere and by all. As for other churches or sects, when it is not the name of some man or nation which they substitute for her name, it is some kind of term or epithet which, even when it aims at giving a semblance of antiquity, betrays novelty in the very fact that it is necessary to employ it in order to be understood; and this is true in our own day just as much as it was in the time of St. Augustine. The overwhelming force of good sense and all the laws of human language determine that words express what they designate! At this day, as well as at that earlier period, neither friends nor enemies will ever give this grand name of CATHOLICS to any except those to whom it really belongs, and the same good sense proclaims as an indubitable fact which is that church whose children these are.
“Natalie had remained a long time without paying any attention to this controversy. She belonged all the while to the Catholic Church by all her pious habitudes, by all her childlike affections, finally and chiefly by the bond of the true sacraments which the Greek Church has had the infinite privilege of preserving, and which form a tie between ourselves and the Greeks whose value cannot be too highly estimated—a tie so powerful that even in one case where it is only imagined to have a real existence (i.e., with those Anglicans who persuade themselves that a chain wanting a multitude of links has not been broken) it has served in our days more than ever before to awaken in their hearts a sentiment inclining them to a nearer sympathy with our own. Belief in the truth of the words of Jesus Christ and in his real presence on the altar, the adoration and love of our Lord, the search after those who have possessed in the highest degree this faith and love, have opened the way by which a great number of souls have come to prostrate themselves before the tabernacles of the Catholic Church who had been previously outside of her visible fold, and had belonged to her only by virtue of their good faith and love of truth.
“With how much greater reason must one who belonged to the Greek Church have felt herself closely united to those whose faith was professed and whose practices were approved in respect to such a great number of points by her own church, which has even ventured to adopt the counsels of perfection and to speak of the 'spiritual life’ and of 'Christian perfection,’ after the manner of Catholics!
“But it is just here that she betrays her weakness; for when it is a practical question of undertaking and nourishing this spiritual life, where can she go to seek the living words, the sermons, the books, the apostolic men whom she requires? Where and from what source can one draw the vital force of this true and daily life, of this living life, if I may hazard the expression, always similar to itself, yet unceasingly renovated like the seasons of the year? Where can this vivifying influence be found, except in that same Catholic Church which, although it makes the mind bend under the necessary and salutary yoke of authority, never permits uniformity to engender tediousness, and possesses in its completeness that deposit a part of which the Greek Church suffered to escape on the day when it broke the bond of unity? Since then, although apparently rich, she has remained empty-handed; and while the Basils, the Athanasiuses, the Gregories, the Chrysostoms, and the numerous other holy and immortal doctors have had immortal successors in the Occident, the church of the Orient, once queen of eloquence and science, has become mute; and her children know not to-day whether she can speak or even write, since it is not given to them to hear her any more break silence; and, if they would warm up their piety by holy reading, and give their minds the sustenance they require, they are forced to have recourse to the Catholic Church, since it is there alone they can find their necessary aliment. Truly, we cannot help thinking that if the barrier which separates Greeks from Catholics were not upheld by hatred, it must fall down in an instant. This hatred is something which has no argument whatever in its justification, and which accepts, in behalf of the church which it covers as a shield of defence, the very conditions of death, immobility and silence, in lieu of a living existence.
“However this may be, and whatever more might be said on this vast and interesting subject, it cannot in any case be disputed that the divergences existing between us and the great Greek Church have nothing in common with those which separate us from Protestantism. Protestantism has tampered with and altered all our articles of faith, demolished the Christian mysteries most sacred to belief and dear to affection. It has retained neither the intercession of the saints, the worship of the Blessed Virgin, the sacraments of penance and the Holy Eucharist, nor the veneration of holy images. In fine, apart from the belief in the merits of our Saviour, of which every manifestation is severely restrained, there is nothing in common between Protestants and ourselves.[[9]] On the contrary, we may say, in respect to the Greeks, that for the simple faithful the difference between them and ourselves is invisible, because they have retained so many things which assimilate their religion to ours, as affecting the mind, the heart, and even the senses. Therefore, for many among them, the barrier does not become sensible until they find themselves disposed to pass over it in order to satisfy the inward need which they experience of participating in the riches of that other church, which seems so like their own, yet differs from it in possessing really what the other offers in a vain semblance.
“What, then, must be the sentiments of a sincere, fervent, simple, and upright soul, already bathed in the light which radiates from the great mysteries of the faith, and touched by the infinite love of Jesus Christ revealed in them, when it discovers the nature of the obstacles which lie in her path?
“She finds all the articles of her faith more solemnly affirmed; all the practices which her piety demands more numerous and accessible; confession, absolution, communion—all is there; and must she refrain from satisfying her thirst for them?
“Is it credible that a soul thus thirsty for truth, faith, and love should be much disposed to recoil from the difficulty of accepting one word more in the confession of faith,[[10]] or of recognizing the head of the universal church as the head of the church in the East as well as of that in the West? Again, is it credible that she will shrink back from the political obstacle, the greatest and most formidable of all—the only one, in fact, which she will find pain in overcoming and need courage to surmount?
“Such were the thoughts which importuned the mind of Natalie when she left Brussels, at the end of February, 1843, in order to return with her sisters to Paris, having resolved to ask the consent of her mother to her becoming a Catholic, and fully expecting that this permission would not be withheld.“
Natalie’s father died when she was fifteen years old. Evidently he had not felt any hostility to the Catholic Church, for he was a great admirer of the Jesuits. Madame Narischkin was not prejudiced, as is shown by the fact that she never at any time was averse to the perpetual intercourse kept up by her family, and especially by Natalie, with the most cultivated and devoted Catholics of Europe, such as the La Ferronays family, and never hindered her daughters from attending all kinds of services in Catholic churches. She undoubtedly looked on the Greek and Catholic churches as essentially identical with each other, and therefore could not see any reason for passing from the communion of the one to that of the other. She supposed that her daughter’s reasons were rather sentimental than conscientious. She naturally felt unwilling to have her take a step which would prevent her from ever again receiving communion at the same altar with the other members of the family. And she was, moreover, decidedly opposed to any act which would expose the family to the emperor’s displeasure. It is not to be wondered at, then, that she positively refused permission to Natalie to be received into the Catholic Church. Natalie was at this time twenty-three years of age, perfectly well educated, and fully instructed in the grounds of the distinctive, exclusive claim which is made by the Roman Church upon the obedience and submission of all baptized Christians. She was competent to decide for herself, and in possession of a complete right to act according to her conscience. It was thought proper, therefore, by the priest who was her spiritual director, and by her friends of the La Ferronays family, that she should be privately received into the church at Paris. An accident frustrated their plan, and Natalie was obliged to leave Paris with her mother without having accomplished her intention. The nuncio and other priests of high position at Paris, when they were informed about the matter, disapproved of the course which M. Aladel had advised, and reproved severely the ladies who had been concerned in the unsuccessful attempt to put it in execution.
Natalie accompanied her mother and sisters to Stuttgart, and a few months afterward to Venice. At her mother’s desire she had several conferences with a Greek priest, which served only to strengthen her in her well-formed and solid convictions. Nevertheless, she delayed her formal reception into the Catholic Church, waiting for a more favorable opportunity to accomplish this great desire of her heart. This opportunity came very soon, but in a way which was unexpected and, to her affectionate heart, most painful. During the summer of 1844 her mother was suddenly taken ill and died. The marriage of her two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth—both of whom had been some time before betrothed, the first to M. de Valois, the second to the Baron de Petz—was delayed for a year on account of this sad event, and the whole family was invited by M. Narischkin’s elder brother Alexis to return to Moscow and reside during the year of mourning in his house. Under these circumstances, Natalie resolved to act for herself, and she was accordingly received into the Catholic Church on the 15th of August, although none of her family were made acquainted with the fact. She accompanied her brother and sisters to Moscow, where they met with the most affectionate reception from their uncle and their other relatives. Nothing occurred to make any disclosure on her part necessary, until the time came for all the members of the family to make their Easter communion. In Russia this religious act, and all the preparations for it, are performed with so much publicity that it was impossible for Natalie to escape from it without observation. All the members of the family received the communion together at the same Mass, with the single exception of Natalie, who was nevertheless, as usual, present with the others, and observed the sad and serious look with which her uncle regarded her, as she remained in her place while all the rest of his family approached the altar to receive the sacrament. She now felt that the time had come when concealment was no longer possible, and naturally feared that a severe trial awaited her. It turned out, however, quite differently from what she had expected.
After their return from Mass her uncle sent for her, and in a most kind and paternal manner remonstrated with her on her omission of so grave and sacred a duty as the fulfilment of the precept of Paschal communion, which he attributed to indifference and tepidity, demanding of her, in a most affectionate manner, the reason which had induced her to abstain from communion. He added, at the same time, that he would much rather see her a Roman Catholic than indifferent to the obligations of religion. Natalie had listened to him with downcast eyes, in silence and trepidation. At these last words—prompted, perhaps, by some secret suspicion that her residence abroad had actually been the occasion of a change in her religion, and spoken with evident emotion and sadness—she opened her heart, and gave her venerable uncle a full and unreserved account of her conversion and of all the motives which led her to leave the communion of the Greek Church. When she looked up timidly, at the close of her recital to await her uncle’s answer, she saw his eyes filled with tears and fixed upon her with an expression of tenderness which banished all fear from her heart, and left upon it an indelible impression of love and gratitude. He opened his arms to embrace her affectionately, and assured her of his protection and unalterable kindness. Her maternal uncle, Count Strogonoff, a man whose religious character was both ardent and severe, and who was a thorough Russian of the old type in all his principles and sentiments, when he was informed of the truth, acted towards her in precisely the same manner, and even took pains to distinguish her from her sisters by special marks of affection. All her nearest relatives were informed of what had occurred, but the strictest secrecy was enjoined in respect to all others, for reasons which are obvious without any explanation. The only great trial which Natalie had to encounter, now that she was relieved of the pain and anxiety of keeping her secret from her nearest relatives, was the privation of all opportunity of going to Catholic churches and receiving the sacraments. Under the circumstances this was a privation she was compelled to endure patiently, and during the year she passed at Moscow she was only able to make one short visit, in company with some young friends, to the French chapel, on Holy Thursday, which was three days after the memorable interview with her uncle.
At the expiration of the year of mourning the young Narischkins returned to Italy for the nuptials of Mary and Elizabeth, and Natalie’s uncle arranged for her permanent residence with the latter, in order that she might be free to practise her religion without any embarrassment to herself or her family. She accordingly bade a final farewell to Russia, and with her temporary sojourn in her native country the great trial of her life was also terminated. We can easily imagine with what joy she again revisited Italy, which had been the home of her childhood; and on the occasion of this return Madame Craven’s genius has inspired her to write one of her happiest and most beautiful passages, which we cannot refrain from translating, although without any hope of preserving the delicate aroma of the original.
“We do not believe there is a person in the world who has once lived in Italy who does not cherish in his inmost soul the desire of returning there once more, or feel, when he again looks upon its beautiful sky, that wherever his native land may be, he has really come back to his own true country. For its beauty belongs to us as much as to those whose eyes behold it from the day when they are first opened to the light in infancy. It is no more their peculiar possession than it is our own; for to both alike it is only an irradiation from that supreme and essential beauty which is our common heritage and assured patrimony. This is doubtless the reason why we can never see the faintest reflection of this splendor of the eternal beauty without experiencing a sensation which causes the heart to dilate with joy and at the same time to repose in the tranquil security of possession. It seems to us that attentive reflection on what passes within us will show that, whatever degree of admiration any object of this world may awaken in our minds, even if it approaches to ecstasy, it is very rarely the case that we feel a positive surprise. Even if one who had never seen the glorious light and splendor of a happy clime were suddenly transported from the icy regions of the polar circle to the charming shores of the Bay of Naples, there is a latent image in the depths of the human heart, the original of which external things are the copy, whose presence makes one feel, even at the first glance on the sublime spectacle of the outward world, that all belongs to him and exists within his soul.
“This reflection suggests another. We shall doubtless experience something similar to this when we escape from this sphere of shadows and images and emerge into the region of eternal reality. Certainly our hearts will then be opened to receive those unknown enjoyments 'which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive.’ Nevertheless, I think it is allowable to suppose that, as we shall see the poor human form clothed in Jesus Christ with all the glory of the divinity, so we shall also find the reality of all those shadows which in this lower world charm our eyes and fascinate our hearts. Happy will it then be for those who have not suffered themselves to be captivated by these shadows, when they are able to exclaim in a transport of ineffable happiness: 'Behold at last those objects too beautiful and too transitory to be loved on the earth by our souls, because they must either suffer the loss of these or be lost themselves! Here they are—real, substantial, enduring, transfigured, unfading! We have found all those things which we desired and sought for, and amid all these possessions is our eternal abode!’”
Natalie found a very pleasant home with her brother-in-law, the Baron de Petz, during the next three years. It does not appear from the narrative whether he was a Catholic or a Greek in religion. He was certainly a most kind and affectionate brother, and her sisters were always loving and considerate, so that no alienation ever separated the hearts of her near relatives from her own so long as they lived. We shall see presently how noble and tender was the conduct of her brother Alexander. And we anticipate the regular order of events in order to mention in this connection another near relative, Prince Demidoff, whose affection for Natalie was extraordinary, and who acted with singular and admirable generosity not only toward herself, after she had become a Sister of Charity, but also to other members of the same congregation. While he was residing in Italy he established a spacious hospital at his own expense, which he confided to the care of these religious. At Paris he authorized Sister Natalie to draw on him without limit, at her own discretion, for charitable purposes. It is extremely delightful to witness and record actions of this kind, so honorable to human nature, and showing what a high degree of intellectual and moral refinement, as well as how much of a truly Christian and Catholic spirit, is to be found among a certain class of the ancient Russian nobility. And what a contrast do they present to the ignoble persecutions, the mean and petty defamations, to which so many even of those who attempt to assume the guise of Catholics have descended in respect to converts in England and the United States. We do not forget, however, that there are many instances among ourselves of a similar conduct to that of the Narischkins, as there are doubtless others of an opposite kind in Russian families under similar circumstances.
Natalie Narischkin, in the midst of the splendors, gayeties, and most refined enjoyments of the world, during the period of her peaceful, happy youth, ere the severe trials of life had cast their shadow upon her spirit, had been pious, reserved, pearl-like in her purity of character, always aspiring after Christian perfection. After she had begun to participate in all the spiritual advantages thrown open to her by her Catholic profession, her distaste for the world and attraction for the spiritual life increased rapidly, and an inclination toward the religious state gradually matured into a certain and settled vocation. Her friends made some opposition for a time, though not so much as is frequently encountered in the bosom of pious Catholic families. Her brother Alexander examined carefully her reasons and motives, and, being convinced that she was acting with prudence and deliberation, gave his free consent and the promise of his assistance in carrying out her intention, accompanied by the singular request that she would leave the choice of an order to his decision. She had made no choice herself, and when her brother selected the Congregation of the Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, she was quite satisfied. In fact, she had a predilection for the Convent of the Rue de Bac in Paris, which had been one of her places of favorite resort in former years. Her brother discussed the whole matter with M. Aladel, a Lazarist priest of Paris, and Natalie conferred not only with him but with several other experienced directors, who concurred in approving her vocation as a Sister of Charity. Here, accordingly, she entered, in her twenty-eighth year, and here she worked and suffered, as one saint among a thousand others, in an institute where heroism is as common as the ordinary virtues are elsewhere, and sanctity is the universal rule. During her religious life, which had twenty-six years of duration, she was first the secretary of the superior-general, and afterwards the superior of a small community in the Faubourg St. Germain. She died in 1874.
The narrative of Natalie’s religious life, enriched as it is with copious extracts from her letters and numerous personal anecdotes, is interesting and edifying as it is presented in the pages of Madame Craven’s biography. No doubt an English translation will soon place it within the reach of all our readers; and as it is precisely just one of those histories which is spoiled by condensation, we will not attempt to give it in an abridged form. Leaving aside, therefore, all further personal details, we shall confine our attention to that one aspect of our subject which has the most general interest and importance—viz., the position and attitude of the members of the national church of Russia in reference to the Catholic Church. As an illustration of this topic we have presented the history of the conversion of a Russian lady of high birth and education—one specimen of a number of equally choice souls whom the Russian Church has produced but has not been able to retain, and who are, we trust, the precursors of all the people of their nation in returning to the bosom of Catholic unity. Although Natalie Narischkin had lived so very little in her own country, she was nevertheless an ardent and patriotic Russian in her sentiments, and of course, as a well-instructed and devout Catholic, had very much at heart the religious welfare of her own nation. Among all the illustrious Russian converts, Count Schouvaloff, who became a Barnabite monk, was the most zealous in promoting the great work of the reconciliation of the Russian Church to the Holy See. Madame Craven tells us how enthusiastic Natalie was in her interest in the cause which this good man consecrated by the oblation of his own life as a sacrifice for its success—a sacrifice which he offered in obedience to the counsel of Pius IX., and which was accepted by God.
“When Father Schouvaloff—who, like herself, was a Russian, a convert, and devoted to the religious life—had given a definite form to this desire, and had founded an association of prayers in aid of this object which all Catholics were invited to join, there was not a single person in the world who responded more fervently to this appeal than Sister Natalie. The desire of propagating the truth, natural in the case of all who have embraced it, is particularly strong in those who have come from the Greek Church. To see the fatal barrier which separates the Eastern from the Western Church fall down, and to hear henceforth these two communions designated only by one common name: The Church!—no one else can comprehend the ardor of this desire in the hearts of those Russians who are animated both by the love of the truth and the love of their country.
“While we are on this topic we cannot help remarking how surprising are the tentative advances toward union between the Greek Church and Protestantism which we have recently witnessed. Such an alliance the clear mind of Natalie, even before her conversion, rejected with repugnance as impossible and absurd. Does not, in fact, the most simple reflection suffice to demonstrate that by uniting herself to the Catholic Church the Greek Church would preserve the traditions of her venerable antiquity together with the august dogmas which she holds, and would, at the same time, in ceasing to be local and becoming universal, recover the power of expansion and evangelization which she has lost by her schismatical isolation? In this case she might be compared to a princess of high lineage regaining, by a return to the bosom of the family to which she belonged, the royal rank from which she had fallen. But, in truth, to make a union with Protestantism would be for her the worst of misalliances, for she would then resemble a princess marrying a parvenu and with the utmost levity renouncing all the rights of her high birth and illustrious descent.”
Some of our readers may find it difficult to understand the anomalous position in which the Russian Church stands, so completely different from that of any of our Western sects, and requiring only the one act necessary for its corporate reunion to the Catholic body for its rectification, and yet so completely severed from the true church in its actual state that it is not a branch, a limb, or any kind of part or member of the same, but only a sect, completely outside of the universal church. Some Catholics may suppose the Russian Church in a worse condition than it is in reality. They may not understand that its priesthood and sacraments are any better than those of the English or Scandinavian churches, which have an outward form of episcopal constitution. Or, if better informed on this head, they may ascribe to it heresy, and regard some of its differences of rite and discipline as vitiating essentially the Catholic order. On the other hand, these misapprehensions being set aside, and the likeness of the Russian Church to the Catholic Church clearly understood, they might find it difficult to perceive that essential difference which, as Madame Craven remarks with truth, is to most of the Russian laity invisible. Still more will a Protestant having a tincture of Catholic opinions and sentiments fail to see why a member of the Russian Church should be convinced of the imperative obligation of abjuring the Greek schism and passing over to the communion of the Roman Church.
The question of heresy is easily settled by the way of authority. We have only to inquire, therefore, whether the Holy See has ever condemned the adherents of the schism begun by Photius and renewed by Michael Cerularius, of heresy as well as schism, and whether the standard authors in theology consider them as heretics in view of their ecclesiastical position and in virtue of general principles, although no formal judgment has been pronounced by the Holy See. It is certain that no such formal sentence has ever been pronounced by the Holy See. The Nestorian and Monophysite sects of the East have been formally condemned as heretical. But the soi-disant Orthodox Church likewise condemns these and all other heretical sects condemned by the Roman Church before the time of the schism. At the Council of Florence the Greeks were not judged to have professed any heresy, the Council of Trent was specially careful to abstain from any such condemnation, and the Council of the Vatican equally refrained from it. The same is true of all the official pronouncements of the popes. In the exercise of practical discipline, when it is a question of reconciling Greeks, whether they are in holy orders or laymen, they are treated as schismatics, but not as heretics. Theologians also, in treating of the doctrine of the several national churches in communion with the schismatical patriarchate of Constantinople, which they hold in common as their profession of faith, regard it as orthodox, conformed to the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and consequently free from any mixture of heresy. The only doctrines in regard to which any one could suppose the Greek Church to be heretical are the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son, and the supreme, infallible authority of the Pope. The Greek Church has never, by any solemn, synodical act, denied the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son. The omission of the Filio-que from the Creed is not in itself equivalent to such a denial, and the Roman Church has never required the Orientals to insert it as a condition of communion. Neither has the Greek Church ever by any solemn act denied the supremacy and infallibility of the Pope. The liturgical books, and specifically those of the Russian Church, contain abundant testimonies to the Catholic doctrine on this head. The heretical doctrines of individuals, whether prelates, priests, or laymen, are therefore their own personal heresies, and not the doctrine of the public formularies of faith, which remain just what they were at the time of the separation. The only conciliar decrees of a dogmatic character which have been enacted since that time by a synod which could be regarded as representing the so-called Orthodox Church are those of the Synod of Bethlehem, in which the principal heresies of Protestantism are condemned. There is only one essential vice, therefore, in the constitution of the Russo-Greek Church which needs to be healed, and that is its state of rebellion against the See of Peter. The one act of abjuring the schism implies and involves in it the recognition of all the decrees of the Holy See and of œcumenical councils during the period which has elapsed since the rebellion of Photius, by virtue of the doctrine of the infallibility of the Catholic Church which the Greek Church professes.
Any Catholic can understand from this explanation how completely different is the position of the people of Russia who belong to their national church from that of the Protestants of Western Europe and the United States. They have the Catholic faith explicitly taught to them, and believed as firmly as it is by ourselves in all those things which relate to the great mysteries of religion and its practical duties and devotions. They hold implicitly, so long as they are in good faith, all that the Catholic Church believes and teaches, although they are ignorant of the full and complete doctrine of the centre of unity and chief source of authority in the church. They have bishops and priests whose ordination is valid, the sacrifice of the Mass, the seven sacraments, the fasts, feasts, ceremonies, and outward forms of worship which they had before the schism. In fact, as Mrs. Craven remarks, the difference between their church and the Catholic is invisible to the eyes of the majority, and, if they were to-day to be restored to their ancient union with the universal church, there would be no perceptible change in their customs. There are differences in discipline and ritual between the Latin and the various Oriental rites, but it is a fixed maxim of the Roman Church not to require the Eastern Christians to adopt the discipline and ritual of the Western church in matters which are not essential, when they are received into her communion.
These things being as they are, it becomes naturally somewhat difficult to those who have not carefully studied the question to understand why it is a strict obligation, and necessary to salvation, for a member of the Greek Church who discovers that it is in a state of schism to abjure its communion. We can see, in the case of Anglicans believing in nearly all Catholic doctrine so far as even to acknowledge the primacy of the pope and desire a corporate reunion with the Catholic Church, that, so long as they believe in the validity of their own orders and other sacraments, it is very hard for them to realize that they are not in the communion of the true church. They generally find their ground of security give way under their feet by their loss of confidence in the validity of their ordinations. But it is not easy to convince them that, apart from this essential defect in their church, and apart even from the question of its heretical doctrine, the mere fact of schism makes an ecclesiastical society, no matter how much it resembles a church in outward appearance, as really a mere sect as amputation makes the most perfect and beautiful hand a mere piece of dead matter. A mere collection of bishops, priests, and baptized persons, professing the true faith, administering and receiving the true sacraments, is not a portion of the Catholic Church, if the organic, constitutive principle of lawful mission and jurisdiction is wanting, which gives pastoral authority to the persons who possess the episcopal and sacerdotal character, and thus makes the collection of people under their rule a lawful society, under lawful pastors, and under the supreme rule of the Chief Pastor, who is the Vicar of Christ. It is not enough, therefore, for a person to profess the faith and receive the sacraments in order to keep fully the law of Christ. It is necessary to profess the faith in the external communion of the lawful pastors, and to receive from them, or priests whom they have authorized to minister within their jurisdiction, the sacraments. Bishops and priests who exercise their functions in a manner contrary to the law sin by doing so, and those who communicate in their unlawful acts also sin, and thus both parties profane the sacraments and incur the censures of the church. Nevertheless, if they act in invincible ignorance and good faith, they are excused from sin and escape the censure. And, in case of necessity, the church even dispenses from her ordinary laws. Any priest is authorized to administer sacraments in any place, to any person not manifestly unworthy, in case of necessity. So, also, one may receive the sacraments in a similar case from any priest, if there is nothing in the act which implies a direct or tacit participation in heresy, schism, or manifest profanation of sacred things.
The Russian clergy and people, we must suppose, are generally in good faith, and therefore innocent of any sin in respect to the schism of the national church. There is, therefore, no reason why they should not administer and receive the sacraments worthily, so as to receive their full spiritual benefit, and thus sustain and increase the living communion with the soul of the church and with Christ which was begun in them by baptism. The external irregularity of their ecclesiastical position cannot injure them spiritually when there is no sin in the inward disposition or intention. Moreover, it is morally and physically impossible for the Russian clergy and people, generally, to alter their position. They are, therefore, really placed in a necessity of administering and receiving the sacraments without any further and more direct authority from the Holy See than that which is virtually conceded to them on account of the necessities of their position. Since the church always exercises her power, even in inflicting censures and punishments, for edification and not for destruction, we may suppose that she tolerates the irregular and disorderly state into which they have been brought by the fault of their chief rulers, so long as it is out of their power to escape from it, and are not even aware that the irregularity exists.
It is plain, however, that every one who knows that the Russian hierarchy is destitute of ordinary and legitimate authority, and has the opportunity of resorting to the ministry of lawful Catholic pastors, is bound, under pain of incurring mortal sin and excommunication, to comply with this obligation. The excuse of ignorance and good faith is no more available after the law is made known. The reason of necessity ceases as soon as recourse is open to the authority which has a claim on obedience. The censures pronounced on the authors and wilful adherents of schism take effect as soon as one knowingly and wilfully participates in and sustains or countenances rebellion against the supreme authority of the Catholic Church.
The position of the Russian Church is utterly self-contradictory and untenable. By a special mercy of divine Providence it has been kept from coming to a general and clear consciousness of the fundamental heresy, which lies latent in the Byzantine pretence of equality to the Roman Church, from which the schism took its rise. The immobility which has characterized it, and to which the privation of all authority independent of the state has greatly contributed, has kept it from committing itself to any formal heresy. It has broken its connection, but it has not run off the track or fallen through a bridge. We cannot suppose that it will long remain stationary on the great road along which the march of events, the progress of history, is proceeding. It seems to be awaiting the propitious moment when, reunited to the source of spiritual power, it shall again move on in the line of true progress. When this event takes place, we may safely predict that the name of Natalie Narischkin will be honored in Russia together with that of Alexander Newski, the special patron of the imperial family; and that the empire will be filled with convents of the Daughters of Charity, the countrywomen and imitators of her who, more illustrious by her virtue than by her descent, was appropriately named “The Pearl of the Order.”
UP THE NILE.
III.
We had a letter of introduction to the Governor of Assouan from a person we had never seen. It came about in this way: Ali Murad, our consul at Thebes, sent by Ahmud a letter to his friend, the governor of Edfoo, asking him to give us a letter to his excellency at Assouan. This letter, worded in the usual extravagant style of the Orient, stated that the dahabeeáh Sitta Mariam contained a party of distinguished travellers who were in high favor at Cairo, and should everywhere be received with the greatest kindness and attention. His excellency was a fine-looking negro, well dressed in European style, patent-leather boots, fancy cane. I looked at first for eye-glasses, but on second thought concluded that this was too much to expect from him. He came on board to visit us, accompanied by his secretaries and servants, very pompous and haughty in his bearing towards the crew, polite—nay, almost obsequious—to us. Head sheik of the cataracts is on board; a deal of talking by every one at the same time; no one listening; a lull; governor lights a fresh cigar; secretaries, servants, and crew roll cigarettes; Reis Mohammed appears with the certificate of tonnage. There is no fear of obliteration or erasure in this; no danger of wearing out or the characters fading by lapse of time. It might have belonged to the pleasure barge of antiquity-hidden Menes or one of the corn-boats of the Hyksos. It was a bar of solid iron three inches wide, four long, and half an inch in thickness. Deeply-cut figures showed the boat to be of 380 ardebs burden. An agreement was finally entered into: Ahmud was to pay the sheik nine pounds and ten shillings to take the boat up and down the cataracts, exclusive of backsheesh. Out of this the governor received two pounds and ten shillings as his commission. This making arrangements for ascending the cataracts is the most serious drawback to the pleasure of a Nile voyage. True, the dragoman undertakes this, but the howadjii are present and witnesses of the altercations, the loud talking, and the great noise and confusion attendant upon it. We being such distinguished travellers on paper, and the governor being impressed with that fact, our contract was entered into with less confusion than is usually incident to this arrangement. Four sheiks or chiefs of the cataract control the proceedings. This office is hereditary, and formerly they were despotic in the exercise of their power. Twenty English or American sailors could take a boat up the cataract in one-third the time it took nearly two hundred natives to perform that office for us. But no dragoman would dare incur the enmity of these powerful sheiks by attempting the ascent without their permission. Their power is somewhat curtailed now by orders from the viceroy, so that instead of, as heretofore, extorting as much as possible from the frightened dragoman, their prices are regulated by a fixed tariff—so much for every hundred ardebs.
We are now fairly started on the ascent; it is early in the morning, and a light breeze is blowing from the north. The head sheik is on board. What an appropriate name he has! Surely his father was a prophet and foresaw the future life of his son—Mohammed Nogood! Not the slightest particle of good did he do. He squatted on a mat, smoked his pipe, and took no heed of what passed around him. Old Nogood, as we called him, was with us for three days, and during that time he never opened his mouth unless to grumble, and never raised his hand except to remove the pipe from his mouth, being too lazy even to light it; a sailor performed that onerous duty for him.
We sailed through narrow, tortuous channels against a rapid stream to the island of Sheyál at the foot of the first bab or gate. The first cataract, as it is termed, is a series of five short rapids on the eastern shore, where the ascent is made, and one long and one short one on the western shore. These rapids are called gates. We stopped at the foot of the first. Three finely-built Nubians, in puris naturalibus, save turbans on their heads, came sailing down the turbulent and surging waters astride of logs. Borne on with great velocity, they seize hold of our boat as they reach it, in a moment are on deck, their heads bare, the turbans girded around their loins. “Backsheesh, howadjii!” They deserve it for this feat. It made the howadjii shudder to see them in these raging waters. An impromptu row now springs up between our pilot and old Nogood. The boat is aground, and more help is needed to push it off. Here is the dialogue, as translated by Ahmud:
Pilot (old man with gray whiskers, costume soiled and tattered coffee-bag): “O Mohammed Nogood! send some of your people to move the boat.”
Old Nogood: “O pilot, you jack-ass! why do you not attend to the helm and mind your business?”
Intense excitement on board, during which the pilot swears by Allah and the Prophet that he will not stay on the boat after such an insult, and goes off in high dudgeon. The howadjii, having locked up everything portable below stairs, are seated on the quarter-deck enjoying the scene in a mild manner, and waiting to see what will come next. The prospects of being kept here for an indefinite time are delightful. The head sheik is angry and the pilot has disappeared. But the silver lining of the dark cloud soon shines out. The second sheik takes command, and Nogood’s son comes aboard as pilot—very unlike his father, a hard worker and a quiet sort of man. We are ready to start now, but where are the men to pull us up? None can be seen. The river is here filled with broken and disjointed rocks—small islets. A great fall was here once, no doubt; hence the rapids now. The sheik throws two handfuls of sand in the air. Immediately from all sides, like the warriors of Roderick Dhu, rise the Shellallee. From behind every rock come forth a score or more. Three long ropes are made fast to the boat. A hundred men take hold of two; the third is turned two or three times around a rock, the end being held by a dozen men. This rope is gradually tightened as the boat moves up, to hold it in case the others should break. By the united help of the wind and this struggling mass of naked humanity we move slowly up the first gate, not ten yards long. In the same manner we pass the second and third gates. Our friends the log-riders are useful to us now. Plunging into the boiling, seething waters, that rush with such force it seems impossible for man to struggle against them, they make ropes fast to this rock; now they detach them, and, taking the end between their teeth, swim to another and make fast again. Picture to yourself such a scene, if you can. I cannot describe it satisfactorily to myself. Hear, if you can, nearly two hundred men all shouting at the same time, giving orders, suggesting means, no one listening, no one obeying, each acting for himself—Old Nogood alone seated quietly on the deck smoking his pipe; our boat possessed by four score of these black Shellallee, half-naked, running to and fro, shouting and yelling, but doing nothing to help us. Pandemonium itself could scarce furnish such a scene of confusion. Babel was a tower of silence compared with this discord. After passing the third gate we sailed into a quiet haven and moored there for the night. It was only three P.M. But they are five-hour men here, commencing work at ten and stopping at three. We were kept waiting all the next day, as two other boats were ahead of us, and they took them up first. On the third morning we left our moorings and sailed under a fresh breeze about one hundred yards up the stream to the fourth gate. The fourth and fifth are in reality but one continuous rapid; but as a stoppage is made when half-way up to readjust the ropes, the natives divide it into two gates. The water rushes here with great rapidity—more so than in the other gates, as these are narrower. A stout rope was made fast to the cross-beams of the deck on the starboard bow, and the other end carried around a rock some distance off. Owing to some mistake there was no rope on the port side. The men were pulling on a rope carried directly ahead, when it suddenly parted; the boat swung around to starboard and struck a rock with great force, knocking off several planks six inches thick and seven feet long. They were picked up by the felluka, which floated around promiscuously, manned by five small boys. These planks were carved in scroll-work, and painted in bright colors. Reis Mohammed had carefully bound straw around them before starting, so that they might not even be scratched. He clenched his teeth and swore like a trooper; the only words intelligible to us were “Allah,” “Merkeb,” “Mohammed.” Reis Mohammed Hassan, Nogood’s successor, was standing on the awning piled up on the front of the quarter-deck. Every one else began to shout, gesticulate, and run around to no purpose; but he, shouting while he undressed, threw off his gown and turban, and, with his drawers on, jumped overboard, swam to a rock on the port side, and made fast a rope. A Nubian, attired in a girdle, now waded out into the rapid as far as he was able, and a rope was thrown him from the rock against which the boat rested. After three attempts he caught it and made it fast some distance ahead. A fourth rope was carried ashore and seized hold of by sixty men. We were then pulled into a narrow pass, through which the water dashed like a mill-race, and so narrow that the boat grazed the rocks on either side. For a moment we remained stationary; the next the strong wind and the efforts of the men overcame the force of the current, and we moved slowly on. Shortly after we reached the head of the rapids, the ropes were withdrawn, the Nubians left us, and we sailed gallantly up to Philæ the beautiful.
We are now in Nubia, among a different race of people. We have passed the cataract. Hear the concise account given by the father of travellers concerning this ascent: “I went as far as Elephantine,” he says, “and beyond that obtained information from hearsay. As one ascends the river above the city of Elephantine the country is steep; here, therefore, it is necessary to attach a rope on both sides of a boat as one does with an ox in a plough, and so proceed; but if the rope should happen to break, the boat is carried away by the force of the stream.” This land of Cosh is very different in appearance from the one we have just left. The hills are mostly of granite and sandstone, and they approach nearer the river. In some parts the mere sloping bank, not more than ten feet, can be cultivated in a perfectly straight line; on its top the golden sands meet the growing crops. The river is filled with sunken rocks. Had we struck here, it might have been serious, unlike running on the sand-banks in the lower country. Reis Dab, our new pilot, knew the river well and kept a sharp lookout; so on we sailed day after day without stopping. There are no printed newspapers along the Nile, but the natives have a cheap, primitive method of journalism. They need no expensive press, no reporters to search far and wide for news. As soon as another boat appears in sight all is excitement on board. When we come within hailing distance the journals are exchanged as follows: Far away over the waters comes a voice from the approaching boat: “How are you all? Who are you? All well?”
“We are dahabeeáh Sitta Mariam, Father H—— and party on board. Who are you?”
“How is Mohammed? Fatima has a sore foot. Ali has gone up the river on a corn-boat.” And thus they go on telling all the news. “How many boats up the river? What is going on further down?” The shouting is kept up until the boat passes out of hearing. When we reached Syria, in April, our dragoman there, who had never been in Egypt, knew all about our movements on the Nile. They were communicated from one to another simply by word of mouth, and finally reached his ears.
It is a bright, beautiful moonlight evening. The glittering constellations are reflected deep down in the calm waters beneath us, so distinctly that they seem to have fallen there. Not a ripple disturbs the surface of the water, scarce a breath the stillness of the air. It is a gala night. Ahmud has distributed candles and hasheesh to the crew. They have illuminated the deck and are playing, singing, and dancing. Reis Ahmud, with a sober face, beats the drum, his whole soul seemingly concerned in his occupation. Abiad has the tamborine, a pretty one, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. He has been smoking hasheesh—his favorite pastime. His eyes are closed, his head sways backwards and forwards as he sings; he seems to pour out his very life’s spirit in the song. The rest of the crew group around, squatted on the deck, joining in the chorus. Reis Mohammed sits apart; he is fishing. Ahmud, Ali, Ibrahim, and the Nubian pilot look on. Now they become excited; the hasheesh is working on them. Louder, still louder the singing. Abiad surely will not live long; he must be in Paradise now. His soul is going out piece by piece from his lips. The funny little old cook jumps up, puts a wooden spoon in his belt for a pistol, some sugar-cane stalks for swords and daggers. He is a Bedouin. More uproarious the shouting, intermingled with catcalls. He dances the war-dance of the nomadic sons of the desert. The howadjii have come out now; they are interested in this strange, picturesque scene. The excitement is at its height. A lighted candle is placed upon a small stick and put in the river; the current carries it down still burning. There is not wind enough to blow out the flame, and as it floats onward it looks like some will-o’-the-wisp or fairy spirit of the waters reposing serenely on their bosom. The second stage of the hasheesh now comes on; one by one they quiet down. Soon Abiad falls asleep; some of the others follow; a strange stillness succeeds this hilarious uproar. To-morrow will come the reaction, and for a few days they will do but little work.
We have had great trouble to keep our birds. We have now preserved some seventy specimens, from the small black chat to the large crane. The rats will carry them off. So now we suspend them from the centre of the ceiling. The same rat never carries away two birds. I cannot identify each particular rat, and yet I am morally certain of the truth of the above proposition. The skin, when taken off the bird, is covered on the inside with a heavy coating of arsenical soap containing a large amount of arsenic, enough to cut short the career of at least one rat. So if they did carry off our birds, we had the satisfaction of knowing that the birds carried them off in turn. We have been very anxious to kill a crocodile; they are very scarce below the first cataract, but as soon as we passed Philæ we promulgated the following general offer: To the first man who points out a crocodile to any of the howadjii we will give a half-sovereign. If the pilot, or any one in his stead, brings us within reasonable shooting distance, we will present him with one pound; if we kill and secure the crocodile, we will make presents all around. This offer kept them on the alert. Every eye was strained to see the first crocodile—and it takes a practised eye to discern one; for to the uninitiated they appear to be logs of wood lying on the sand. Early on the morning of January 15 the pilot came to us with eyes aglow and pointed out a timsah (crocodile). We were tied up on the west bank, and the reptile was lying on a sand-bank near the eastern shore. There was considerable difference of opinion among the crew, many of them insisting that it was not a timsah. “But,” asks the pilot, “what is it, then? There are no rocks on the sand-banks; it can scarcely be a log, for these are rarely met with in this part of the river.” A council of war was held, and a plan of attack was determined on. Mr. S—— and I, with Ali, the pilot, and four sailors, crossed the river to the sand-bank about half a mile below the spot where slept the timsah in blissful unconsciousness of the fate awaiting him. Bent almost to the ground, we crawled cautiously along. When we had proceeded about a quarter of a mile we found, to our disgust, that the bank upon which we were was separated from the bank on which lay the timsah by twenty yards of water of some depth. The pilot now asked us to fire, but the distance was too great, and we began to be suspicious. The timsah did not move; it was almost too quiet to be real. Mr. S—— and I placed ourselves in the bow of the boat, covered the object with our double-barrelled guns, and ordered the sailors to pull directly towards it. For a few moments the excitement was intense. At the first movement of the timsah four bullets would have shot forth on their death-errand. Nearer and nearer we came. A moment more, and Abiad jumps from the boat, and with a loud shout rushes up the bank and catches hold of the supposed timsah. “Come here, O Reis Dab!” cried he, “and skin your timsah. Stop, I will do it for you.” And he holds up to our astonished eyes a sheepskin. How crestfallen was the pilot, and how the others joked him! It was a chicken-coop covered with a sheepskin, containing three putrid chickens, which had fallen from some dahabeeáh, and, carried by the current on the bank, became embedded there, and was left high and dry when the waters receded.
We have a number of pets on board: a live turtle, a soft-shelled fellow, in color like the mud of its own Nile; a hawk who does not reciprocate our friendship, and snaps at us when we go near him; six chameleons—what strange creatures these are! We have had some twenty of them at different times. As far as we could observe, they ate nothing, and yet throve well as long as we were in their own latitudes. As we returned towards the north they died one after the other. The chameleon is formed somewhat like a lizard, about eight inches in length. Their feet look like a mittened hand—that is to say, a large toe corresponds to the thumb, and the rest of the foot, being solid, appears like the hand enclosed in a mitten. They have very large heads compared with their bodies, and eyes like a frog. They change their color, and, under my own observation, made the changes from light green to yellow, black, brown, blue, and dark green. We would tease them sometimes, and, when irritated, yellow spots would appear over their bodies, and they would try to bite us as we placed our fingers in their large mouths. Their favorite pastime was to climb to the top of a palm branch fastened in the deck; here the first one would remain. The second would hang from the tail of the first, and the third support himself from the second in the same manner. In this position they would remain for hours. If another one wanted to reach the top of the branch, he would crawl deliberately up the backs of the others, who regarded this conversion of themselves into public highways with perfect indifference. Sometimes one of them would roam away and be lost for a day or two, and then be accidentally found in the centre of a basket of tomatoes or on the summit of the main-yard.
On January 17 I strolled into a small village. The houses consisted of four walls of sun-dried clay with a small opening for a doorway; some few had palm branches stretched from wall to wall—apologies for roofs. As I walked on I met a group of young girls; one was reclining on the ground, while the others were dressing her hair. This operation is a very tedious one, and is not repeated oftener than once a month. The hair, which falls to the shoulders, is twisted into numerous braids, the ends of which are fastened with small balls of mud; and to complete the toilet oil is poured over the head. The hair being black and coarse, and the oil giving it a glossy appearance, it presents the effect of braided black tape. Although many of these girls had beautiful eyes and handsome features, yet the howadjii never cared to approach too near them; for the oil runs down in little streams from the crown of their heads to their feet, and their faces appear as if polished with the best French varnish. Our young Nubian cook left us here. This is his home, and he will remain here until we return. He is only twenty years of age, and has not seen his wife for three years. So he takes out of the hold some bracelets, a dozen or two made of buffalo horn, all for his wife, and she will wear them all at the same time, half on each arm. How her eyes will brighten when she sees those bright tin pots and those robes, green, yellow, blue! Surely Suleymán must love his dark-eyed, oily-faced wife. From Assouan to Wady Sabooa, about one hundred miles, no Arabic is spoken. Thence to Wady Halfa it is spoken in many towns. When we pass through a town the whole population turn out en masse, preceded by a leader, who carries on his shoulder the town gun, an old flint-lock musket, generally marked Dublin Castle, carried, mayhap, at Yorktown or Brandywine. A barrel of great length is secured to the stock by six or seven brass bands. Powder is scarce, and the first demand—the gun being put forward to show the need—is always the same: “Barood ta howadjii” (Powder, O howadjii!) We used cartridges altogether, and sometimes, when they were particularly green, we imposed upon them in this way:
Scene, the river-bank. Howadjii has just fired and brought down a bird. Large numbers of Nubians surround him. Gunman comes forward: “Barood ta howadjii.” “Mafish barood ta Wallud” (I have no powder, O boy!) “See these green boxes” (showing cartridges). Wallud looks attentively at them. “Inside each is an afreet [spirit or devil]; we put this in the end of the gun, point it at the bird, 'Imshee y afreet’ (Go, O spirit!), then off he flies and kills the bird.” This ruse was successful two or three times; they looked with awe upon the green boxes, and made no further demands. Often, however, a shout of derision followed this recital. They knew what cartridges were as well as we did. Reis Ahmud pointed out the first real timsah, and received the promised half-sovereign.
On January 19, 1874, at three P.M., we made fast beneath the ever-open eyes of the giant guardians of rock-hewn Ipsamboul. To my mind Ipsamboul, or Aboo-Simbel, is the most interesting temple on the Nile, not even excepting majestic Karnak; for most of the other temples are built in the same manner in which the edifices of the world have been constructed from the earliest ages down to the present time, by stones cut and squared, placed one upon another and held together by clamps, cement, or other means. True, the style and shape in which these stones are cut and arranged differ very much in Egypt and in Greece, in ancient and in modern times; but the taking of numbers of small pieces, and, by joining them together, forming a whole, is common to them all. Aboo-Simbel is not constructed in this way. The side of the mountain facing the river was cut to form a right angle with the surface of the plain, and made smooth and even as a wall, save some projections purposely left at regular distances, and which afterwards were shaped into gigantic figures of victorious Rameses; a small hole was pierced into this surface a few feet above the ground; it was made larger, and carried in further and further full two hundred feet, its roof seemingly upheld by Osiride columns. A similar gallery was cut on either side of this main one. Transverse galleries crossed these, leading to rooms ten in number, and all this cut out of the solid rock, no cement, no clamps, not a joint anywhere—a huge monolithic temple. The inside of the roof is perfectly regular in its lines, with a smooth, even surface; the outside is the rugged mountain top. Surely this was the way to build for immortality.
This style of building, although rare, is not confined to Egypt alone, but was most probably copied from it. I have since seen it in the Brahmin caves of Elephanta in Bombay harbor, and on a small scale in the tombs of the Valley of Josaphat. The temple faces the river and stands close to the bank. As we approach we are struck by the magnitude of the four colossal figures of Rameses II. They are seated on thrones, and the faces that remain are quite expressive. The height without the pedestal is sixty-six feet; the forefinger is three feet in length. Father H——, Madam, and I seated ourselves comfortably on the big toe, and, as I looked upwards into that gigantic face, I thought of the myriads of events, marking epochs of time, that had happened in the great world outside since first the sculptor’s hand had changed the rugged mountain side into these semblances of their warrior-king. The overturner of his dynasty, the illustrious Sesac, had led the victorious Egyptians into the very heart of the Holy City, and carried off from the Temple the golden shields which Solomon had there hung up. Cambyses had marched with thundering tread, laying waste on every hand with fire and sword from Pelusium to Thebes, making this once mighty kingdom a province of far-off Persia. Greece rose from a handful of half-savage shepherds to be the focus of intellect, art, and science, around which clustered the shining lights of the world. Alexander overran the whole of Western Asia, and established in the Delta his mighty race of Macedonian emperors. Rome was founded, sat on her seven hills the proud mistress of the world, fell, and was swallowed up in the rush of succeeding generations. Christianity, starting from its humble Judean home, spread from sea to sea, from the peasant’s hut to the royal palace, revolutionized the world, civilized nations, and, encircling the globe, led back its proselytes to unfold its sacred truths to the descendants of its apostles. Mohammedanism carried its bloody and relentless arms over the vast plains of Asia, through the fruitful valley of the Nile, to the centre of Continental Europe, and was driven back, tottering and gradually receding, to its Eastern cradle. The great republics of the middle ages lived their short span of power, and were lost in the mighty empires that absorbed them. A new world was discovered, and new governments founded therein. And during all this, unshaken by war or tempest, unmoved by change or revolution, these giant figures gazed with never-closing eye upon the swift-flowing river at their feet. Those who give themselves the trouble to inform the world that a perfectly unknown person has visited a monument, and that that unknown person has mutilated it by inscribing his name thereon—a reprehensible practice unfortunately so common in Egypt—may study here the earliest known inscription of this kind. On the leg of one of the figures is cut in rude characters the following inscription in Greek: “King Psamatichus having come to Elephantine, those that were with Psamatichus, the son of Theocles, wrote this. They sailed and came to above Kerkis, to where the river rises ... the Egyptian Amasis. The writer was Damearchon, the son of Amoebichus, and Pelephus, the son of Udamus.” This was written at least six hundred and fifty years before Christ, and the scribblers, desirous of cheap notoriety, are as unknown as their numerous followers who now disfigure the monuments of the world.
Over the entrance is a statue of the god Ra (Sun), to whom Rameses offers a figure of truth. We enter a grand hall supported by eight Osiride pillars, pass through it to a second of four square pillars which leads to the adytum. A number of small chambers are found on both sides of the main hall, and the interior of the walls is covered with intaglio figures and hieroglyphics. At the end of the adytum are four figures in high relief. There is but one opening to the temple—the entrance door—through which alone light can enter. As the first rays of the morning sun were peeping over the Arabian hills, we climbed the steep bank and entered the temple. A flood of golden light poured in, searching every corner, lighting up the figures at the end of the adytum full two hundred feet from the entrance. It seemed as though mighty Ra, as each morn he rose to shower his beneficence upon the world, looked first with soul-melting tenderness upon the home where he would love to linger; slowly he moves on, and with a last fond, longing look he leaves it in darkness till he return next morn. Bats swarm now in its gloomy chambers, and dispute the right of entrance with the howadjii. Alongside the large temple is a smaller one of the same description. A night or two after this we had an altercation on board wherein Reis Mohammed met his match. It was about nine o’clock on a beautiful moonlight night. We were sailing before a light breeze, when suddenly the boat struck a rock. Reis Mohammed winced as though it were himself grating on the rock, and, rushing up to the Nubian pilot who was at the helm, swore by Allah that he would beat him with a stick. The pilot was not at all intimidated. He said in a quiet way that he was sorry, but reminded the irate captain that he was now in his—the pilot’s—country, and that if he struck him he would call out to his people on the bank, who would come aboard and kill the captain. This ended the affair. On January 22 Ahmud brought a beautiful little gazelle on board, for Madam to play with, as he said. She named it Saiida, and it soon became a great favorite with us all. At four P.M. of the same day we reached our destination and tied up at Wady Halfa, a long-stretched-out line of mud-built houses on the east bank. We had travelled seven hundred and ninety-eight miles in forty-one days, including stoppages. A two hours’ donkey-ride over the sands of the desert, and we reached the Ultima Thule of Nile travellers—the rock of Abooseer, overlooking the second cataract. This is much more wild, rapid, and turbulent than the first, and, excepting when the Nile is at its greatest height, is impassable. Almost every traveller who has been here has left his mark upon this rock—a custom which is to be approved here; for no beauty is defaced, but a register of travellers is kept which possesses interest to their friends who may subsequently visit this place. There were six dahabeeáhs there on our arrival, four of them flying the United States flag. We made our presents to the men. They brought us in safety up the Nile; will they do the same going down? So we gave Reis Mohammed one pound, Reis Ahmud ten shillings, one pound each to Ali, Ibrahim, and the cook; and two pounds and ten shillings to be divided among the crew. While we were lying at Wady Halfa the crew prepared the boat for the downward voyage. They took down the trinkeet or large yard from the foremast, and placed in its stead the smaller one from the stern. There are three modes of progression in descending. If there be no wind at all, the men row, five oars on each side; but when the surface of the stream is ruffled by the slightest breath of wind, the men immediately stop rowing, and the boat drifts down with the current. If the wind blow from the south—which is very unusual during the winter—we sail, using, however, only the small balakoom, swung, as I have said, from the mainmast. Some of the planks of the deck are taken up, and an inclined plane made by resting one end of a plank against the cross-beams on a level with the floor of the deck, and the other touching the bottom of the hold. In rowing the men start from the top of this inclined plane, and, walking backwards down it, make five distinct movements in each stroke. As their feet touch the hold they sit down and pull out the stroke.
On January 25, at one in the morning, we left Wady Halfa on the homeward voyage. Ahmud requested us to permit him to bring a slave on the boat. He told us that he had no children, and that he had seen a very fine little boy of nine years whom he could purchase for seventy dollars. His request was refused. We spent an hour or more one beautiful moonlight night seated on the sand beneath the colossi of Aboo-Simbel. We engaged a celebrated hunter to assist us in crocodile-hunting—Abd-el-Kerim, slave of the god, a Nubian with a huge flat nose. The dress of this man of prowess was not elaborate, consisting of a skull-cap and a pair of drawers. He carried the flint-lock musket which I have before described. The lock was carefully bound up in a piece of cloth. We moored the dahabeeáh on the west bank about four miles below Aboo-Simbel. We then rowed about a mile up the river in the small boat, and landed on a sand-bank. Abd-el-Kerim constructed a crocodile of sand—head, tail, legs, and all. We had laid a systematic plan of attack. At sunrise the next morning we were to conceal ourselves behind the sand timsah and wait the coming of the natural ones, thinking that they would take our sand-constructed reptile for one of the family, and go quietly asleep alongside of it. I rose before the sun the next morning, but Kerim did not make his appearance until eight o’clock—he called it sunrise—when the sun was pretty well up in the heavens, and the day began to grow warm. As I stood on the forecastle waiting for him, two Polish dahabeeáhs hove in sight. I knew the party on board; they were distinguished naturalists who were collecting specimens for the museum at Warsaw. They hunted in the most thoroughly systematic manner. The young count, who was not as deeply engaged in the study of natural history as the others, spent an evening with us a week or two afterward, and told us a very amusing story about the rest of the party. They were anxious to secure a certain species of bird. After consulting their books and putting together the general knowledge they possessed concerning the habits of this bird, they established as a positive fact that the said bird would appear on the banks of the Nile at ten o’clock to perform his morning ablutions. So at half-past nine they went out to meet him, but, to their intense astonishment, he did not appear until half-past eleven—overslept himself, no doubt, not being aware of the distinguished company awaiting him. They have been in a great state of excitement ever since, said our young friend, endeavoring to study out the cause of this strange proceeding, as they termed it, of the bird being one hour and a half behind time. As I watched the boats came on, and our sand timsah caught the eye of their dragoman. He rushed down-stairs, woke up the howadjii, who soon appeared on deck. Telescopes were levelled, and, having satisfied themselves that it was a crocodile, they jumped into the small boat and made straight for it. Two of them were in the bow with their rifles cocked covering the timsah. The greatest care and caution were observed. Only a small portion of the heads of the men were visible above the gunwale, and occasionally I could see the dragoman wave his hand as a signal of caution. Finally they stepped on the bank, cautiously approached, saw the deception, and in quick haste retired in evident disgust. I enjoyed this scene all the more as it partially recompensed me for the failure of my first attempt at shooting a crocodile.
About half-past eight Kerim and I concealed ourselves behind the sand timsah, lying flat on our backs. Besides his old flint-lock, which would do good service, we had two double-barrelled guns loaded with heavy balls, and a six-barrelled revolver. I lay in this position for two hours, not even daring to indulge in a cough, which I was sorely tried to repress, and even breathing as quietly as possible. Kerim touched me and told me to peep over the back of the timsah; I did so, and saw ten crocodiles, some swimming in the water and others on the banks, but none near enough to shoot at. I then turned on my face and lay down again. Almost immediately an enormous crocodile stepped out of the water on the bank where we were, within ten feet of us, but seemed to be frightened at something and immediately plunged in again. About two o’clock Kerim turned over, and in so doing spied a flask protruding from my pocket. He took it out, offered it to me, and said, “Take a drink!”—a delicate hint that he wanted some himself. He did not refuse when I offered it, but, filling the cup with twice as much as an ordinary drink, he swallowed it down, rolled his eyes, and ejaculated, “Taib” (good). We found it would be of no avail to wait longer here, so we called the felluka and rowed very quietly a short distance down the stream to a bank upon which two timsahs were lying asleep; at the other end were some rocks. We crept over the rocks until we reached the one nearest the reptiles. At least one hundred yards still separated us from them. Resting my gun on a rock, I took careful aim, fired, and saw the ball strike the side of one of the crocodiles; but its only effect was to hurry him into the river, otherwise he paid no attention to it. We concluded to give up crocodile-hunting now, so we sailed on. At one point a little below this I counted thirty-eight sawagi in sight at one time. These sawagi (singular sagéar) are to Nubia what the shawadeefs are to Egypt. They are of Persian origin, and consist of an endless chain, to which are attached buckets made of burnt clay. The chain passes over a wheel at the top, which is made to revolve by another wheel driven around by buffaloes. These wheels are of wood and never greased. Their creaking and straining are music to the owner’s ears, who in some instances will travel many thousand miles riding the buffaloes round the well-worn circle of their own loved sagéar.
LETTERS OF A YOUNG IRISHWOMAN TO HER SISTER.
FROM THE FRENCH.
July 28, 1869.
Lord William is in England, and baby Emmanuel in vain asks for “papa.” What a beautiful child he is! My Guy is very handsome also, and I am proud of him. Johanna yields up to me all her prerogatives, and, were it not that he resembles Paul, I could persuade myself that he is quite my own, my dear godson.
Berthe intends to go to Lourdes, to obtain from Mary Immaculate the cure of her daughter. Poor mother! she deceives herself; the child cannot remain in this world, and the day approaches when we shall say, Yesterday the bird was in the cage, but is now flown hence! This morning Anna and the sick girl were leaning over my balcony, looking at the blue sky, over which light clouds were flying. “How beautiful the sky is!” said Anna. “Very sweet, very beautiful, very good,” answered Picciola, joining her hands. “The beauties of nature are admirable, but—” “Kiss me, dear, and don’t look up to heaven in that way; one would think you were going there!” “The truth is that I shall go soon; dear Anna, pray God to comfort my mother!” Anna flew into the room: “Madame, O madame! is this true that Madeleine is telling me?” And she was sobbing. Picciola covered her with kisses, saying: “Why will no one listen when I speak of my happiness?” When Anna was more calm I sent her to her mother, and said to my darling: “Then let us talk about heaven together.” “But, aunt, it grieves you also. Yet I, although the pain of those I love goes to my heart—I feel in myself an indescribable gladness. Oh! if you knew how I thirst for heaven.” “And who tells you that you are going to leave us, dear child? Our Lady of Lourdes will cure you.” “If you love me, do not ask me this; I must not be cured,” she murmured, with a sort of prayerful expression. What do you think about this child, dear Kate?
Our thoughts are much taken up, as you may imagine, with the Council and with Ireland. Adrien has read to us from a goodly folio, come from the Thebaid of our saint, the most sinister predictions with reference to the present time.
Good-by for a little while; I slip this note into Margaret’s envelope.
August 1, 1869.
St. Francis of Sales used to say: “People ask for secrets that they may advance in perfection; for my own part, I know of only one: to love God above all things, and my neighbor as myself.” And Bossuet, that other great master of the spiritual life, said: “Give all to God, search to the very depths, empty your heart for God; he will know very well how to employ and to fill it.” This is what Gertrude has done, who just now quoted these two thoughts to console me. Alas! yes, I cannot resign myself to see her depart, this enchanting soul, so worthy of love. “Remember,” Gertrude said to me, “that God undertakes to give back everything to those who have given him all. I perceive many sacrifices for you, dear Georgina; be worthy of God’s favors, for suffering is one of these.” And she quitted me. She lives so near to God that every word she utters seems to me an oracle, and now I am afraid. O poor soul!—a reed bending to every wind.
“Turn thee to Him who comforts and who heals.” Help me, dear Kate! René, Margaret, and Marcella agree in diverting my attention, but the blow has been given! O my God! If a whole family might but enter heaven all at the same time! if there were no tears of departure! I communicated this morning, and promised our adorable Jesus in the Blessed Eucharist to sacrifice my heart to him.
Berthe, Raoul, and Picciola set out to-morrow for Lourdes; we have not ventured to dissuade the poor mother from this idea. I had a foolish longing to follow them, but I saw in this a first sacrifice, and offered it to obtain courage. If, however, Mary would be pleased to cure her! They will make a novena there, and not return until the 16th. What a long time without seeing her!
Our country neighbor has installed himself, and yesterday paid us his first visit. My mother gave him a more than amiable reception. We all thanked him for the care with which he had attended Anna, who threw her arms round his neck with the greatest simplicity. Marcella replied gracefully to the civilities of the good doctor, who accepted an invitation to dinner. My mother finds him very well bred. He is fifty years of age, very tall, with an open and expressive countenance, most extensive learning, skill, wit, fortune, and above all faith; he is thus in every way worthy of my friend. René has explained this to me, and has ended by requesting me to favor this marriage.
Margaret, on leaving me this evening, whispered in my ear: “Dear, will our fair Roman be insensible? The aspirant belongs to the very first quality of nature’s noblemen.”
Good-by, dear Kate; pray much!
August 6, 1869.
Picciola is at this moment at the miraculous Grotto. Impossible to turn my thoughts away from this child; I see her everywhere. Nevertheless, I cannot complain of any want of distractions; we are out continually. Three days ago M. de Verlhiac (the doctor) gave us a princely reception in his divor. What life! what gayety! Marcella is very pensive and seeks to be alone. Margaret raves about the doctor, and will have him at all our parties; Anna can no longer do without him, my mother likes his conversation, the gentlemen seize upon the slightest pretext for going to the Blue Nest—the name given by Margaret to the dismantled manor of M. de V. You see, dear Kate, all is for the best. Your advice is not, however, useless to me. Oh! how well you have realized what Marcella is to me. But I am not so selfish as to place my affection in the way of her happiness, and I shall know how to make the sacrifice. M. de V. requested an interview with me yesterday. I had remained alone with my mother, who feared to take so long a drive, and it was in her presence that I received our new neighbor. He appeared greatly embarrassed—he, who is so fearless! At last, after a great deal of circumlocution, he related how he had become acquainted with our dear Italians; how much he felt interested in the pretty invalid, whom he had attended with truly paternal solicitude; how the desire had arisen in his heart to become the father of this attractive young creature; and how we had unknowingly destroyed the fragile edifice of his dreams by carrying away from him Mme. de Clissey and her daughter. Their sojourn of last winter had convinced him that without this union he could not be happy. Marcella had answered his proposal by a refusal, which he does not know how to explain.
My mother looked at me, and M. de V. continued: “I know not, madame, whether I am mistaken, but I am persuaded that you have some influence on this determination which crushes my life. Madame de C. does not wish to separate from you.” I was much moved by this confidence, and so much the more because my mother, who had formerly been acquainted with the mother of the good doctor, had told me that morning that she looked forward to this union with pleasure. I promised to do my duty. This conversation lasted three hours. M. de V. is really a remarkable man, and I cannot understand Marcella’s singular behavior. Margaret advises me to speak to her about it; but I think it more prudent to wait. The pretty little Anna unconsciously enlightened me somewhat. This morning, in my room, she was caressing her mother and saying: “Why, then, are you so cold to this good doctor, who likes you so much and who is so like papa? If you knew how affectionately he kisses me!” Marcella blushed and spoke of something else.
Dear Kate, my heart is full; M. de V. has only one dream after that of marrying my friend, which is to settle at Naples. It would then be a permanent separation! “You are in your spring-time, my daughter,” my mother said to me; “beware of the autumn! The lightest breath then carries away by degrees our happiness and our hopes.”
God guard you, dearest!
August 9, 1869.
The doctor has become our habitual companion. He loves poetry, “this choice language, dear to youth and to those whose hearts have remained young”—another connecting link with Marcella. “But they are made for each other,” says Margaret. This southerner shivers at the most delicate breeze of the north. “Good friend, what will you do in winter?” exclaims Anna on seeing him hermetically enfolded in a mantle lined with fur when he arrives of an evening. “Dear, I shall do as the swallows do.” “Bah! you will not go to Athens.” “And why not, if you will go with me?” “Oh! I do not travel without my mother.”
This fragment of conversation shows you that M. de V. is always driving at the same point. Every one rivals the other in extolling the loyalty, the learning, the distinction of the doctor. He must be immensely rich, for he throws gold with open hands among our poor, builds up cottages, gives work to all. Gertrude says: “There is in this man an apostle and a Sister of Charity.” Marcella never utters a word about our dear neighbor, but appears to suffer when others speak of him. Yesterday Margaret wanted to get my mother to promise that we should spend the summer of 1870 in England. “Will you not come also, monsieur?” The handsome countenance of the doctor darkened, and he answered briefly: “Who can promise?” “Oh! do promise, good friend,” exclaimed Anna; “you told me you wished not to leave me!” “Anna, will you water my verbenas?” tranquilly asked Marcella. The child bounded into the garden.
Berthe writes to me every day. The horizon is dark there; the poor mother perceives the full truth.
A Dieu, Kate; may he alone be all to us!
August 16, 1869.
René has written to you, dear sister; thus you know how my time has been occupied. Oh! what a beautiful procession. What singing! What decorations! A corner of Italy in Brittany, to believe the good doctor, who has valiantly paid with his person.
Picciola is here. I have just been to kiss her under her curtains. This pilgrimage has produced a double benefit: it gave the poor parents a few days of hope, and the Immaculate Virgin has caused them to understand all. “She belongs to God before she belongs to us.” Are not these truly Christian words the acceptance of the sacrifice? And Picciola: “How sweet it would have been to die there, dear aunt! But I am very happy to see you again.” O my God!
Margaret is expecting Lord William. Can you picture to yourself the aspect of our colony—our numbers, the noise and movement, the joyous voices calling and answering each other, the animation, the eagerness, of this human hive? Our Bretons say they wish we were here always.
Edith writes often. Lizzy is somewhat silent; the saintly Isa is too much detached from earth to think of us in any way except in her prayers. My letters to Betsy have produced an unexpected effect, thanks to your prayers; this good and charming friend assures me that going to holy Mass and visiting the poor help her marvellously, and that now the days appear too short.
Yesterday we were talking on the terrace—talking about all sorts of things. The word ideal was pronounced. “Who, then, can attain his ideal?” exclaimed M. de Verlhiac. “Life almost always passes away in its pursuit; an intangible phantom, it escapes us precisely at the moment when it seems within our grasp.” “It is, perhaps, because the ideal does not in reality exist on earth,” said Gertrude. “The Christian’s ideal is in heaven!” Whereupon the meditative Anna cried out: “Oh! if only the good God would make haste to put us into his beautiful heaven all together, the south and the north! You would not feel cold up there, good friend!” “Then will the angels place us thus by families?” asked Alix timidly. “Hem! hem! the house is large,” said the doctor; “and, for my part, I see no inconvenience that this 'corner of Italy in Brittany’ would suffer by arranging itself commodiously there on high.”
At this moment Adrien took up a newspaper and read us a fulmination in verse against the centenary of Napoleon, by a writer whose independent pen “is unequalled in freedom and boldness,” according to the ideas of some. M. de V. disapproves strongly: “Cannot a man be of one party without throwing mud at the other? May not the sufferings on St. Helena, the torture more terrible than that of the Prometheus of antiquity, have been accepted by God as an expiation? How far preferable would a little Christian moderation be to all this gall so uselessly poured out into the public prints! And what do they attain, republicans or royalists, after so many words and so much trouble? Great social revolutions arrive only at the hour marked by Providence.” “At all events,” said Johanna, “it is this much-boasted printing which enables us to read so much that is good and so much that is hurtful.” “O madame! Writing, printing! What favors granted to man! What feasts for the understanding and the heart! The genius of evil has known how to draw from these admirable sources the means of perdition; what is it that man has not turned against God? But the divine mercy is greater than our offences, and the Christian’s life ought to be a perpetual Te Deum. Providence pours out in floods before us joys, favors, enjoyments without number, as he scatters flowers in the meadows, birds in the air, angels in space; he has given us poetry, this eternal charm of the earth:
“'Langue qui vient du Ciel, toute limpide et belle,
Et que le monde entend, mais qu’il ne parle pas.’”[[11]]
You perceive, dear Kate, that I want to make you acquainted with the doctor. But good-night.
August 22, 1869.
Well, dearest, the marriage is arranged. Let me, however, first speak to you about Picciola. She is an angel! She invariably forgets herself, and thinks only of the happiness of others. It is she who organizes our festivities. Dear, delicious child! Thérèse and Anna know not how to show her tenderness enough. I forget what day it was that Marcella said to me: “I think that now I need not be any longer uneasy about my child’s health; there has been no change since that beneficial winter.” Picciola was by me. I looked at her; her eyes shone with a singular brightness, and she said almost involuntarily, and so low that I alone heard her: “Oh! she will be no longer ill.“ Marianne was right: there is a mystery in this, and I want to know what it is. I shall question Mad; she will not resist me. I have entreated the doctor to cure her, and his answer was: “Who can arrest the flight of the bird?“ Thus all is in vain; and yet, in spite of myself, I have moments of wild hope. What a large place this child has taken possession of in my heart!
M. de V. had placed his interests in my hands; it was therefore your Georgina herself who renewed his proposal. At the first word Marcella, much moved, formally refused, begging me to speak to her of something else. Then we had a long explanation. This dear and excellent friend did not want to separate herself from us, out of gratitude! And she was sacrificing her heart; for the devotedness and high character of M. de V. inspire her with as much sympathy as respect. It needed all my eloquence to convince her. In accepting she secures her daughter a protector; the increase of her fortune will allow her still more latitude for the exercise of her benevolence. I know that she loves Italy, and dreams of seeing it again, which would be impossible were she to remain with us; by refusing she crushes out the life of M. de V., etc., etc.
By way of conclusion I drew her into my mother’s room, where we also found René and Edouard, and all four of us together succeeded in obtaining her consent. All, then, is well as regards this matter. Anna is in a state of incomparable joy, as the old books say. We are all happy at the turn affairs have taken, but each in our different degrees. And you, dear Kate? Ah! news of Ireland and again of Edith: Mary is not well. Poor Edith! Good-by, dearest; René calls me, and I must send to the post.
August 25, 1869.
Yesterday’s fête was admirable, according to the doctor, who is a good judge. How impatient he is to carry off Marcella from us! The wedding is fixed for the 20th of September, and the same day the happy couple are to start for Italy. Thus I have not even a month in which to enjoy the society of this delightful friend, so truly the sister of my soul, whom God gave me almost on the grave of Ellen. I busy myself with her about the preparations. Gertrude, the austere Gertrude, sets out to-morrow for Paris with Adrien and M. de V., whom she will direct in the choice of the corbeille. Don’t you admire that? Marcella is calm, serious, but also, she owns to me, profoundly happy.
There will be no more meeting again, I foresee plainly; they will cast anchor down there, but our spirits will be always united before God. Margaret greatly rejoices in the happiness of our dear Roman. Lord William arrived yesterday, and joyous parties are going on. The little angel of the good God is always on the point of taking her flight.
Ah! mon âme voudrait se suspendre à ses ailes
Et la garder encore![[12]]
René procures me the most agreeable surprises. There has never yet been the least shadow of a cloud between us. You say well, dearest, that with him I shall have happiness everywhere; why, then, should I have hesitated to procure a like happiness for Marcella? I did not tell you that about a year ago this dear friend lost nearly the whole of her fortune, which was in the hands of a banker? Happily, we were the first to hear of it, and have concealed the disaster. Gertrude desired to join us in this hidden good work, and I have with all my heart paid the half of the amount. I am still more glad now to have done so. Hitherto the interest has been sufficient, but, lest the secret should be discovered, Gertrude undertook to arrange the matter with her banker. As it is a considerable sum, we are selling our carriages and one of René’s farms, lest it should make too much difference to our poor; my mother is surprised, but asks no questions. We shall try to live without carriages—so many people live happily, and yet always go on foot! I am certain that you will approve of this, dear Kate. Marcella is too proud to consent to marry M. de V. without any fortune of her own. René is delighted with this arrangement; I believe that he also is in love with the poverty of St. Francis. Oh! how good God is to us! All my kisses to you.
August 28, 1869.
Read yesterday some pretty things on Montaigne. The author of the Essays loved “with a particular affection” poetry, “in which it is not allowable to play the simpleton.” Marcella presented me with a charming poem on Friendship. Oh! I know very well that her warm affection is mine. Listen to this passage taken from a dramatic story which has come into Brittany: “There are redeeming souls, born for salvation. In the path of the divine Crucified One walk silent groups whose mission is to suffer for those who enjoy all the good things of life, to weep for those who sing at feasts, to pray for those who never open their lips in prayer. A large number of these mysterious flowers which perfume the King’s House are even unconscious of their destiny. They follow it, without asking what end is answered by their solitude, and to what purpose are their tears.”
You write to me too deliciously, dear Kate! It is very kind of you to ask after the two adopted little girls. They have been claimed by a relation, and left us after having remained a week. This fresh eclogue could not have had a better ending. The dear children write to Picciola. They are happy; their relative gave us a most favorable impression.
Yesterday a long walk with Margaret, who loves our heaths, our fields of broom, our reedy places, our customs, and who is always ready when there is a good work to be done. My mother is not well—“The effect of old age,” she says. Would that I could keep away all pain from that dear head! Mme. Swetchine says: “All the joys of earth would not assuage our thirst for happiness, and one single sorrow suffices to fold life in a sombre veil, to strike it throughout with nothingness.” How true this is!
St. Augustine is one of René’s patrons; you may imagine whether we have not prayed to him very much. Gertrude writes to me: “Here are some lines which I commend to your meditations: 'All passes, all vanishes away, all is carried away by the river of Eternity. The most sacred and sweet affections we see broken, some by absence—that sleep of the heart—others by a culpable inconstancy; many, alas! by death. The days of our childhood, the years of our youth, the friendships begun in the cradle, the more serious attachments of riper age, the affections of home, the bonds formed at the altar—all are touched, withered, annihilated by the inexorable hand of time.’ Dear Georgina,” continues Gertrude, “all lives again, all arises from its tomb, all becomes again resplendent with God! Hope, then! Excelsior.”
Lord William has brought us a most interesting book—Our Life in the Highlands, by Queen Victoria. What soul! What heart! Why is she not a Catholic? My poor Ireland, when wilt thou recover thy freedom? O Ireland! patria mia!
Thérèse regrets Anna’s approaching departure, but she is courageous. The babies do not take it in the same way, and Marguérite told Anna plainly: “All that you may say to me is of no use. I know Italian, mademoiselle: Chi sta bene, non si muove.”[[13]] I had to preach for an hour before I could persuade Marguérite to consent to apologize to the dear little Italian, who cried so much at being accused of inconstancy. These little people!
Good-by, dear Kate; Picciola sends you a kiss.
August 30, 1869.
I have just been telling the children the beautiful story of St. Felix and St. Adauctus, as the charming imagination of Margaret had arranged it at the convent. How they listened to me. On turning round I was taken by surprise: René was there! You know that I like to be alone when fulfilling the functions of professor—a title which I usurp from the good abbé, whose charity frequently takes him from home. “Are you displeased?” asked my brother. Displeased! But he and I are altogether one—one and the same soul. Picciola makes profound observations thereupon. Margaret tells me that she said to her: “The soul ought in this world to be with God as Uncle René is with Aunt Georgina, and as you and Lord William.” Margaret was delighted with this comparison.
Letter from the saintly Isa; one might call it a song of heaven. “O charming felicities which I find in this paradise of intelligence and friendship, incomparable joys of the religious affections, delights of the sensible presence of Him who is my all, how dear are you to me!”
Picciola is sleeping in an easy-chair two steps from me. She seems to have scarcely a breath of life left. I questioned her as discreetly as possible; she understood immediately: “Later, aunt, I will tell you.”
What! have I not told you about my six children? The eldest has been taken as femme de chambre by Margaret, the second occupies the same post for Anna, and Thérèse claims the third. The youngest go to school. Johanna wished to take charge of them, but I said, “No, thank you”; she has a family and I am free. René wants to talk business to you. I give up my sheet of paper to him. May God be with us!
September 5.
Only a fortnight more to enjoy the presence of Marcella! The travellers are home again. The corbeille is splendid; but the pious projects of M. de V. are still more so. Did I tell you that he had been connected with M. de Clissey, in a journey the latter took to Naples? M. de C. loved Marcella then, and spoke only of her. He was on the eve of a dangerous expedition. “Promise me,” he said to M. de V., “that in case of my death you will marry her!” M. de V. promised. This is like the tales of knight-errantry. M. de Verlhiac was unable to be present at his friend’s marriage, and, as he was at that time of an adventurous turn of mind, he went away to New York and had no news of the De Clisseys. It was only on Marcella’s account that he settled temporarily at Hyères. You see, this is altogether a romance, but in the best taste possible. M. de V. told us all this after his proposal had been accepted.
All France is interested in the Council; we are praying for this intention. What times we live in, dear Kate! The church is on the eve of terrible trials, say the seers.
Picciola wishes to write to you; but will her poor little hand have the strength to do so? Oh! how touching she is in her serenity. She communicates with great fervor twice a week.
Lizzy, the happy Lizzy! has a son! Gaudete et lætare! I rejoice in her joy! Edith is ill; Mistress Annah says seriously so. Always a shadow!
Farewell, dearest. I have quantities of things to attend to. A thousand kisses.
September 10, 1869.
M. de Verlhiac overwhelms us with presents—no means of refusing them. Marcella appears very happy, although as the time of departure approaches there is an occasional shade upon her brow. The health of M. de V. cannot accommodate itself to Brittany, and the Blue Nest was only a pretext. My mother is purchasing this well-named habitation, to sell it when an opportunity offers. Since we have launched out so strongly in good works, no one allows superfluities.
Gertrude saw Karl, who sighs for the day when he shall offer up at the altar the true and spotless Victim. I love what you tell me of your thoughts on seeing our sister. Ah! dearest, all that God does he does well; great sacrifices suit great souls.
My mother gives fêtes—to us, you understand. But what fêtes! What a large share is left for the poor! What a still larger part given to God! Lucy, the amiable Lucy, gives herself unheard-of trouble for our pleasures. Gertrude gracefully lends herself to our passing follies, to which her dark toilet makes a contrast. I asked her two days ago if she did not sometimes regret the luxuries to which she was accustomed. “Regret, Georgina! Listen to Ludolph the Chartreux: 'The Christian is happy, for, whatever may be his poverty, he has always in himself wherewith to buy the pearl and the treasure; no other price is asked but himself.'”
Sarah is in Spain, whence she sends me magnificent descriptions of the Pyrenees. “When will you come and gather roses on the banks of the Mancanares?” asks my lively friend.
Picciola is asking for me. You would be uneasy. May God have you in his keeping!
September 18, 1869.
René has replaced me in my assiduous correspondence—I have so much to do! Will these words make you smile? Nothing, however, is more true; in our hive every bee has its share of work. M. de V. can no longer keep himself quiet; Marcella weeps at the thought of going away for ever. René mentions the possibility of our again visiting Hyères, and I want to persuade the future couple to give their solemn promise to go thither. It seems as if a part of my heart were going to leave me.
The Bishop of —— will bless the marriage. Oh! would that I could put off this date. It is so sweet to have them here, these dear friends and the charming little Anna! Good-by, Homer! Good-by, our studious hours, our intimate conversations, our so perfect friendship! Her room will remain furnished just as it now is; I shall make it a museum of souvenirs. You know that I have taken the portraits of all three. They wished for copies; so you see why I was too busy to write to you. Only two days more—two days: what is that?
My mother is very thoughtful on my account. For my sake she dreads this departure, this great void; but René is at hand, so ingeniously good and devoted, so attentive, so fraternal! Dearest, pray that they may be happy!
September 21, 1869.
She is gone! These two days have passed away like a dream. I cannot bring myself to realize this idea. Oh! what difference there is between the apprehension and the reality, from the expectation of sorrow to sorrow itself! But she will be happy! How beautiful she was; Anna so graceful, and all three so affectionate! I am now counting the hours until I receive a letter. I am going to occupy myself—study with René, pray with Picciola, meditate with Gertrude. And Margaret—oh! I must make up to her all the time given to Marcella, whom she regrets almost as much as I do.
Picciola occupies me, and very much. She has felt this separation exceedingly, being very fond of Anna. Good-by till to-morrow, dear Kate; I feel myself incapable of writing.
22d.—A word from Mme. de Verlhiac—a greeting written yesterday morning in the carriage. They go farther and farther away. How could I flatter myself that I should be able to keep for myself alone these two Italian flowers? Gertrude has asked me to aid her in a singular operation: the accounts of all her farmers have to be clearly arranged. Adrien does not like these commonplace details. He found yesterday in the woods a little fellow of six years old, roguish as an elf, his hair a tangled bush, his face, hands, and feet alarmingly dirty. “Will you take charge of this child for an hour?” René asked me, as he had letters to write to his brother. What trouble I had to make the little savage clean! Margaret acted as currier; I was quite alone, dreaming of the past. This awoke me, I can assure you. When he was white, I went to find Johanna, who gave me a whole suit of clothes. This little wilding was the torment of his mother; we are going to tame him. As a beginning I have put him to school. He is enchanted to see himself so fine, and looks at himself as if he were a relic. At the same time he is greedy, untruthful, obstinate, lazy—all vices in miniature.
We are going to-morrow to the town; this always amuses the babies. Happy age, when every little change is a festivity! If you knew what a strange sensation I experienced this morning on entering the drawing-room and not finding the two dear faces so long visible there! I thought I should have wept or cried out—it would have done me good—but Gertrude began to converse with me, and the feeling passed away.
I never talk to you now either about my godson or the beautiful Emmanuel; it is very remiss. Both are charming and do not make much noise. Dear little beings! And the day will come when they will be our protectors, these two little nestlings whose warblings are so charming a harmony to our ears. I wish you could hear Margaret say, “My son!” This word has in her mouth such a penetrating sweetness!
Dear Kate, may God be with us!
September 28, 1869.
Can it possibly be true? Père Hyacinthe quits his convent and in some sort separates himself from the Roman Catholic Church. The bad newspapers vie with each other in their applauses, while the good ones groan. Louis Veuillot energetically blames. Pride has much to do with this great fall. Let us pray that he may come back, this apostle who has lost his way! Another star fallen!
Picciola daily grows weaker, and I now know, alas! why she is dying. I would fain give the account with her touching simplicity, but this charm belongs to her alone.
This morning I was in her room; she has not got up since the 22d. “Are you alone, aunt?” “Yes, dearest.” “Because I have something to say to you. I have to ask your pardon.” Poor angel! “My life was my own, was it not, aunt? I could give it away?” “And why, then, did you give it away, my child?” “Aunt, do not be so distressed. You love Mme. Marcella very much, and Anna also. Well! last year, at Orleans, during the winter, Anna had the fever. The doctor came; he examined her a long time, and it was I who conducted him to the door. I asked him if my little friend was very ill. 'She is consumptive, this beautiful child, and will not be cured without a miracle.’ I was very much struck, but did not show it in any way, and from that day I offered all my prayers for her recovery. The day of my First Communion, O aunt! I was so happy. The good God had given me everything. I tried to find a sacrifice to offer to him, and I had nothing but my life; so I asked him to take this in exchange for that of Anna. I felt at the same moment that I was heard, that my prayer would be fully granted. Oh! how happy I was. But, my poor dear aunt, I see you so sad that I am almost sorry; but then you have other nieces, and Mme. Marcella has only one daughter. Do you forgive me?”
My God! my God! Can you understand, Kate, what I felt? “My mother must not know of this,” continued the gentle victim, after a long effort. “You will comfort her, dear aunt! Oh! it is so consoling to die for others. I have a confidence that I shall go to heaven. Monsieur le Curé has told me not to be afraid. I have always suffered ever since my First Communion; but my cross was not heavy like that of our Lord! Oh! I long so for heaven. On earth it is so difficult to keep one’s self always in the presence of God; we shall see him on high. Aunt, what joy it is to die!”
Berthe came into the room, from which I hastened precipitately to hide my tears. I felt thoroughly overcome. What self-devotion! What angelic desires! I told all to René, who had already his suspicions: Anna had so delicate a chest, while our Mad’s constitution was so strong. God has accepted the exchange. Poor Berthe! When she received Marcella with so sisterly a welcome, how little she imagined that with her death entered our dwelling! I am proud of Picciola—but I weep!
Ah! dear Kate, let us bless God for all.
September 30, 1869.
I live as in another world since this revelation. “The holy angels will come and take me,” said Picciola. Margaret, Berthe, Thérèse, Gertrude, and I succeed each other in watching by her. “All my body is broken!” she exclaimed in her delirium; otherwise, never a complaint. She prays, and likes to hear singing; she is full of tenderness. I have no news of Edith. Anna has written from Lyons.
Pray for those who remain, dear Kate!
October 1, 1869.
She has received the last sacraments; her room exhales the perfume of incense. We are all there, whispering prayers.
2d October.—She is in heaven! “Dear angels, thanks, I come!” And her soul fled away. Oh! how I suffer. I loved her too much! I write to you near to her—near to her who is no longer there. I could have wished to follow her when the abbé said: “Go forth from this world, Christian soul!”
Did you know her well, this flower of heaven whose fragrance was so sweet; this soul, open to every noble sentiment; this exceptional understanding, which assimilated everything and was ever advancing?
My mother is well-nigh broken down; Berthe is kneeling, and still kissing this brow so pure, these eyes whose gaze we shall behold no more.
Raoul and Thérèse weep together; Gertrude occupies herself in attending to the sad details; and as for me, I would pour upon this paper all the desolation of my heart.
Shall I have the courage to paint her thus—inanimate—dead? O my God! it is, then, true? That caressing arm will never again pass itself round my neck. That beloved voice will no longer resound in my ears. That aërial footstep will no more reveal her presence. She is gone! She was full of life, and freely, voluntarily she has accepted death and has left us alone.
Kate, how shall I pray, how shall I bless God? If you knew how I loved her!
October 12, 1869.
I am beginning to rise up. For ten days I have been in a state of delirium. I saw Madeleine constantly by me, spoke to her, told her to wait for me—that I did not wish to live without her. René was in despair; but his prayers and yours have been heard. A strange calm has succeeded to the disorder of my thoughts; I have the certainty that Picciola and Edith have entered into everlasting rest. Yes, Edith! How did I learn that she was dead? I do not know, but René saw that I knew it and no longer sought to hide it from me. Adrien leaves us to-day to go and bring hither Mary and Ellen, and also Mistress Annah, who is wanted by Margaret. They compel me to stop. I love you.
October 20, 1869.
I am still weak, dear Kate, but my soul is strengthened. Let us love God, let us love God! I went at noon to the cemetery, to the beloved grave. René accompanied me. Oh! how he also loved her. How sweet she was when she spoke of him! Raoul has taken Berthe and Thérèse into Normandy for a fortnight; their intense grief made him anxious. It is all like a dream; but, alas! she is no longer here. Let us so live that we may rejoin her!
A friend of René’s gave Edith the comfort of embracing her son; our dear friend’s will is addressed to me. René is utterly opposed to the young girls being brought up with us, and we shall no doubt place them at the Sacred Heart. René is right: no one could ever take the place of Picciola in my heart.
Margaret and Gertrude have been angels of consolation to me. How shall I ever repay their tenderness! Ah! it is good to be so loved. Let us always love each other in Jesus, dear Kate!
October 25.
The orphans are come, very touching in their mourning garments. The good Mistress Annah has grown ten years older. Edith died the death of a saint! How painfully this word death sounds in my heart!
My mother does not wish that Berthe should see them here; the generous Adrien offers to accompany them, but Margaret solicits this privilege, with the secret intention, we believe, of paying the first year’s expenses. Kind Margaret! I should like to have kept these children, but in every point of view it is impossible. René fears that I may love them too much—and you also, dear Kate. Thus it is decided that they are to leave us on the 5th.
I send you the journal of the last days of Edith; Mistress Annah wished to give me this consolation, sweet and bitter at the same time. Dear old friend! what good care we are going to take of her. I should like to have her here. Karl will be made a priest on Christmas Eve; we shall therefore be in Paris towards the 10th of December. For how long? I do not yet know. My mother has changed very much since our angel is no longer here. O Christ! O Saviour! O Sovereign Friend of our souls! take compassion on our sorrows.
Johanna is here, by me, with my beautiful godson on her knees, smiling and playing with him in a thousand ways. Oh! how sweet was Picciola in this same place. Alix and Marguérite come every minute to talk to me, to amuse me. Margaret occupies herself in reading to me serious and absorbing things; but—I constantly see her, my little dove that is flown away.
Marcella is at Naples; the letter of mourning reached her there. She does not know what her daughter’s life has cost us, nor will she ever know it. Ah my God! who would have believed that?
Send me your good angel, dear, beloved sister!
TO BE CONTINUED.
PRESBYTERIAN INFIDELITY IN SCOTLAND.
The people of England, as his Eminence Cardinal Manning is fond of saying, never abandoned the Catholic faith; it was torn from them by violence. The people of Ireland were made of sterner stuff; they clung to the faith, successfully resisting the pitiless persecutions to which they were subjected. But the people of Scotland joyfully received the new gospel and took it into their hearts with zealous ardor. In England the sovereign imposed the new religion upon the people, and they submitted to it; in Ireland the whole authority of the civil power, exercised in the most cruel forms, was exhausted in vain attempts to compel the apostasy of the people. In Scotland the people apostatized by their own motion and the Reformation there was essentially a popular movement. The late Archbishop Spalding, in his History of the Protestant Reformation, says that the Reformation in Scotland spread from low to high; that it “worked its way up from the people, through the aid of the nobles, through political combinations and civil commotions, to the foot of the throne itself, and, after having gained the supreme civil power and deposed first the queen-regent and then the queen, it dictated its own terms to the new regent and the new sovereign; and thus, by the strong arm, it firmly established itself on the ruins of the old religion of the country.” The true explanation of the fact that the Reformation in Scotland was a popular movement is to be found in the words of a Protestant writer[[14]] quoted by Archbishop Spalding: “Scotland, from her local situation, had been less exposed to disturbance from the encroaching ambition, vexatious exactions, and fulminating anathemas of the Vatican court” than other countries; that is to say, the authority of the Holy See for a long time prior to the Reformation had been scarcely felt in Scotland; the wise and wholesome provisions of the canon law had fallen into disuse; the civil power had thrust its own creatures into benefices and bishoprics; and the people had become disgusted by “the scandalous lives, ostentatious pomp, and occasional exactions of the unworthy men who had been thus unlawfully foisted into the bishoprics and abbeys.”
In England and Ireland the influence and authority of the popes had not been thus disregarded; the church there had been kept tolerably pure, and the affection of the people had not been alienated by the faults and crimes of prelates and priests. In Ireland to-day, after three hundred and thirty-six years of Protestant assaults upon the faith, Catholic truth remains as firmly as ever rooted in the hearts and exemplified in the lives of the people. In England the effects of the retention of Catholic tradition are still to be seen: some of the great fasts and festivals of the church are observed as legal holidays; marriages are not solemnized at a later hour than that which formerly was fixed for the celebration of the nuptial Mass; and respectable Protestants, belonging to the Nonconformist societies as well as to the Established Church, abstain from marrying or giving in marriage during Lent.[[15]] But in Scotland the “blessed Reformation” swept away all these “rags of Popery”; it had full course to run and be glorified; and it made such thorough work that, for example, only within the past few years has even the most modest recognition of Christmas day as a festival been permitted. The Scottish Reformers, having burned the religious houses, stripped and disfigured the churches, and driven the priests from the land, set up the Bible as their fetich, and ordained that it should be worshipped in conformity with the precepts embodied in certain creeds and confessions of faith which they framed to suit themselves. For three hundred years the Scottish Presbyterians have been the most ardent Protestants in the world, and have boasted most loudly of their devotion to, and their implicit faith in, the written Word of God. This, and this alone, contained in itself all that was necessary for salvation; and it were better that a man should never have been born rather than that he should take away from, or add one word to, what was written in this book. God had not on the day of Pentecost called into being, by the power of the Holy Spirit, a body commissioned “to teach all whatsoever he had commanded until the consummation of the world”; he had simply caused a book to be written. “In the books of the Old and New Testaments,” they declared in their “Standards,” “the revelation of God and the declaration of his will are committed wholly unto writing ... and they are all given by inspiration of God to be the only rule of faith and life.” This has been the nominal faith of the Scotch Presbyterians ever since the dawn of the Reformation, and it is their nominal faith to-day. It has long been difficult, however, for the admirers of Scotch Presbyterianism to reconcile the fact that they were at once “the most Bible-loving and whiskey-loving people on the face of the earth”; that their sexual immorality was threefold that of the English, and tenfold that of the Catholic Irish; and that marriage among them had become divested of every form of religious sanction. Close observers of what was going on in Scotland had, indeed, from time to time perceived evidences of the existence and extension of a curious phase of scepticism among the people—a hypocritical and speculative scepticism. The leading journal of the country had for many years, with great skill and with the evident approbation of its constantly-increasing circle of readers, devoted itself to the stealthy inculcation of rationalism and of secularism in education. In private, and sometimes in public, leading members of the various branches of the Presbyterian Church had indulged in covert sneers at this or that article of faith, and every attempt to reprove or punish these heresies by the discipline of the church resulted in failure. Events have now occurred which reveal in a startling manner the extent to which infidelity has made conquest of the Scotch Presbyterian ministers, and which show that those among them who still care to profess their adherence to their standards of faith are unwilling or afraid to attempt either the correction or the expulsion of their atheistic brethren.
A new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica has lately been published, the article “Angels” and the article “Bible” in which work were written by Professor W. R. Smith, of the Free Church College of Aberdeen. Both these articles contained statements which, in the moderate language of the official report before us, and from which we shall quote, “awakened anxiety in the minds of ministers and members of the church.” The affairs of this college are managed by a committee, who are authorized to “originate and prosecute before the church courts processes against any of the professors for heresy or immorality, according to the present laws of the church.” On the 17th of May last this committee “had their attention called” to these writings of Professor Smith; on the 19th of September they appointed seven of their number—Mr. Laughton, Principal Rainy, Principal Douglas, Sir Henry Moncreiff, Professor Smeaton, Dr. Gould, and Professor Candlish—to consider the two articles, and to report to the committee what action, if any, should be taken upon them. On the 17th of October the sub-committee, two members dissenting, reported that they did not find it necessary to say anything about Professor Smith’s views concerning “angels,” but that it would be advisable in the first instance to ask the professor if he had any explanation or apology to offer respecting his article upon the Bible. On the 14th of November the committee received a communication from Professor Smith not at all in the nature of an apology; and on the 17th of January—eight months having been taken for consideration of the matter from the commencement—the committee made their report, which is addressed to the General Assembly of the church. They state that “after carefully examining the article 'Bible,’ and considering with attention the explanations which Professor Smith has been good enough to furnish,” they have not found in the article sufficient ground “to support a process for heresy”—a conclusion from which one member of the committee, Dr. Smeaton, dissents, as will appear, with good reason. It is true, the committee go on to say, that Professor Smith’s statements relating to “the date, authorship, and literary history” of certain books and portions of books in the Bible not only “differ from the opinions which have been most usually maintained in our churches,” but are “such as have been maintained by writers who treat the Scriptures as merely human compositions.” But the committee magnanimously decline to “assume that this circumstance is of itself a ground either of suspicion or complaint,” inasmuch as “much liberty of judgment should be maintained.” They confess, again, that they “have observed with regret that the article does not adequately indicate that the professor holds the divine inspiration” of the Bible, and that he does not “adequately state the view of the Bible taken by the Christian church as a whole.” “A clear note on this point” was much needed, but the professor would not give it, and “the committee are compelled to regard this feature of the case with disapprobation,” since it would have been so easy for the professor, by “a single sentence or clause of a sentence, at successive stages of his argument,” to have “prevented the injurious effect which the committee deprecate.” The professor gave “decided opinions in favor of some of the critical positions maintained by theologians of the destructive school,” and he consistently refrained from blowing hot and cold, as the committee wished him to do, “by showing decisively that he did not agree with their destructive inferences.” But since, in his communication to the committee, Professor Smith “admits direct prediction of the Messias in the Old Testament,” and receives three of the four gospels as “authentic and inspired,” the committee—Professor Smeaton again dissenting—did not think it wise to prosecute him for heresy on these points. They stumbled sadly, however, in their attempts to explain why they resolved to acquit him of flagrant heresy in the expressions of his views “with respect to portions of the Pentateuch, and more particularly to the Book of Deuteronomy.” It would be bad enough, they say, had Professor Smith contented himself with maintaining that the Book of Deuteronomy in its present form could not have been written, for philological reasons, until eight hundred years after the death of Moses. But this would not necessarily prove that the author of the book was not inspired and did not faithfully record the history as it occurred. Professor Smith did worse than this; for he affirmed “that instructions and laws which, in the Book of Deuteronomy, appear as uttered by Moses, are certainly post-Mosaic, and so could not, as a matter of fact, have been uttered by him.” Professor Smith, say the committee, holds:
“1. That various portions of the Levitical institutions, to which a Mosaic authorship is assigned in the Pentateuch, are of later date, having come into the form in which they are exhibited only by degrees, and in days long subsequent to the age of Moses. This is held to be established by discrepancies between different parts of Scripture, which are held to arise when the Mosaic origin is assumed.
“2. In particular, the Book of Deuteronomy, in portions of it which, ex facie, bear to be the record of utterances by Moses, makes reference to institutions and arrangements much later than his time.
“3. This is to be accounted for by assuming that some prophetic person, in later times, threw into this form a series of oracles, embracing at once Mosaic revelations, and modifications, or adaptations which were of later development; all together being thrown into the form of a declaration and testimony of Moses.
“4. That, viewed especially with reference to the literary conceptions and habits of that time and people, the method thus employed was legitimate, and was such as the divine Spirit might sanction and employ. It was designed to teach that the whole body of laws delivered were the fruit of the same seed, had received the same sanction, and were alike inspired by the Spirit which spake by Moses.
“5. The sub-committee do not understand the professor to mean that this involved any fraud upon those to whom the book was delivered. It was given and taken for what it was; however, it may subsequently have been misunderstood, in the professor’s view, in so far as it came to be believed to be an ordinary historical record of actual Mosaic utterances.”
The committee found themselves “obliged to regard this position with grave concern.” They did not feel willing to admit the force of the evidence which Professor Smith relied upon as establishing the non-Mosaic character of some of the Deuteronomic laws; and “the hypothesis of inspired personation applied to such a book as Deuteronomy” appeared to them “highly questionable in itself and in its consequences.” This is stating the case very mildly, especially as they go on to say that the so-called “explanations produced by Professor Smith in his statement have not relieved the apprehensions of the committee,” but, on the contrary, have rather served “to make more evident the stumbling-block for readers of the Bible arising from a theory which represents a book of Scripture as putting into the mouth of Moses regulations that are at variance with institutions which the same theory supposes him to have actually sanctioned.” This theory is “liable to objection and is fitted to create apprehension.” It ascribes to the author of the book “the use of a device which appears unworthy and inadmissible in connection with the divine inspiration and divine authority of such a book as Deuteronomy.”... “The admissions that the statements of the book regarding Moses are not true in the obvious sense will operate in the way of unsettling belief.” The committee are compelled to admit that the article is “of a dangerous and unsettling tendency.” Nevertheless, they declare that they cannot and will not exercise the rights and discharge the duties of their office by instituting a process against Professor Smith for heresy. He has written a most heretical, dangerous, and really blasphemous article, and has caused it to be published in a book of the highest character and of the most extensive circulation. But they have “a cordial sense of his great learning,” and he has been good enough to say that although he has proved that the Holy Spirit lied in certain portions of Deuteronomy, and lent himself to the perpetration of a fraud in other portions, still he can accept the book “as part of the inspired record of revelation, on the witness of our Lord and the testimonium Spiritus Sancti”—the testimony of the same Holy Spirit to whom he has imputed the crimes of falsehood and of fraud! Therefore they declare that they find no fault in Professor Smith other than that of being a little too free in the utterance of his opinions, and, accordingly, they decide to let him go.
From this free and easy deliverance four members of the committee dissented, but on different grounds. One of them thought that Professor Smith’s views respecting angels were as “destructive” and as full of “negations” as were his statements concerning the Bible, and that he should have been arraigned for heresy on this ground. Another—Professor Candlish—was of the opinion that there was no “ground in the articles for concern about Professor Smith’s views”; and a third—Mr. Whyte—insisted that, instead of indulging in “timid and cautious” blame, the committee should have expressed their real feelings of approbation, and given utterance to “a hearty and grateful acknowledgment of the goodness of God to their church in the succession of eminent theologians and teachers he was raising up among them,” and of whom Professor Smith was the chief! The fourth dissentient was Dr. Smeaton, of whom we have already spoken, and who, save the member who was distressed about Professor Smith’s opinions respecting angels, seems to have been the only orthodox person upon the committee. An appendix to the report sets forth the reasons for his dissent at great length, but their purport may be given in a few words. The finding of the committee was “wholly inadequate to the gravity of the offence”; Professor Smith had offered no retractation of his heresies, and he should have been arraigned at the bar of the church. It is absurd for the committee to avow “regret and grave concern” at the expression of heresy by a luminary of the church, and then to “accept a mere profession of loyalty as a sufficient reason for abstaining from further action.” He exposes the inconsistency of the committee’s statement that the professor’s views, while “injurious,” “destructive,” and “naturalistic,” are still compatible with the belief that the book which he declares to be a forgery was inspired by the Holy Ghost.
“I hold,” says Dr. Smeaton, “that the doctrine of inspiration and Professor Smith’s views are irreconcilable, and that this will be evident if, for example, we take account of his theory of Deuteronomy or of his conception of the Song of Solomon. The view which he propounds as to the origin of Deuteronomy is that it is a fictitious personation of Moses by another man, in the unspeakably solemn position of professing to receive and communicate a divine revelation, and that the book was not composed until many centuries after Moses’ death. The point at issue is not alone the age and Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy, but whether this book of Scripture is supposititious, and whether it was after a great interval of time composed and put into the mouth of Moses by another. This fraudulent personation-theory is the lowest depth of criticism; for, as has often been said, the mythical criticism had still this redeeming point, that it did not impute to the writers conscious fabrication. The supposititious or personation-theory, on the contrary, is not in keeping with the character of an honest man, and wholly inconsistent with that of an ambassador from God; and the attempt to exculpate the writer who is said to have put his words into the mouth of Moses, on the supposition that it was well known at the time, only widens the sphere of the fraudulent deception, and makes the receivers of the book act in collusion with the writer in his crime. This theory, which I never expected to encounter in Scotland, overlooks the important fact that, in the very book to which such an origin is ascribed, we find the repeated condemnation of false prophets, of false testimony, and of adding to, or diminishing from, the Word of God; and we must therefore suppose the writer practising deception while exposing falsehood in every form. Professor Smith must make his choice between the reception of the book as an inspired revelation, with all that it purports to be, as written in the time of Moses, and as the work of Moses, or reject it altogether as a fraud and entitled to no respect. There is no middle way. He cannot maintain its fictitious origin, and yet assert its inspiration. However convenient it may be for a speculative theologian to oscillate between the two ideas, as the necessities of a daring criticism may suggest, the notion of a fabricated prophetic programme or of an inspired forgery will be regarded by the general community, as it has always been regarded by me, as no better than the very quintessence of absurdity. The robust common sense of mankind scouts the possibility of the combination. For my part, I could not stultify myself before the church and the world by allowing such an incoherent and self-contradictory juxtaposition of terms. But such a theory, if it could be endured for a moment, would, it is evident, render inspiration incapable of vindication or defence. And the enemies of revelation, I believe, could desire no more effective weapon in their warfare than the power to proclaim that a Christian church permitted a theological teacher to represent any one book of Scripture as an inspired fabrication. But the question forces itself on our minds: If one book may be so described, what is to be the limit of this license, and how far is the concession to be extended in the way of giving a chartered right to similar caricatures of the sacred oracles? I am obliged to add that, in my judgment, Professor Smith’s treatment of the Book of Deuteronomy is tantamount to dropping it from the inspired canon. And the same thing may be said of his mode of representing the scope and purport of the Song of Solomon, to which he denies the spiritual sense, and all that allusion to the communion between the Bridegroom and the Bride which the church of all ages—notwithstanding the wayward tendencies of a few individual writers—has always regarded as immediately connected with its divine origin; for no reason can be shown for its inspiration and canonical rank if it is to be interpreted on the low exegetical conception that it is an earthly love-poem. It will not do to say that this is a dispute about the authorship of a book, and that the authorship of a book is of small moment. I have already stated how much more is involved. But the references to the Mosaic authorship of Deuteronomy, not only by Peter and Paul (Acts iii. 22; Rom x. 6; x. 19), but by the Lord Jesus Christ himself (Matt. xix. 8), are so express and definite that the denial of that one accredited fact tends to shake the inspiration of many other books of Scripture which explicitly assert or imply it. In conclusion, I regret that the committee, fettered by the interpretation which they have put upon their functions, have not sent up with their report a strong recommendation to the Assembly to deal effectually with the negative and destructive opinions brought to light in Professor Smith’s articles as wholly inconsistent with our recognized doctrines, and contrary to the genius of every Reformed Presbyterian church. This is the first instance that has occurred in any Scottish church of an attack on the genuineness of any book of Scripture on the part of an office-bearer within the church. And the question now raised, and which must be decided one way or other, is whether the negative criticism, with the rationalistic theology which uniformly goes along with it, is to claim a legitimate position within the pale of the Free Church of Scotland? To that I cannot consent. The Continental churches, having neither our spiritual independence nor our Scriptural discipline, can be no guide to us in this matter. Under the control of the state, they are obliged to allow all manner of latitudinarian opinions, and have ceased to put forth any ecclesiastical testimony on great questions. We have what they want, and are bound to call the spiritual independence and Scriptural discipline, which are our distinctive privilege, into active exercise or the side of the divine authority of Scripture. Unfaithfulness or weak concession at this juncture would allow two classes of professors, students, and preachers antagonistic to each other, and end in the long run, as all such false alliances must end, in an ultimate separation between the rationalistic and evangelical elements, as incapable of existing together. Any man of long views, or who has looked into the history of the church, must see this; and, therefore, in the exercise of that inherent authority which we possess, the church must at once nip these opinions in the bud, and do so effectually. On one point I have not the shadow of a doubt. An attack on the genuineness and authority of Scripture, whether dignified by the title of the higher criticism or prompted by the lower scepticism, ought never to be permitted within the church on the part of any office-bearer. We can keep criticism within its proper limits, and this occasion may have been permitted to occur that we may show to other churches how we can act in the exercise of our independent jurisdiction.”
These bold and true words of Dr. Smeaton had no effect upon the decision of the committee; and, so far as that decision goes, it must now be taken for granted that it is not heresy for a minister of the Presbyterian Church to teach that portions of the Holy Scriptures are fictitious, supposititious, fraudulent, and deceptive. By the same decision the Free Church of Scotland has “rendered inspiration incapable of vindication or defence,” and has placed it within the power of the enemies of revelation to say that a Christian church permits a theological teacher to represent Scripture as an inspired fabrication. It might have been expected, however, that this decision would have been received with horror and consternation by the Bible-loving laity of Scotland. The very contrary has proved to be the case, and the only reproof which the committee seems to have received is in the nature of a reproach for their weak affectation of disapproval of Professor Smith’s heresies while really sympathizing with them. The ministers of the Free Church of Scotland are wholly dependent upon the laity for their support, and the control of the laity over them is far-reaching, if it be not absolute. The decision in the case of Professor Smith would have been different had not the laity of the church long since ceased, in a great measure, to cherish that reverence for the written Word which distinguished their ancestors. The Edinburgh Scotsman expresses its belief that there will be “very extensive satisfaction” at the decision of the committee, and confidently assumes that “it will ultimately become the collective judgment of the Free Church.” Dr. Smeaton, it says, is the one member of the committee belonging to the old orthodox party in the church—“a party whose diminishing numbers entirely preclude the possibility of any view springing out of their turn of mind successfully asserting itself against the influence of the majority that has enjoyed so long and mollifying an experience in turning closed into open questions.” Open questions! The inspiration and authenticity of the Bible have become an open question among the Scotch Presbyterians, with the probability that it will soon be decided by a verdict against the book. The Scotsman ridicules the committee for pretending to regard Professor Smith’s position with “grave concern” while they themselves “substantially sympathize with him,” or else know that so many of the people agree with him that to prosecute him for heresy would be dangerous.
Nor is it the Free Church of Scotland alone which has thus, to all appearance, lost its faith in the Scriptures and in the “Standards.” The Rev. David Macrae, of Gourock, one of the most talented and popular ministers of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, declared recently in the presbytery of that body that he and very many—almost all—of his fellow-ministers had ceased to believe, and in some cases to preach, the traditional creed of the church. He, for one, was henceforth resolved to be honest, and was determined no longer to profess what he had ceased to believe, but the majority of his brethren, he thought, would continue for some time to be hypocrites. “The relation of the clergy to the Standards was not an honest one,” he said; “the professed was not the actual creed of the church; our church is professing one creed while holding, and to a large extent preaching, another. I am determined to strike a blow, even though it should be my last, to liberate the church I love from the tyranny of a narrow creed and the hypocrisy of a professed adherence to it.”
The lapse of the Scotch Presbyterians into infidelity may seem to be a startling event, but it was inevitable. If the Bible could have saved them, they would have been safe; but the Bible in itself never yet saved any one, for God did not ordain that it should be written and preserved for that purpose. The Bible, indeed, points out the way to salvation; it is a finger-post directing men to the gate of heaven, but it is not that gate itself, nor even the key which opens it. All non-Catholic sects are certain, sooner or later, to lead their adherents to that pit of perdition on the brink of which the Scotch Presbyterians now seem to be standing—the blind lead the blind, and both fall into the ditch. The Catholic Church in Scotland is small and weak; it is only within a very few years that her growth there has been at all perceptible, and the hierarchy has not been re-established there since it was swept away by the Reformation. But the rapid decline of Scotch Protestantism into practical infidelity may have a favorable effect upon the interests of the church. The really pious of the people—and there are many such—may now begin to turn their eyes towards the living Teacher of God’s word, and listen to her unerring voice; and when they enter her fold they can say that they have abandoned the church of their fathers in order to return to the church of their forefathers.
HOW PERCY BINGHAM CAUGHT HIS TROUT.
One lovely evening towards the end of the month of June, 187-, an outside car jingled into the picturesque little village of Ballynacushla. The sun had set in a flood of golden glory; purple shadows wooed midsummer-night dreams on crested hill and in hooded hollow; a perfumed stillness slept upon the tranquil waters of the Killeries, that wild but beauteous child of the Atlantic, broken only by the shrill note of the curlew seeking its billow-rocked nest, or the tinkle of the sheep-bell on the heather-clad heights of Carrignagolliogue. Lights like truant stars commenced to twinkle in lonely dwellings perched like eyries in the mountain clefts, and night prepared to don her lightest mourning in memory of the departed day.
The rickety vehicle which broke upon the stillness was occupied by two persons—a handsome, aristocratic-looking young man attired in fashionable tourist costume, and the driver, whose general “get-up” would have won the heart of Mr. Boucicault at a single glance.
“That’s a nate finish, yer honner,” he exclaimed, as, bringing a wheel into collision with a huge boulder which lay in the roadway, he decanted the traveller upon the steps of the “Bodkin Arms” at the imminent risk of breaking his neck.
The “Bodkin Arms,” conscious of its whitewash and glowing amber thatch, stood proudly isolated. Its proprietor had been “own man” to Lord Clanricarde, and scandal whispered that a portion of the contents of “the lord’s” cellar was to be found in Tom Burke’s snuggery behind the bottle-bristling bar.
The occupant of the car was flung into the arms of an expectant waiter, who, true to the instincts of that remarkable race, had scented his prey from afar, and calmly awaited its approach. This Ganymede was attired in a cast-off evening dress-coat frescoed in grease; a shirt bearing traces of the despairing grasp of a frantic washerwoman; a necktie of the dimensions of a window-curtain, of faded brocade; and waistcoat with continuations of new corduroy, which wheezed and chirruped with every motion of his lanky frame. His nose and hair vied in richness of ruby, and his eyes mutely implored every object upon which they rested for a sleep—or a drink.
“You got my note?” said the traveller interrogatively.
“Yes, sir, of course, sir.” Of course they had it. The post in the west of Ireland is an eccentric institution, which disgorges letters just as it suits itself, and without any particular scruple as to dates.
“Have you a table d’hôte here?”
This was a strange sound, but the waiter was a bold man.
“Yes, sir, of course, sir! Would you like it hot, sir?”
“Hot! Certainly.”
“Yes, sir, of course, sir! With a taste of lemon in it?”
“I said—Pshaw! Is dinner ready?” said the traveller impatiently.
“Yes, sir, of course, sir; it’s on the fire, sir,” joyously responded the relieved servitor, although the fowls which were to furnish it were engaged in picking up a precarious subsistence at his very feet, and the cabbage to “poultice” the bacon flabbily flourishing in the adjoining garden.
“Get in my traps and rods”—the car was laden with fishing-tackle of the most elaborate description. “Have you good fishing here?”
“Yes, sir, of course, sir—the finest in Ireland. Trouts lepping into the fryin’-pan out of the lake foreninst ye. The marquis took twoscore between where yer standing and Fin Ma Coole’s Rock last Thursday; and Mr. Blake, of Town Hill—more power to him!—hooked six elegant salmon in the pool over, under Kilgobbin Head.”
“I want change of a sovereign.”
“Yes, sir, of course, sir—change for a hundred pound, sir. This way, sir. Mind yer head in regard of that flitch of bacon. It gave Captain Burke a black eye on Friday, and the county inspector got a wallop in the jaw that made his teeth ring like the bell in the middle o’ Mass.” And he led the way into the hotel.
The charioteer, after a prolonged and exciting chase through several interstices in his outer garment, succeeded in fishing up a weather-beaten black pipe, which he proceeded to “ready” with a care and gravity befitting the operation.
“Have ye got a taste o’ fire, Lanty Kerrigan?” addressing a diminutive personage, the remains of whose swallow-tailed frieze coat were connected with his frame through the medium of a hay-rope, and whose general appearance bore a stronger resemblance to that of a scarecrow than a man and a brother. “I’m lost intirely for a shough. The forriner [the stranger] wudn’t stand smokin’, as he sed the tobaccy was infayrior, but never an offer he med me av betther.”
“Howld a minnit, an’ I’ll get ye a hot sod.” And in less than the time specified Lanty returned with a glowing sod of turf snatched from a neighboring fire.
“More power, Lanty!” exclaimed the car-driver, proceeding to utilize the burning brand. “Don’t stan’ too nigh the baste, avic, or she’ll be afther aiting yer waistband and lavin’ ye in yer buff.”
“What soart av a fare have ye, Misther Malone?” asked Lanty, now at a respectful distance from the mare.
“Wan av th’ army—curse o’ Crummle an thim!—from the barrack beyant at Westpoort.”
“Is it a good tack?”
“I’ve me doubts,” shaking his head gravely and taking several wicked whiffs of his dhudheen. “He’s afther axin’ for change, an’ that luks like a naygur.”
“Thrue for ye, Misther Malone! Did ye rouse him at all?” asked the other in an anxious tone. He expected the return of the “forriner” and was taking soundings.
“Rouse him! Begorra, ye might as well be endayvorin’ to rouse a griddle. I’m heart scalded wud him. I soothered him wud stories av the good people, leprechauns, an’ banshees until I was as dhry as a cuckoo.”
“Musha, thin, he must be only fit for wakin’ whin you cudn’t rouse him, Mickey Malone.”
“I’d as lieve have a sack o’ pitaties on me car as—” He stopped short and plunged the pipe into his pocket, as the object of the discussion suddenly appeared upon the steps.
“Here is a sovereign for the car and half a sovereign for yourself,” exclaimed the young officer, tossing the coins to the expectant Malone.
“Shure you won’t forget the little mare, Captain?”
“Forget her? Not likely, or you either, Patsey.”
“Ye’ll throw her a half a crown for to dhrink yer helth, Major?”
“Drink my health? What do you mean?”
“Begorra, she’d take a glass o’ sperrits wud a gauger, Curnil; an’ if she wudn’t I wud. Me an’ her is wan, an’ I’ve dacent manners on my side, so I’ll drink yer honner’s helth an’ that ye may never die till yer fit.”
“That sentiment is worth the money,” laughed the traveller, tossing the half-crown in the air and disappearing into the hotel.
“Well, be the mortial frost, Misther Malone,” cried Lanty Kerrigan in an enthusiastic burst of admiration, “but yer the shupayriorest man in Connemara.”
Percy Bingham, of the —th Regiment of the Line, found Westport even more dreary than the Curragh of Kildare. From the latter he could run up to Dublin in the evening, and return next morning for parade, even if he had to turn into bed afterwards; from Westport there was nothing to be done but the summit of Croagh Patrick or a risky cruise amongst the three hundred little islands dotting Clew Bay. “Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch’entrate” was written upon the entrance to the town. All was dreariness, dulness, and desolation, empty quays, ruined warehouses, and squalid misery. The gentry, with few exceptions, were absentees, and those whom interest or necessity detained in the country spent “the season” in London or Dublin, returning, with weary hearts and empty pockets, to the exile of their homes, there to vegetate until spring and the March rents, wrung from an oppressed tenantry, would enable them to flit citywards once more. To Bingham, to whom London was the capital of the world, and the United Service Club the capital of London, this phase in his military career was a horrid nightmare. Born and bred an Englishman, he had been educated to regard Ireland as little better than a Fiji island, and considerably worse than a West African station; and, filled to the brim with Saxon prejudice, he took up his Irish quarters with mingled feelings of disgust and despair. An ardent disciple of Izaak Walton, he clung to the safety-valve of rod and reel, avenging his exclusion from May Fair and Belgravia by a wicked raid upon every trout-stream within a ten-mile radius of the barracks, and, having obtained a few days’ leave of absence, arrived at Ballynacushla for the purpose of “wetting his line” in the saucy little rivers that joyously leap into the placid bosom of the land-locked Killeries.
“So my dinner is ready at last,” exclaimed Bingham pettishly. A good digestion had waited two mortal hours on appetite.
“Yes, sir, of course, sir!” replied the waiter. “A little derangement of the cabbage, sir, lost a few minutes, but” cheerily “we’re safe and snug now anyway. There’s darling chickens, sir! Look at the lovely bacon, sir! Survey the proportions of the cabbage, sir!” And rubbing his napkin across his perspiring brow, he gazed at the viands, and from the viands to the guest, in alternate glances of admiration and respect.
“Have you a carte?”
“Yes, sir, of course, sir—two of them; likewise a shay and a covered car.”
“A wine carte, I mean.”
“No, sir; we get the wine from Dublin in hampers.”
Percy Bingham forgot that he was not in an English inn where the waiters discuss vintages and prescribe peculiar brands of dry champagne.
“What wines have you?”
“We’ve port wine, sir, and sherry wine, sir, and claret wine, sir, and Mayderial wine, sir,” was the reply, run off with the utmost rapidity.
“Get me a bottle of sherry!”
“Yes, sir, of course, sir.”
In a few minutes the gory-headed factotum returned with the wine, and, uncorking it with a tremendous flourish of arm, napkin, head, and hair, deliberately poured out an overflowing glassful of the amber-colored fluid, and drained it off.
“What the mischief do you mean?” demanded the young officer angrily. “I wanted for to make certain that your honner was getting the right wine.” And placing the bottle at Percy Bingham’s elbow, he somewhat hastily withdrew.
The gallant warrior enjoyed his chicken and bacon and “wisp of cabbage.” The waiter had made his peace by concocting with cunning hand a tumbler of whiskey-punch, hot, strong, and sweet, which Bingham proceeded to sip between the whiffs of a Sabean-odored Lopez. Who fails to build castles upon the creamy smoke, as it fades imperceptibly into space, wafting upwards aspirations, wishes, hopes, dreams—rare and roseate shadows, begotten of bright-eyed fancy? Not Percy Bingham, surely, seated by the open casement, lulled by the murmuring plash of the toying tide, gazing forth into the silent sadness of the gray-hooded summer night. He had lived a butterfly life, and his thoughts were of gay parterres and brilliant flowers. “Of hair-breadth 'scapes i’ the imminent deadly breach” he knew nothing. His game of war was played in the boudoir and drawing-room; his castle was built in May Fair, his châtelaine an ideal. The chain of his meditation was somewhat rudely snapped asunder by an animated dialogue which had commenced in some remote region of the hotel, and which was now being continued beneath the window whereat he reclined. The waiter had evidently been engaged in expostulating with Lanty Kerrigan.
“Don’t run yer head against a stone wall, Lanty avic. Be off to Knockshin, and don’t let the grass grow under yer feet!”
“Faix, it’s little ould Joyce wud think av me feet; it’s me back he’d be lukkin for, an’ a slip av a stick. Sorra a step I’ll go.”
“Miss Mary must get her parcel anyhow.”
“Let her sind for it, thin, av she’s in sich a hurry.”
“An’ so she did. Get a lind av a horse, Lanty.”
“Sorra a horse there’s in the place, barrin’ an ass.”
“Wirra! wirra! She’ll take the tatch off the roof; the blood of the Joyces is cruel hot.”
“Hot or cowld, I’m not goin’ three mile acrass the bogs—-”
“You could coax it into two be manes av a sup, Lanty.”
“Sorra a coax, thin. Coax it yerself, sence yer so onaisy.”
“What’s the row?” asked Percy Bingham from the window.
“It’s in regard to a parcel for Miss Joyce, yer honner,” replied Lanty, stepping forward.
“And who is Miss Joyce?” said Percy, intensely amused.
“O mother o’ Moses! he doesn’t know the beautifullest craythur in the intire cunthry,” exclaimed Lanty, hastily adding: “She’s the faymale daughther av ould Miles Joyce, of Knockshin beyant, wan av the rale owld anshient families that kep’ up Connemara sence the times av Julius Saysar.”
“And you have a parcel for her?”
“Troth, thin, I have, bad cess to it! It kem up Lough Corrib, an’ round be Cong, insted of takin’ the car to Clifden, all the ways from Dublin, in a box as big as a turf creel. It’s a gownd—no less—for a grate party to-night; an’, begorra, while it’s lyin’ here they’re goin’ to stay at Frinchpark.”
“It’s too bad,” thought Bingham, “to have the poor girl sold on account of the laziness of this idle rascal. Her heart may be set upon this dress. A new ball-dress is an epoch in a young girl’s existence, and a ball dress in this out-of-the way place is a fairy gift. Hinc illæ lachrymæ! How many hopes cruelly blasted, how many anticipated victories turned into humiliating defeat. If it were not so late—By Jove! it shall not be.” And yielding to a sudden impulse, Percy Bingham ordered Kerrigan to start for Knockshin.
“It’s five mile, yer honner, an’—”
“There is sixpence a mile for you. Go!” And in another instant the parcel-laden Lanty had taken to the bog like a snipe.
Percy Bingham attacked his breakfast upon the following morning with a gusto hitherto unknown to him. “I wonder did that girl”—he had forgotten her name—“get the dress in time? I hope so. How fresh these eggs are! I wonder if she’s as pretty as that ragamuffin described her? These salmon cutlets are perfection. I must have a look at her, at all events. 'Pon my life! those kidneys are devilled to a grain of pepper. This ought to be a good trout day. One more rasher. By George! if the colonel saw me perform this breakfast, he’d make me exchange into the heavies.”
Lighting a cigar and seating himself upon a granite boulder by the edge of the inlet, the purple mountains shutting him in from the world, he proceeded to assort his flies and to “put up” his casts.
“Musha, but yer honor has the hoighth av decoys!” observed Lanty Kerrigan, touching the dilapidated brim of his caubeen, and seating himself beside him. There is a masonry amongst the gentle craft which levels rank, and “a big fish” will bring peer and peasant cheek by jowl on terms of the most familiar intercourse.
“Yes, that’s a good book,” said Percy, with a justifiable pride in his tone. The colors of the rainbow, the ornithology of the habitable globe, were represented within its parchment folds. “This ought to be a good day, Lanty.”
“Shure enough,” looking up at the sky. “More betoken, I seen Finnegan’s throut as I come acrass the steppin’-stones there below.”
“Finnegan’s trout! What sort of a trout is that?” asked the officer.
“Pether Finnegan was a great fisher in these parts, yer honor. Nothin’ cud bate him. He’d ketch a fish as shure as he wetted a line, an’ no matther how cute or cunnin’, he’d hav thim out av the wather before they cud cry murther. But there was wan ould throut of shupayrior knowledge that was well fed on the hoighth av wurrums an’ flies, an’ he knew Pether Finnegan, an’, begorra, Pether knew him. They used for to stand foreninst wan another for days an’ days, Pether flappin’ the wather, an’ th’ ould throut flappin’ his tail. 'I’ll hav ye, me man,’ sez Pether. 'I’ll have ye, av I was to ketch ye in me arms like a new born babe', sez he. 'I never was bet be a man yet,’ sez he, 'an’ be the mortial I’m not goin’ for to be bet be a fish.’ So he ups, yer honor, an’, puttin’ a cupple o’ quarts o’ whiskey in his pockets for to keep up his heart, he ups an’ begins for to fish in airnest an’ for the bare life. First he thried flies, an’ thin he thried wurrums, an’ thin he thried all soarts av combusticles; but th’ ould throut turned up his nose at the entirety, an’ Pether seen him colloguerin’ wud the other throuts, an’ puttin’ his comether on thim for to take it aisy an’ lave Pether’s decoys alone. Well, sir, Pether Finnegan was a hot man an’ aisy riz—the heavens be his bed!—an’ whin he seen the conspiracy for to defraud him, an’ the young throuts laffin’ at him, he boiled over like a kittle, an’ shoutin’, 'I’ll spile yer divarshin,’ med a dart into the river. His body was got, the bottles was safe in his pockets, but, be the mortial frost, th’ ould throut got at the whiskey an’ dhrank it every dhrop.”
“I must endeavor to catch him,” laughed Percy Bingham.
“Ketch him!” exclaimed Lanty indignantly. “Wisha, you wudn’t ketch him, nor all the fusileers an’ bombardiers in th’ army wudn’t ketch him, nor th’ ould boy himself—the Lord be betune us an’ harm!—wudn’t ketch him. He’s as cute as the say-sarpint or the whale that swallied Juno.”
“What do the trout take best here?” asked Bingham, whose preparations were nearly completed, his rod being set up and festoons of casting-lines encircling his white felt hat.
“Wurrums is choice afther a flood; dough is shupayrior whin they’re leppin’ lively; but av all the baits that ever consaled a hook there’s non aiquail to corbait—it’s the choicest decoy goin’. A throut wud make a grab at a corbait av the rattles was in his troath an’ a pike grippin’ him be the tail.”
Lanty Kerrigan was told off as cicerone, guide, philosopher, and friend.
“I suppose I am safe in fishing these rivers. No bailiff or hinderance?” asked Percy Bingham of the landlord of the “Bodkin Arms.”
“There’s no wan to hinder you, sir; so a good take to you,” was the reply. “I hope ye won’t come across old Miles Joyce, for if ye do there’ll be wigs on the green,” he added under his breath as he turned into the bar.
A cook it was her station,
The first in the Irish nation.
Wud carvin’ blade she’d slash away to the company’s admiration,
sang Lanty Kerrigan, prolonging the last syllable—a custom with his class—into a kind of wail, as he merrily led the way through a narrow mountain pass, inaccessible save to pedestrians, in the direction of the fishing-ground. It was a sombre morning. Nature was in a meditative mood, and forbade the prying glances of the sun. The white mists hung like bridal veils over hill and dale, mellowing the dark green of the pine-trees and the blue of the distant Atlantic, occasionally visible as they pursued their zigzag, upward course. A light breeze—“the angler’s luck”—gently fanned the cheek, and the sprouting gorse and tender ferns were telling their rosaries on glittering beads of diamond dew.
“This is Lough Cruagh, yer honor, an’ there’s the boat; av ye don’t ketch the full av her, it’s a quare thing.” The lake, a pool of dark-brown water, lay in the lap of an amphitheatre of verdureless, grim, gaunt-looking mountains. It was a desolate place. No living thing broke upon the solitude, and the silence was as complete as if the barren crags had whispered the single word “hush” and awaited the awful approach of thunder. A road ran by the edge of the lake, but it was grass-grown and showed no sign of traffic, not even the imprint of a horse’s foot.
“Now she’s aff,” cried Lanty, seizing the oars. “Out wud yer flies, an’ more power to yer elbow.”
The sport was splendid. No sooner had his tail-fly touched the water than an enormous trout plunged at it with a splash like that of a small boy taking a header, and away went the line off the reel as though it were being uncoiled by machinery—up the lake, down the lake, across the lake; now winding in, now giving the rod until it bent like a whip; now catching a glimpse of the fish, now fearing for the line on the bottom rocks.
“If the gut howlds ye’ll bate him, brave as he is,” exclaimed Lanty Kerrigan in an ecstasy of apprehension.
The fish was taking it quietly—il faut reculer pour mieux sauter—preparing for another effort. Percy Bingham wiped the perspiration from his brow; his work was cut out for him.
“Now’s the time for a dart o’ sperrits,” said Kerrigan, dexterously shipping his oars and unfastening the lid of the hamper. “Ye won’t, yer honner?”—Bingham had expressed dissent. “Well, begorra, here’s luck, an’ that it may be good,” pouring out a dropsied glassful and tossing it off. “That’s shupayrior,” with a smack; “its warmin’ me stomick like a bonfire! Whisht!” he added in an alarmed whisper, “who the dickens is this is comin’ along the road?”
A mail phaeton, attached to a pair of spanking grays, came swiftly and silently along the grass-grown causeway. An elderly, aristocratic-looking man was driving, and beside him sat a young and beautiful girl. “Be the hokey! we’re bet; it’s ould Miles Joyce himself,” cried Lanty Kerrigan.
“Is that Miss Joyce, the young lady to whom you took the box last night?” asked Percy somewhat eagerly.
“Och wirra! wirra! to be shure it is, an’ that same box is our only chance now.”
“Pull nearer shore, Lanty,” said the young officer, who was very anxious for a stare. “Good style,” he muttered. “Tight head, delicious plaits, Regent Street hat—ma foi! who would think of meeting anything like this in a devil’s punchbowl? Pull into shore, man,” he testily cried.
“Shure I’m pullin’ me level best.”
“Not that shore, you idiot. Pull for the carriage.” Lanty was straining in the opposite direction.
“Are ye mad, sir?” whispered Kerrigan. “I wudn’t face ould Joyce this blessed minit for a crock o’ goold.”
The carriage drew up, and the driver in an authoritative voice shouted: “Bring that boat here.”
“We’re bet; I tould you so,” gasped Lanty, reluctantly heading the boat in the direction of the carriage. A few strokes brought them to the beach.
Percy Bingham raked up his eye-glass and gazed ardently at Mary Joyce, who returned the stare with compound interest. Irish gray eyes with black, sweeping lashes, hawthorn-blossoms on her brow, apple-blossoms on her cheeks, rose-buds on her lips, purple blood in her veins, youth and grace and modesty hovering about her like a delicious perfume.
“May I ask by whose authority you are fishing here?” Mr. Joyce was pale, and suppressed anger scintillated in his eyes. There are a great many things to be done with impunity in Connemara, but poaching is the seven deadly sins rolled into one. “Thou shalt not fish” is the eleventh commandment. Bingham felt the awkwardness of his position at a glance, and met it like a gentleman.
“I cannot say that I am here by any person’s authority. I am stopping at the 'Bodkin Arms’—”
“Och murther! murther! howld your whisht,” interposed Lanty in a hoarse whisper.
“Silence, fellow!” cried Bingham. “I am stopping at the 'Bodkin Arms,’ and, upon asking the proprietor if there was any hinderance to my fishing, he replied that there was none. I ought, perhaps, to have been more explicit with him.”
“Av coorse ye shud,” interrupted Lanty.
“And I can only say”—here he stared very hard at Mary Joyce—“that it mortifies me more than I can possibly express to you to be placed in this extremely painful position.”
“Do not say one word about it,” said Mr. Joyce in a courteous tone. “With the proprietor of the 'Bodkin Arms’ I know how to deal, and with you too, Lanty Kerrigan.” Lanty wriggled in the boat till it rocked again. “But as for you, sir, all I can say is that I regret to have disturbed your fishing, and I wish you very good sport.” And he bowed with haughty politeness.
“I thank you very much for your courtesy,” bowed Bingham, who had by this time landed from the boat, “but I shall no longer continue an intruder.” And seizing his rod, he snapped it thrice across his knee and flung it into the lake.
It was Mary Joyce’s bright eyes that led him to this folly—he wanted to be set right with her.
“Oh! how stupid,” she exclaimed, starting to her feet.
“Thrue for ye, miss,” added Lanty—“two-pound tin gone like a dhrink, an’ an illigant throut into the bargain.”
“A wilful man must have his way,” said Mr. Joyce; “but I hope, sir, that you will afford me an opportunity of enabling you to enjoy a day’s sport in better waters than these.” And lifting his hat, he waved an adieu as the fiery grays plunged onwards and out of sight.
And Mary Joyce! Yes, that charming little head bent to him, those sweeping lashes lifted themselves that the glory of her gray eyes might be revealed to him, the rose-bud lips had dropped three perfumed petals, three insignificant little words, “Oh! how stupid”; and these were the first words in the first chapter of Percy Bingham’s first love.
He found the following note awaiting him at the hotel:
“Knockshin, June 28.
“Mr. Joyce will be happy if Mr. Bingham will take a day on Shauraunthurga—Monday, if possible—as Mr. J. intends fishing upon that day. A salmon rod and flies are at Mr. Bingham’s disposal.
“—— Bingham, Esq.”
Percy Bingham sent a polite acknowledgment and acceptance, and wished for the Monday. It was very late that night when the warrior returned to his quarters. He had been mooning around Mary Joyce’s bower at Knockshin.
“What Masses have you here, Foxey?” asked Bingham of the waiter, whose real name was Redmond, but to whom this appellation was given on account of the color of his hair.
“The last Mass is first Mass now, sir. Father James is sick, and Father Luke, a missioner, is doing duty for the whole barony.”
“Is Mr. Joyce, of Knockshin, a Catholic?” This in some trepidation.
“Yes, sir, of course, sir—wan of the ould stock, sir; and Miss Mary, his daughter, sir, plays the harmonicum, sir, elegant.”
“What hour does Mass commence?”
“That’s the first bell, sir, but they ring two first bells always.”
Percy Bingham belonged to a family that had held to the faith when the tide of the Reformation was sweeping lands, titles, and honors before it. He fought for the Catholic cause when it became necessary to strike a blow; and as he was the only “popish” officer in the regiment, his good example developed into a duty.
Just as he arrived at the church door the Joyce carriage drew up. Mr. Joyce handed out his daughter. The gray eyes encountered those of the young officer, who lifted his hat. Such a smile!—a sunbeam on the first primrose of spring.
“I was glad to get your note, Mr. Bingham. Could you manage to come over to breakfast? Military men don’t mind a short march.” And Mr. Joyce shook hands with him.
“Am I to have the pleasure of hearing Miss Joyce’s harmonium to-day?” asked Percy.
“No; Miss Joyce’s harmonium has a sore throat.”
Poor Bingham struggled hard to say his prayers, to collect his wandering thoughts. He was badly hit; the ruddy archer had sent his arrow home to the very feathers. He humbly waited for a glance as Miss Joyce drove away after Mass, and he got it. He was supremely happy and supremely miserable.
The “missioner,” a young Dominican, very tall and very distinguished-looking, crossed the chapel yard, followed by exclamations of praise and admiration from voteens who still knelt about in picturesque attitudes: “God be good to him!” “The heavens open to him!” “May the saints warm him to glory!” while one old woman, who succeeded in catching the hem of his robe, exclaimed enthusiastically:
“Och, thin, but it’s yerself that knows how to spake the word o’ God; it’s yerself that’s the darlint fine man. Shure we never knew what sin was till ye come amongst us.”
Percy Bingham found Knockshin a square-built, stone mansion, with a “disinheriting countenance” of many windows, surrounded by huge elms containing an unusually uproarious rookery. A huge “free classic” porch surmounted a set of massive steps, supported by granite griffins grasping shields with the Joyce arms quartered thereon. A lily-laden pond, encircled by closely-shaven grass sacred to croquet, stood opposite the house, and a pretentious conservatory of modern construction ran along the greater portion of one wing.
The gallant warrior, regretting certain London-built garments reposing at Westport, arrayed himself in his “Sunday best,” and, being somewhat vain of his calves, appeared in all the woollen bravery of Knickerbockers and Highland stockings.
Miss Joyce did the honors of the breakfast-table in white muslin and sunny smiles. Possessing the air of a high-born dame, there was an Irish softness, like the mist on the mountains, that imparted an indescribable charm to all her movements, whilst a slight touch of the brogue only added to the music of a voice ever soft, gentle, and low.
Percy, who could have talked like a sewing-machine to Lady Clara Vere de Vere, found his ideas dry up, and, when violently spurred, merely develop themselves in monosyllables. He had rehearsed several bright little nothings which were to have been laid like bonbons at her feet. Where were they now?
She knew some men in the service—Mr. Poynter in the Rifles. Did he know Mr. Poynter, who danced so well, talked so charmingly, and was so handsome? Yes, he knew Poynter, and hated him from that moment. Did he know Captain Wyberts of the Bays, the Victoria Cross man whom she had met at the Galway Hunt Ball? He knew Wyberts, and cursed the luck that placed no decoration upon his tunic but a silken sash.
“By the way, you must be the gentleman who interested himself in my toilet on Friday night. Lanty Kerrigan spoke burning words in your favor, if you are the preux chevalier. Are you?”
“I assure you, Miss Joyce, I didn’t know who you were at the time, when the blackguards seemed lazy about your parcel.”
“If you had known me, would that have made any difference, Mr. Bingham?” she asked laughingly.
“It would.”
“In what way?”
“I would have thrashed Lanty Kerrigan and have brought the parcel myself.” He threw so much earnestness into this that the red blood flushed up to the roots of Mary Joyce’s rich brown hair. “I must see to my tackle,” she said in a confused way.
“Are you an angler, Miss Joyce?”
“Look at my boots”—a pair of dainty, dumpy little things such as Cinderella must have worn on sloppy days when walking with the prince, with roguish little nails all over the soles crying, “Stamp on us; we like it,” and creamy laces fit for tying up bride-cake.
“By Jove!” exclaimed Percy Bingham, and that was all he was able to reach at that particular moment. He thought afterwards of all he could have said and—didn’t.
A walk of half a mile brought them to the Shauraunthurga, or “Boiling Caldron,” whose seething waters dashed from rock to rock, and boiled in many whirlpools as it rushed madly onwards to the wild Atlantic.
What did Bingham care about the fishing? Not a dump. He stood by her side, set up her cast, sorted her flies, spliced the top joint of her rod, and watched with feverish anxiety the eccentric movement of her gorgeous decoy, as it whirled hither and thither, now on the peat-brown waters, now in the soap-suds-like foam.
“Bravissima! Splendidly struck!” he cried with enthusiastic delight—he felt inclined to pat her on the back—as the young Galway girl, with “sweet and cunning” hand, hooked her fish with the aplomb and dexterity of a Highland gillie. “Give him line, plenty of rope, and mind your footing!”
“A long hour by Shrewsbury clock” did Mary Joyce play that salmon. Her gloves were torn to shreds, her hat became a victim to the Shauraunthurga, her sheeny hair fell down her shoulders long below her waist, her boasted boots indicated eruptive tendencies, but the plucky girl still held on. “Let me alone, please,” she would cry as her father or Bingham tendered their services; “I’m not half-tired yet.” The color in her cheeks, the fire in her eye, the delicate nostril expanded, the undulating form—the British subaltern saw all this, and almost envied the fish, inasmuch as it was her centre point of interest.
“The landing-net! Quickly! I have him now!”
Percy Bingham darted forward, caught his foot in the gnarled root of a tree, and plunged headforemost into the boiling waters. An expert swimmer, he soon reappeared and swam towards the bank, still grasping the net. Finding his right arm powerless, and having succeeded in gaining footing, he placed the net beneath the fish, which with a bound sprang clear, and, breaking the line that Miss Joyce had slackened in her anxiety for the safety of her guest, was, in an exhausted condition, floundering down the stream, when Percy, by a supreme effort, clasped it fiercely in his left arm and flung himself on to the bank.
“Your fish after all. But you look ill, Mr. Bingham—dreadfully ill,” cried the agitated girl. “Your arm—”
“Is broken,” he said.
Assisted by Mr. Joyce and his daughter, and with the fractured limb in a sling constructed of handkerchiefs and fishing-line, poor Bingham returned to the house. He fought bravely against the pain, and attempted one or two mournful jokes upon the subject of his mishap; but every step was mortal anguish, and he expected to feel the serrated edges of the bones sawing out through his coat-sleeve.
“I must insist upon being permitted to return to my hotel, Mr. Joyce,” said Percy Bingham when they had arrived.
“If you want every bone in your body broken, you’ll repeat that again, Bingham. Here is a room ready for you, and here, in the nick of time, is Doctor Fogarty.”
“I cotch him at the crass-roads,” panted the breathless messenger whom Mr. Joyce had despatched in quest of the bone-setter.
“A broken arm, pooh hoo! And so it is—an elegant fracture, pooh hoo! You did it well when you went about it. Lend me your scissors, Miss Mary, and tear up a sheet into bandages. I’ll soon set it for him, pooh hoo! Ay, wince away, ma bouchal; roar murdher, and it will do you good, pooh hoo! Some splints now. Fell into the river, pooh hoo! After a salmon. You landed him like a child in arms. I forgive you, pooh hoo! I’ve room for the fish in me gig, and broiled salmon is—pooh hoo! That’s it; the arm this way, as if ye were goin’ to hit me. Well done, pooh hoo! Ars longa est; so is your arm—an elegant biceps, pooh hoo! Now, sir, tell me if there’s a surgeon-major in the whole British army, horse, foot, and dragoon, that could set your arm in less time, pooh hoo?” and the doctor regarded the swathed and bandaged limb with looks of the profoundest admiration.
“I shall want to get to barracks—”
“Ne’er a barracks will ye see this side of Lady Day; so make your mind easy on that score, pooh hoo! Keep in bed till I see you again, pooh hoo! I’ll order you something to take about bed-time, but it won’t be whiskey-punch, pooh hoo!” And the genial practitioner pooh-hoo’d out of the apartment.
How delightful is convalescence—that dreamy condition in which the thoughts float upwards and the earthly tenement is all but etherealized! Percy Bingham, as he reclined upon a sofa at an open window, through which the perfume of flowers, the hum of summer, with the murmur of the rolling Shauraunthurga, stole like strains of melody, lay like one entranced, languidly sipping the intoxicating sweets of the hour, forgetful of the past, unmindful of the future. The events of the last few days seemed like a vision. Could it be possible that he would suddenly awake and find himself in the dismal walls of his quarters at Westport, far, far away from chintz and lace and from her? No; this was her book which lay upon his lap; that bouquet was culled by her fair hands; the spirited sketch of a man taking a header spread-eagle fashion was from her pencil and must be sent to Punch. She was in everything, everywhere, and, most of all, in the inner sanctuary of his heart.
He had not seen much of her—a visit in the morning like a gleam of sunlight; a chat in the gloaming, sweet as vesper-bell; occasional badinage from the garden to his window, and that was all. How could he hope to win her, this peerless girl, this heiress of the “Joyce country,” whose gray eyes rested upon mead and mountain, lake and valley, her rightful dower? He sickened at the thought. Had she been poor, he would woo, and perhaps—It was not to be. He had tarried till it was too late; he had cut down the bridge behind him, burned his boats, and he must now ford the river of his lost peace of mind as best he might.
Days flew by, and still the young officer lingered at Knockshin. Like the fairy prince in the enchanted wood, he could discover no exit. Croquet had developed into short strolls, short strolls into long walks, long walks into excursions. His arm was getting strong again. Mr. Joyce talked “soldier” with him. He had been in the Connaught Rangers, and went through pipe-clay and the orderly book with the freshness of a “sub” of six weeks’ standing. Mary—what did she speak about? Anything, everything, nothing. Latterly she had been eloquently silent, while Percy Bingham, if he did not actually, might have fairly, counted the beatings of his heart as it bumped against his ribs. They spoke more at than to each other, and when their eyes met the glance was withdrawn by both with electrical rapidity. It was the old, old story. Why repeat it here?
“Mary, Jack Bodkin, your old sweetheart, is coming over for a few days’ fishing,” exclaimed Mr. Joyce one morning upon the arrival of the letter-bag.
Miss Joyce blushed scarlet—a blush that will not be put off; a blush that plunges into the hair, comes out on the eyelids, and sets the ears upon fire—and Percy Bingham, as she grew red, became deadly white. The knell had rung, the hour had come.
“This is from the colonel,” extending a letter as he spoke, the words choking him, “and—and I must say good-by.”
“Sorry for it, Bingham, but duty is duty. No chance of an extension?” asked Joyce.
“None, sir.”
And she said not a word. There was crushing bitterness in this. Mr. Bodkin’s arrival blotted out his departure. Would that he had never seen Knockshin or Mary! No, he could not think that, and, now that he was about to leave her, he felt what that severance would cost him.
The car was waiting with his impedimenta, and he sought her to say farewell. She was not in the conservatory or drawing-room, and as a last chance he tried the library. Entering noiselessly, he found Mary Joyce leaning her head upon her hands, her hands upon the mantel-piece and sobbing as if her heart would break.
“I beg your pardon!” he stammered. “Is—is—anything the—”
“A bad toothache,” she burst in passionately, without looking up.
What could he do? What could he say?
“I—I—do not know how to apologize for—for—intruding upon your anguish”—the words came very slowly, swelling, too, in his throat—“but I cannot, cannot leave without wishing you good-by and thanking you for the sunniest hours of my life.”
“You—you are g-going, then?” without looking round.
“I go to—to make room for Mr. Bodkin.”
She faced him. Her eyes were red and swollen, but down, down in their liquid depths he beheld—something that young men find once in a lifetime. He never remembered what he did, he never recollected what he said, but the truth came out as such truths will come out.
“And to think that you first learned of my existence through the medium of a pitiful ball-dress!” she said, glowing with beautiful happiness.
“I shall not require the car,” said Percy Bingham an hour later, throwing Lanty Kerrigan a sovereign.
“Bedad, ye needn’t have tould me,” exclaimed Lanty with a broad grin. “I seen yez coortin’ through the windy.”
PROF. YOUMANS v. DR. W. M. TAYLOR ON EVOLUTION AND THE COPERNICAN THEORY.
The Popular Science Monthly, conducted by Mr. E. L. Youmans, labors hard (December, 1876) to support the assertion made by Professor Huxley that evolution is already as well demonstrated as the Copernican theory. This assertion had been refuted by the Rev. Dr. William M. Taylor in a letter to the New York Tribune, and it is against a portion of this letter that Mr. Youmans strives to defend Mr. Huxley’s evolutionary views. We ourselves have given a short refutation of Professor Huxley’s lectures on evolution,[[16]] and we had no intention to revert to the same subject; but since opposite writers are unwilling to acknowledge defeat, but pretend, on the contrary, that their opponents do not make a right use of logic, it may be both instructive and interesting to inquire what kind of logic is actually used in this controversy by the evolutionists themselves.
“It is significant,” says Mr. Youmans, “that nearly all the divines who have spoken in reply to Prof. Huxley commit themselves to some form of the doctrine of evolution.” This statement is not correct. Divines admit, as they have ever admitted, the development of varieties within the same species; but the pretended evolution of one species from another they have never admitted, and they do not look upon it as admissible, even now. There may be some exception, for divines are still human and may be imposed upon by false science; but the truth is that those among them who have replied to Prof. Huxley never meant to “commit themselves” to any form of the doctrine of evolution as presented by him. They admit, as Mr. Youmans remarks, “that there is some truth in it”—which is by no means strange, as false theories have often been evolved from undeniable facts; but they raise “a common protest against the idea that it contains much truth,” which shows that these divines were quite unwilling to commit themselves to the doctrine. Hence it is plain that, if the conduct of these divines is “significant,” it does not signify a yielding disposition, but the contrary.
Prof. Huxley had said that the evidence for the theory of evolution is demonstrative, and that it is as well based in its proofs as the Copernican theory of astronomy. “This,” says Mr. Youmans, “is thought to be quite absurd. It is said that Huxley may know a great deal about animals and fossils, but that obviously he knows very little about logic. His facts being admitted, a great deal of effort has been expended to show that he does not understand how to reason from them.” We agree with the critics here alluded to, that Prof. Huxley’s assertion concerning the demonstrative character of his proofs is “quite absurd.” As to his knowledge of logic, there might perhaps be two opinions; for a man may know logic, and make a wilful abuse of it; but it is more charitable to assume that his illogical conclusions proceed from ignorance rather than malice. After all, we are not concerned with the person of the professor, but with his lectures; and, whatever logic he may know, his lectures are certainly not a model of logical reasoning. The passage which Mr. Youmans extracts from Dr. Taylor’s letter, and which he vainly endeavors to refute, is as follows:
“Indeed, to affirm, as he [Prof. Huxley] did, that evolution stands exactly on the same basis as the Copernican theory of the motions of the heavenly bodies, is an assertion so astounding that we can only 'stand by and admire’ the marvellous effrontery with which it was made. That theory rests on facts presently occurring before our eyes, and treated in the manner of mathematical precision. It is not an inference made by somebody from a record of facts existing in far-off and pre-historic, possibly also pre-human, ages. It is verified every day by occurrences which happen according to its laws. But where do we see evolution going on to-day? If evolution rests upon a basis as sure as astronomy, why do we not see one species passing into another now, even as we see the motions of the planets through the heavens?... We know that astronomy is true, because we are verifying its conclusions every day of our lives on land and on sea. We set our clocks according to its conclusions, and navigate our ships in accordance with its predictions; but where have we anything approaching even infinitesimally to this, with evolution?”
Mr. Youmans remarks that the author of this passage is said to be a man of eminence and ability. “That may be,” he adds, “but he certainly has not won his distinction either in the fields of logic, astronomy, or biology.” To prove this, he makes the following argument:
“When a man undertakes to state the evidence of a theory, and gives us proofs that equally sustain an opposite theory, we naturally conclude that he does not know what he is talking about. This is very much Dr. Taylor’s predicament. In trying to contrast the evidence for evolution with the demonstrative proofs of the Copernican theory, he cites facts that are not only as good, but far better, to prove the truth of its antagonist, the Ptolemaic theory.”
Our readers will probably ask how it is possible to prove that a thing is black by the very facts which prove, even better, that the thing is white? That certain facts may be insufficient to prove either the one or the other of two opposite theories every one will admit; but that facts which are good to prove the movement of the earth are even better to prove its immobility, is what Mr. Youmans alone has the privilege of understanding.
Dr. Taylor, in his argument against Prof. Huxley, assumed the truth of the modern astronomical theory, and said that this theory was proved by facts presently occurring before our eyes; which is not the case with the hypothesis of evolution. But, as he did not mention in particular those facts which are considered to constitute the most irrefragable proof of the theory, his silence about them is interpreted by Mr. Youmans as an effect of ignorance. It is not our affair to defend Dr. Taylor; but we think that this interpretation is unfair. The reverend doctor was not writing a treatise of astronomy; he was simply stating a known doctrine, of which it was not his duty to make the demonstration. On the other hand, even if we admitted that the reverend doctor knows but little of astronomy, we do not see that this would weaken his argument; for, whether he knows much or nothing in this branch of science, it remains true that the Copernican theory is proved “by facts presently occurring before our eyes”—which is not the case with the hypothesis of evolution. It is to this truth that Mr. Youmans should have given his attention, if he desired “to win any distinction in the field of logic”; but his peculiar logic shrank from this duty, and prompted him to prefer a gratuitous denunciation of his opponent.
Mr. Youmans pretends that Dr. Taylor “talks as if the Copernican theory is something that anybody can see by looking up in the sky.” Dr. Taylor’s words do not admit of such a nonsensical construction. The Copernican theory, he says, “rests on facts presently occurring before our eyes, and treated in the manner of mathematical precision.” This obviously means that the Copernican theory is based on both observation and calculation. Now, surely Mr. Youmans will not maintain that we can find mathematical formulas and make astronomical calculations by simply “looking up in the sky.”
He goes on to say that the Ptolemaic theory was the fundamental conception of astronomy; that it guided its scientific development for two thousand years; that it was based on extensive, prolonged, and accurate observations; that it was elucidated and confirmed by mathematics; that it was verified by confirming the power of astronomical prevision; and that the planetary motions were traced and resolved on this theory with great skill and correctness, elaborate tables being constructed, which represented their irregularities and inequalities, so that their future positions could be foretold, and conjunctions, oppositions, and eclipses predicted.
These and similar remarks of the scientific editor would tend to prove that the Congregation of the Holy Office had very good and substantial grounds for condemning the heliocentric theory, and that Galileo was a visionary; for the theory which he impugned was “confirmed by mathematics,” and “verified by confirming the power of astronomical prevision.” We are quite sure, however, that this is not what Mr. Youmans intended to prove; and yet it does not appear why he should fill a column of his magazine with such a panegyric of a defunct theory. We concede—and the fact has never been disputed—that astronomy owes an immense debt to the ante-Copernican investigators for their careful observations and laborious calculations; but we do not see how this has anything to do with Dr. Taylor’s criticism. Had the reverend doctor denied that there was any real knowledge of astronomy before Copernicus, his critic might have been justified in trying to enlighten him about the merits of the Ptolemaic astronomers; but Dr. Taylor had not committed himself on this point, and therefore had no apparent need of being enlightened on the subject. The information, consequently, which Mr. Youmans volunteers to offer him is superfluous, not to say impertinent, and, inasmuch as it professes to be an argument, is a complete failure; for it aims at proving what no one has ever denied.
But the scientific editor in giving his needless information commits another blunder, which we could hardly expect from a man of science, by affirming that the Ptolemaic theory “was elucidated and confirmed by mathematics.” Mathematics confirmed nothing but the order and quality of the phenomena, and the law of their succession. Before Kepler and Newton no mathematics could decide whether the sun revolved around the earth or the earth around the sun. Astronomical phenomena were known, but this knowledge was a knowledge of facts, not of their explanation. The Ptolemaic hypothesis was not inconsistent with the facts then observed, but it was assumed, not verified. If such a theory had been verified, its truth would be still recognized, and the Copernican theory would have had no chance of admission. But evidently it is not the theory that has been verified, but only the apparent movements of celestial bodies. Thus “the elaborate tables” by which the future positions of the planets could be foretold prove indeed the accuracy of ancient astronomical observations and calculations, but they are no evidence that the geocentric theory was correct.
Mr. Youmans informs us, also, that “Copernicus did not abolish, but rather revised, the old astronomy.” If the words “old astronomy” are taken to express merely the knowledge of celestial phenomena, we have nothing to reply; but if those words be understood to mean the Ptolemaic theory, the assertion is ridiculous. Indeed, Copernicus, as Mr. Youmans says, “simply recentred the solar system”; that is, he simply put the sun, instead of the earth, in the centre of the planetary orbits. Nothing but that. But who does not see that to give a new centre to the solar system was to suppress the old centre, and therefore to abolish the geocentric theory? Why Mr. Youmans should labor to insinuate the contrary we cannot really understand. Dr. Taylor, against whom he writes, had said nothing concerning either the personal views of Copernicus or the old system of astronomy, but had simply maintained that the so-called Copernican theory, as mentioned by Prof. Huxley, and as understood by all—that is, as perfected by Kepler, Newton, and others—stands to-day on such a basis of undeniable facts that we can no longer hesitate about its truth. This statement might have been contradicted two centuries ago; but we fancy that it ought not to give rise to the least controversy on the part of a modern cultivator of science, however much determined to find fault with his opponent.
Dr. Taylor had said, as we have noticed, that the Copernican theory “rests on facts presently occurring before our eyes.” Mr. Youmans answers: “So does the Ptolemaic theory; and not only that, but, if the test is what occurs before our eyes, then the Ptolemaic theory is a thousand times stronger than the Copernican.” If this answer expresses the real opinion of Mr. Youmans, we must conclude that he alone, among physicists, is ignorant of the fact that terrestrial gravitation is modified by the centrifugal force due to the rotation of the earth, and that this fact is established by experiments which “occur before our eyes” when we make use of the pendulum in different latitudes. What shall we say of the aberration of light? Is not this phenomenon a proof of the movement of the earth? Or does it not “occur before our eyes”? Mr. Youmans may say that these facts do not occur before all eyes, but only before the eyes of scientific men. But Dr. Taylor had not maintained that all the facts connected with the Copernican theory occur before all eyes; and, on the other hand, Foucault’s pendulum, even though oscillating before unscientific eyes, makes visible to the dullest observer the shifting of the horizontal plane from its position at a rate proportional to the sine of the latitude of the place, thus showing to the eye the actual movement of our planet. It is true, therefore, that the Copernican theory “rests on facts presently occurring before our eyes.”
But, if the Copernican theory is so obvious, “why,” asks Mr. Youmans, “did the astronomers of twenty centuries fail to discern it? Why could not the divines of Copernicus’ time see it when it was pointed out to them? And why could not Lord Bacon admit it a hundred years after Copernicus?” The why is well known. The Copernican theory was at first nothing more than a hypothesis; and its truth, even after Kepler and Newton, was still in need of experimental confirmation. Had Lord Bacon or the divines of Copernicus’ time seen what we see with our eyes in Foucault’s experiment, there is little doubt that they would have recognized at last the truth of the new theory. But let this suffice about the certitude of the Copernican theory.
The second part of Mr. Youmans’ article regards the theory of evolution. This theory assumes that the immense diversity of living forms now scattered over the earth has arisen from gelatinous matter through a long process of gradual unfolding and derivation within the order of nature (that is, without supernatural interference) and by the operation of natural laws. Mr. Youmans says that this theory “is built upon a series of demonstrated truths.” This assertion would have some weight, if such a building had not been raised in defiance of logic; but we have already shown that Prof. Huxley’s Three Lectures on Evolution teem with fallacies most fatal to the cause he desired to uphold. Hence, while we admit that “demonstrated truth” is a very solid ground to build upon, we maintain that not a single demonstrated truth can be logically alleged in support of the theory of evolution. But let Mr. Youmans speak for himself:
“It is a fact accordant with all observation, and to which there never has been known a solitary exception, that the succession of generations of living things upon earth is by reproduction and genetic connection in the regular order of nature. The stream of generations flows on by this process, which is as much a part of the settled, continuous economy of the world as the steady action of gravity or heat. It is demonstrated that living forms are liable to variations which accumulate through inheritance; that the ratio of multiplication in the living world is out of all proportion to the means of subsistence, so that only comparatively few germs mature, while myriads are destroyed; that, in the struggles of life, the fittest to the conditions survive, and those least adapted perish. It is a demonstrated fact that life has existed on the globe during periods of time so vast as to be incalculable; that there has been an order in its succession by which the lowest appeared first, and the highest have come last, while the intermediate forms disclose a rising gradation. It is a demonstrated truth of nature that matter is indestructible, and that, therefore, all the material changes and transformations of the world consist in using over and over the same stock of materials, new forms being perpetually derived from old ones; and it is a fact now also held to be established that force obeys the same laws. All these great truths harmonize with each other; they agree with all we know of the constitution of nature; and they demonstrate evolution as a fact, and go far toward opening to us the secondary question of its method.”
These are, according to Mr. Youmans, the “demonstrated truths” on which the theory of evolution has been built, and which, according to the same writer, “demonstrate evolution as a fact.” We think, on the contrary, that the only fact demonstrated by this passage is the blindness (voluntary or not) of a certain class of scientists. A cursory examination of it will suffice to convince all unprejudiced men that such is the case.
That the stream of generations flows on “by reproduction and genetic connection in the regular order of nature” is indeed a fact accordant with all observation, and to which there never has been known a solitary exception; but all observation proves that the regular order of nature in generation is confined within the limits of the species to which parents belong. This precludes the possibility of drawing from this fact any conclusion in favor of evolution.
That living forms “are liable to variations, which accumulate through inheritance,” is not a demonstrated fact. We see, on the contrary, that all such accidental variations, instead of accumulating, tend to disappear within a few generations, whenever they cease to be under the influence of the agencies to which they owe their origin. But let us admit, for the sake of argument, that all living forms are liable to variations which accumulate through inheritance; then we ask whether all such variations are confined within the limit of each species, or some of them overstep that limit. If they are confined within that limit, the fact proves nothing in favor of the evolution of species. If, on the contrary, any one says that they overstep that limit, then the fact itself needs demonstration; for it has never been observed. Therefore to argue from this fact in favor of evolution is to beg the question. We have no need of dwelling on Mr. Youmans’ statement that the ratio of multiplication in the living world is out of all proportion to the means of subsistence, so that only comparatively few germs mature, while myriads are destroyed. The statement is true; but it has nothing to do with the theory of evolution. That, in the struggles of life, the fittest to the conditions survive, is another fact which does not in the least bear out the theory. For the fittest among animals are those which enjoy the plenitude of their specific properties, and which, therefore, are best apt to transfuse them into their offspring whole, unmixed, and unimpaired.
We are told, also, that life has existed during periods of time so vast as to be incalculable. This we admit. But then, in the succession of life, there has been an order, “by which the lowest appeared first, and the highest have come last, while intermediate forms disclose a rising gradation.” This, too, we may admit, though not without reservations; for Prof. Huxley himself confesses that numerous intermediate forms do not occur in the order in which they ought to occur if they really had formed steps in the progression from one species to another; for we find these intermediate forms mixed up with the higher and the lower ones “in contemporaneous deposits.” But, even supposing that the lowest forms precede the highest, what evidence would this be in favor of evolution? The order of succession may indeed prove that the lower forms existed before the higher forms were created; but it does not show that the lower forms are the parents of the higher. This is merely assumed by the evolutionists as a convenient substitute for proof; that is, they first assume that evolution is a fact, and then conclude that the fact of evolution is established.
Lastly, that matter is indestructible, and that therefore all the material changes and transformations of the world consist in using over and over the same stock of materials, is a doctrine which has no special bearing on the question. When a new individual of any living species is generated, its organism is indeed formed out of old matter; but this had no need of demonstration. What our evolutionists ought to show is that new individuals of a certain species have been generated by individuals of some other species; and this surely cannot be shown by a recourse to the indestructibility of matter. That matter is indestructible is, however, a groundless assertion. For though natural forces cannot destroy it, God, who has created it, and who keeps it in existence, can always withdraw his action, and let it fall into its primitive nothingness. And as to the so-called “fact” now also held to be established, that “force obeys the same laws”—that is, that force is indestructible, and that new forms of force are perpetually derived from old ones—we need only remark that the theory of transformation of forces, as held and explained by our advanced scientists, is but a travesty of truth, and an impotent effort to upset the principle of causality. Neither statical nor dynamical forces are ever transformed. Indeed, they have no form attached to them. What our modern physicists call “transformation of force” is nothing but the change of one kinetic phenomenon into another—that is, a succession of modes of movement of various kinds. Now, modes of movement are modes of being, not of force, though they are the measure of the dynamical forces by which they have been produced. The force with which any element of matter is endowed is constantly the same, both as to quality and as to quantity. Its exertion alone, owing to a difference of conditions, admits of a higher and a lower degree of intensity. As we do not intend at present to write a treatise on forces, we will only add that the forces of matter are exercised on other matter by transient action, but cannot perform immanent acts calculated to modify their own matter. If they could do this, matter would not be inert. Hence animal life, which requires immanent acts, cannot be accounted for by the forces of matter. And therefore, whatever our scientists may say about the conservation of energy and the transformation of forces, they have no right to infer that animal life can be evolved out of matter alone; and they have still less right to pretend that such is “the fact.”
What shall we say, then, of Mr. Youmans’ assertion that the alleged reasons “demonstrate evolution as a fact”? We must say, applying Dr. Taylor’s words to the case, that the assertion is “so astounding that we can only 'stand by and admire’ the marvellous effrontery with which it has been made.” A man of Mr. Youmans’ ability can scarcely be so ignorant of logic as not to see that his reasons demonstrate evolution neither as a fact nor as a probability, and not even as a possibility; but when a man succeeds in blinding himself to the existence of a personal God, and substitutes nature in the place of her Creator, we need not be surprised if his logic turns out to be a clumsy attempt at imposition.
Dr. Taylor had asked why we do not see one species passing into another, even as we see the motions of the planets through the heavens. The question was pertinent; for Prof. Huxley had maintained that “evolution rests on a basis as sure as astronomy.” Mr. Youmans answers: “To this foolish question, which has nevertheless been asked a dozen times by clerical critics of Huxley, the obvious answer is that what requires a very long time to produce cannot be seen in a very short time.” We think that the question was not foolish, and that the answer of Mr. Youmans is a mere evasion. For, if evolution is a fact, we must find numerous traces of it not only in the fossil remains, but also in the actual economy of nature. If the bird is evolved from the lizard, there must be actually among living creatures a numerous class of intermediate forms, some more, others less developed, exhibiting all the stages of transformation through which the lizard is gradually developed into a bird. Thus, because the acorn develops into the stately oak, we find in nature oaks of all the intermediate sizes; and because babyhood develops into manhood, we find in nature individuals of all intermediate ages. In like manner, if the evolution of one species from another is not a fable, we must find in nature specimens of all the intermediate forms. Dr. Taylor’s question was, therefore, most judicious. That Mr. Youmans’ reply to it is a mere evasion a little reflection will show; for the length of time required for the process of transformation would only prove that the intermediate forms must remain longer in existence; whilst the fact is that such forms do not exist at all.
“There has been much complaint,” says Mr. Youmans, “that Prof. Huxley undertook to put the demonstrative evidence of evolution on so narrow a basis as the establishment of the genealogy of the horse; but this rather enhances than detracts from his merit as a scientific thinker.” Here the case is misstated. Had Prof. Huxley really demonstrated evolution by the genealogy of the horse, no one would have complained that the basis was too narrow; but as it became manifest that the basis was not only narrow but questionable, and that it afforded no evidence whatever of evolution, it was thought that it required a “marvellous effrontery” on the part of Prof. Huxley to maintain before the American public that the genealogy of the horse gave “demonstrative evidence” of evolution. This is the reason why there has been so much complaint. Prof. Huxley simply insulted his audience when he asked them to believe that evolution was a demonstrated fact.
Mr. Youmans tells us that the vital point between Prof. Huxley and his antagonists is the question of the validity of the conception of order and uniformity in nature. “Prof. Huxley holds to it as a first principle, a truth demonstrated by all science, and just as fixed in biology as in astronomy. His antagonists hold that the inflexible order of nature may be asserted perhaps in astronomy, but they deny it in biology. They here invoke supernatural intervention.” This statement is utterly false. There is no question about the order and uniformity of nature; and it is not to Prof. Huxley or to modern science that we are indebted for the knowledge of this uniformity either in astronomy or in biology; the world has ever been in possession of this indisputable truth. The real question between Prof. Huxley and his antagonists is that nature, according to the professor, is independent in its being and in its working, and has an inherent power of fostering into existence a series of beings of higher and higher specific perfection, from the speck of gelatinous matter even to man; whereas nature, according to the professor’s antagonists, and according to science, revelation, and common sense, is not independent either in its being or in its working, and has no inherent power of forming either a plant without a seed or an animal without an ovum of the same species. If Prof. Huxley had had any knowledge of that part of philosophy which we call metaphysics, and which our advanced scientists affect so much to despise because they cannot cope with it, he would have seen the absurdity of his assumption; and if Mr. Youmans had consulted the rules of logic, he would not have said that the “uniformity of nature” was with Prof. Huxley a “first principle”; it being evident that uniformity clashes with evolution, which is a change of forms.
The last argument of the editor of the Popular Science Monthly in behalf of evolution is as follows:
“Obviously there are but two hypotheses upon the subject—that of genetic derivation of existing species through the operation of natural law, and that of creation by miraculous interference with the course of nature. If we assume the orderly course of nature, development is inevitable: it is evolution or nothing. If the order of nature is put aside and special creation appealed to, we have a right to ask, On what evidence?... There is no evidence. There is not a scintilla of proof that can have a feather’s weight with any scientific mind.... Has anybody ever seen a special creation?”
We answer, first, that even if it were true that “there is no evidence” in support of the creation, it would not follow that there is any evidence, either scientific or of any other kind, in support of the evolution of one species from another. Indeed, in spite of all the efforts of “advanced” thinkers, we have not yet been furnished with “a scintilla of proof that can have a feather’s weight” with a philosophical mind; on the contrary, we have been informed by no less an authority than Mr. Huxley that “no connecting link between the crocodile and the lizard, or between the lizard and the snake, or between the snake and the crocodile, or between any two of these groups,” has yet been found—a fact which, if not destroyed by further discoveries, is “a strong and weighty argument against evolution,” as the professor confesses. Hence it is evident that the existing palæontological specimens, far from proving the theory, form a strong and weighty objection against it. The consequence is that, even if we had no evidence of the creation of species, it would yet be more reasonable to accept creation, against which no objection can be found, than to accept evolution.
But we are far from conceding that the creation of species is unsupported by evidence of a proper kind. Mr. Youmans may laugh at the Bible; but we maintain that the Biblical record constitutes historical evidence. He may also laugh at philosophical reasoning, for his mind is too “scientific” to care for philosophy; but we believe that philosophical evidence is as good, at least, as any which can be met with in the Popular Science Monthly. Animals have a soul, which elicits immanent acts; they know, they feel, they have passions; and, if we listen to some modern thinkers, they have even intelligence and reason. Now, matter is essentially inert, and therefore cannot elicit immanent acts. Hence animals are not mere organized matter; and accordingly they cannot be evolved from matter alone. Their soul must come from a higher source; it must be created. Science has nothing to say against this; it can only state its ignorance by asking: “Has anybody ever seen a special creation?” Of course nobody has; but there are things which are seen by reason with as great a clearness as anything visible to the eye; and this is just the case with creation. On the other hand, why should Mr. Youmans pretend that creation must be seen to be admitted, when he admits evolution, though he has never seen it? If seeing is a condition for believing, why did he treat as foolish Dr. Taylor’s question concerning the passing of one species into another? Why did he ask: “Has the writer ever seen the production of a geological formation?” Surely, if evolution were proved to be a fact, we would admit it, without having seen it; but, since it is creation, not evolution, that has been shown to be a fact, we are compelled to admit it, even though nobody has had the privilege of seeing the event.
When Mr. Youmans declares that “there is not a scintilla of proof” (in favor of special creations) “that can have a feather’s weight with any scientific mind,” he evidently assumes that no scientific mind has existed before our time; which is more than even Huxley or Darwin would maintain. But infidel science is equally blind to the scientific merit of its antagonists, and to the blunders which it is itself daily committing. Thus Mr. Youmans, no doubt to show that he has a “scientific mind,” speaks of the derivation of species “through the operation of natural law”—a phrase which has no meaning; for law is an abstraction, and abstractions do not operate. Nor is it more “scientific” to assume that the creation of species was “a miraculous interference with the course of nature”; for the course of nature required the creation of species, just as it now requires the creation of human souls for the continuance of humanity; and God cannot be said to have interfered with the course of nature by doing what nature required but could not do. Is it any more “scientific” to write Nature with a capital letter? Of course, if there is no God, nature is all, and atheists may write it Nature. Mr. Youmans does not tell us clearly that there is no God; but he shows clearly enough that to his mind Nature is everything; which is, in fact, a virtual denial of a personal God. If we were to inform him that nature is only a servant of God, he would perhaps ask, “On what evidence?” And because we would be unable to point out a chemical residuum or a geologic formation wherein God could be made visible to him, he would conclude that “there is no scintilla of proof that can have a feather’s weight with a scientific mind.” He then assumes that in the orderly course of nature the evolution of species is “inevitable.” It did not occur to his scientific mind that before making such an assertion, it was necessary to examine how far the powers of nature extend; for he might have discovered that matter is inert, and that it was a great blunder to assume that inert matter produced animal life.
He further supposes that when special creations are appealed to, “the order of nature is put aside.” He therefore pretends that the order of nature would not allow of the creation of plants and animals, evidently because it was nature’s duty to perform without extrinsic intervention all those wonderful works which we attribute to the wisdom and omnipotence of the Creator. We maybe unscientific; but we defy Mr. Youmans to show, either scientifically or otherwise, the truth of his assumption. To tell us that the evolution of life from dead matter was within the order of nature, without even attempting to prove that nature had a power adequate to the task, is just as plausible as to tell us that Prof. Huxley has created the Niagara Falls or that Mr. Darwin has painted the moon. And yet the author of such loose statements airs his scientific pretensions and speaks of “scientific minds”!
We have no need to follow Mr. Youmans any further; for what he adds consists of assumptions cognate to those we have already refuted. “Genetic derivation,” he says, “is in the field as a real and undeniable cause”—which is an open untruth. “Has anybody seen a special creation?” This is irrelevant. “Do those who believe in a special creation represent to themselves any possibility of how it could have occurred?” Probably they do, if they have read the first chapter of Genesis. “Milton attempted to form an image of the way the thing was done, and says that the animals burst up full-formed and perfect like plants out of the ground—'the grassy clods now calved.’ But clods can only calve miraculously.” Quite so; but we must not be afraid of miracles, when we cannot deny them without falling into absurdities. “Nature does not bring animals into the world now by this method, and science certainly can know nothing of it.” Yes; but there are many other things of which infidel science is ignorant. And yet we fancy that, when animals have been once created, even infidel science might have discerned that their procreation no longer required “the grassy clods to calve.”
But enough. We conclude that, so far from being possible, so far from being probable, so far from being proved, the hypothesis of the origin of animal forms by evolution is simply unthinkable; it is a violation not only of the order of nature, but of the very condition of thought and of the first principle of science, which is the principle of causality. When will our scientific men understand that there is no science without philosophy?
A WAIF FROM THE GREAT EXHIBITION, PHILADELPHIA, 1876
“Their store-houses full, flowing out of this into that.
“They have called the people happy that hath these things: but happy is that people whose God is
the Lord.”—Ps. cxliii.
I.
With face storm-lined and bronzed, no longer young,
That seemed as if its soul’s dim life had grown
On lonely farm, in rugged inland town
Lying, a narrow world, bleak hills among,
A stranger gazed amid the wealth and glare
Of all the nations’ gathered industry
Where rose the light, symmetric tracery
Of Munich’s altars worked in colors fair;
Where good St. Joseph with the lilies stood;
And soft-eyed martyr with her branch of palm,
And full, sweet lips smiling with happy calm,
Seemed beaming witness 'mid the multitude
Of glittering toys and earth’s huge, unworked store,
Of nobler purpose man’s life resting o’er.
II.
Here stretched its naked arms the blessèd Rood,
Whose desolation eloquent below
God’s Mother sat in soundless deeps of woe,
Her sad knees holding all her earthly good.
Here stood the stranger with a look intent
Wherein no light of recognition woke,
As if he read in some strange-lettered book.
Then, asking what these unguessed figures meant,
An answer came: “Our Lord, dead 'neath the Cross.”
“Ah! yes, and that is Mary, I suppose—
The Mother.” Ah! what wondering thoughts uprose
To die in silence, winning so some loss,
Perchance, unto two lives. Sweet Mother, pray
That soul accuse not mine on judgment day!
III.
So strange and sad the simple question seemed;
As if on those far hills God’s voice had built,
Upon those souls for whom his blood was spilt
Some shadow rested, amid which scarce gleamed
The mournful splendor by his dark Cross thrown:
As if stern life grew but more hard and bare,
Missing the presence of the Maiden rare
Whose God made her unstained flesh his own;
Who held him on her arms a helpless child,
With love no mother ever knew before;
Holding, when Calvary’s dread hours were o’er,
The Man of Sorrows where her Babe had smiled—
Her arms the cradle of the Almighty One,
Her arms His spotless shroud, life’s labor done.
IV.
Alas! such faith to men denied who grope
Half in a fear begotten not of love,
Half in cold doubt, seeking all things to prove,
To none hold fast, with whom divinest hope
Holds naught more excellent than earth’s to-days;
For whom in vain doth Israel’s lily bloom,
With its white sunshine lighting hours of gloom,
Shining 'mid thorns that seek to crush its grace—
So dimming the broad rays of love divine
With earthly shadow cast on earthly things
That folded keep their gift of heavenly wings,
Lest, soaring, they lose sight of lesser shrine
Lest, heart so kindling with the Spirit’s fire,
Feet lowly tread that eyes be lifted higher.
V.
Slow turning through the glimmering aisles to range,
Amid the hum the loitering footsteps wrought
I lost the questioning face, but not the thought
Of that dim life, to which the night seemed strange
Of Calvary’s God, to whom all life is owed—
That clouded life wherein Faith’s pure sunshine
Casts faintest gleam of its strong light divine
That strengthens soul, makes fair the daily load.
Far down the hall full notes of organ poured,
And broke in song strong voices manifold;
Glad alleluias all exultant rolled,
As if proclaiming on each soaring chord:
“Happy the people of this wealth possessed!”
Nay, Happy they whom God the Lord hath blessed.
ENGLISH RULE IN IRELAND.
II.
The present condition of a people is the latest phase of a life that has run through centuries, in all the events of which there may be traced the relation of cause and effect, and whose continuity has never been interrupted, though at times the current may seem to leave its channel, or even to disappear. The past never dies, but with each succeeding moment receives a fuller existence, survives as a curse or a blessing. The passion which urges the human mind back to ages more and more remote, until the gathering darkness shuts out even the faintest glimmer of light, is not mere curiosity, nor even the inborn craving for knowledge; rather is it the consciousness that those ancient times and far-off deeds still live in us, mould us, and shape our ends. We were with Adam when he plucked and ate the forbidden fruit, and that his act should work in us yet, like a taint in the blood, seems to be a postulate of reason not less than a truth of tradition or revelation. The cherishing of great names, the clinging to noble memories, the use of poetry, music, sculpture, painting, architecture, or any art, to give form and vividness to glories, heroisms, martyrdoms, are but the expression of this consciousness that the present is only the fuller and more living past. No vanity, much less scorn or hate, should prompt any one to lift into the light the glory or the shame of a people’s history. As we tread reverently on the ground where human passions have contended for the mastery, we should approach with religious awe the facts which have made the world what it is.
There are many persons, who certainly have no prejudices against the Irish people, many true and loyal Irishmen even, who strongly object to the prominence given to the sorrows and sufferings of Ireland. They would have us forget the past and turn, with a countenance fresh and hopeful as that of youth, to the future. Sydney Smith, full of English prepossessions but an honest lover of liberty, who labored as earnestly and fearlessly as any man of his generation in behalf of the wronged and defenceless, could not restrain his impatience when he thought of the fondness with which Irishmen cling to old memories and sacred associations. In his opinion the object of all government is roast mutton, potatoes, claret, a stout constable, an honest justice, a clear highway, and a free chapel. “What trash,” he exclaimed, “to be bawling in the streets about the Green Isle, the Isle of the Ocean, the bold anthem of Erin go bragh! A far better anthem would be, Erin go bread and cheese, Erin go cabins that will keep out the rain, Erin go pantaloons without holes in them.”
This may be very well, but we are persuaded that there is not an abuse or an evil in Ireland to-day which has not its roots in the remote past, or which can be understood or remedied without a knowledge of Irish history.
The bold anthem of Erin go bragh, which so provoked Sidney Smith, is the thread that leads us through the labyrinth. It is because the Irish are not English that England is neither able nor willing to treat them justly; and if she has rendered herself guilty of the greatest social crime in all history, it is because she has clung for centuries with terrible obstinacy to a policy which left the people of Ireland no alternative between denationalization and extermination. When in England the national spirit dominated and absorbed the religious spirit, the Irish, who had so long maintained their separate nationality, adhered with invincible firmness to the old faith. This was imputed to them as a crime, and became the pretext for still more grievous persecutions. If they were resolved to be Irish and Catholic, England was not less resolved that they should be outlaws and beggars. They were to have no bread or potatoes, or cabins that would keep out the rain, so long as they persisted in singing the bold anthem and acknowledging the supremacy of the pope. The history of Ireland is in great part the history of her wrongs; for a long time to come, doubtless, it will be a history of suffering; and if those who write of her find that they are placing before their readers pictures of death, exile, persecution, beggary, famine, desolation, violence, oppression, and of every form of human misery, they are but describing the state to which her conquerors have reduced her.
But there are special reasons for dwelling upon the wrongs of Ireland. For three hundred years the Irish people themselves and their faith have been held responsible, wherever the English language is spoken, for the crimes of England. The backwardness of Irish industry, and the seeming want of energy of the people in improving their condition, are habitually imputed by statesmen and public instructors to a peculiar indolence and recklessness in the Celtic race, fostered and encouraged by what is supposed to be the necessary influence of the Catholic religion.
The Irish are probably not more Celtic than the French, who assuredly are not excelled in thrift and industry by any other people. There is no country more Catholic than Belgium, nor is there anywhere a more prosperous or laborious people. Irishmen themselves, it is universally admitted, are hard workers in England, in the United States, in Canada, in Australia—wherever, in a word, the motives which incite men to labor are not taken from them; and yet the popular prejudice on this subject is so flattering to Anglo-Saxon and Protestant pride that it remains in the public mind like a superstition, which no amount of evidence can affect. In a former article we have attempted to trace some of the causes to which the poverty and misery of Ireland must be attributed, and we shall now continue the investigation. During the three centuries immediately following the Conquest the country was wasted by wars, massacres, and feuds, carried on by the two armed nations, which fiercely contended for the possession of the soil. The Anglo-Norman colony, entrenched within the Pale, and receiving constant supplies of men and money from the mother-country, formed a kind of standing army, ever ready to invade and lay waste the territories still held by the native population. The Irish people, in self-defence, and also with the hope of driving the invader from their shores, turned their whole attention to war. All the pursuits of peace were forgotten, and the island became a camp of soldiers, who, when not battling with the common enemy, turned their swords against one another. In such a state of society no progress was possible. Then came three centuries of religious wars to add more savage fierceness to the war of races. Under Elizabeth, James I., Cromwell, and William of Orange the whole country was confiscated. The Catholics were driven from their lands, hunted down, their churches and monasteries were burned or turned over to Protestants, their priests were martyred or exiled, their schools closed, their teachers banished, their nobles impoverished; and to make this state of things perpetual the Penal Code was enacted. To this point there was complete harmony between the home government and the English colony in Ireland. But England has rarely poured out her treasure or her blood for other than selfish and mercenary motives. She therefore demanded, as the price of her assistance in crushing the Irish Catholics, that the commerce and industry of Ireland should be sacrificed to her own interests. The House of Commons declared the importation of Irish cattle a public nuisance. They were then slaughtered and salted, but the government refused to permit the sale of the meat. The hides were tanned. The importation of leather was forbidden. The Irish Protestants began to export their wool; England refused to buy it. They began to manufacture it; an export duty, equivalent to prohibition, was put on all Irish woollen goods. They grew flax and made linens; England put a bounty on Scotch and English linens, and levied a duty on Irish linens. Ireland was not allowed to build or own a ship—her forests were felled and the timber sent to England. The English colonies were forbidden to trade with her; even the fisheries were carried on with English boats manned by Englishmen. By these and similar measures Irish commerce and industry were destroyed. Nothing remained for the people to do but to till the soil. In this lay the only hope of escaping starvation. But they no longer owned the land; it was in the hands of an alien aristocracy, English in origin and sympathy, Protestant in religion. The Catholic people, without civil existence, were at the mercy of an oligarchy by whom they were both hated and despised. These nobles owed their titles, wealth, and power to the violence of conquest, and, instead of seeking to heal the wounds, they were resolved to keep them open. In France and in England the Northmen were gradually fused with the original population. They lost their language, customs, almost the memory of their cradle-land. Even in Ireland a considerable portion of the Norman conquerors became Irish—Hibernis hiberniores. But this partial assimilation of the two races was effected in spite of England, who made use of strong measures both to prevent and punish this degeneracy, as it was termed. Had the union between the Irish and the Normans not been prevented by this violent and interested policy, a homogeneous people would have been formed in Ireland as in England, and the frightful wrongs and crimes of the last seven hundred years would not have been committed.
But the interests of England demanded that Ireland should be kept weak and helpless by internal discord; and she therefore used every means to prevent the fusion of the two races. The “Irish enemy,” ever ready to break in upon the settlements of the Pale, was the surest warrant of the loyalty of the English colony to the mother-country, whose assistance might at any moment become essential to its very existence. The native population, on the other hand, was held in check by the foreigner encamped in the land. Had the Irish and the English in Ireland united, they would have had little trouble in throwing off the yoke of England. It was all-important, therefore, that they should remain, distinct and inimical races. All intercourse between them was forbidden. Their inter-marriage was made high treason. It was a crime for an Englishman to speak Irish, or for an Irishman to speak English. The ancient laws and customs of the Irish were destroyed, and they were denied the benefits of English law. As yet the English and the Irish professed the same religious faith; but now even this powerful bond of union was broken. Enemies on earth, they looked to no common hope beyond this life. Three centuries of persecution and outrage followed, during which the Catholic Irish were reduced to such a state of misery and beggary that the only thing which remained in common between them and their tyrants was hate.
Here we have come upon the well-spring of all the bitter waters that have deluged Ireland. The country is owned and governed by a few men who have never loved the country and have always hated the people. Throughout the rest of Europe, even in the worst times, the interests of the lords and the peasants were to some extent identical. They were one in race and religion, rendered mutual services, gloried in a common country, and shared their miseries. The noble spent at least a part of the year on his estates, surrounded by his dependants. Kind offices were interchanged. The great lady visited the peasant woman in her sickness, and the humanities of life were not ignored. Elsewhere in Europe the great land-owners, whether lay or ecclesiastical, were, with rare exceptions, kind to the poor, indulgent to their debtors, willing to encourage industry, to advance capital for the improvement of the land, and thus to promote their own interests by promoting those of their tenants. The privileged classes were not wholly independent of the people. If they were not restrained from wrong-doing by love, they were often held in check by a salutary fear.
But nothing of all this was found in Ireland, where the landlords were in the unfortunate position of having nothing to fear and nothing to hope from the people. They lacked all the essential conditions of a native aristocracy. Their titles were Irish, but all their interests and sympathies were English. They were the hired servants of England, and they were not paid to work for the good of Ireland. They drew their revenues from a country to which they rendered no service; they were supported by the labors of the people whom they oppressed and hated; and they rarely saw the land from which they derived their wealth and titles, but lived in England, where they found a more congenial society, and were not afflicted by the sight of sufferings and miseries of which they knew themselves to be the authors. If the people, maddened by oppression or hunger, revolted, the Irish landlords were not disturbed; for an English army was at hand to crush the rebellion, which was never attributed to its true cause, but to the supposed insubordination and lawlessness of the Irish character. In England there existed a middle class, which bridged over the chasm that separated the nobles from the peasants, and which rendered the aristocracy liberal and progressive by opening its ranks to superior merit wherever found; but in Ireland there were only two classes of society, divided the one from the other as by a wall of brass. The authority of the Protestant oligarchy over the Catholic population was absolute, and they contracted the vices by which the exercise of uncontrolled power is always punished. To the narrowness and ignorance of a rural gentry were added the brutality and coarseness of tyrants. The social organization prevented the infusion of new blood which had saved the English aristocracy from decay and impotence, and the general stagnation of political and commercial life in Ireland had the effect of helping on the degeneracy of the ruling caste. Everything, in a word, tended to make the Irish landlords the worst aristocracy with which a nation was ever cursed; and, by the most cruel of fates, this worst of all aristocracies was made the sole arbiter of the destinies of the Irish people, of whose pitiable condition under this rule we have already given some account.
We turn now to consider the causes which have brought a certain measure of relief to the people of Ireland; and we must seek for them, not in the good-will or sense of justice of Irish or English Protestants, but in circumstances which took from them the power of continuing without some mitigation a policy which, if ruinous to the Irish people, was also full of peril to England.
It is pleasant to us, as Americans, to know that the voice which proclaimed our freedom and independence was heard in Ireland, as it has since been heard throughout the earth, rousing the nations to high thoughts of liberty, ringing as the loud battle-cry of wronged and oppressed peoples. The great discussions which the struggle of the American colonies awoke in the British Parliament, and in which the very spirit of liberty spoke from the lips of the sublimest orators, sent a thrill of hope through Irish hearts, while the Declaration of Independence filled their oppressors with dismay. In 1776 we declared our separate existence, and in 1778 already some of the most odious features of the Penal Code were abolished. “A voice from America,” said Flood, “shouted to Liberty.” Henceforward Catholics were permitted to take long leases, though not to possess in fee simple; the son, by turning Protestant, was no longer permitted to rob his father, and the laws of inheritance which prevented the accumulation of property in the hands of Catholics were abrogated. This was little enough, indeed, but it was of inestimable value, for it marked the turning-point in the history of Ireland. A beginning had been made, a breach had been opened in the enemy’s citadel. But this was not all that the American Revolution did for Ireland.
The sympathies of the Presbyterians of the North went out to their brethren who were struggling on the other side of the Atlantic. They also had grievances compared with which those of the colonies were slight; their cause was identical, and the success of the Americans would be a victory for Ireland; if England triumphed beyond the seas, there would be no hope for those who, being nearer, were held with a more certain grasp. Hence, in spite of the bitter hate which in Ireland separated the Protestants from the Catholics, they were drawn together by a common interest and sympathy in the cause of American independence. England’s wars, both in Europe and in her transatlantic colonies, were a constant drain upon her resources, and it became necessary to supply the armies in America with the troops which were kept in Ireland to hold that country in subjection. General Howe asked that Irish papists should not be sent as recruits to him, for they would desert to the enemy. The best men were therefore picked from the English regiments and sent to America; Ireland was denuded of troops; the defences of her harbors were in ruins; and she was exposed to the attacks of privateers. Something had to be done, and Parliament agreed to allow the Irish militia to be called out. As an inducement to Catholics to enlist, they were promised indulgences in the exercise of their religion, but this promise aroused Protestant bigotry, ever ready to break forth. The plan was abandoned, and the defence of the country was committed to the Volunteers.
In the meanwhile Burgoyne had surrendered to the Americans at Saratoga, France had entered into alliance with the colonies, and French and American privateers began to swarm in the Irish Channel. The English Parliament, now thoroughly alarmed, and eager to make peace with the rebels, passed an act renouncing the right of taxing the colonies, and even offered seats in the House of Commons to their representatives. These concessions, which came too late to propitiate the Americans, served only to embolden the Irish in their demands for the redress of their grievances. The Americans were rebels, and were treated with the greatest indulgence; the Irish were loyal, and were still held in the vilest bondage. This was intolerable. To add to the distress, one of the periodical visitations of famine which have marked English rule in Ireland fell upon the country, and the highways were filled with crowds of half-naked and starving people.
Thirty thousand merchants and mechanics in Dublin were living on alms; the taxes could not be collected, and in the general collapse of trade the customs yielded almost nothing. The country was unprotected, and there was no money in the treasury with which to raise an army. Nothing remained in this extremity but to allow the Volunteers to assemble; for the summer was at hand, and every day the privateers might be expected to appear in the Channel. Company after company was organized, and in a very short time large bodies of men were in arms. The Catholics also took advantage of the general excitement. If the Protestants were in arms, why should they remain defenceless?
Never before had there been such an opportunity of extorting from England the measures of relief which she would never willingly consent to grant. The threatening danger, however, had no effect upon the British Parliament.
The Irish Parliament met in 1779, and the patriots, strong in the support of the Volunteers who lined the streets of Dublin, demanded free trade. The city was in an uproar; a mob paraded before the Parliament House, and with threats called upon the members to redress the wrongs of Ireland. Cannon were trailed round the statue of King William, with the inscription,“Free trade or this,” and on the flags were emblazoned menacing mottoes—“The Volunteers of Ireland,” “Fifty thousand of us ready to die for our country.”
“Talk not to me of peace,” exclaimed Hussey Burgh, one of the leading patriots. “Ireland is not at peace; it is smothered war. England has sown her laws as dragon’s teeth, and they have sprung up as armed men.” All Ireland was aroused. The Irish, said Burke in the English House of Commons, had learned that justice was to be had from England only when demanded at the point of the sword. They were now in arms; their cause was just; and they would have redress or end the connection between the two countries. The obnoxious laws restricting trade were repealed and in the greatest haste sent over to Ireland to calm the tempest that was brewing there.
The effect went even beyond expectation. Dublin was illuminated, congratulatory addresses were sent over to England, and people imagined that Ireland’s millennium had arrived. But the consequences of centuries of crime and oppression do not disappear as by the enchanter’s wand; and one of the evils of tyranny is the curse it leaves after it has ceased to exist. In the wildness of their joy the people exaggerated the boon which they had wrenched from England; the sober second thought turned their attention to what still remained to be done.
In 1780 Grattan brought forward the famous resolution which declared that “the king, with the consent of the Parliament of Ireland, was alone competent to enact laws to bind Ireland.” The time could not have been more opportune. The American colonies were in full revolt; Spain and France were assisting them; England had been forced into war with Holland, and her Indian Empire was threatening to take advantage of her distress to rebel. In the midst of so many wars and dangers it would have been madness to have provoked Ireland to armed resistance, and Grattan felt that the hour had come when the Irish people should stand forth as one of the nations of the earth; when all differences of race and creed might be merged into a common patriotism, and Celt and Saxon, Catholic and Protestant, present an unbroken front to the English tyrant. “The Penal Code,” he said, “is the shell in which the Protestant power has been hatched. It has become a bird. It must burst the shell or perish in it. Indulgence to Catholics cannot injure the Protestant religion.”
The Volunteers were, with few exceptions, Protestants, and their attitude of defiance made the English government willing to place the Catholics against them as a counterpoise; and it therefore offered no opposition to measures tending to relieve them of their disabilities. But, under Grattan’s influence, the Volunteers themselves pronounced in favor of the Catholics by passing the famous Dungannon resolution: “That we, [the Volunteers] hold the right of private judgment in matters of religion to be equally sacred in others as in ourselves; that we rejoice in the relaxation of the penal laws against our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects; and that we conceive these measures to be fraught with the happiest consequences to the union and prosperity of the inhabitants of Ireland.”
In February, 1782, Grattan again brought forward a motion to declare the independence of the Irish Legislature, and again it was thrown out. The Dungannon resolution was then introduced, and it was proposed to abolish all distinctions between Protestants and Catholics. But to this the most serious objections were raised, and it was found necessary to make concessions to Protestant bigotry. The Catholics were permitted to acquire freehold property, to buy and sell, bequeath and inherit; but the penal laws which bore upon their religion, and their right to educate their children at home or abroad, as well as those which excluded them from political life, were left on the statute-book. Fanaticism was stronger than patriotism, and the enthusiastic love of liberty was again found to be compatible with the love of persecution and oppression. But this injustice in no way dampened the ardor of the Catholics for the national independence; and when, on the 16th of April, 1782, Grattan moved a Declaration of Rights, inspired probably by our own Declaration of Independence, he was greeted with as wild a tumult of applause by the Catholics as by his Protestant countrymen. “I found Ireland,” he said, “on her knees. I watched over her with an eternal solicitude. I have traced her progress from injuries to arms, and from arms to liberty. Spirit of Swift, spirit of Molyneux, your genius has prevailed. Ireland is now a nation. In that new character I hail her, and, bowing to her august presence, I say, Esto Perpetua!”
The overwhelming popular enthusiasm bore everything with it, and opposition was useless. “It is no longer,” wrote the Duke of Portland, the viceroy, “the Parliament of Ireland that is to be managed or attended to; it is the whole of this country.”
In England the Whigs, who were in power, felt how hopeless would be any efforts to stem the torrent, and they therefore yielded with grace. Fox admitted that Ireland had a right to distrust British legislation “because it had hitherto been employed only to oppress and distress her.” Ireland had been wronged, and it was but just that concessions should now be made to her. The day of deliverance had come, and, amidst an outburst of universal enthusiasm, Ireland’s independence was proclaimed.
The Catholics were the first to feel the benefits of this victory. The two Relief Bills, introduced into Parliament in their favor, were carried. They were permitted to open schools and educate their own children; their stables were no longer subject to inspection, or their horses above the value of five pounds liable to be seized by the government or taken from them by Protestant informers; and their right to freedom of religious worship was fully recognized. They recovered, in a word, their civil rights; but the law still excluded them from any participation in the political life of the country, and they were still forbidden to possess arms. Nevertheless, another step towards Catholic emancipation had been taken. Two other laws, beneficial to all classes of citizens, but especially favorable to the poor and oppressed Catholics, date from this time: the Habeas Corpus Act was granted to Ireland, and the tenure of judges was placed on the English level.
Unfortunately, the social condition of the country was so deplorable that this improvement in the laws conferred few or no benefits upon the impoverished and downtrodden people. But at least there was some gain; for if good laws do not necessarily make a people prosperous, bad laws necessarily keep them in misery. The landed gentry and Protestant clergy continued without shame to neglect all the duties which they owed to their tenants, whose wretchedness increased as the fortunes of Ireland seemed to rise. To maintain the Volunteers the rents were raised, and the poor peasants, already sinking beneath an intolerable burden, were yet more heavily laden. The proprietors of the soil spent their time in riot and debauch while the people were starving. They were the magistrates and at the same time the most notorious violators of the law. “The justices of the peace,” says Arthur Young, “are the very worst class in the kingdom.”
The clergy of the Established Church were little better. Like the landlords, they were generally absentees, and employed agents to raise their tithes, in the North from the Presbyterians, and in other parts of the island from the Catholics. “As the absentee landlord,” says Froude, “had his middleman, the absentee incumbent had his tithe farmer and tithe proctor—perhaps of all the carrion who were preying on the carcase of the Irish peasantry the vilest and most accursed. As the century waned and life grew more extravagant, the tithe proctor, like his neighbors, grew more grasping and avaricious. He exacted from the peasants the full pound of flesh. His trade was dangerous, and therefore he required to be highly paid. He handed to his employer perhaps half what he collected. He fleeced the flock and he fleeced their shepherd.” “The use of the tithe farmer,” said Grattan, “is to get from the parishioners what the clergyman would be ashamed to demand, and to enable the clergyman to absent himself from duty. His livelihood is extortion. He is a wolf left by the shepherd to take care of the flock in his absence.”[[17]]
In the midst of the general excitement the Catholic peasants grew restless under this horrible system of organized plunder and extortion. They banded together and took an oath to pay only a specified sum to the clergyman or his agent. The movement spread, and occasional acts of violence were committed. All Munster was organized, and a regular war with the tithe proctors was begun. In the popular fury crimes were perpetrated and the innocent were often made to suffer with the guilty. Yet so glaring were the wrongs and so frightful the abuses from which the peasants were suffering that they everywhere met with sympathy. The true cause of these disorders was social and not political. Misery, and not partisan zeal, had driven the Catholics to take up arms. The cry of hungry women and children for bread resounded louder in their ears than the shouts of the patriots. They were without food or raiment, and in despair they sought to wreak vengeance upon the inhuman tyrants who had reduced them to starvation. Even Fitzgibbon, afterwards Lord Clare, was forced to admit that the Munster peasants were in a state of oppression, abject poverty, and misery not to be equalled in the world, and that the landlords and their agents were responsible for the degradation of these unfortunate beings.
Ireland was still a prey to agitations, hopes, and sufferings when the French Revolution of 1789 burst upon Europe. The cry of Liberty, equality, fraternity sounded as revelation to the struggling patriots. Hitherto they had contended for freedom, in the English and feudal sense, as a privilege and a concession; they now demanded it as an imprescriptible right of man. The American Declaration had indeed proclaimed that all men were free and equal, or of right ought to be; but this was merely a pretty phrase, a graceful preamble, in a charter which consecrated slavery and inequality. In America there were no privileged classes, and the people had not groaned beneath the tyranny of heartless and effete aristocracies; the evils of which their leaders complained, compared with those which weighed down the European populations, were slight, almost imaginary. But in France Liberty and Equality was the fierce and savage yell of men who hated the whole social order as it existed around them, and who, indeed, had no reason to love it. The spirit of feudalism was dead, and its lifeless form remained to impest the earth. The nobles, sunk in debauch and sloth, continued their exactions, upheld their privileges, and yet rendered no service to the state. Corruption, extravagance, maladministration, infidelity, and licentiousness pervaded the whole social system. France was prostrate with the foot of a harlot on her neck, and the people were starving. Little wonder, when the torch was applied, that the lurid glare of burning thrones and altars, the crash of falling palaces and cathedrals, should affright and strike dumb the nations of the earth—for God’s judgment was there; little wonder that Ireland, sitting by the melancholy sea, chained and weeping, should lift her head when the God of the patient and the humble was shattering the whitened sepulchres which enshrined the world’s rottenness.
In Belfast the taking of the Bastile was celebrated by processions and banquets amid the wildest enthusiasm, and the name of Mirabeau called forth the most deafening applause. The eyes of Ireland were fastened on France; the cause of the Revolution was believed to be that of all oppressed peoples who seek to break the bonds of slavery. “Right or wrong,” wrote an Irish patriot, “success to the French! They are fighting our battles, and, if they fail, adieu to liberty in Ireland for one century.”[[18]] Even the manners and phraseology of the Revolution became popular in Ireland. The Dublin Volunteers were called the National Guard, the liberty-cap was substituted for the harp, and Irishmen saluted one another with the title of citizen.
Out of this French enthusiasm grew the Society of “United Irishmen,” which soon superseded the Volunteers. The United Irishmen made no concealment of their revolutionary principles. They demanded a radical reform in the administration of Ireland, and threatened, if this was denied, to break the bond which held them united with England. They openly proclaimed their intention of stamping out “the vile and odious aristocracy,” which was an insuperable obstacle to the progress of the Irish people; and to accomplish this they invited the French to invade Ireland. The landlords, they said, show no mercy; they deserve to receive none.